up of negroes, who sang religious
melodies, quite oblivious of their wild associates; and in still
another quarter a humorous fellow was enlivening his constituents with
odd sayings and stories. Paul's heart sank within him as he looked
upon these scenes. A sense of his degradation rushed over his young
mind, and he threw himself upon the stones with his head in his hands,
and wept hot tears of bitterness. Henceforth he should be a creature,
a thing, a slave! He must know no ambition but indolence, no bliss but
ignorance, no rest but sleep, no hope but death! Long leagues must
interpose between himself and his home; he should never kiss his
mother again, or kneel with his father in the holiness of prayer. The
recollections of his childhood would be crushed out by agonizing
experiences of bondage; he would forget his name and the face of his
friends, and at last preserve only the horrible consciousness that he
was the chattel of his master!

The uproar continued far into the night; one poor creature was
delivered of a child in the hazy light of the morning. Paul was too
young to think much of the matter, for his own sorrows engrossed him;
but he often recurred, in his subsequent career, to the romance of
that bondwoman, and the soul which first felt the breath of life in
the precincts of the slave shamble. What a childhood must it have had
to look back upon--cradled in disgrace, sung to sleep with the simple
melodies of grief, bred for no high purposes, but with the one
distinct and dreadful idea of gain--to be filched from that dusky
bosom when its little limbs had first essayed motion, that its feeble
lips might lisp the accents of servility. Days and weeks passed over
Paul, but he found no opportunity to tell his story. They kept him
purposely that he might forget it, or feel the hopelessness of
relating it. Other wretches came and went, till there remained none of
the original inmates of his prison, and he learned to mingle with his
coarse companions, joining sometimes in their gayety, and the high
walls stood forever between his dreams and the sky till the sombre
shadows were printed upon his heart.

The boy's turn came at length. He climbed the auction block before the
gaping multitude, and leaped to show his suppleness. They were pleased
with his still serious manner, the paleness of his skin, his
thoughtful eyes, and the shining ringlets of his hair. Bids were
bandied briskly upon him, and the auctioneer rattle