Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 277 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 277: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose (page 259) from the serialized novel *A Mulatto from the Rebel Plantations*. The text describes a character named Tom arriving by ship at Barbados on Christmas Day, then being surprised by the sudden appearance of his friend Unaka, a Cherokee man working as a slave aboard the vessel. The passage ends with dialogue about a slave ship in the harbor, where characters debate whether to call enslaved people "black cattle" or "slaves."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Muv1LatTTo. FROM THE REBEL PLANTATIONS 259 English man-of-war or two, — to its dizzy eastern shore, a perpendicular wall of eighty feet standing straight up out of the sea, [om said Barbados was “built just like an old settle, with its high back turned to the east.”’ To the eyes that blinked at it from the deck of the brig, the whole panorama was one of stirring beauty. The is- land was a paradise; skyish terraces of tropic verdure, kindled by the flame of a tropic dawn. He had no idea where he was. What did it matter? He did not even know that it was Christmas Day. But the feeble fellow mut- tered, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the fir- mament showeth his handiwork.” “—Emathla!” To the shock of that sudden joy Tom never turned cold while he lived. “My God!” It was Unaka. Though the poor Cherokee, greasy and tousled, carried a ship’s basin, still he moved with the front of a Montezuma. A whisper, and he was gone, stalking away in his tattered moccasins to the cook’s galley. And something blurred the vision of Paradise! Emathla understood. No words were needed. ‘Tom knew that Unaka had deliberately sacrificed himself to this hateful servitude for iis sake. The fidelity of him! The glorious courage of him! “He followed me.’ And Tom exulted in the fidelity of one human heart. The joy of it filled him like wine. How Unaka had done this thing — discovered his friend and shipped with him for tropic seas, all without l’om’s knowledge — the boy did not ask him- self. Having Unaka, he could wait for Unaka’s story. “T’ve been down to the bay. Dick’s come; with his bull-nosed boat, and his Caribs. Says he had rough weather coming down from Guadeloupe. Be up here directly, he says. That? That’s a big merchantman from Liverpool, down the bay. And that’s a little old slaver; just dropped anchor; with her load of “black cattle.’”’ “Don’t say ‘black cattle,’ Lord Harry,” remarked the English governess comfortably. “Say “slaves.’”’ “Dick calls °em ‘black cattle,’ Council.”’ CORNICLOO® SS (C©) im