The piano came up the middle of the street borne on the heads of six singing negroes.  For a hundred yards they would carry it at a shuffling trot, their bare feet keeping time to their music, then they would set it down and, clapping their hands and still singing, do a shuffle dance about it.  This was the shanty of piano-movers.  No other slave dared sing it.  It was the badge of a guild.

“D’you hear that?” asked Leighton, nodding his head.  “That’s a shanty.  They’re singing to keep step.”

In shady nooks and corners and in the cool, wide doorways sat still other slaves:  porters waiting for a stray job; grayheads, too old for burdens, plaiting baskets; or a fat mammy behind her pot of couscous.

Three porters sat on little benches on the top step of a church porch.  Leighton approached one of them.

“Brother,” he said, “give me your stool.”

The slave rose, and straightened to a great height.  He held up his hands for a blessing.  He grinned when Leighton sat down on his bench.  Then he looked keenly at Lewis’s face, and promptly dragged the black at his side to his feet.

“Give thy bench to the young master, thou toad.”

Leighton nodded his head.

“No fool, the old boy, eh?  The son’s the spit of the father.”  His eyes swept the swarming street.  “What men!  What men!” He was looking at the blacks.  “Boy, did you ever hear of a general uprising among the slaves at home, in the States?”

“No,” said Lewis; “there never was one.”

“Exactly,” said Leighton.  “There never was one because in the early days our planters found out what not to buy in the way of black meat.  They weren’t looking for the indomitable spirit.  They weren’t looking for men, but for slaves, and the black-birders soon learned that if they didn’t want to carry their cargo farther than New Orleans they had to load up with members of the gentlest tribes.  Now, there have been terrible uprisings of blacks in the West Indies, in Demerara and here.  Ask this old chap of what race he is.”

Lewis turned and asked the question.  The tall black straightened, his face grew stern, his eyes moist.

“Tito, my name.  I am of the tribe of Minas.  In the time of thy grandfather I was traded as ransom for a king.”

“Hm—­m, I can believe it,” said Leighton.  “Now ask the next one, the copper-colored giant.”

“And thou?” said Lewis.

“I?  I am a Fulah of the Fulahs.  Before blacks were, or whites, we were thus, the color of both.”

“You see?” said Leighton.  “Pride.  He was afraid you’d take him for a mulatto.  Now the other fellow, there.”

“And thou?” said Lewis.

The third black had remained seated.  He turned his eyes slowly to Lewis.

“I am no slave,” he began.  “I am of the tribe of Houssa.  To my master’s wealth.  I added fifteen of my sons.  In the great rebellion they fell, one and all.”