For vengeance, justice for the bondmen!"
Before the glorious insurrection of the toilsmen against their tyrants is fairly afoot. Cade is entrapped into the power of his foes and doomed to execution. Heart-sick of the cruelty of the rich and strong, the unhappiness of the poor and weak, the failure of the generous aspirants who would fain set things right, he said,—and his voice had the sound of a consoling psalm swelling and fading along funeral vaults,—
"So be it! Death! the bondman's last, best friend!
It stays th' uplifted thong, hushes the shriek,
And gives the slave a long, long sleep, unwhipped
By dreams of torture. In the grave there is
No echo for the tyrant's lash;
And the poor bond knows not to shrink, or blush,
Nor wonder Heaven created such a wretch.
He who has learned to die, forgets to serve