reward. But, like too many in our own land, they more often prefer to
make use of what they possess till they start on that journey on
which they can take nothing with them, and then affect generosity by
bestowing upon others that over which they lose control.

One poor fellow whom I knew very well, who had been liberated on the
death of his master, having lost his papers, was re-kidnapped and sold
again to a man who was subsequently imprisoned for fraud, when he
got free and worked for some years as porter; but he was eventually
denounced and put in irons in a dungeon as part of the property of his
_soi-disant_ master.

The ordinary place of the slave is much that of the average servant,
but receiving only board, lodging, and scanty clothing, without pay,
and being unable to change masters. Sometimes, however, they are
permitted to beg or work for money to buy their own freedom, when
they become, as it were, their own masters. On the whole, a jollier,
harder-working, or better-tempered lot than these Negroes it would
be hard to desire, and they are as light-hearted, fortunately, as
true-hearted, even in the midst of cruel adversities.

The condition of a woman slave--to which, also, most of what has been
said refers--is as much behind that of a man-slave as is that of a
free-woman behind that of her lord. If she becomes her master's wife,
the mother of a child, she is thereby freed, though she must remain in
his service until his death, and she is only treated as an animal, not
as a human being.

After all, there is a dark side--one sufficiently dark to need no
intensifying. The fact of one man being the possessor of another,
just as much as he could be of a horse or cow, places him in the same
position with regard to his "chattel" as to such a four-footed animal.
"The merciful man is merciful to his beast," but "the tender mercies
of the wicked are cruel," and just as one man will ill-treat his
beast, while another treats his well, so will one man persecute his
slave. Instances of this are quite common enough, and here and there
cases could be brought forward of revolting brutality, as in the story
which follows, but the great thing is that agricultural slavery is
practically unknown, and that what exists is chiefly domestic. "Know
the slave," says an Arab proverb, "and you know the master."

[Illustration: _Freyonne, Photo., Gibraltar._

RABBAH, NARRATOR OF THE SLAVE-GIRL'S STORY.]

XXII

A SLAVE-GIR