bout him, a man, at last,--but wakening, like a
new-born soul, into a world of unutterable solitude. Wakened dully,
slowly; sitting there far into the night, pondering stupidly on his old
life; crushing down and out the old parasite affection for his master,
the old fears, the old weight threatening to press out his thin life;
the muddy blood heating, firing with the same heroic dream that bade
Tell and Garibaldi lift up their hands to God, and cry aloud that they
were men and free: the same,--God-given, burning in the imbruted veins
of a Guinea slave. To what end? May God be merciful to America while
she answers the question! He sat, rubbing his cracked, bleeding feet,
glancing stealthily at the southern hills. Beyond them lay all that was
past; in an hour he would follow Lamar back to--what? He lifted his
hands up to the sky, in his silly way sobbing hot tears. "Gor-a'mighty,
Mars' Lord, I'se tired," was all the prayer he made. The pale purple
mist was gone from the North; the ridge behind which love, freedom
waited, struck black across the sky, a wall of iron. He looked at it
drearily. Utterly alone: he had always been alone. He got up at last,
with a sigh.

"It's a big world,"--with a bitter chuckle,--"but der's no room in it
fur poor Ben."

He dragged himself through the snow to a light in a tent where a
voice in a wild drone, like that he had heard at negro camp-meetings,
attracted him. He did not go in: stood at the tent-door, listening. Two
or three of the guard stood around, leaning on their muskets; in the
vivid fire-light rose the gaunt figure of the Illinois boatman, swaying
to and fro as he preached. For the men were honest, God-fearing souls,
members of the same church, and Dave, in all integrity of purpose, read
aloud to them,--the cry of Jeremiah against the foul splendors of the
doomed city,--waving, as he spoke, his bony arm to the South. The shrill
voice was that of a man wrestling with his Maker. The negro's fired
brain caught the terrible meaning of the words,--found speech in it:
the wide, dark night, the solemn silence of the men, were only fitting
audience.

The man caught sight of the slave, and, laying down his book, began one
of those strange exhortations in the manner of his sect. Slow at first,
full of unutterable pity. There was room for pity. Pointing to the human
brute crouching there, made once in the image of God,--the saddest
wreck on His green foot-stool: to the great stealthy body