You go; for I can die alone, that you may go out free;
“You go; it seems your time has come to draw the color line;
You and your breed owe naught to me, nor certainly to mine.
I’ll go to death as my fathers went”—between his cold set lips—
“My fathers who used to use your kind for trade—and poker-chips.”
One was a black of the Twenty-fourth, and his face was washed with fear,
And his breath came quick, and his bowels were sick, as he thought of the knife-blades near.
Then steady his hand swung to his belt, and back to the bolt again,
And he loaded and fired, as a well-drilled man, and counted his dead to ten.
And, “Man,” he said, “in ole Kaintuck a mammy she prays foh me;