Among these was
my silent watch with its chain of gold, its pencil and seal attached. I
wore it usually (though useless now in its silent condition--the
mainspring was broken) from habit and for safe keeping, but had laid it
there when I staggered to my bed, ill and weak after my terrible
interview with Mr. Bainrothe.
It caught the eye of Dinah and stirred her master-passion, avarice, and
she began to question me, I soon saw, with a view of getting it in her
own possession. The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the
raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my
conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking
advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.
She was fully capable, I felt convinced, of accepting my watch as a
bribe, and failing afterward to come up to her bargain. Yet, dear as it
was to me from association of ideas, I should not have weighed it an
instant against the merest probability of escape. I knew if I could gain
an hour upon my pursuers, I should be safe in the house of Dr.
Pemberton, or even in that of Dr. Craig, another friend of my father's.
I was comparatively at home anywhere in the city of my nativity,
acquainted as I was with its streets and people, and I fully determined,
when I found Sabra's avarice excited, to offer her as a reward this
golden treasure, should she first place me in circumstances to gain my
freedom.
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