he thought of his condition, of the wrongs and insults which had
been heaped upon him; and if the few drops of negro blood that flowed in
his veins prompted him to patience and submission, the white blood, the
Anglo-Saxon inspiration of his nature, which coursed through the same
channels, counselled resistance, mad as it might seem. As he thought of
his situation, the tears came into his eyes, and he wept bitterly. The
future was dark and forbidding, as the past had been joyless and
hopeless. They were tears of anger and resentment, rather than of
sorrow.

He almost envied the lot of the laborers, who toiled in the cane-fields.
Though they were meanly clad and coarsely fed, they were not subjected
to the whims and caprices of a wayward boy. They had nothing to fear but
the lash of the driver, and this might be avoided by diligence and care.
And then, with the tears coursing down his pale cheeks, he realized that
the field-hands who labored beneath the eye of the overseer and the
driver were better off and happier than he was.

"What can I do!" murmured he, as he rose from the ground, and walked
back to the shade of the trees. "If I resist, I shall be whipped; and I
cannot endure this life. It is killing me."

"I will run away!" said he, as he sat down upon a stump at some distance
from the Point. "Where shall I go?"

He shuddered as he thought of the rifle of the overseer, and the
bloodhounds that would follow upon his track. The free states were far,
far away, and he might starve and die in the deep swamps which would be
his only hiding place. It was too hopeless a remedy to be adopted, and
he was obliged to abandon the thought in despair.

"I will watch and wait," said he. "Something will happen one of these
days. If I ever go to New Orleans again, I will hide myself in some ship
bound to the North. Perhaps Master Archy will travel some time. He may
go to Newport, Cape May, or Saratoga, with his father, this season or
next, and I shall go with him. I will be patient and submissive--that is
what the preacher said we must all do; and if we are in trouble, God
will sooner or later take the burden from our weary spirits. I will be
patient and submissive, but I will _watch and wait_."

WATCH AND WAIT! There was a world of hope and consolation in
the idea which the words expressed. He wiped away the tears which had
trickled down his blood-stained face. WATCH AND WAIT was the
only north star which blazed in the darkene