'
This lasted till past midnight, when, as they were deliberating
whether to send for Mr. Rugg, he fell soundly asleep, and awoke in
the morning depressed, but composed and peaceful; and this state of
things continued. The encounter with his uncle, and the deliberate
choice, had apparently given some shock to his nerves; and whenever
night recurred, there came two or three hours of misery, and
apparently of temptation and terror. It took different forms.
Sometimes it was half in sleep--the acting over again of one or two
horrible scenes that he had partly witnessed in the Southern States,
when an emancipator had been hunted down, and the slaves who had
listened to him savagely punished. In spite of his Spanish blood, the
horror had been ineffaceable; and his imagination connected it with
the crowd of terrors that had revealed themselves to his awakened
conscience. He seemed to think that if he lost in the awful game of
life, he should be handed over to that terrible slave-master; and
there were times when Diego's fate, and his own lapses, so fastened
on his mind, as to make him despair of ever being allowed to quit
that slave-master's dominions; and that again joined with alarm lest
his uncle should return and claim him.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284