The fun grew fast and furious, the thoughts of the revelers flowing in the usual channels of such feasts. At a certain pitch of this wild frenzy, a desire for music invariably recurs and so at a signal from the captain the slaves who performed the functions of deck-hands, waiters or musicians as the exigencies of the occasion demanded, brought in their musical instruments and the rafters were soon ringing with their simple melodies to the accompaniment of banjos and guitars. The deep rich voices blended harmoniously with the tingle of the stringed instruments and the clicking of the bones. Plantation songs were followed by revival hymns, and these by coarse and licentious ditties. At a second stage of every orgie, desire for the dance is kindled by music, and so, at the command of their master, two of the slaves began to execute a "double shuffle."
The clatter and the beating of negro feet to the accompaniment of the banjo and the bones, and the shouting of the spectators gave vent to the boisterous emotions of the revelers. Even the melancholy mate caught the enthusiasm, and for a time at least forgot his misery. Of them all, the judge alone preserved his gravity. He sat looking unmoved at these wild antics, and murmured to himself:
"If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again! It had a dying fall. O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets Stealing and giving odor."
Nothing could be more horrible than the sight of this gifted man herding with these beasts. It was like a lion devouring carrion with wolves. Aside from the pleasure of the palate, his enjoyment of the scene was derived from the cynical contempt with which he regarded it. Having descended to the lowest depths of human degradation, he had arrived at a point where he drew his keenest relish from the inconsistencies, the absurdities and the sufferings of his fellow-men. In order that he might behold a scene in which all the elements of the horribly grotesque were combined, he determined to provoke the egotism and complacency of the quack to the very highest activity at this moment when his fortunes and his hopes were being undermined.