Everything now was arranged for action, and the peddler very
deliberately went over the whole of his injunctions to the two actors in
the scene. The captain he conjured to dispense with his erect military
carriage, and for a season to adopt the humble paces of his father's
negro; and Caesar he enjoined to silence and disguise, so long as he
could possibly maintain them. Thus prepared, he opened the door, and
called aloud to the sentinel, who had retired to the farthest end of the
passage, in order to avoid receiving any of that spiritual comfort,
which he felt was the sole property of another.
"Let the woman of the house be called," said Harvey, in the solemn key
of his assumed character; "and let her come alone. The prisoner is in a
happy train of meditation, and must not be led from his devotions."
Caesar sank his face between his hands; and when the soldier looked into
the apartment, he thought he saw his charge in deep abstraction. Casting
a glance of huge contempt at the divine, he called aloud for the good
woman of the house. She hastened at the summons, with earnest zeal,
entertaining a secret hope that she was to be admitted to the gossip of
a death-bed repentance.
"Sister," said the minister, in the authoritative tones of a master,
"have you in the house `The Christian Criminal's last Moments, or
Thoughts on Eternity, for them who die a violent Death'?"
"I never heard of the book!" said the matron in astonishment.
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