It was near midnight when the barge reached the plantation. Fires
were lighted on the bank, negroes were here and there stretched upon
the ground, sleeping with such superlative comfort that it landed
ere they awoke. One by one the parties returned for their homes;
and, after shaking hands with Marston, taking an affectionate adieu
of Franconia (telling her he would call on the morrow), lisping a
kind word to the old negroes, Lorenzo ordered a horse, and left for
the city. He took leave of the plantation, of its dearest
associations, like one who had the conflict of battle before him,
and the light of friendship behind.
CHAPTER VI.
ANOTHER SCENE IN SOUTHERN LIFE.
IN the city, a few miles from the plantation, a scene which too
often affords those degrading pictures that disgrace a free and
happy country, was being enacted. A low brick building, standing in
an area protected by a high fence, surmounted with spikes and other
dangerous projectiles, formed the place. The upper and lower windows
of this building were strongly secured with iron gratings, and
emitted the morbid air from cells scarcely large enough to contain
human beings of ordinary size. In the rear, a sort of triangular
area opened, along which was a line of low buildings, displaying
single and double cells. Some had iron rings in the floor; some had
rings in the walls; and, again, others had rings over head. Some of
these confines of misery-for here men's souls were goaded by the
avarice of our natures-were solitary; and at night, when the turmoil
of the day had ceased, human wailings and the clank of chains might
be heard breaking through the walls of this charnel-house.
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