skin was
altogether too black not to have given a trifle of its shading to the
complexion of her children. It was not only black, but blue black, and
of that peculiar hue which is seen only on the faces of native Africans.

Seeing that she had relinquished smoking, I said:

'Never mind me, aunty; I smoke myself sometimes.'

'Tank you, sar,' she replied, resuming her pipe, and relapsing into her
previous position; 'ole wimmin lub 'backer, sar.'

The low tone in which this was said made me conclude that further
conversation would be exhausting to her, so turning to Joe and Aggy--the
latter had hurried through her domestic employments, and taken a seat
near the fire--I entered into a general discussion of the old worthies
that occupied Joe's book shelves.

I found the negro had taxed them for house room. He had levied on their
best thoughts, and I soon experienced the uneasy sensation which one
feels when he encounters a man who can 'talk him dry' on almost any
subject. On the single topic of the business to which I was educated, I
might have displayed, had it not been Sunday night, a greater amount of
information; but in the knowledge of every subject that was broached,
the black was my superior.

The conversation had rambled on for a full half hour, the old negress
meanwhile puffing steadily away, and giving no heed to it; when suddenly
her pipe dropped from her mouth, her eyes closed, her bent figure became
erect, and a quick, convulsive shiver passed over her. Thinking she was
about to fall in a fit, I exclaimed:

'Joe! See! your mother!'

'Neber mind, sar,' he quietly replied; 'it'm nuffin'. Only de power am
on her.'

A few more convulsive spasms succeeded, when the old woman's face
assumed a settled expression; and swaying her body back and forth with a
slow, steady motion, she commenced humming a low chant. Gradually it
grew louder, till it broke into a strange, wild song, filling the room,
and coming back in short, broken echoes from the adjoining apartments.
Struck with astonishment, I was about to speak, when Joe, laying his
hand on my arm, said:

'Hush, sar! It am de song ob de kidnap slave!'

It was sung in the African tongue, but I thought I heard, as it rose and
fell in a wild, irregular cadence, the thrilling story of the stolen
black; his smothered cries, and fevered moans in the slaver's hold; the
shriek of the wind, and the sullen sound of the surging waves as they
broke against the accurse