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?"