The bids now commence; Rachel, in mute anxiety, tremblingly watches
the lips they fall from.
"Give you a first best title to this ar' old critter, gentlemen!"
says the vender, affecting much dignity, as he holds up his baton of
the trade in flesh. "Anybody wanting a good old mother on a
plantation where little niggers are raised will find the thing in
the old institution before you. The value is not so much in the size
of her, as in her glorious disposition." Aunt Rachel makes three or
four turns, like a peacock on a pedestal, to amuse her admirers.
Again, Mr. Wormlock intimates, in a tone that the vender may hear,
that she has some grit, for he sees it in her demeanour, which is
assuming the tragic. Her eyes, as she turns, rest upon the crispy
face of Romescos. She views him for a few moments-she fears he will
become her purchaser. Her lip curls with contempt, as she turns from
his gaze and recognises an old acquaintance, whom she at once
singles out, accosts and invites beseechingly to be her purchaser,
"to save her from dat man!" She points to Romescos.
Her friend shakes his head unwillingly. Fearing he may become an
object of derision, he will not come forward. Poor old slave!
faithful from her childhood up, she has reached an age where few
find it profitable to listen to her supplications. The black veil of
slavery has shut out the past good of her life,--all her faithfulness
has gone for nothing; she has passed into that channel where only
the man-dealer seeks her for the few dollars worth of labour left in
a once powerful body.
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