"
Gasps, sobs from the line of black folk, interrupted the speaker. Just
then a shriveled old negress gave a scream, and came running and half
stumbling out of the line, holding out her arms to the barrel-chested
soldier on the gang-plank. She seized him and began shrieking:
"Bless Gawd! my son's done come home! Praise de Lawd! Bless His holy
name!" Here her laudation broke into sobbing and choking and laughing,
and she squeezed herself to her son.
Tump patted her bony black form.
"I's heah, Mammy," he stammered uncertainly. "I's come back, Mammy."
Half a dozen other negroes caught the joyful hysteria. They began a
religious shouting, clapping their hands, flinging up their arms,
shrieking.
One of the drummers grunted:
"Good God! all this over a nigger getting back!"
At the extreme end of the dark line a tall cream-colored girl wept
silently. As Peter Siner stood blinking his eyes, he saw the octoroon's
shoulders and breasts shake from the sobs, which her white blood
repressed to silence.
A certain sympathy for her grief and its suppression kept Peter's eyes
on the young woman, and then, with the queer effect of one picture
melting into another, the strange girl's face assumed familiar curves
and softnesses, and he was looking at Ida May.
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