"What, _you_ want a cheap nigger to get your hand in, do you, you blank-
blanked abolitionist?" cried a man who stood near. He was a big, dirty-
looking bully, at least half drunk, and attending (not unnecessarily) to
his toilet with the point of a long, heavy knife.
Before the words were out of his mouth Moore had leaped from his horse
and delivered such a right-handed blow as that wherewith the wandering
beggar-man smote Irus of old in the courtyard of Odysseus, Laertes' son.
"On his neck, beneath the ear, he smote him, and crushed in the bones;
and the red blood gushed up through his mouth, and he gnashed his teeth
together as he kicked the ground." Moore stooped, picked up the bowie-
knife, and sent it glittering high through the air.
"Take him away," he said, and two rough fellows, laughing, carried the
bully to the edge of the fountain that played in the corner of the
square. He was still lying crumpled up there when we rode out of
Clayville.
The bidding, of course, had stopped, owing to the unaffected interest
which the public took in this more dramatic interlude. The broker, it is
true, had bid twenty-five dollars, and was wrangling with the auctioneer.
"You have my bid, Mr. Brinton, sir, and there is no other offer. Knock
down the lot to me."
"You wait your time, Mr. Isaacs," said the auctioneer. "No man can do
two things at once and do them well. When Squire Moore has settled with
Dick Bligh he will desert the paths of military adventure for the calmer
and more lucrative track of commercial enterprise."
The auctioneer's command of long words was considerable, and was
obviously of use to him in his daily avocations.
When he had rounded his period, Moore was in the saddle again, and nodded
silently to the auctioneer.
"Squire Moore bids thirty dollars. Thirty dollars for this once despised
but now appreciated fellow-creature," rattled on the auctioneer.
The agent nodded again.
"Forty dollars bid," said the auctioneer.
"Fifty," cried Moore.
The broker nodded.
"Sixty."
The agent nodded again.
The bidding ran rapidly up to three hundred and fifty dollars.
The crowd were growing excited, and had been joined by every child in the
town, by every draggled and sunburnt woman, and the drinking-bar had
disgorged every loafer who felt sober enough to stay the distance to the
centre of the square.
My own first feelings of curiosity had subsided. I knew how strong and
burning was Moore's hatred of oppression, and felt convinced that he
merely wished at any sacrifice of money to secure for this old negro some
peaceful days and a quiet deathbed.
The crowd doubtless took the same obvious view of the case as I did, and
was now eagerly urging on the two competitors.
"Never say die, Isaacs."
"Stick to it, Squire; the nigger's well worth the dollars."
So they howled, and now the biddings were mounting towards one thousand
dollars, when the sulky planter rode up to the neighbourhood of the
table--much to the inconvenience of the "gallery"--and whispered to his
agent. The conference lasted some minutes, and at the end of it the
agent capped Moore's last offer, one thousand dollars, with a bid of one
thousand two hundred.
"Fifteen hundred," said Moore, amidst applause.
"Look here, Mr. Knock-'em-down," cried Mr. Isaacs: "it's hot and thirsty
work sitting, nodding here; I likes my ease on a warm day; so just you
reckon that I see the Squire, and go a hundred dollars more as long as I
hold up my pencil."
He stuck a long gnawed pencil erect between his finger and thumb, and
stared impertinently at Moore. The Squire nodded, and the bidding went
on in this silent fashion till the bids had actually run up to three
thousand four hundred dollars. All this while the poor negro, whose
limbs no longer supported him, crouched in a heap on the table, turning
his haggard eye alternately on Moore and on the erect and motionless
pencil of the broker. The crowd had become silent with excitement.
Unable to stand the heat and agitation, Moore's unfriendly brother had
crossed the square in search of a "short drink." Moore nodded once more.
"Three thousand six hundred dollars bid," cried the auctioneer, and
looked at Isaacs.
With a wild howl Isaacs dashed his pencil in the air, tossed up his
hands, and thrust them deep down between his coat collar and his body,
uttering all the while yells of pain.
"Don't you bid, Mr. Isaacs?" asked the auctioneer, without receiving any
answer except Semitic appeals to holy Abraham, blended with Aryan
profanity.
"Come," said Moore very severely, "his pencil is down, and he has
withdrawn his bid. There is no other bidder; knock the lot down to me."
"No more offers?" said the auctioneer slowly, looking all round the
square.
There were certainly no offers from Mr. Isaacs, who now was bounding like
the gad-stung Io to the furthest end of the place.
"This fine buck-negro, warranted absolutely unsound of wind and limb,
going, going, a shameful sacrifice, for a poor three thousand six hundred
dollars. Going, going--gone!"
The hammer fell with a sharp, decisive sound.
A fearful volley of oaths rattled after the noise, like thunder rolling
away in the distance.
Moore's brother had returned from achieving a "short drink" just in time
to see his coveted lot knocked down to his rival.
We left the spot, with the negro in the care of Peter, as quickly as
might be.
"I wonder," said Moore, as we reached the inn and ordered a trap to carry
our valuable bargain home in--"I wonder what on earth made Isaacs run off
like a maniac."
"Massa," whispered Peter, "yesterday I jes' caught yer Brer Hornet
a-loafin' around in the wood. 'Come wi' me,' says I, 'and bottled him in
this yer pasteboard box,'" showing one which had held Turkish tobacco.
"When I saw that Hebrew Jew wouldn't stir his pencil, I jes' crept up
softly and dropped Brer Hornet down his neck. Then he jes' rose and
went. Spec's he and Brer Hornet had business of their own."
"Peter," said Moore, "you are a good boy, but you will come to a bad
end."