I was black, to begin with. Now, I will not speak to the issue of whether the negro should by rights be slave or free; that is a discussion for another time and another place, and one that, the Compromise of 1850 notwithstanding, seems to be as likely to be decided by shot and shell as by the quills and quillets of fussy barristers. Suffice to say, the Legrands have not, nor have we ever had, the faintest tincture of colored blood flowing in our veins.

Yet I was black, black as soot, black as coal, black as ebony, black as India ink, black as midnight in a sky without stars or moon, black as Satan’s soul. And, when I first came to myself in this dream, I found I was high amongst the branches of a great tulip tree. Glancing down for even the briefest instant engendered terror which nearly sufficed to loose my grip upon the trunk and send me hurtling to my doom, as Lucifer hurtled from the heavens long, long ago.

Quickly gathering myself, I managed to hang on, and to climb. The branch upon which I was at length compelled to crawl shuddered under my weight, not least on account of its rotten state. Whoever would send any man, even a worthless negro, on such a mission deserves, in my view, nothing less than horsewhipping. Yet I had no choice; I must go forward, or face a fate even worse than the likelihood of plunging, screaming death.

Crawling on, I came upon a human skull spiked to the said branch (a skull with, as I noted enviously, teeth of an extraordinary whiteness and soundness; whatever had pained this mortal morsel, the dreaded toothache had kept apart from his door). I dropped through one of the skull’s gaping eye sockets a scarabaeus beetle of remarkable heft; it glinted of gold as it fell.