Mass' George Part 21

"No, but dying, I am afraid. He has been starved and suffocated in that vile schooner. Good heavens! How can men be such fiends?"

"Ay, that can't do no harm," said Morgan, as I filled the boat's baler with water, and knelt down by the negro's side to begin trickling a few drops from time to time between his cracked lips, and sprinkling his face.

"I will fetch a few drops of spirit," said my father. "Keep on giving him a little water."

He went away toward the house while I continued my task, and Morgan kept up a running commentary upon the man's appearance.

"Pity, too," he said. "Master oughtn't to have let them cheat him though, like this. Fine working chap. See what a broad, deep chest he's got, Master George. Don't think much of his legs, but he's got wonderful arms. My! What a sight of hoeing I could have got him to do, but it's a case of hoe dear me! With him, I'm afraid."

"You don't think he'll die, Morgan, do you?" I said, piteously.

"Ay, but I do, my dear lad. They've 'bout killed him. We want help, but I'm 'fraid all that slave-dealing's 'bout as bad as bad can be.

Give him a few more drops o' water; those others trickled down."

I gave the man a few more drops, pouring them from my fingers almost at minute intervals, but he made no sign. Then, all at once, I felt half startled, for a pair of eyes were watching me, and I saw that the boy had recovered sufficiently to be noticing everything that was going on.

As our eyes met, he looked at me like a fierce dog who was watching for an opportunity to make a successful snap; but as he saw me trickle a few more drops of water between the man's lips, his face suddenly grew eager, and he looked at me, found my eyes fixed upon him, and slowly opened his mouth widely.

"Want some water?" I said; and I was going to him when he jerked himself fiercely away, and showed his beautiful white teeth at me.

"Wo ho!" cried Morgan. "Mind, lad, or he'll have his teeth in you."

"He's thirsty," I said; and I held the tin baler half full of water to him.

He looked at me, then at the water, and I could see his lips move and his teeth part, showing his dry tongue quivering like that of a dog.

Then he fixed his eyes upon me again fiercely.

"Let me give it him," said Morgan, as the boy's mouth opened widely again, and there was a pitiful, imploring look in his eyes.

Now I could not understand all that when I was so young, but I've often thought about it since, and seemed to read it all, and how nature was making him beg for water for his parched tongue, while his education forced upon him the desire to fight me as a cruel enemy.

"There," I said, going a little nearer, pushing the baler close to his hands, and drawing back.

He looked at me, then at the water, and back at me, fixing me with his eyes, as one hand stole slowly from his side towards the baler, drawing it nearer and nearer stealthily, as if in dread of my s.n.a.t.c.hing it away; and then it was at his lips, and he gulped down the contents.

"There, I'm not going to hurt you," I said, stretching out my hand for the baler, and getting it, meaning to go and fill it once more; and as I returned I saw that he was watching me so wildly that I walked up, with him shrinking away as far as he could go, and offered the tin to him again.

He took it in the same shrinking way, evidently expecting a blow, and drank heavily once more.

"Well, he couldn't ha' swallowed much, Master George, else he wouldn't be so thirsty," said Morgan. "Now give this here one a dose, though it seems to me labour in vain; only it may make him go off a bit easy."

He filled the baler, and I knelt down again to sprinkle the poor fellow's temples, and trickle a few drops once more between his lips, the boy watching me the while, and then giving me the first notice of my father's return by shuffling away in another direction.

"Poor wretch!" I heard my father mutter, as he gave me a piece of bread-cake, and pointed to the boy, before taking the cork from a bottle, and slowly dropping a spoonful or two of spirit between the man's teeth.

After this he waited, and I saw that the boy was watching him wildly.

Then he poured in a little more, without apparently the slightest effect, and after looking on for a few minutes, I advanced toward the boy, holding out the cake. But I stopped short, with my hand extended, looking at him, and then, as he took no notice of the cake, but stared wildly at me, I broke off a few crumbs, and began to eat before him, treating him as I would have treated some savage creature I wished to tame, and breaking off a piece and throwing it within his reach.

Then I went on eating again, and after a time I saw his hand steal slowly to the bread, his eyes fixed on mine, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the piece and conveyed it to his mouth with a motion that was wonderful from its rapidity.

This I repeated two or three times before feeling that I ought now to have won his confidence a little, when I went close to him, put down the cake, and went back to kneel by my father, whose hand was upon the man's throat.

"Is he getting better?" I said.

There was a shake of the head, and I looked then with a feeling of awe at the black face before me, with the eyes so close that there was just a gleam of the white eyeb.a.l.l.s visible; but as I gazed, I fancied I saw a jerking motion in the throat, and I whispered to my father to look.

"A good sign, or a bad one, my boy," he whispered. "You had better go now, back to the house."

"Yes, father," I said, unwillingly; "but don't you think you can cure him like you did me when I was so ill?"

"I would to heaven I could, boy!" he said, so earnestly that I was startled, and the more so that at the same moment the man slowly opened his eyes, and stared at us vacantly.

"It is a hopeful sign," said my father, and he took the baler, poured out all but a few drops of water, added some spirit, and placed it to the man's lips, with the result that he managed to drink a little, and then lay perfectly still, gazing at my father with a strange look which I know now was one full of vindictive hate, for the poor wretch must have read all this attention to mean an attempt to keep him alive for more ill-treatment, or until he was sold.

"Take a little more," said my father, offering the vessel again, and the man drank and once more lay still, glaring at us all in turn.

"Why, you'll save him after all, sir," said Morgan, eagerly. "Hurrah!"

But no one paid heed to his remark, for at that moment there was a sort of bound, and we saw that the boy had contrived to force himself so near that he could lay his hand on the man's cheek, uttering as he did so a few words incomprehensible to us, but their effect on the man was magical: his features softened, and two great tears stole slowly from his eyes as we watched the pair, the boy glaring at us defiantly, as if to protect his companion, and I heard my father say softly--

"Thank G.o.d!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

After a time, with the boy seeming to watch defiantly beside the great fellow, the black revived sufficiently to swallow some bread soaked in wine-and-water; the dull, filmy look left his eyes; and at last he dropped off into a heavy sleep.

"Shall we try and carry him up to one of the sheds, sir?" said Morgan.

"No; the poor fellow has had a very narrow escape from death," replied my father; "and I do not know even now that he will recover. Fetch a few boards to lay against that bough, and tie the boat-mast up there, and fasten the sail against it, so as to act as a bit of shelter to keep off the sun. George, put some dry gra.s.s in a sack, and it will do for a pillow."

We set about our task at once.

"Lor' ha' mussy!" grumbled Morgan, "what a fuss we are making about a n.i.g.g.e.r. Pillows for him! Why don't master say, 'Get the best bedroom ready, and put on clean sheets'? I say, Master George, think he'd come off black?"

But all the same Morgan worked hard, with the great drops of perspiration running off his face, till he had rigged up the shelter, the black sleeping heavily the while, but the boy watching every act of ours in a suspicious way, his eyes rolling about, and his lips twitching as if he were ready to fly at us and bite.

"I know," said Morgan, all at once with a broad grin, as he was sloping some boards lately cut from a tree over the sleeping negro.

"Know what?" I said.

"What young sooty's a thinking. He's a young canny ball, and he believes we're going to make a fire and roast 'em for a feast."

Whatever the boy thought, he had ceased to struggle to get away, but lay quite still with his arm stretched-out, so that he could touch the big negro, and he was in this att.i.tude when my father came back from the house.

"Yes, that will do," he said, approvingly.