Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/322

 an invincible desire to make myself known to him. I felt, indeed, that to his noble and generous soul it would afford a glow of satisfaction, even in the depth of his own distress, to know of the welfare of his old "friend and confederate. I stepped close to him, and, placing my hand on his arm, I said, in a whisper, "Thomas, do you know me? Remember Loosahatchie! Remember Ann, how she was murdered, and how you vowed vengeance over her grave! Remember Martin, the overseer, and how we buried him and the bloodhound together! Remember our parting, when I went north and you went south! I am Archy; do you know me?"

How keenly he fixed his eyes upon me as I began! With what devouring glances he gazed at me as I went on! I, too, was greatly altered — far more than he; but before I had spoken my name, I saw that he knew me. But in an instant, his eye glancing from me, that momentary gleam of joyous surprise which had lighted up his face passed suddenly away, and his features again resumed that sullen look of defiance, which seemed to say to his captors, "Do your worst; I am ready."

I felt at that same moment a hand rudely laid on my shoulder, while a voice, which I recognized as that of the same man who had dashed the calabash of water from Thomas's grasp, exclaimed, with a volley of oaths, "What the devil are you doing here in close confab with this murderer? I tell you, stranger, you don't leave here without giving an account of yourself!"

At the same time a number of men, rushing up to Thomas, began to unfasten the chains from the prison bars, and to conduct him towards the door of the tavern.

The fight had been between the more drunken and infuriated portion of the company, who, enraged at the sight of the dead overseer, wished to try and execute Thomas at once, and those who had wished to await the arrival of general Carter, for whom a