patriots dumb with surprise and embarrassment.

"No, no, Pomp," cried Stackridge, "not men like you--there are few like
you anywhere."

"I wish there was more like him, and that I owned a good gang of 'em!"
muttered the man Deslow.

"I don't," replied Withers, with a drawl which had a deep meaning in it;
"twould be too much like sleeping on a row of powder barrels, with
lighted candles stuck in the bung holes. Dangerous, them big knowin'
niggers be."

Pomp did not answer for a minute, but stood as if gathering power into
himself, with one long, deep breath inflating his chest, and casting a
glance upward through the sun-lit summer foliage.

"You buy and sell men, and women, and children of my race. If I am not
like them, it is because circumstances have lifted me out of the
wretched condition in which it is your constant policy and endeavor to
keep us. By your laws--the laws you make and uphold--I am this day
claimed as a slave; by your laws I am hunted as a slave;--yes, some of
you here have joined your neighbor in the hunt for me, as if I was no
more than a wild beast to be hounded and shot down if I could not be
caught. Now tell me what union or concord there can be between you and
me!"

"I own," said Deslow,--for Pomp's gleaming eyes had darted significant
lightnings at him,--"I did once come up here with Bythewood to see if we
could find you. Not that I had anything against you, Pomp,--not a thing;
and as for your quarrel with your master, I ain't sure but you had the
right on't; but you know as well as we do that we can't countenance a
nigger's running away, under any circumstances."

"No!" said Pomp, with sparkling sarcasm. "Your secessionist neighbors
revolt against the mildest government in the world, and resort to
bloodshed on account of some fancied wrongs. You revolt against them
because you prefer the old government to theirs. Your forefathers went
to war with the mother country on account of a few taxes. But a negro
must not revolt, he must not even attempt to run away, although he feels
the relentless heel of oppression grinding into the dust all his rights,
all that is dear to him, all that he loves! A white man may take up arms
to defend a bit of property; but a black man has no right to rise up and
defend either his wife, or his child, or his liberty, or even his own
life, against his master!"

Only the narrow-minded Deslow had the confidence to meet this stunning
argument, enforced as it was