“I am not for you, man!” she interrupts:  “I would scorn you, were I not enslaved,” she continues, a curl of contempt on her lip, as her very soul kindles with grief.  Rising quickly from his side she walked across the pen, and seated herself on the opposite side.  Here she casts a frowning look upon him, as if loathing his very presence.  This, Mr. Pringle Blowers don’t altogether like:  slaves have no right to look loathingly on white people.  His flushed face glows red with excitement; he runs his brawny fingers through the tufted mats of short curly hair that stand almost erect on his head, draws his capacious jaws into a singular angle, and makes a hideous grimace.

The terrified girl has no answer to make; she is a forlorn outcast of democracy’s rule.  He takes the black ribbon from round his neck, bares his bosom more broadly than before, throws the plaid sack in which he is dressed from off him, and leaping as it were across the room, seizes her in his arms.  “Kisses are cheap, I reckon, and a feller what don’t have enough on ’em ’s a fool,” he ejaculates, as with a desperate struggle she bounds from his grasp, seizes the knife from a negro’s hand as she passes him, and is about to plunge the shining steel into her breast.  “Oh, mother, mother!-what have I done?-is not God my Saviour?-has he forsaken me?-left me a prey to those who seek my life?”

“I settle those things,” said a voice in the rear, and immediately a hand grasped her arm, and the knife fell carelessly upon the floor.  It was Graspum; the sudden surprise overcame her; she sank back in his arms, and swooned.  “She swoons,—­how limber, how lifeless she seems!” says Graspum, as with great coolness he calls a negro attendant, orders him to remove her to the grass plat, and bathe her well with cold water.  “A good dowsing of water is the cure for fainting niggers,” he concludes.

The black man takes her in his arms, and with great kindness, lays her on the plat, bathes her temples, loosens her dress, and with his rough hand manipulates her arms.  How soft and silky they seem to his touch!  “Him hard to slave ye, miss,” he says, laying his hand upon her temples, gently, as with commiseration he looks intently on her pallid features.

“Now, Blowers,” says Graspum, as soon as they are by themselves, “what in the name of the Gentiles have you been up to?”

“Wal-can’t say its nothin, a’cos that wouldn’t do.  But, ye see, the critter made my mouth water so; there was no standin on’t!  And I wanted to be civil, and she wouldn’t,—­and I went t’ fumlin with her hair what looked so inviting, as there was no resistin on’t, and she looked just as sassy as sixty; and to stun the whole, when I only wanted to kiss them ar’ temptin lips, the fool was going to kill herself.  It wasn’t how I cared two buttons about it; but then the feelin just came over me at the time,” he answers, shaking his huge sides, giving Graspum a significant wink, and laughing heartily.