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e slave was about to ascend the block but Duplessis restrained him with a hand on his shirtsleeve.

"Major Beard." Duplessis spoke low as he was directly below the rostrum. "To save your time and mine, I offer two thousand for this slave. Will you ask if there are any higher bids?"

"Two thousand dollars has been offered for the slave Apollon. Are there any further bids, gentlemen?" Beard waited for a moment although he realized that nobody would be willing to top this figure. He brought his gavel down three times. "Sold to Mista Duplessis."

Duplessis carelessly coimted out the money and passed it up to Beard.

"You can send the bill of sale to my New Orleans house,** he said, then added for Beard's ears only, "and thank you for advising me. The extra fifty dollars is for you." His hand on Apollon's shoulder guided him out of the room through the press of bidders.

Drumson heard a man laugh in front of him, and his words as he addressed his companion.

"What in hell does Duplessis want of a blacksmith?"

His companion's only answer was a slowly closed eyelid and a knowing smile.

Hammond made another entry in his little book and Drum-son thought he looked rather surprised. Drumson knew that two thousand dollars was an imusual price, even for a prime slave.

The sale was resumed. One by one the Falconhurst slaves —men first, then the wenches—came out through the small door, walked the few paces to the block, ascended the two steps and stood there for a brief interval. They were all young, in their late teens and early twenties—^most of them with a record of successful sirings, for although the labor potential of the slaves was fully recognized, Falconhurst stock was primarily for breeding. There was Scorpio, a huge black, slim-hipped and big-chested; Juniper, with a grinning face and a mouth overflowing with white teeth; Regal, whose white blood showed in his long, black, curly hair; Saint, whose lewd eyes looked anything but saintlike; Jeremiah, with thick hps and a small skull; Johnny Little, with bulging arms that strained the cloth of his white shirt; Jupiter, with mincing step and long dark locks and eyelashes; Beau, scowling and unfriendly; Jackanapes, all giggling lips and dancing feet. And so they proceeded, each for his brief

moment of glory, while hands were raised and prices were shouted. Some were taken off to be stripped and examined, and others were extolled and praised.

They were a fine group of males—^prize stock—and most of them were purchased to be the progenitors of more prize stock. Some of them, however, were destined for the cane fields where their strength would be exhausted after a few years and their young blood would move ever more sluggishly in their veins until it ceased to flow. Yes, they were all animals in the eyes of their purchasers; animals who heard, spoke and saw—but also animals who thought, reasoned and knew anguish. Were they human? Of course not, weren't they black? Only whites were human beings. Only j whites possessed their x)wn bodies.

Drumson, standing behind Hammond, shivered. He felt the sweat on his back turn cold as it gathered drop by drop and coursed down the channel of his spine. This went oni every day, not only here under the soaring dome of the St. Louis Hotel but in some twenty other slave markets in the city. In the secluded backwash of Alix' courtyard, Drumson had never fully realized what it meant to be a slave. Now it was beginning to dawn on him and he was frightened. This man in front of him, this superior being, this god, this imjnortal from another world, this white man owned him—owned his very flesh. Again Drimison shivered but a look at Hammond's face calmed him. Since he had to belong to some man he preferred to belong to Hammond Maxwell.

There was a lull in the sale. Beard called for a pitcher! of ice water, poured some in a glass and gulped it down,; making a wry face. One of his white assistants stepped up\ to the rostrum and whispered a few words. The slave dealer listened attentively, nodded his head several times, shoved his papers back and rapped on the rostrum with his gaveL

"Gentlemen, I'm a-going to interrupt the sale of the Fal-i conhurst stock long enough to sell two slaves for Mista Antoine Chauvet of this city. I must explain that these two slaves which are coming up are not from Mr. Hammond Maxwell's consignment. Mista Chauvet is anxious to sell them but insists that as they are twins, they must not be separated. Therefore bids will be considered for the pais only." He sat back in his chair and waited for the door to open. As two male slaves entered and walked to the plat-:

form, standing side by side on the narrow top, Beard continued:

"Alph and Meg—short for Alpha and Omega—twin slaves, age around twenty-five or twenty-six, both sound in wind and limb, housebroken and employed as house servants by their present owner. To be sold as a pair only, so remember, gentlemen, you are bidding on the pair."

