"ye'll cotch it, now! I'll boun' Mas'r's back's up high! No sneaking out, now! Tell ye, ye'll get it, and no mistake! See how ye'll look, now, helpin' Mas'r's niggers to run away! See what ye'll get!"
The savage words none of them reached that ear!—a higher voice there was saying, "Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do." Nerve and bone of that poor man's body vibrated to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation, seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing car. His soul throbbed,—his home was in sight,—and the hour of release seemed at hand.
"Well, Tom!" said Legree, walking up, and seizing him grimly by the collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth, in a paroxysm of determined rage, "do you know I've made up my mind to kill you?"
"It's very likely, Mas'r," said Tom, calmly.
"I have," said Legree, with grim, terrible calmness, "done—just—that—thing, Tom, unless you'll tell me what you know about these yer gals!"
Tom stood silent.
"D'ye hear?" said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed lion. "Speak!"
"I han't got nothing to tell, Mas'r," said Tom, with a slow, firm, deliberate utterance.
"Do you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don't know?" said Legree.
Tom was silent.
"Speak!" thundered Legree, striking him furiously. "Do you know anything?"
