Chapter Thirteen.

 Hester and her Father severely Tested.

 

The very next day, accordingly, Hester Sommers and her friend sallied forth to present Hugh Sommers with a couple of biscuits!

 

It was arranged that the two girls should carry baskets of fruit on their heads, and that Hester should have the biscuits conveniently in her right hand, so as to be able to drop them into her father’s lap without stopping or even checking her pace as they passed.

 

Of course, Hester was by this time thoroughly alive to the danger of her intended proceedings, both to herself and her father, and was firmly resolved to restrain her feelings. Nevertheless, she could not help trembling when she came in sight of the gang with which her father worked.

 

Sally observed this and grasped her by the arm.

 

“Geo’giana,” she said, “if you gibs way, or speaks, or trembles, or busts up in any way, I grips you by de neck, as I once did before, an’ shobes you along wid scolds and whacks—so you look out!”

 

“Anxiety for my darling father will be a much more powerful restraint, Sally, than your threats,” replied the poor girl.

 

Nevertheless, the threat was not without its effect, for it showed Hester that she must have been on the point of giving way, and impressed on her more than ever the necessity of self-restraint.

 

“W’ich am him? I don’t see him,” said the negress as they advanced.

 

“There he is, don’t you see, just before us,” replied Hester, in a low, hurried voice.

 

“No, I’s growin’ blind, I t’ink.”

 

“There—look! by himself, on the stone. He seems always to sit on the same spot at dinner-time.”

 

“Oh yes, I sees. Now you go on—stiddy. Mind what you’s about!”

 

With a brief prayer for help to control herself, Hester went straight to where her father sat. He was languidly chewing a piece of the regulation black bread at the time, and looked up at her with the vacant indifference born of despair.

 

The desire to fall on his neck and kiss him was, need we say, almost irresistible, but the poor girl had received strength for the duty in hand. She went close to him—even brushed past him—and dropped the biscuits into his lap.

 

At first the poor man was so astonished that he gazed after the retiring figure and made no effort to conceal this unexpected addition to his meal. Fortunately, his wits revived before any of the guards observed him. He slid the biscuits into his shirt bosom with conjurer-like facility, and at the same moment broke off a large bit of one, which he devoured with unwonted satisfaction. The addition did not indeed furnish the unfortunate slave with a full meal, but it at least tended towards that desirable end, and sent him to work with a full heart, because of the assurance that there was in the city, at all events, one human being—and that being, strange to say, a negress!—who pitied him in his forlorn condition.

 

During the remainder of that day Hugh Sommers almost forgot his toils in consequence of his mind being so thoroughly taken up with meditation on the wonderful incident. At night, although wearied, almost worn out, and anxious to sleep, he found it impossible to rest in the dismal Bagnio. It chanced that he occupied the cell which had formerly been apportioned to George Foster on the occasion of his first visit to that cheerless prison, and his next neighbour was the despairing Frenchman who had given such poor comfort to the middy in his distress. Finding that this Frenchman spoke English so well, and that they worked together in the same gang during the day, Hugh Sommers had struck up an acquaintance with him, which, after they had spent some weeks together in toiling by day and groaning side by side at night, ripened into a curious sort of growling friendship.

 

This friendship began with a quarrel. The night in which they were first placed in neighbouring cells, or niches, followed a day in which Sommers had received an application of the bastinado, and been put into irons for fierce rebellion. Being a man of strong emotions, he had groaned a little as he lay trying to sleep in spite of his suffering feet. Failing of his purpose, he took to thinking about Hester, and the groans which had been but feeble for himself became more intense on her account.

 

“Can you not stop that noise?” growled the irate Frenchman, who was kept awake by it.

 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, friend,” said Sommers gently, for he was really an unselfish man; “but if you knew all I’ve had to suffer you would excuse me.”

 

“Oh, I know what you have had to suffer!” said his comrade testily. “I saw you get the bastinado; I’ve had it often myself, but—it is bearable!”

 

“It’s not that, man!” returned the Englishman, with a touch of indignation. “If I had nothing to worry me but the pain of my feet I’d have been asleep by now. I have worse things to groan about than you can guess, maybe.”

