to move along, but I was absorbed, and full of pity. I could
not take my eyes away from these worn and wasted wrecks of humanity.
There they sat, grounded upon the ground, silent, uncomplaining,
with bowed heads, a pathetic sight. And by hideous contrast, a
redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering not thirty
steps away, in fulsome laudation of "our glorious British liberties!"

I was boiling. I had forgotten I was a plebeian, I was remembering
I was a man. Cost what it might, I would mount that rostrum and--

Click! the king and I were handcuffed together! Our companions,
those servants, had done it; my lord Grip stood looking on. The
king burst out in a fury, and said:

"What meaneth this ill-mannered jest?"

My lord merely said to his head miscreant, coolly:

"Put up the slaves and sell them!"

_Slaves!_ The word had a new sound--and how unspeakably awful! The
king lifted his manacles and brought them down with a deadly force;
but my lord was out of the way when they arrived. A dozen of
the rascal's servants sprang forward, and in a moment we were
helpless, with our hands bound behind us. We so loudly and so
earnestly proclaimed ourselves freemen, that we got the interested
attention of that liberty-mouthing orator and his patriotic crowd,
and they gathered about us and assumed a very determined attitude.
The orator said:

"If, indeed, ye are freemen, ye have nought to fear--the God-given
liberties of Britain are about ye for your shield and shelter!
(Applause.) Ye shall soon see. Bring forth your proofs."

"What proofs?"

"Proof that ye are freemen."

Ah--I remembered! I came to myself; I said nothing. But the
king stormed out:

"Thou'rt insane, man. It were better, and more in reason, that
this thief and scoundrel here prove that we are _not_ freemen."

You see, he knew his own laws just as other people so often know
the laws; by words, not by effects. They take a _meaning_, and get
to be very vivid, when you come to apply them to yourself.

All hands shook their heads and looked disappointed; some turned
away, no longer interested. The orator said--and this time in the
tones of business, not of sentiment:

"An ye do not know your country's laws, it were time ye learned
them. Ye are strangers to us; ye will not deny that. Ye may be
freemen, we do not deny that; but also ye may be slaves. The law
is clear: it doth not require the claimant to prove ye are slaves,
i