laying one softly on my arm, while she touched her lips with the
other, looked wistfully behind, and glided into my apartment.

This poor girl, the child of a mulatto mother and a white parent, was
born in the settlement of Sierra Leone, and had acquired our language
with much more fluency than is common among her race. It was said that
her father had been originally a missionary from Great Britain, but
abandoned his profession for the more lucrative traffic in slaves, to
which he owed an abundant fortune. It is probable that the early
ecclesiastical turn of her delinquent progenitor induced him, before
he departed for America, to bestow on his child the biblical name of
ESTHER.

I led my trembling visitor to the arm-chest, and, seating her gently
by my side, inquired why I was favored by so stealthy a visit from the
_harem_. My suspicions were aroused; for, though a novice in Africa, I
knew enough of the discipline maintained in these slave factories, not
to allow my fancy to seduce me with the idea that her visit was owing
to mad-cap sentimentality.

The manner of these _quarteroon_ girls, whose complexion hardly
separates them from our own race, is most winningly graceful; and
Esther, with abated breath, timidly asked my pardon for intruding,
while she declared I had made so bitter an enemy of Unga-golah,--the
head-woman of the seraglio,--that, in spite of danger, she stole to my
quarters with a warning. Unga swore revenge. I had insulted and
thwarted her; I was able to thwart her at all times, if I remained the
Mongo's "book-man;"--I must soon "go to another country;" but, if I
did not, I would quickly find the food of Bangalang excessively
unwholesome! "Never eat any thing that a Mandingo offers you," said
Esther. "Take your meals exclusively from the Mongo's table.
Unga-golah knows all the Mandingo _jujus_, and she will have no
scruple in using them in order to secure once more the control of the
store keys. Good night!"

With this she rose to depart, begging me to be silent about her visit,
and to believe that a poor slave could feel true kindness for a white
man, or even expose herself to save him.

If an unruly passion had tugged at my heartstrings, the soft appeal,
the liquid tones, the tenderness of this girl's humanity, would have
extinguished it in an instant. It was the first time for many a long
and desolate mouth that I had experienced the gentle touch of a
woman's hand, or felt the interest of mor