The auctioneer was engaged at the moment in the sale of, plantation hands, and mechanics. There stood on the block a blacksmith, a first-rate hand, — as the auctioneer described him, — who had paid his master, as rent for himself, twenty dollars a month, clear of all expenses, for the last five years; and upon whom the bid had already risen to fifteen hundred dollars. A report, indeed, circulated in the room, that he had already paid that sum, out of his extra earnings, to purchase his liberty; which amount his master, a Bostonian, settled in New Orleans, had coolly pocketed, and had then sent the man to be sold at auction. The circulation of this story checked the bidding, since this breach of faith, it was thought, might provoke the man to run away. The auctioneer steadily denied the truth of it; but being called upon to ask the man himself, he refused to do so, observing, with a laugh, that the evidence of a slave would not be received against his master.
My attention was presently attracted to a group of female slaves, apparently of a superior class, and most of them very light colored. One woman, in particular, soon fixed and absorbed all my attention. Those eyes! That mouth! Her figure was more plump, and fuller; the face was older than I remembered it; but her raven hair, and pearl-like teeth perfectly preserved, still gave her a youthful aspect. Her height was the same, and there was the same grace in every gesture and movement. I watched her with the intensest interest. Was it possible that I could be mistaken? No; 'twas she, — 'twas Cassy, — 'twas the long lost wife I sought; found at last; but where?
Press, reader, to thy heart the wife of thy bosom, and thank God that you were both born free! After twenty years' separation, I had again found mine, — ripe in womanly beauty, — exposed for sale in a slave auction room! Yet even there, reduced to that depth of degradation and misery, she was still calm and self-collected; evidently, by her manner, imposing a certain
