soothe the weary sufferer, beheld
her pale and motionless in the sleep of death.

Who can imagine the feeling with which poor Clotelle received the
intelligence of her kind friend's death? The deep gashes of the cruel
whip had prostrated the lovely form of the quadroon, and she lay upon
her bed of straw in the dark cell. The speculator had bought her, but
had postponed her removal till she should recover. Her benefactress was
dead, and--

"Hope withering fled, and mercy sighed farewell."

"Is Jerome safe?" she would ask herself continually. If her lover could
have but known of the sufferings of that sweet flower,--that polyanthus
over which he had so often been in his dreams,--he would then have
learned that she was worthy of his love.

It was more than a fortnight before the slave-trader could take his
prize to more comfortable quarters. Like Alcibiades, who defaced the
images of the gods and expected to be pardoned on the ground of
eccentricity, so men who abuse God's image hope to escape the vengeance
of his wrath under the plea that the law sanctions their atrocious
deeds.

CHAPTER XXII

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT AND WHAT FOLLOWED.

It was a beautiful Sunday in September, with a cloudless sky, and the
rays of the sun parching the already thirsty earth, that Clotelle stood
at an upper window in Slater's slave-pen in New Orleans, gasping for a
breath of fresh air. The bells of thirty churches were calling the
people to the different places of worship. Crowds were seen wending
their way to the houses of God; one followed by a negro boy carrying
his master's Bible; another followed by her maid-servant holding the
mistress' fan; a third supporting an umbrella over his master's head to
shield him from the burning sun. Baptists immersed, Presbyterians
sprinkled, Methodists shouted, and Episcopalians read their prayers,
while ministers of the various sects preached that Christ died for all.
The chiming of the bells seemed to mock the sighs and deep groans of
the forty human beings then incarcerated in the slave-pen. These
imprisoned children of God were many of them Methodists, some Baptists,
and others claiming to believe in the faith of the Presbyterians and
Episcopalians.

Oh, with what anxiety did these creatures await the close of that
Sabbath, and the dawn of another day, that should deliver them from
those dismal and close cells. Slowly the day passed away, and once more
the evening breeze found its way thr