I felt this by the rapt expression of his countenance, and also by that
free-masonry of the spirit that binds the souls of the true lovers of
Humanity, whether they be black or white on the outside.
Col. Seybert turned and follered my look, and he see Victor, and he
spoke out angrily:
“Why do you follow me, you dog you, tight to my heels? Can’t I ever
escape your watchfulness?”
(He had been on one of his sprees, so I hearn, and Victor had kep’ watch
on him, and his nerves wuz onstrung yet, and he felt hateful.)
“Mrs. Seybert sent me over for you.”
“Why don’t you say your mistress, you fool?”
Victor wuz perfectly respectful, but he did not change his words.
“General Lord and his son have come, and she wanted you told at once.”
“Well, follow me immediately; don’t dawdle now.”
“Yes, sir,” said Victor. And he turned at once to follow his brother
(for I would keep on a callin’ him so in my mind).
But I glanced down and see Col. Seybert a talkin’ with Maggie down on
the lawn (she and Thomas J. had been called down-stairs, and had been
gone for some time entirely onbeknown to me, I had been so riz up and by
the side of myself).
And I sez to Victor:
“You believe what I said?”
“Yes, God knows I do! It is true, and will be fulfilled in His own good
time; but not in this land,” sez he.
Genieve had come in with Boy, and she and Victor gin each other a silent
greetin’ of the eyes—a heart greetin’, dear and sweet as earthly
language cannot be.
And in her big, eloquent eyes I see too her belief in what I had said—I
see that and more too. Them sweet eyes looked grand and prophetic. Sez
she:
“The time is hastening. I have seen the glow of that to-morrow; its
light is waking the sleepers.
“Africa has been asleep for ages. She has crouched down in her pain, her
long stupor. But she is waking up. The dead form is beginning to move—to
rise up. She will stand upon her feet among the nations of the earth.
And when this warm-hearted, musical, beauty-loving people come to their
own, who may paint their future?
“They will be leaders among the nations. Poesy, art, song, oratory will
find in them their highest exponents. And after bending and cowering
beneath its burdens for centuries, Africa will rise and tower up above
the other nations of the earth.”
Oh, how Genieve’s eyes shone and glowed with inner light as she said
these words, as if she wuz describin’ sunthin’ she see fur off.
And I declare it gin me such a feelin’, sunthin’ like a cold chill, only
more riz up like, that I didn’t know but she _did_ see it.
And I don’t know _now_ but she did, and then agin I don’t know _as_ she
did. But anon the illumination sort o’ faded out of her eyes agin.
The old patient, brave look come over Victor’s face, and he followed
Col. Seybert home; and lo and behold! by the time Maggie come in to ask
about Boy the rapt prophetess Genieve had changed agin into the
faithful, quiet, patient nurse Genny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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