to make desert the
rebellious land; with a chorus, or refrain, in which Ben's wild,
melancholy cry sounded like the wail of an avenging spirit:--

"That in the blood of enemies
Thy foot imbrued may be:
And of thy dogs dipped in the same
The tongues thou mayest see."

The meaning of that was plain; he sang it lower and more steadily each
time, his body swaying in cadence, the glitter in his eye more steely.

Lamar, asleep in his prison, was wakened by the far-off plaintive song:
he roused himself, leaning on one elbow, listening with a half-smile. It
was Naomi they sang, he thought,--an old-fashioned Methodist air that
Floy had caught from the negroes, and used to sing to him sometimes.
Every night, down at home, she would come to his parlor-door to say
good-night: he thought he could see the little figure now in its white
nightgown, and hear the bare feet pattering on the matting. When he was
alone, she would come in, and sit on his lap awhile, and kneel down
before she went away, her head on his knee, to say her prayers, as she
called it. Only God knew how many times he had remained alone after
hearing those prayers, saved from nights of drunken debauch. He thought
he felt Floy's pure little hand on his forehead now, as if she were
saying her usual "Good night, Bud." He lay down to sleep again, with a
genial smile on his face, listening to the hymn.

"It's the same God," he said,--"Floy's and theirs."

Outside, as he slept, a dark figure watched him. The song of the men
ceased. Midnight, white and silent, covered the earth. He could hear
only the slow breathing of the sleeper. Ben's black face grew ashy pale,
but he did not tremble, as he crept, cat-like, up to the wicket, his
blubber lips apart, the white teeth clenched.

"It's for Freedom, Mars' Lord!" he gasped, looking up to the sky, as if
he expected an answer. "Gor-a'mighty, it's for Freedom!" And went in.

A belated bird swooped through the cold moonlight into the valley, and
vanished in the far mountain-cliffs with a low, fearing cry, as though
it had passed through Hades.

They had broken down the wicket: he saw them lay the heavy body on the
lumber outside, the black figures hurrying over the snow. He laughed
low, savagely, watching them. Free now! The best of them despised him;
the years past of cruelty and oppression turned back, fused in a slow,
deadly current of revenge and hate, against the race that had trodden
him down. He felt th