"Free among the dead," he said; then turned to Flor, who, having long since seen daylight through the darkness of her fears, proceeded glibly and volubly to pour out her troubles, on his beckoning her away, and to demand the help she had refused to render. "There's the boat," said Sarp, reflectively. "And the rain will float it 'most anywheres to-night. But--come so far and troo so much to go back?" Flor flung up her face and held her head back proudly. "Yes, Sah! Doan' s'pose I'd be stealin' Mas'r Henry's niggers?" For, having meditated upon it an hour ago, she was able to repel the charge vigorously. "Go'n' to stay a slave all your life?" "All Miss Emma's life." "And--afterwards"---- "Den I'll go back to de good brown earth wid her," said Flor, solving the problem promptly.--"I doan' see de boat." "Ah, she'll make as brown dust as you,--Miss Emma,--that's so! But the spirit, Lome!" "Sperit?" said Flor, looking uneasily over her shoulder with her twinkling eyes. "The part of you that doan' die, Lome." "I haan' nof'n ter do wid dat; dat 'longs to dem as made it; none o' my lookout; dono nof'n 'bout it, an' doan' want ter hear nof'n about it!" said Flor; for, reasoning on the old adage of a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush, she thought it more important just at present to save her body than to save her soul, admitting that she had one, and felt haste to be of more behoof than metaphysics. There was a moon up now, and Flor could see her companion's dark face above her, a mere mass of shade; it did not reassure her any to remember that her own was just as black. "Lome," said Sarp, setting his back against a tree like one determined to have attention, "never mind about the boat yet. You 've heard Aunt Zoe say how't the grace of the Lord was free?" "Yes, I's heerd her kerwhoopin'. I 's in a hurry, Sarp!" "But 's how't the man that refuses to accept it, when it's set before him, is done reckoned a sinner?" "S'pose I has?"--and in her impatience she began to dance outright. "It's jus' so with the present hour," he continued, not giving her time to interpose about escape again. "You have liberty offered you. If you refuses, how can you answer for it when your spirit 'pears afore the Judge? You choose him, and you choose righteousness, you chooses the chance to make yourself white in the Lord's eyes,--your spirit, Lome. Refuse, and you take sin and chains and darkness; you gets to deserve the place where they hab their share of fire and brimstone." "Take mine wid 'lasses," said Flor, who, though inwardly a trifle cowed, never meant to show it. "W'a' 's de use o' boderin' 'bout all dat ar, w'en dar 's Miss Emma a-cotchin' her deff, an' I 's jus' starved? Ef you 's go'n' to help us, Sarp"----