He listened with the lowering look of one in whom brute instinct was sovereign for the time,—­a look that makes the noblest countenance base.  He was but a man,—­a poor, untaught, outcast, outraged man.  Life had few joys for him; the world offered him no honors, no success, no home, no love.  What future would this crime mar? and why should he deny himself that sweet, yet bitter morsel called revenge?  How many white men, with all New England’s freedom, culture, Christianity, would not have felt as he felt then?  Should I have reproached him for a human anguish, a human longing for redress, all now left him from the ruin of his few poor hopes?  Who had taught him that self-control, self-sacrifice, are attributes that make men masters of the earth and lift them nearer heaven?  Should I have urged the beauty of forgiveness, the duty of devout submission?  He had no religion, for he was no saintly “Uncle Tom,” and Slavery’s black shadow seemed to darken all the world to him and shut out God.  Should I have warned him of penalties, of judgments, and the potency of law?  What did he know of justice, or the mercy that should temper that stern virtue, when every law, human and divine, had been broken on his hearthstone?  Should I have tried to touch him by appeals to filial duty, to brotherly love?  How had his appeals been answered?  What memories had father and brother stored up in his heart to plead for either now?  No,—­all these influences, these associations, would have proved worse than useless, had I been calm enough to try them.  I was not; but instinct, subtler than reason, showed me the one safe clue by which to lead this troubled soul from the labyrinth in which it groped and nearly fell.  When I paused, breathless, Robert turned to me, asking, as if human assurances could strengthen his faith in Divine Omnipotence,—­

“Do you believe, if I let Marster Ned live, the Lord will give me back my Lucy?”

“As surely as there is a Lord, you will find her here or in the beautiful hereafter, where there is no black or white, no master and no slave.”

He took his hand from his brother’s throat, lifted his eyes from my face to the wintry sky beyond, as if searching for that blessed country, happier even than the happy North.  Alas, it was the darkest hour before the dawn!—­there was no star above, no light below but the pale glimmer of the lamp that showed the brother who had made him desolate.  Like a blind man who believes there is a sun, yet cannot see it, he shook his head, let his arms drop nervelessly upon his knees, and sat there dumbly asking that question which many a soul whose faith is firmer fixed than his has asked in hours less dark than this,—­“Where is God?” I saw the tide had turned, and strenuously tried to keep this rudderless life-boat from slipping back into the whirlpool wherein it had been so nearly lost.