There was one cut on the first page, serving as a frontispiece; it represented a negro kneeling in chains, and raising his fettered hands in beseeching to a white man, who was lashing him with a whip. Beneath it was a legend, which being, or being deemed, explanatory of the picture, and at the same time the initial sentence of the book, Parson Jim was essaying to read: and thus it was he proceeded:-- "T-h-e, _the_--dat's _de_; f-a-t-e, _fat_--_de_ _fat_; o-f, _ob--de fat ob_; t-h-e, _de--de fat ob de_; s-l-a-v-e, _slave_--_de fat ob de slave_. My gorry, what's dat? Brederen, I can't say as how I misprehends dat." "Yah, yah, yah!" roared Governor; "plain as de nose on you face. _De fat ob de slave_--what he mean, heh? Why, gorry, you dumb nigga, he mean--massa, dah, is whippin de fat out ob de nigger! Dem hard massa dat-ah, heh? Whip de fat out! "Lorra-gorry, massa, don't like you whippy: Don't sell Gubbe'nor down a Mississippi!" "Let me read it," said I. "_You_ read, you nigga! whar you larn to read?" cried my friends. It was a question I could not well answer; for, as I said before, the memory of my past existence had quite faded from my mind: nevertheless, I had a feeling in me as if I _could_ read; and taking the book from the parson, I succeeded in deciphering the legend--"THE FATE OF THE SLAVE." "Whaw dat?" said Governor; "de chain and de cowhide? Does de book say _dat's_ de luck for nigga? Don't b'leeb 'm; dem lie: Massa Cunnel nebber lick a nigga in 'm life!" The reading of that little sentence seemed, I know not why, to have cast a sudden damper on the spirits of all present. Until that moment, there had been much shouting, laughing, and mimicking of the pains of men undergoing flagellation. Every picture had been examined, commented on, and illustrated with glee; it associated only the idea of some idle vagabond or other winning his deserts. A new face, a new interpretation was given to the matter by the words I had read. The chain and scourge appeared no longer as the punishment of an individual; they were to be regarded as the doom of the race. The laughing and mimicry ceased, and I beheld around me nothing but blank faces. It was manifest, however, that the feeling was rather indignation than anxiety; and that my friends looked upon the ominous words as a libel upon their masters and themselves. "What for book say dat?" cried Governor, who, from being the merriest, had now become the angriest of all; "who ebber hear of chain a nigga, escept nigga runaway, or nigga gwyin' down gin' will to Mississippi? Who ebber hear of lash a nigga, escept nigga sassbox, nigga thief, nigga drunk, nigga break hoss' leg?" "Brudders," said Parson Jim, "this here is a thing what is 'portant to hear on; for, blessed be Gorra-matty, there is white men what writes books what is friends of the Vaginnee niggur."