And ever and anon the forked
lightning courses its way through the heavens, now tinging the
sombre scene with mellow light, then closing it in deeper darkness.
Onward the old man wends his way. If he be shut out from the prison,
he will find shelter at Jane's cabin near by, from whence he may
reach the cell early next morning. Presently the dull tramp of
horses breaks upon his ear,--the sound sharpening as they advance.
Through the dimming haze he sees two mounted guardsmen advancing:
the murmuring sound of their conversation floats onward through the
air,--their side arms rattle ominously. Now their white cross belts
are disclosed; their stalwart figures loom out. Nearer and nearer
they approach: as the old man, trembling with fear, remembers he is
without a pass, a gruff voice cries out, "Stop there!"
"A prowling nigger!" rejoins another, in a voice scarcely less
hoarse. The old man halts in the light of a lamp, as the right-hand
guard rides up, and demands his pass.
"Whose nigger are you?" again demands the first voice. "Your pass,
or come with us!"
The old man has no pass; he will go to his master, dead in the
county prison!
Guardsmen will hear neither falsehoods nor pleading. He doesn't know
"whose nigger he is! he is a runaway without home or master," says
the left-hand guardsman, as he draws his baton from beneath his
coat, and with savage grimace makes a threatening gesture. Again he
poises it over the old man's head, as he, with hand uplifted,
supplicates mercy.
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