 

“Well, well, monsieur,” said the Frenchman, in a resigned tone, as he raised himself on one elbow and leaned his back against the stone wall, “since you have driven sleep from my eyes, perhaps you will give employment to my ears by telling me for what it is that you groan?”

 

There was something so peculiar in the tone and manner in which this was said—so cool and off-hand, yet withal so kind—that Sommers at once agreed.

 

“I’ll do it,” he said, “if you will treat me to the same thing in return. Fair exchange! You see, I am by profession a merchant, and must have value for what I give.”

 

And thus on that night the two unfortunates had exchanged confidences, and formed the friendship to which we have referred.

 

To this man, then—whose name was Edouard Laronde—Sommers related the incident that had occurred that day during the noontide period of rest.

 

“It is strange. I know not what to think,” said Laronde, when his friend concluded. “If it had been a white girl I could have understood that it might be your daughter in disguise, though even in this case there would have been several reasons against the theory, for, in the first place, you tell me that your daughter—your Hester—is very pretty, and no pretty English girl could go about this city in any disguise without being discovered at once. Now you tell me that this girl was black—a negress?”

 

“Ay, as black as a coal,” responded the merchant.

 

“Well, if, as you say, your Hester is pretty—”

 

“Pretty, man! She’s not pretty,” interrupted the Englishman impatiently; “I tell you she is beautiful!”

 

“Of course, I understand,” returned the other, with a smile that the darkness of the place concealed, “I should have said beautiful! Well, thick lips and flat nose and high cheek-bones and woolly hair are, you know, incompatible with beauty as understood by Englishmen—”

 

“Or Frenchmen either,” added Sommers. “That’s quite true, Laronde, though I must confess that I paid no attention to her face when she was approaching me, and after she dropped the biscuits in my lap she was so far past that I only saw a bit of her black cheek and her back, which latter, you know, was enveloped from head to foot in that loose blue cotton thing which does not tell much about the wearer.”

 

“True, true,” returned the Frenchman; “and, after all, even if the girl’s features had not been negro-like, you could not have been sure that it was her, for some of the blacks who come from the interior of Africa have features quite as classical as our own.”

 

“Laronde,” said the merchant impressively, “I wonder to hear you, who have a daughter of your own, suggest that I could fail to recognise my Hester in any disguise. Why, if she were to paint her face scarlet and her nose pea-green I’d see through it by the beautiful shape of the features and the sweet expression of her face.”

 

“Forgive me, Monsieur Sommers, I doubt not that you would. As to your reference to my daughter, you forget that she was a little child when I last saw her, so I have no experience of a father’s powers of penetrating disguises.”

 

Laronde sighed deeply at this point, and then hurriedly continued, as if to prevent further reference to his own sorrows.

 

“It is possible, however,” he said, “that she may pass you again to-morrow, and so give you another opportunity of seeing her features. But let me ask, my friend, what will you do if you discover that she is your Hester?”

 

“Do?” exclaimed the merchant, with an energetic action that caused his fetters to rattle. “I—I—I’ll—well—I don’t know what I’ll do!”

 

“Of course you don’t!” returned Laronde, with something of the old cynicism in his tone. “You Englishmen are always so cock-sure—as you express it—of success that you make no provision for defeat or failure. It may seem very heroic, but it is mere pride and folly. Now, if you will take a real friend’s advice, you will go out to-morrow with the determination to curb yourself and refrain from taking any notice whatever of this girl, whether she turns out to be your daughter or not, and leave her to work out her plan, for you may be quite sure she has some end in view. Just consider what would be the consequence of your giving way to your feelings and embracing her. You would by so doing expose her disguise, cause her to be taken up and sent to the harem of some one of the notables, and get heavier irons put on yourself, besides another touch, perhaps, of the bastinado. Be wise, and consider well what you intend to do.”

 

“Thank you, friend, for your warning. It is well timed. If you had not spoken I would certainly have gone forth to-morrow unprepared.”

