."

I told him I did not wish to get up any intrigue; that I had never seen the
man who offered to buy me.

"Do you tell me I lie?" exclaimed he, dragging me from my chair. "Will you
say again that you never saw that man?"

I answered, "I do say so."

He clinched my arm with a volley of oaths. Ben began to scream, and I told
him to go to his grandmother.

"Don't you stir a step, you little wretch!" said he. The child drew nearer
to me, and put his arms round me, as if he wanted to protect me. This was
too much for my enraged master. He caught him up and hurled him across the
room. I thought he was dead, and rushed towards him to take him up.

"Not yet!" exclaimed the doctor. "Let him lie there till he comes to."

"Let me go! Let me go!" I screamed, "or I will raise the whole house." I
struggled and got away; but he clinched me again. Somebody opened the door,
and he released me. I picked up my insensible child, and when I turned my
tormentor was gone. Anxiously, I bent over the little form, so pale and
still; and when the brown eyes at last opened, I don't know whether I was
very happy. All the doctor's former persecutions were renewed. He came
morning, noon, and night. No jealous lover ever watched a rival more
closely than he watched me and the unknown slaveholder, with whom he
accused me of wishing to get up an intrigue. When my grandmother was out of
the way he searched every room to find him.

In one of his visits, he happened to find a young girl, whom he had sold to
a trader a few days previous. His statement was, that he sold her because
she had been too familiar with the overseer. She had had a bitter life with
him, and was glad to be sold. She had no mother, and no near ties. She had
been torn from all her family years before. A few friends had entered into
bonds for her safety, if the trader would allow her to spend with them the
time that intervened between her sale and the gathering up of his human
stock. Such a favor was rarely granted. It saved the trader the expense of
board and jail fees, and though the amount was small, it was a weighty
consideration in a slavetrader's mind.

Dr. Flint always had an aversion to meeting slaves after he had sold them.
He ordered Rose out of the house; but he was no longer her master, and she
took no notice of him. For once the crushed Rose was the conqueror. His
gray eyes flashed angrily upon her; but that was the extent of his power.
"How came this girl here?"