out—they never so much as suspected me. I had money, plenty of it, and influence too, with one man at least, who would have put his hand in the fire, coward as I think he is, if I had only made him a sign. With his help, I concealed the existence of my boy from every creature on the plantation—black or white. In his house I used to come and nurse you, dear, and play with you by the hour together. That man is my husband now, and I think he deserves a better fate.
"At last he was forced to leave the island, and then came another parting, worse than the first. It was only for myself I grieved when I lost your father, but when I was forced to trust my beautiful boy to the care of another, to cross the sea, to sleep in strange beds, to be washed and dressed by other hands, perhaps to meet with hard words and angry looks, or worse still, to clasp his pretty arms about a nurse's neck, and to forget the mother that bore him, I thought my heart would break. My boy, there is no such thing—I tell you again, these are fables—grief does not kill.
"For a long time I heard regularly of your welfare, and paid liberally for the good news. I was sure the man to whom I had entrusted you looked upon me as his future wife, and though I hated him for the thought, I—who loved that bold, strong, outspoken sailor—I permitted it, I encouraged it, for I believed it would make him kinder to my boy. When you were a little older, I meant to buy my own freedom, and take you with me to live in Europe—wherever you could be safe.
"At last a ship sailed into Port Welcome, and brought no letter for me, no news of my child. Another, and yet another, till months of longing, sickening anxiety had grown to years, and I was nearly mad with fear and pain. The father I had long despaired of, but I thought I was never to be used so hardly as to lose the child.
"I tell you again, my boy, grief does not kill. I lived on, but I was a different creature now. My youth was gone, my beauty became terrible rather than attractive. I possessed certain powers that rendered me an object of dread more than love, and here, in this very hut, I devoted myself to the practice of Obi, and the study of that magic which has
