Two other negroes instantly appeared from behind him, and as all three were armed, the odds against me, in case of strife, were somewhat serious. I had trusted, however, to my own conception of the man's character, for, although every sort of abuse had been piled upon him by all ranks and classes in the county town, and though certainly his deeds, during the last days, had been of the most remorseless and brutal nature, yet I had come to a conclusion which nothing could shake, that superstitious fanaticism was at the bottom of all his actions--good and evil. Nor had I any cause to change my opinion from his conduct towards me. He pledged himself by the Being whom he madly believed to be his prompter and guide in all his wickedness; and I rightly believed he would keep his word. He himself and both his companions looked gaunt, exhausted, and famished; and I am convinced that had I refused them the boon of food and shelter which they required in their desperate condition, they would not only have taken it, but the lives of all within the hut. "There, in that basket, is the only food I have to give you," I said. "Take it and share it amongst you. We have not been well supplied ourselves; but you want it more than we do." One of the men was starting forward to seize the basket; but Nat Turner put him sternly back, saying,-- "I have promised that you should not go a step forward from that side of the cabin. By your permission, sir, I will take the food, for we do want it indeed." "Leave us some, leave us some," cried a voice behind me; and, turning round, I beheld old Jenny, who, though she had slept through the thunder, had woke up, it would seem, at the sound of human voices. "I was well nigh starved to death to-day by that old Thornton, and I don't want to die o' hunger to-morrow, nor see you nor Missie Bessy either, Mas'r Conway." A grim sort of smile came over Nat Turner's dark countenance as he threw the pine-knots out of the basket on the floor, and helped his companions with his own hands to the coarse bread and raw salt fish which lay beneath. He took a small portion himself also, but less than he gave them; and, looking first at me, and then at Bessy, he said,-- "You have found, I fancy, that white men can be as hard and cruel as negroes--but without the same cause." As he spoke, he rolled his eyes in his head with a fierce, almost insane look; and then added abruptly,-- "This cabin was built by an old negro as a place of refuge from the brutality of one of your white men. We break forth for a moment when we can bear no longer, destroy, kill, murder, if you like; but has any one of us inflicted as much misery, done as much harm, as that man in the course of his long life? If we had done rightly, he would have been the first sacrifice to the God of vengeance. We should have chosen our victims equitably; and perhaps it is for this that the Almighty favour is withdrawn from us; but the time may come when it will be restored."