It was the first time Hammond Maxwell had seen the twins in nearly ten years. They had been bom at Falcon-hurst and raised in the house, sired by the Maxwell house servant Agamemnon on the cook, Lucretia Borgia. When Hammond had sold them they had been adolescents, engagingly youthful in their first flush of manhood, twin boys who were so similar in appearance it was impossible to tell them apart.

Hammond had sold them unwillingly, before he had been aware of their complicity with his wife, to a wealthy man in New Orleans by the name of Roche, a hunchbacked Frenchman whose tastes were as perverted as his body was twisted. He had offered an unheard-of price for them, so intrigued was he by the fact that he had never had minions in duplicate before. To insure their purchase, he had even bought their mother Lucretia Borgia, who was not only the cook at Falconhurst but Hammond's second mother and the actual overseer of the plantation. Lucretia Borgia, however, a strong-minded, domineering woman, had been unable to stand the scented luxury of Roche's New Orleans home. She had run away and returned to Falconhurst, utterly disgusted with her twin sons, and abandoned them to the senile sensuality and strange embraces of their new owner.

Since his return to Falconhurst, Hammond had desired not only to repurchase the twins but also to pay Roche for the run-away Lucretia Borgia. To this end, he had deputized Beard to find them.

Beard, however, had been diligent in his search and he had discovered that Roche had kept the boys only a couple of years until the novelty of their identical adolescence had worn off. Then he had sold them to a wealthy widow in Baton Rouge. She, in turn, after another couple of years had disposed of them to the elderly couple in New Orleans, the Chauvets, where Beard had located them, and purchased them on Maxwell's orders.

Hammond regarded them closely, scrutinizing them to find some traces of the boys he had been so fond of and had

sold so many years ago. There was little to remind him of the youths who had been born and bred in the old house at Falconhurst, Now they were gross and coarsened, their faces ravaged with drink and lechery, their bodies soft from lack of exercise, their expressions surly. Hammond' guessed that the better-looking one of the two might be Meg for even in the dissipated face he could still see a resemblance to the boy who had been his body servant. He had guessed correctly. Meg still retained enough sensibility to be visibly nervous but Alph accepted his position with stoic impassivity. Meg was aware of what might happen to him should he be sold as a field hand. He was far too accustomed to the easy life of a house servant to be able to endure the rigors of plantation work. His head' turned nervously from side to side, scanning the audience, while Alph gazed straight ahead.

Drumson saw how Hanmiond lowered his head so that his hat brim hid his face.

Bidding was slow and desultory. Many resented the interposition of these two outsiders. They had come to buy Falconhurst slaves and figured that old Chauvet was taking! advantage of the popularity of the sale to get a better price for his slaves. Hammond did not bid and when the price; had finally climbed by bids of twenty-five and fifty dollars to the sum of $850 for the pair, one of the interested bidders interrupted the sale.

"Seein 'as how these ain't Falconhurst slaves, how 'bout havin' 'em shuck off their shirts. Want to see if they's scarred up by whoppin's."

Beard leaned over the rostrum.

"Off with your shirts, boys."

Meg and Alpha responded slowly. Their shirts dropped to the floor and they turned around. Although Meg's back was unscarred, Alph's showed the criss-crossed welts of former whippings. The bidder who had asked to see them sat back in his chair. He shook his head in denial of any furthes interest.

"Might consider the one on the right," he said to his neighbor, "but the other's a bad 'un and if'n I have to buy 'em both together, I don' want that whopped one. He'S wild, he is."

Once again the bidding started but it was now slow^ than before. It stopped at an even $1500 for the pair andi all of Beard's pleadings and exhortations could not raise U

X

a penny more. Without looking at Hammond, he lifted the gavel.

"Goin'," he brought it down once; "goin'," he brought it down a second time, and raised it for the third.

"Sixteen hundred for the pair." Hammond spoke for the first time.

Both Meg and Alph looked in the direction from which the voice came. It was Meg who recognized Hammond.

"Masta Hammond suh, Masta Hammond." He slumped to his knees and spread his hands in supplication. "Buy us, Masta Hammond, suh, and take us back wid you."

