n this road, which is our
direction likewise; wherefore my lord, the earl Grip, hath given
commandment that ye retain the horses and ride, and that certain
of us ride with ye a twenty mile to a fair town that hight Cambenet,
whenso ye shall be out of peril."

We could do nothing less than express our thanks and accept the
offer. We jogged along, six in the party, at a moderate and
comfortable gait, and in conversation learned that my lord Grip
was a very great personage in his own region, which lay a day's
journey beyond Cambenet. We loitered to such a degree that it was
near the middle of the forenoon when we entered the market square
of the town. We dismounted, and left our thanks once more for
my lord, and then approached a crowd assembled in the center of
the square, to see what might be the object of interest. It was the
remnant of that old peregrinating band of slaves! So they had
been dragging their chains about, all this weary time. That poor
husband was gone, and also many others; and some few purchases
had been added to the gang. The king was not interested, and
wanted to move along, but I was absorbed, and full of pity. I could
not take my eyes away from these worn and wasted wrecks of humanity.
There they sat, grounded upon the ground, silent, uncomplaining,
with bowed heads, a pathetic sight. And by hideous contrast, a
redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering not thirty
steps away, in fulsome laudation of "our glorious British liberties!"

I was boiling. I had forgotten I was a plebeian, I was remembering
I was a man. Cost what it might, I would mount that rostrum and--

Click! the king and I were handcuffed together! Our companions,
those servants, had done it; my lord Grip stood looking on. The
king burst out in a fury, and said:

"What meaneth this ill-mannered jest?"

My lord merely said to his head miscreant, coolly:

"Put up the slaves and sell them!"

_Slaves!_ The word had a new sound--and how unspeakably awful! The
king lifted his manacles and brought them down with a deadly force;
but my lord was out of the way when they arrived. A dozen of
the rascal's servants sprang forward, and in a moment we were
helpless, with our hands bound behind us. We so loudly and so
earnestly proclaimed ourselves freemen, that we got the interested
attention of that liberty-mouthing orator and his patriotic crowd,
and they gathered about us and assumed a very determined attit