 

“But what is your preparation? What will you do?” persisted the Frenchman.

 

“What can I do?” replied Sommers. “Have you not just shown me that I am utterly helpless? In such a case there is only one course left—namely, to go to Him who can succour the helpless. I will ask counsel of God. The pride you have referred to I admit, though it is by no means confined to my own countrymen! Too long have I given way to it, and acted independently of my Maker. Perhaps God sent me here to convince me of my sin and helplessness.”

 

“There is no God. I do not believe in a God,” said Laronde calmly.

 

“Why not?” asked Sommers, in surprise.

 

“Because,” replied Laronde bitterly, “if there was a God He could not stand by and see me suffering such prolonged and awful misery.”

 

“If, instead of misery, you had been placed during the last twelve years in supreme felicity, would you have believed in a God?” asked Sommers.

 

Laronde was silent. He saw that the reason which he had given for disbelief was untenable, and he was too straightforward to quibble about it.

 

“I don’t know,” he said at last angrily. “No doubt there are hundreds of men in happy and favourable circumstances who say, as I do, that they don’t believe in a God. I don’t know. All I do know is that I am supremely miserable!”

 

“Now you are reasonable,” returned the merchant, “for you talk of what you do know, and you admit that in regard to God you ‘don’t know,’ but you began by stating that ‘there is no God.’ Ah, my friend, I sympathise with you in your terrible sorrow, even as you have sympathised with me in mine, but don’t let us give way to despair and cast the only Refuge that remains to us behind our backs. I will not ask you to join me in praying to One in whom you say you do not believe, but I will pray for you.”

 

Hugh Sommers got upon his knees and then and there—in the dark and dank prison-house—prayed most earnestly for guidance and spiritual light in the name of Jesus. At first the Frenchman listened with what we may style kindly contempt, and then with surprise, for the Englishman drew to the conclusion of his very brief prayer without any mention of his own name. Just at the close, however, Sommers said, “O God! show to my friend here that he is wrong, and that Thou art Love.”

 

It was with eager and trembling heart next day that Hugh Sommers watched, during the noontide meal, for the coming of his mysterious black friend, and it was with no less anxiety and trembling of heart that Hester approached her father at the same hour.

 

“Now mind how you doos,” said the doubtful Sally, as she glanced keenly at Hester’s face. “Mind, I’ll hab no marcy on you if you gibs way!”

 

Hester made no reply, for she was drawing near to her father, and saw that he was gazing at her with fixed intensity. She raised her heart to God and received strength to pass without a word or look, dropping the biscuits as on the previous day. The man, however, proved less capable of self-restraint than the girl, for he could not resist whispering, “Hester!”

 

The poor girl turned towards him as if by an irresistible impulse, but her black guardian angel was equal to the emergency. Seizing Hester by the shoulder, she pushed her violently forward, storming at her loudly as on the former occasion.

 

“What, you black t’ing! Hab you neber seen slabes before? You no better’n de white folk, wastin’ ob your purcious time. My! won’t you get a whackin’ fro’ missis w’en you gits home!”

 

Recovering herself, Hester at once submitted.

 

At first the poor father was about to start up and run to embrace his child, as well as to rescue her from her rude companion, but, being what is termed a “sharp man of business,” he received into his mind, as it were, a flash of light, and sat still. If this flash had been analysed it would probably have produced the following thoughts—“biscuits! kindness! companion a friend! ignorance impossible! violence unaccountable! a ruse, perhaps! sit still!”

 

Thought, they say, is swifter than light. At all events, it was swift enough on the present occasion to prevent the shadow of a suspicion arising in the minds either of slaves or guards, who seemed to be rather amused at what they fancied was the bad temper of Sally.

 

Next day the biscuit-dropping was repeated without the scene that had followed, and so wisely was this affair managed by all the parties concerned, that it was carried on for several weeks without a hitch. Under the influence of hope and improved fare, Hugh Sommers became so much brighter in spirits and better in health, and so much more tractable, that his guards at length removed his heavy fetters and allowed him to toil with free limbs, like the majority of the slaves. Hester also became almost cheerful under the wonderful influence of hope. But Hester and her father were each overwhelmed, more or less, by a wet blanket at that time, and, strange to say, their wet blankets happened to be their best friends.

 

In the case of Hester, it was Sally. The more hopeful and cheery Hester became, the more did her black friend shake her woolly head and look dismal.

 

“Why, Sally, dear, what’s the matter with you?” asked the former one day, as they sat together in the bower on the roof, after returning from their visit to the slave-gang.

 

A shake of the girl’s head and an unutterable expression in her magnificent black eyes made Hester quite uneasy.

 

“Do tell me, Sally. Is there anything the matter with you?”

 

“De matter wid me? Oh no! Not’ing’s neber de matter wid me—’cept when I eats too much—but it’s you an’ your fadder I’s t’inkin’ ob.”

 

“But we are both getting on very well, Sally, are we not? I am quite safe here, and darling father is growing stronger and fatter every day, thank God! and then our hope is very strong. Why should you be anxious?”

 

Sally prefaced her reply with one of the professional gasps wherewith she was wont to bring down the iron pestle.

 

“Well, now, you white folks am de greatest ijits eber was born. Do you t’ink you’ll deliber your fadder from de Moors by feedin’ him on biscuits an’ hope? What’s de end ob all dis to come to? das what I want to know. Ob course you can’t go on for eber. You sure to be cotched at last, and de whole affair’ll bust up. You’ll be tooked away, an’ your fadder’ll be t’rowed on de hooks or whacked to deaf. Oh! I’s most mis’rable!”

 

The poor creature seemed inclined to howl at this point, but she constrained herself and didn’t.

 

In the gloom of the cheerless Bagnio, Hugh Sommers found his wet blanket in Edouard Laronde.

 

“But it is unwise to look only at the bright side of things,” said the Frenchman, after sympathising with his friend’s joy in having discovered his daughter so unexpectedly and in such a curious manner. “No doubt, from her disguise, she must, as you say, be in hiding, and in comparative safety with friends, else she could not be moving so freely about this accursed city, but what is to be the end of it all?”

 

Laronde unconsciously echoed Sally’s question to Hester, but Hugh Sommers had not as much to say in reply as his daughter, for he was too well acquainted with the possibilities of life to suppose that biscuits and hope would do much towards the “end,” although valuable auxiliaries in the meantime.

 

“I see not the end, Laronde,” he said, after a pause; “but the end is in the hands of God, and I will trust Him.”

 

“So is the middle, and so is the beginning, as well as the end,” returned Laronde cynically; “why, then, are you so perplexed and anxious about these if the end is, as you seem to think, so sure? Why don’t you trust God all through?”

 

“I do trust God all through, my friend, but there is this difference—that with the end I have nothing to do save to wait patiently and trustfully, whereas with the beginning and middle it is my duty to act and energise hopefully.”

 

“But why your anxiety if the whole matter is under safe guidance?” persisted the Frenchman.

 

“Because, while I am absolutely certain that God will do His part wisely and well, I am by no means sure that I shall do my part either well or wisely. You forget, Laronde, that we are free agents as well as sinful and foolish, more or less, so that there is legitimate room for anxiety, which only becomes evil when we give way to it, or when it goes the length of questioning the love, wisdom, and power of the Creator!”

 

“All mystery, all mystery, Sommers; you are only theorising about what you do not, cannot, know anything. You have no ground for what you hold.”

 

“As you confess never to have studied, or even seriously contemplated, the ground on which I hold it, there is—don’t you think?—a slight touch of presumption on your part in criticising so severely what you do not, cannot, understand? I profess to have good reasons for what I hold; you profess merely to disbelieve it. Is there not a vast difference here?”

 

“Perhaps there is, but I’m too sleepy to see it. Would you oblige me by putting your foot on that centipede? He has made three ineffectual attempts to pass the night under my wing. Make sure work of him. Thanks. Now I will try to sleep. Oh! the weary, heart-sickness of hope deferred! Good-night, Sommers.”

 

“Good-night.”