But instantaneously Jasper brought a revulsion of feeling. He discovered the vast host of Pharaoh marching with music and with banners through the parted walls of the Red Sea. They were coming too! After all, the people had shouted too soon. The triumphant Egyptians would soon be upon them, and the chosen of the Lord, after all, must be destroyed.
Why, look! The host is half-across; three-fourths now, getting nearer and nearer. “Oh, my God,” Jasper cried, with a shriek of despair. “Help! help! or Thy people will be blotted out.”
All over the house there were sobs and groans and cries of fright. Once more the hand of the master was upon them, and he swayed them as he would. Then with a shout he cried: “De walls of de Red Sea are fallin’! De partid waturs rush inter each udder’s imbrace. Oh, ye heavens, shout an’ let de earth be glad. Let hell ter its mos’ remotes’ dep’s quake and cry: ‘De Lord Gord is a man uv war. De Lord is His name!’ Tell de tidin’s. Shout it everywhar dat Gord hav’ delivured His people.”
I have always liked fine speaking. Oratory has a resistless charm for me. I bow to the man who thrills me. If Jasper wasn’t the soul of eloquence that day, then I know not what eloquence is. He painted scene after scene. He lifted the people to the sun and sank them down to despair. He plucked them out of hard places and filled them with shouting. As long as I live all that Red Sea business, with Egypt and the fleeing Hebrews and Pharaoh and his great legions and the sea and the ruin and the great deliverance, are mine to keep as long as my mental powers can act. True, Jasper made me ridiculous three or four times by so convulsing me with laughter that I wanted to roll on the floor, but it didn’t make me frivolous a bit. I never knew that wit was such a deep and serious thing before.
The old orator had to stop “to blow” awhile, and it was a strictly original noise he made, as he refilled his exhausted lungs with a fresh supply of oxygen. The rush of air fairly shook the glass in the windows and could have been heard perhaps for a square off. All at once his face began to brighten with a smile, which almost amounted to an illumination. He said it “kinder ’mused him ter ubsurv Gord’s keen way uv wurryin’ Pharo’ inter lettin’ His people go.”
I am a failure on dialect, but this part of the afternoon’s entertainment came with such surprise that it was photographed on my memory in a way it can never be blotted out. Jasper took up the several plagues which he asserted that God sent upon the Egyptian monarch, declaring that as Pharo’ was too much of a brute to hear reason, or to feel afraid, the Lord decided to tease and torment him with reptiles and insects, and then he added: “I tell yer, my brudderin, dis skeme did de buzniss fer Pharo’. He kum frum ridin’ one day an’ wen he git in de pallis de hole hall is full uv frogs. Dey iz scamperrin’ and hoppin’ roun’ tel dey farly kivur de groun’ an’ Pharo’ put his big foot an’ squash’d ’em on de marbul flo’. He run inter his parler tryin’ ter git away frum ’em. Dey wuz all erroun’; on de fine chars, on de lounges, in de pianner. It shocked de king til’ he git sick. Jes’ den de dinner bell ring, an’ in he go ter git his dinner. Ha, ha, ha! It’s frogs, frogs, frogs all erroun’! Wen he sot down he felt de frogs squirmin’ in de char; de frogs on de plates, squattin’ up on de meat, playin’ ovur de bred, an’ wen he pick up his glas ter drink de watur de little frogs iz swimmin’ in de tum’ler. Wen he tried ter stick up a pickul his fork stuck in a frog; he felt him runnin’ down his back. De queen she cried, and mos’ faintid an’ tol’ Pharo’ dat she wud quit de pallis befo’ sundown ef he didn’t do somthin’ ter cler dem frogs out’n de house. She say she know wat iz de mattur; twuz de Gord uv dem low-down Hebrews, an’ she wantid him ter git ’em out uv de country. Pharo’ say he wud, but he wuz an awful liar; jes’ es dey tel me dat mos’ uv de pollitishuns iz.”
Just then my vagrant eye caught the string of legislators who had high seats in the synagogue and it looked to me as if every Senegambian in that seething herd was sampling those rustic statesmen while they took on an awfully silly look; or rather I think it was on most of them before. “I can’t pikshur up all dem plagues, but I mus’ giv you more ’sperunce uv dem brutish people in de pallis dat wuz so cruel ter de Hebrew folk. One mornin’ de king wake up an’ he wuz ackin’ from bed ter foot. He farly scratch’d his skin off his body, an’ out he jumps, an’ as I liv’ he finds hisse’f farly civured ovur wid vermin. ’Bout dat time de queen, she springs up, an’ sich scratchin’ an’ hollerrin’ Pharo’ nevur herd frum her befo’, an’ when he look at her dey is crawlin’ all over her an’ she, fergitten her queenship, iz dashin’ erroun’ de room shakin’ her rappurs an’ scratchin’ and screamin’ tel presn’tly she brek loose on de king agin. ’Bout dat time dar wuz a yell in de nussery, an’ in kums de little Pharoes an’ dey runs scratchin’ and hollerin’ an’ kickin’ ter der mudder. Der heds wuz full wid ’em; dere hands wuz all bit an’ swell’d, an’ wen der mudder jerk’d off der nite gowns jes’ thousans uv ’em iz runnin’ over ’em frum hed ter foot. Pharo’ wuz rich, but riches don’t kill fleas. Pharo’ had big armis, but soljeers can’t conquer an army of lice. Pharo’ had servunts by de thousans, but all uv ’em put togedder cudn’t pertek’ dem little Pharoes an’ princesses frum dat plague dat an angry Gord sent ter skurge Pharo’ an’ mek ’im willin’ ter let His chil’n go.”
This is a sample. Jasper’s imagination was like a prairie on fire. The excitement in the congregation was of a new order; he was tickling them in a new spot, or rather in forty spots at once, and the noise in the house was almost like the roar of a tempest. I never was in such a conglomerate mood. His picture of the plagues convulsed me with laughter,—would have killed me dead, I verily believe, but for the counteracting effect of the horror excited in me. And more than that, the trials of the Hebrew slaves loomed up before me all the time. I was subconsciously pitying them, and anxious to get my fingers on the damnable throat of the tyrant. I never knew what it was, until that day, to have all sorts of feelings at the same time. It seemed to me that the strain would have to be ended without going further.