with surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth.
The slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind. He made
no sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly,
bleeding from the blow on the mouth. The physician, who had run for the
palace guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright
upon his feet. But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's
arm from where it had fallen on the floor.

"He shall be flung alive to the hounds!" the body-servant was crying in
great wrath. "He shall be flung alive to the hounds!"

But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his
elbow, commanded silence, and went on reading the petition. And while
he read, there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful
body-servant, the physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the
slave, bleeding at the mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm. And when
Roger Vanderwater had done, he turned upon the slave, saying--

"If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were
ever born."

And the slave said, "I have been sorry all my life that I was born."

Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said--

"You have done your worst to me. I am dying now. In a week I shall be
dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now."

"What do you with that?" the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the
slave made answer--

"I take it back to the pen to give it burial. Tom Dixon was my friend.
We worked beside each other at our looms."

There is little more to my tale, brothers. The slave and the arm were
sent back in a cart to the pen. Nor were any of the slaves punished for
what they had done. Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and
punished the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. Their
freeholds were taken from them. They were branded, each upon the
forehead, their right hands were cut off, and they were turned loose
upon the highway to wander and beg until they died. And the fund was
managed rightfully thereafter for a time--for a time only, my brothers;
for after Roger Vanderwater came his son, Albert, who was a cruel master
and half mad.

Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master
was my father. He was a brave man. And even as his mother secretly
taught him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after
from the pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwate