whose fault was that? He was half-frozen: the physical pain sharpened
the keen doubt conquering his thought. He sat down in the crusted snow,
looking vacantly about him, a man, at last,--but wakening, like a
new-born soul, into a world of unutterable solitude. Wakened dully,
slowly; sitting there far into the night, pondering stupidly on his old
life; crushing down and out the old parasite affection for his master,
the old fears, the old weight threatening to press out his thin life;
the muddy blood heating, firing with the same heroic dream that bade
Tell and Garibaldi lift up their hands to God, and cry aloud that they
were men and free: the same,--God-given, burning in the imbruted veins
of a Guinea slave. To what end? May God be merciful to America while
she answers the question! He sat, rubbing his cracked, bleeding feet,
glancing stealthily at the southern hills. Beyond them lay all that was
past; in an hour he would follow Lamar back to--what? He lifted his
hands up to the sky, in his silly way sobbing hot tears. "Gor-a'mighty,
Mars' Lord, I'se tired," was all the prayer he made. The pale purple
mist was gone from the North; the ridge behind which love, freedom
waited, struck black across the sky, a wall of iron. He looked at it
drearily. Utterly alone: he had always been alone. He got up at last,
with a sigh.

"It's a big world,"--with a bitter chuckle,--"but der's no room in it
fur poor Ben."

He dragged himself through the snow to a light in a tent where a
voice in a wild drone, like that he had heard at negro camp-meetings,
attracted him. He did not go in: stood at the tent-door, listening. Two
or three of the guard stood around, leaning on their muskets; in the
vivid fire-light rose the gaunt figure of the Illinois boatman, swaying
to and fro as he preached. For the men were honest, God-fearing souls,