uct of the
universities--doctors of law, doctors of medicine, embryo doctors still
in the making--each swinging a light cane. Their black hats and cutaway
coats, in the fashion of a temperate clime, would have looked exotic
were it not for the serene dignity with which they were worn. With them,
merchants lazed along, making a deal as they walked. Clerks, under their
masters' eyes, hurried hither and thither.

These were all white or near-white. The middle of the street, which held
the great throng, was black. Slaves with nothing on but a loin-cloth
staggered under two bags of coffee or under a single monster sack of
cocoa. Their sweating torsos gleamed where the slanting sun struck them.
Other slaves bore other burdens: a basket of chickens or a bundle of
sugar-cane on the way to market; a case of goods headed for the stores
of some importer; now and then a sedan-chair, with curtains drawn; and
finally a piano, unboxed, on a pilgrimage.

The piano came up the middle of the street borne on the heads of six
singing negroes. For a hundred yards they would carry it at a shuffling
trot, their bare feet keeping time to their music, then they would set
it down and, clapping their hands and still singing, do a shuffle dance
about it. This was the shanty of piano-movers. No other slave dared sing
it. It was the badge of a guild.

"D'you hear that?" asked Leighton, nodding his head. "That's a shanty.
They're singing to keep step."

In shady nooks and corners and in the cool, wide doorways sat still
other slaves: porters waiting for a stray job; grayheads, too old for
burdens, plaiting baskets; or a fat mammy behind her pot of couscous.

Three porters sat on little benches on the top step of a church porch.
Leighton approached one of them.

"Brother," he said, "give me your stool."

The slave rose, and straightened to a great height. He held up his hands
for a blessing. He grinned when Leighton sat down on his bench. Then he
looked keenly at Lewis's face, and promptly dragged the black at his
side to his feet.

"Give thy bench to the young master, thou toad."

Leighton nodded his head.

"No fool, the old boy, eh? The son's the spit of the father." His eyes
swept the swarming street. "What men! What men!" He was looking at the
blacks. "Boy, did you ever hear of a general uprising among the slaves
at home, in the States?"

"No," said Lewis; "there never was one."

"Exactly," said Leighton. "There never was one becaus