When Paul woke from his second sleep he was on the deck of a vessel.  The shore lay beneath him, and the waves heaved behind.  It was night; the snow-flakes still filtered through the profound darkness, and the wind whistled in the rigging.  A red lantern moved along the beach; some voices were heard speaking together, and one of them said:  “Don’t be afraid of the boy; I have sold lots paler than him.  Lick him smartly if he gammons, and he’ll tell no tales.”

Then they lifted the anchor aboard; the tide floated off the sloop; they were soon scudding before the wind under a freezing starlight.  Two weary days passed over Paul, of travel by land and water.  They came to the city of Richmond at last, and marched him with five other unfortunates to the common slave-pen.  It was situated in a squalid suburb, surrounded by a high spiked wall, and entered by an office from which a watchman could observe the interior through two grated doors.  The pen consisted of a paved area open to the sky, except on one side, where it was protected by a shelving roof, and of a jail or den.  The latter was walled up in a corner, but its inmates could look out upon the area through a window in the door, and their savage features revealed at the bars so terrified Paul that he retreated to the opposite corner, afraid to look towards them.  Now and then they howled and blasphemed; for two were delirious from drunkenness and one was desperate from rage, and as they moved like tigers to and fro, their irons clanked behind them, dragging on the stone floor.  A number of women were huddled together beneath the roof, some as fair as Paul, others as black as ebony.  Some had babes at their breasts, others had no regard for their offspring, but sat stolidly apart while their children cried for nourishment.  In the open place a bevy of the coarser inmates were holding a rude dance, a large gray-haired man patted time or “juber” with his feet and hands, calling the figures huskily aloud; while the women, with bright turbans tied around their heads, grinned and screamed with glee as they followed the measure with their large, heavy shoes.

Their efforts were directed not so much to grace as to strength, for some kept up the dance for a whole hour, divesting themselves of parcels of clothing as they proceeded, and breathing hard as if weary to exhaustion.  The men applauded vociferously, coupling the names of the performers with wild ejaculations, but subsiding when the keeper appeared at the door occasionally to command less noise.  Remote from the bacchanals crouched a serious group of negroes, who sang religious melodies, quite oblivious of their wild associates; and in still another quarter a humorous fellow was enlivening his constituents with odd sayings and stories.  Paul’s heart sank within him as he looked upon these scenes.  A sense of his degradation rushed over his young mind, and he threw himself upon the stones with his head in his hands, and wept hot tears of bitterness.  Henceforth he