go!"

"Nonsense! 'tisn't likely that filtered Indian blood can take precedence
and mastery of all the Anglo-Saxon material it's run through since
then."

"Hurray! now you've said it. Lookee here, Captain. You say the
Anglo-Saxon's the master race of the world."

"Of course I do."

"Of course you do,--being a sensible fellow. So do I; and you say the
negro blood is mighty poor stuff, and the race a long way behind ours."

"Of course, again."

"Now, Captain, just take a sober squint at your own logic. You back
Anglo-Saxon against the field; very well! here's Miss Ercildoune, we'll
say, one eighth negro, seven eighths Anglo-Saxon. You make that one
eighth stronger than all the other seven eighths: you make that little
bit of negro master of all the lot of Anglo-Saxon. Now I have such a
good opinion of my own race that if it were t'other way about, I'd think
the one eighth Saxon strong enough to beat the seven eighths nigger.
That's sound, isn't it? consequently, I call anybody that's got any
mixture at all, and that knows anything, and keeps a clean face,--and
ain't a rebel, nor yet a Copperhead,--I call him, if it's a him, and
her, if it's a she, one of us. And I mean to say to any such from
henceforth, 'Here's your chance,--go in, and win, if you can,--and
anybody be damn'd that stops you!'"

"Blow away, Jim," laughed the Captain, "I like to hear you; and it's
good talk if you don't mean it."

"I'll be blamed if I don't."

"Come, you're talking now,--you're saying a lot more than you'll live up
to,--you know that as well as I. People always do when they're gassing."

"Well, blow or no blow, it's truth, whether I live up to it or not." And
he, evidently with not all the steam worked off, began to gather sticks
and build a fire to fry his bit of pork and warm the cold coffee.

Just then they heard the plash of oars keeping time to the cadence of a
plantation hymn, which came floating solemn and clear through the
night:--

"My brudder sittin' on de tree ob life,
An' he yearde when Jordan roll.
Roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll,
Roll Jordan, roll!"

They both paused to listen as the refrain was again and again repeated.

"There's nigger for you," broke out Jim, "what'n thunder'd they mean by
such gibberish as that?"

The Captain laughed. "Come, Given, don't quarrel with what's above your
comprehension. Doubtless there's a spiritual meaning hidden away
somewhere, which your unsanctif