"Thought you said these wasn't Falconhurst slaves," the man who had been bidding on them called -out.

"Didn't say they weren't," Beard answered him. "Said they was bein' sold by Chauvet and they is. Didn't know he'd bought them from the Maxwells. Did he, Mr. Maxwell?"

"No," Hammond answered. "Sold them a long time ago when they's about fifteen or so. Had some trouble with 'em and thought I'd better get rid of them. One on the left stole likker and couldn't break him of it. Break him of it now if n I buys him back. Good blood in 'em and might still use 'em."

With the knowledge that these were Falconhurst slaves bidding started again a little more briskly. Hammond bid in at $1900 and was topped by a bid of $1950 which he again raised to $2000. For a moment there was no further bidding and Beard took advantage of the lull by knocking them down to Hammond. They were taken down oflf the platform. Meg was all smiles and even the sullen Alph seemed to find some consolation in the fact that they were once again Maxwell slaves.

"We a-goin' with you now, Masta Hanamond, suh?" Meg called out.

"Have your men keep that boy quiet, Mr. Beard."

"Yes, suh, Mr. Maxwell. Do you want to take possession of them now?" Beard called down from the rostrum.

"No, Mr. Beard. Yo' 'tain them in your jail until time fer me to leave. Be obliged if you'd keep them in spancels till I calls fer 'em, and keep them away from your other slaves."

"Take us now, Masta Hanmiond, take us now," Meg was sobbing as he was pushed out the door. His sobs were cut short by a blow from a small whip in the hands of one

of Beard's assistants across his naked back. The door closed i behind him.

With the resumption of the Falconhurst sale the audience came to attention again, and Hammond and Drurason remained until the last slave was sold. Then, telling Drumson to follow him, he went back upstairs to his room, had Drum-son help him off with his boots and clothes and close the shutters. Soothed and fortified by a couple of tumblers of corn, he fell back on the bed and slept.

Drumson, with nothing else to do, repaired to his own airless cubbyhole but he did not sleep. Instead he lived vicariously the lives of the slaves he had seen sold that afternoon. With them, he stood on the block; through their ears he listened to the bidding on his own body; with their eyes he envisaged their first meeting with their new masters. He thought of their transportation to some distant plantation, and their induction into the new life there, rising in the chilly dawn in some hovel of a cabin, and working in the fields all day.

Although he himself had felt neither loneliness nor homesickness for his former home, he now experienced all the pangs he imagined those bartered minds must now be suffering. But, in the end, he realized their sufferings had not touched him. He was securely safe here in the St. Louis Hotel with his master snoring only a few feet away. He forgot the sufferings of the others and fell asleep. Yet even in his dreams, he was sold over and over again, mounting the block time after time until he was awakened by Hammond's call.

chapter ¥

Hammond sat on the very edge of the delicate Louis Seize chair in Alix' apartment. He felt awkward and did not know what to do with his hands or feet, which suddenly seemed too large. Alix, in bed, had seemed far less formidable than this elaborately dressed, emphatic woman with her worldly-wise eyes who now sat before him, half reclining on a chaise longue, propped up with a multitude of lacy pillows. Her skillful maquillage hid many of the marks of senility which had shown when she was lying in bed. Now the glittering jewels, the aigrettes sprouting from her hair, the stifif damask gown and the heavUy ringed fingers, coupled with the air of authority with which she addressed him, caused him to feel like a little boy apprehended in some secret, forbidden pleasure and called to account on the carpet.

"Mr. Maxwell,"—even her smile did not make him feel at ease—"Frankly, the request you made of me yesterday afternoon has been one of the most difficult I have ever tried to fulfill."

"Yes, Miz Alecks!" Hammond nodded in agreement, not knowing what else to say.

"You came to me for a woman—a white woman—"

"Yes, ma'am." Hammond dimly remembered a scolding he had once received from his mother. Alix' tone reminded him of it.

"But why, Mr. Maxwell, why?"

Hammond swallowed hard. This worldly woman did not invite confidence and yet he felt he must confide in her.

'Because, ma'am, I didn't know where else to go."

'Then why didn't you go out and find one for yourself? Tou are a man—young, good-looking, wealthy. Certainly it irould not be difficult for you to find another wife. You larried once, why not again?"