Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/31

 feelings with which I was tormented; and as deceit is one of those defences against tyranny of which a slave early learns to avail himself, I was not unsuccessful. My young master would sometimes find me in tears; and sometimes when I would be lost in thought, he complained of my inattention. But I put him off with plausible excuses; and though he suspected there was something which I did not tell him, and would frequently say to me, "Come Archy, boy, let me know what it is that troubles you," — I made light of the matter and laughed off his suspicions.

I was now about to lose this kind master, in whose tenderness and affection I found the sole palliative that could make slavery tolerable. His health which had always been bad, grew rapidly worse, and confined him first to his chamber and then to his bed. I nursed him during his whole illness with a mother's tenderness and assiduity. Never was master more faithfully served; — but it was the friend, not the slave, who rendered these attentions. He was not insensible to my services; he did not seem to like that any one but I should be about him, and it was only from my hand that he would take his physic or his food. But it was not in the power of physician or of nurse to save him. He wasted daily, and grew weaker every hour. The fatal crisis soon came. His weeping friends were collected about his bed, — but the tears'they shed were not as bitter as mine. Almost with his last breath he recommended me to the good graces of his father; but the man who had closed his heart to the promptings of paternal tenderness, was not likely to give much weight to the requests of a dying son. He bade his friends farewell, — he pressed my hand in his; and, with a gentle sigh, he expired in my arms.





family of colonel Moore knew well how truly I had loved, and how faithfully I had served my young master.