A little child somewhere continuing to cry, Phoebus took it in his
arms and held between it and the starlight, at the half-open door, one
of the shillings he had obtained from the old cabin on Broad Creek a few
hours before. The child, seeing something shine, seized it and held
fast, and Phoebus next passed his hand over the face of a sleeping
man, who was snoring calmly and strenuously on the floor beside him. He
made room for the faint light to shine upon the sleeper's black face,
and exclaimed, in a moment:
"If it ain't Samson Hat I hope I may be swallered by a whale!"
Calling his name, "Samson! Samson!" Phoebus observed a most dejected
mulatto person, who had been lying back in the shadows, crawl forward,
rattling his manacles. This man, when spoken to, replied with such
refinement and accuracy, however his face betokened great inward misery,
that the sailor took as careful a survey of him as the moonlight
permitted, coming in by that one lean attic window. He was a man who had
shaved himself only recently, and his dark, curling side-whiskers and
clean lips, and the tuft of goatee in the hollow of his chin, and
intelligent, high forehead, seemed altogether out of place in this
darksome eyrie of the sad and friendless.
"Is he your friend, sir?" asked this man, turning towards Samson. "He
must have a good conscience if he is, for he slept soon after he was
brought here, and has never uttered a single complaint.
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