Jack sometimes wondered whether the two days that followed passed very quickly or very slowly. Food was sent over three times a day to the warehouse by the agent, and twice a day all hands were allowed to walk about for a few minutes in a little yard back of the building. It seemed to him that he slept nearly all the rest of the time, except now and then when he stood on an empty box looking out of one of the windows. The windows overlooked a yard and a shed, beyond the roof of which was a cluster of trees, and beyond that again two tall chimneys. Nearly always there were pigeons on the roof of the shed. Now and then there was the noise of their clapping flight, but the gurgling coo of the strutting males sounded almost continuously through the warm silence.
About eleven o’clock of the third day, they were brought out of the storehouse, formed into line in front of the building, and then marched away in the hot sun down the street about a hundred yards to the custom-house. Jack saw a lounging, scattered crowd of men there gathered in a little group, and he guessed that that was where they were to be sold.
The agent and the auctioneer stood by a horse-block talking together in low tones as the man who had marched Jack and the others down from the warehouse formed them in line against the wall of the building. The agent held a slip of paper in his hand, which he referred to every now and then. At last the auctioneer mounted upon the horse-block.
[Illustration: “‘NOW THEN, GENTLEMEN, HOW MUCH DO YOU BID FOR THIS BOY?’ SAID THE AUCTIONEER.”]
“Gentlemen,” Jack heard him say, “I have now to offer as fine a lot of servants as hath ever been brought to Virginia. There be only twenty, gentlemen, but every one choice and desirable. Which is the first one you have upon your list, Mr. Quillen?” said he, turning to the agent.
The agent referred to a slip of paper he held in his hand. “Sam Dawson,” he called out in a loud voice. “Step out, Sam Dawson!” and in answer to the summons a big, lumbering man, with a heavy brow and dull face, stepped out from the line and stood beside the horse-block.
“This is Sam Dawson, gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, addressing the crowd. “He hath no trade, but he is a first-rate, healthy fellow and well fitted for the tobacco fields. He is to be sold for five years.”