In the second century he said,--"Whosoever will liberate me, I will
open to him the treasures of the earth"; but no one liberated him. And
four centuries more passed, and he said,--"Whosoever shall liberate me,
I will fulfil for him three wishes"; but still no one liberated him.
Then despair at his long bondage took possession of his soul, and, in
the eighth century, he swore,--"Whosoever shall liberate me, him will
I surely slay!" Let the Southern statesmen look to it well that the
breaking of the seal which confines our Afrite be not deferred till long
bondage has turned his heart, like the heart of the Spirit in the fable,
into gall and wormwood; lest, if the breaking of that seal be deferred
to the eighth or even the sixth century, it result to our descendants
like the breaking of the sixth seal of Revelation,--"And, lo! there was
a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and
the moon became as blood, and the heaven departed as a scroll, when it
is rolled together; and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and
the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every free
man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and
said to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us, for the great
day of wrath is come'" On that day, at least, will end the reign of King
Cotton.
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