Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/33

 about, as if in search of some victim upon whom to practise a doctrine so consonant to his own disposition, his eye lighted upon me. "There's that boy Archy — I'll bet a hundred to one I could make him one of the best servants in the world. He's a bright fellow naturally, and nothing has spoil'd him, but poor James's over indulgence. Come father, just be good enough to give him to me, I want another servant most devilishly."

Without stopping for an answer, he hastened out of the room, having, as he said, two jockey races to attend that morning; and what was more, a cock-fight into the bargain. There was nobody else at table. Colonel Moore turned towards me. He began with commending very highly, my faithful attachment to his poor son James. As he men-. tioned his son's name the tears stood in his eyes, and for a moment or two he was unable to speak. He recovered himself presently, and added — "I hope now you will transfer all this same zeal and affection to master William."

These words roused me in a moment. I knew master William to be a tyrant from whose soul custom had long since obliterated what little humanity nature had bestowed upon him; and to judge from what he had let drop that morning, he had of late improved upon his natural inclination for cruelty, and had proceeded to the final length of reducing tyranny into a system and a science. I knew too that from childhood, he had entertained a particular spite against me; and I dreaded, lest he was already devising the means of inflicting upon me with interest, all those insults and injuries from which the protection of his younger brother had hitherto shielded me.

It was with horror and alarm, that I found myself in danger of falling into such hands. I threw myself at my master's feet and besought him, with all the eloquence of grief and fear, not to give me to master William. The terms in which I spoke of his son, though I chose the mildest I could think of, and the horror I expressed at the thoughts of becoming his servant, though I endeavored as much as possible, to save the father's feelings, seemed to make him angry. 'The smile left his lip, and his brow grew dark and contracted. I began to despair of escaping the