Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/199

 was beginning to grow lighter, although the sky was shrouded with clouds. Sporadically, he was conscious that a drop of rain beat against his cheek. As he walked briskly towards the nearest elevated station, he fell into what seemed to be an endless procession. The journalistic phrase, two hours passing the grandstand, came into his mind. From all the side-streets, up the avenues, they marched: Negro workmen and working-women, all leaving the walled, black city temporarily to labour in an alien world. Some were bowed and old and walked slowly and with pain. Others were young and sinewy and chattered as they marched rapidly forward. The thought struck him that it was like a symbolic procession, the procession of an oppressed people. Thus the Jews went out into the desert to build pyramids for the Pharaohs. Thus, under the knout, the Russian political prisoners plodded to Siberia. Only, and Byron was quick to sense the distinction, from the eyes of all these people around him peered an expression of hope. They were doing what they had to do before the millennium, the day when the black race would be on a level with the white. It was coming; they all felt that, although the old and the helpless feared they would never live to see it.