Jerome sought work, and soon found it; and arranged with his
employer that the latter should go to Natchez in search of
Clotelle. The good Scotchman, for whom the fugitive was laboring,
freely offered to go down and purchase the girl, if she could be
bought, and let Jerome pay him in work. With such a prospect of
future happiness in view, this injured descendant of outraged and
bleeding Africa went daily to his toil with an energy hitherto
unknown to him. But oh, how vain are the hopes of man!
CHAPTER XXVIII
FAREWELL TO AMERICA.
THREE months had elapsed, from the time the fugitive commenced work
for Mr. Streeter, when that gentleman returned from his Southern
research, and informed Jerome that Parson Wilson had sold
Clotelle, and that she had been sent to the New Orleans
slave-market.
This intelligence fell with crushing weight upon the heart of
Jerome, and he now felt that the last chain which bound him to his
native land was severed. He therefore determined to leave America
forever. His nearest and dearest friends had often been flogged in
his very presence, and he had seen his mother sold to the
negro-trader. An only sister had been torn from him by the
soul-driver; he had himself been sold and resold, and been
compelled to submit to the most degrading and humiliating insults;
and now that the woman upon whom his heart doted, and without whom
life was a burden, had been taken away forever, he felt it a duty
to hate all mankind.
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