Page:John Brown's body by Stephen Vincent Benét.djvu/23

 Out of the linen-closet that smells of lavender, Will my skin smell black even then, will my skin smell black? The lantern shook in his hand. This was black, here, This was black to see and feel and smell and taste, The blackness of black, with one weak lamp to light it As ineffectually as a firefly in Hell, And, being so, should be silent. But the hold Was never silent. There was always that breathing. Always that thick breathing, always those shivering cries. A few of the slaves Knew English at least the English for water and Jesus. "I'm dying." "Sick." "My name Caesar." Those who knew These things, said these things now when they saw the lantern Mechanically, as tamed beasts answer the whipcrack. Their voices beat at the light like heavy moths. But most made merely liquid or guttural sounds Meaningless to the mate, but horribly like The sounds of palateless men or animals trying To talk through a human throat. The mate was used To the confusion of limbs and bodies by now. At first it had made him think of the perturbed Blind coil of blacksnakes thawing on a rock In the bleak sun of Spring, or Judgment Day Just after the first sounding of the trump When all earth seethes and crumbles with the slow Vast, mouldy resurrection of the dead. But he had passed such fancies. ! He must see As much as he could. He couldn't see very much. They were too tightly packed but-no plague yet, And all the chains were fast. Then he saw something. The woman was asleep but her baby was dead. He wondered whether to take it from her now. 13