“But it is true, every word of it, while you are reading it, ye fool.  What heathens there are in the world!  First they sell a child out of his mother’s arms.  She cuts sooner than be parted.  They hunt her and come up with her; but she knows what they are, and trusts her life and the child to one of their great thundering frozen rivers as broad as the British Channel sooner than fall into their hands.  That is like a woman, Fry.  A fig for me being drowned if the kid is drowned with me; and I don’t even care so much for the kid being drowned if I go down with him—­and the cowardly vermin dogs and men stood barking on the bank and dursn’t follow a woman; but your cruel ones are always cowards.  And now the rips have got hold of this Tom.  A chap with no great harm in him that I see, except that he is a ——­ sniveler and psalm-singer, and makes you sick at times, but he isn’t lazy; and now they are mauling him because he couldn’t do the work of two.  A man can but do his best, black or white, and it is infernal stupidity as well as cruelty to torment a fellow because he can’t do more than he can do.  And all this because over the same flesh and blood there is the sixteenth of an inch of skin a different color.  Wonder whether a white bear takes a black one for a hog, or a red fox takes a blue one for a badger.  Well, Fry, thank your stars that you were born in Britain.  There are no slaves here, and no buying and selling of human flesh; and one law for high and low, rich and poor, and justice for the weak as well as the strong.”

“Yes, sir,” said Fry deferentially—­“are you coming into the jail, sir?”

“No,” replied Hawes sturdily, “I won’t move till I see what becomes of the negro, and what is done to this eternal ruffian.”

“But about the prisoners in my report, sir,” remonstrated Fry.

“Oh, you can see to that without my coming,” replied Hawes with nonchalance.  “Put 40 and 45 in the jacket four hours apiece.  Mind there’s somebody by with the bucket against they sham.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put the boy on bread and water—­and to-morrow I’ll ask the justices to let me flog him.  No. 14—­humph! stop his supper—­and his bed—­and gas.”

“And Robinson?”

“Oh, give him no supper at all—­and no breakfast—­not even bread and water, d’ye hear.  And at noon I’ll put him with his empty belly in the black-hole—­that will cow him down to the ground—­there, be off!”

Next morning Mr. Hawes sat down to breakfast in high spirits.  This very day he was sure to humiliate his adversary, most likely get rid of him altogether.

Mr. Eden, on the contrary, wore a somber air.  Hawes noticed it, mistook it, and pointed it out to Fry.  “He is down upon his luck; he knows he is coming to an end.”

After breakfast Mr. Eden went into Robinson’s cell.  He found him haggard.  “Oh, I am glad you are come, sir; they are starving me!  No supper last night, no breakfast this morning, and all for—­hum.”