e regard of that ship's
company. Brief and idle, indeed, was the interest which he had aroused
in the breasts of those men, as the sequel showed. But while it lasted
it seemed doubtless very genuine to the boy, as such evidences of human
regard must have afforded him, in his forlorn state, the keenest pleasure.
Bitter, therefore, must have been his disappointment and grief to find,
at the end, that he had, in reality, no hold whatever upon the regard of
the slave traders. True he had been separated by captain and officers
from the other slaves during the voyage, but this ephemeral distinction
was speedily lost upon the arrival of the vessel at Cap Francais, for he
was then sold as a part of the human freight. Ah! he had not been to
those men so much as even a pet cat or dog, for with a pet cat or dog
they would not have so lightly parted, as they had done with him. He had
served their purpose, had killed for them the dull days of a dull sail
between ports, and he a boy with warm blood in his heart, and hot
yearnings for love in his soul.

But the slave youth, so beautiful and attractive, was not to live his
life in the island of Sto. Domingo, or to terminate just then his
relations with the ship and her officers, however much Captain Vesey had
intended to do so. For Fate, by an unexpected circumstance, threw, for
better or for worse, master and slave together again, after they had
apparently parted forever in the slave mart of the Cape. This is how
Fate played the unexpected in the boy's life. According to a local law
for the regulation of the slave trade in that place, the seller of a
slave of unsound health might be compelled by the buyer to take him
back, upon the production of a certificate to that effect from the royal
physician of the port. The purchaser of Telemaque availed himself of
this law to redeliver him to Captain Vesey on his return voyage to Sto.
Domingo. For the royal physician of the town had meanwhile certified
that the lad was subject to epileptic fits. The act of sale was thereupon
cancelled, and the old relations of master and slave between Captain
Vesey and Telemaque, were resumed. Thus, without design, perhaps, however
passionately he might have desired it, the boy found himself again on
board of his old master's slave vessel, where he had been petted and
elevated in favor high above his fellow-slaves. I say _perhaps_
advisedly, for I confess that it is by no means clear to me whether
those epile