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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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After this, Legree became a harder drinker than ever before. He no longer drank cautiously, prudently, but imprudently and recklessly. There were reports around the country, soon after, that he was sick and dying. Excess had brought on that frightful disease that seems to throw the lurid shad- ows of a coming retribution back into the present life. None could bear the hor- rors of that sick room, when he raved and screamed, and spoke of sights which almost stopped the blood of those who heard him; and, at his dying bed, stood a stern, white, inexorable figure, saying, “Come! come! come!” By a singular coincidence, on the very night that this vision appeared to Le- gree, the house-door was found open in the morning, and some of the negroes had seen two white figures gliding down the avenue towards the high-road. It was near sunrise when Cassy and Emmeline paused, for a moment, in a lit- tle knot of trees near the town. Cassy was dressed after the manner of the Creole Spanish ladies,- wholly in black. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face. It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline that of her servant. Brought up, from early life in connection with the highest society, the lan- guage, movements, and air of Cassy, were all in agreement with this idea; and she had still enough remaining with her, of a once splendid wardrobe, and sets of jew- els, to enable her to personate the thing to advantage. |
