in God to meet death,
rather than betray the helpless.

He sat his basket down by the row, and, looking up, said, "Into thy
hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, oh Lord God of truth!"
and then quietly yielded himself to the rough, brutal grasp with which
Quimbo seized him.

"Ay, ay!" said the giant, as he dragged him along; "ye'll cotch it, now!
I'll boun' Mas'r's back 's up _high!_ No sneaking out, now! Tell ye,
ye'll get it, and no mistake! See how ye'll look, now, helpin' Mas'r's
niggers to run away! See what ye'll get!"

The savage words none of them reached that ear!--a higher voice there
was saying, "Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no
more that they can do." Nerve and bone of that poor man's body vibrated
to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the
strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and
bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation,
seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing ear. His soul
throbbed,--his home was in sight,--and the hour of release seemed at
hand.

"Well, Tom!" said Legree, walking up, and seizing him grimly by the
collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm of
determined rage, "do you know I've made up my mind to KILL YOU?"

"It's very likely, Mas'r," said Tom, calmly.

"I _have_," said Legree, with a grim, terrible calmness,
"_done--just--that--thing_, Tom, unless you'll tell me what you know
about these yer gals!"

Tom stood silent.

"D'ye hear?" said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed
lion. "Speak!"

"_I han't got nothing to tell, Mas'r_," said Tom, with a slow, firm,
deliberate utterance.

"Do you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don't _know_?" said
Legree.

Tom was silent.

"Speak!" thundered Legree, striking him furiously. "Do you know
anything?"

"I know, Mas'r; but I can't tell anything. _I can die!_"

Legree drew in a long breath; and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by the
arm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said, in a terrible voice,
"Hark 'e, Tom!--ye think, 'cause I've let you off before, I don't mean
what I say; but, this time, _I've made up my mind_, and counted the
cost. You've always stood it out again' me: now, _I'll conquer ye, or
kill ye!_--one or t' other. I'll count every drop of blood there is in
you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up!"

Tom looked up to his