Chapter 17

"--like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see."

Tempest.

There was one curious though half-confounded observer of all that passed
in and around the Cove, on the morning in question. This personage was no
other than the slave called Bonnie, who was the factotum of his master,
over the demesnes of the Lust in Rust, during the time when the presence
of the Alderman was required in the city; which was, in truth, at least
four-fifths of the year. Responsibility and confidence had produced their
effect on this negro, as on more cultivated minds. He had been used to act
in situations of care; and practice had produced a habit of vigilance and
observation, that was not common in men of his unfortunate condition.
There is no moral truth more certain, than that men, when once accustomed
to this species of domination, as readily submit their minds, as their
bodies, to the control of others. Thus it is, that we see entire nations
maintaining so many erroneous maxims, merely because it has suited the
interests of those who do the thinking, to give forth these fallacies to
their followers. Fortunately, however, for the improvement of the race and
the advancement of truth, it is only necessary to give a man an
opportunity to exercise his natural faculties, in order to make him a
reflecting, and, in some degree, an independent being. Such, though to a
very limited extent, certainly, had been the consequence, in the instance
of the slave just mentioned.

How far Bonnie had been concerned in the proceedings between his master
and the mariners of the brigantine, it is unnecessary to say. Little
passed at the villa, of which he was ignorant; and as curiosity, once
awakened, increases its own desire for indulgence, could he have had his
wish, little would have passed anywhere, near him, without his knowing
something of its nature and import. He had seen, while seemingly employed
with his hoe in the garden of the Alderman, the trio conveyed by Erasmus
across the inlet; had watched the manner in which they followed its margin
to the shade of the oak, and had seen them enter the brigantine, as
related. That this extraordinary visit on board a vessel which was in
common shrouded by so much mystery, had given rise to much and unusual
reflection in the mind of the black, was apparent by the manner in which
he so often paused in his labor, and stood leaning on the handle of his
hoe, like one who mused. He had never known his master so far overstep his
usual caution, as to quit the dwelling, during the occasional visits of
the free-trader; and yet he had now gone as it were into the very jaws of
the lion, accompanied by the commander of a royal cruiser