Just as likely it was witchery. Who knew what knacks these fresh-from-Africa Blacks might have? She knows I'm here a-watching, and she's tempting me. These Blacks are truly the devil's own children, to excite such evil thoughts in me.
He tore his gaze from the new girl and turned away, hiding his burning eyes in the words of the book. Only somehow the page had turned - when did he turn it? - and he found himself reading in the Song of Solomon.
Thy two breasts are like two young roes
That are twins, winch feed among the lilies
"God help me," he whispered. "Take this spell from me."
Day after day he whispered the same prayer, yet day after day he found himself watching his slave-women with desire, particularly that newbought girl. Why was it God seemed to be paying him no mind? Hadn't he always been a righteous man? Wasn't he good to his wife? Wasn't he honest in business? Didn't he pay tithes and offerings? Didn't he treat his slaves and horses well? Why didn't the Lord God of Heaven protect him and take this Black spell from him?
Yet even when he prayed, his very confessions became evil imaginings. O Lord, forgive me for thinking of my newbought girl standing in the door of my bedroom, weeping at the caning she got from the overseer. Forgive me for imagining myself laying her on my own bed and lifting her skirts to anoint them with a balm so powerful the welts on her thighs and buttocks disappear before my eyes and she begins to giggle softly and writhe slowly on the sheets and look over her shoulder at me, smiling, and then she turns over and reaches out to me and - O Lord, forgive me, save me!
Whenever this happened, though, he couldn't help but wonder - why do such thoughts come to me even when I pray? Maybe I'm as righteous as Abraham; maybe it's the Lord who sent these desires to me. Didn't I first think of this while I was reading scripture? The Lord can work miracles - what if I went in unto the newbought girl and she conceived, and the Lord worked a miracle and the baby was born White? All things are possible to God.
This thought was both wonderful and terrible. If only it were true! Yet Abraham heard the voice of God, so he never had to wonder about what God might want of him. God never said a word to Cavil Planter.
And why not? Why didn't God just tell him right out? Take the girl, she's yours! Or, Touch her not, she is forbidden! Just let me hear your voice, Lord, so I'll know what to do!
O Lord my rock; Unto thee will I cry, Be not silent to me: Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them, That go down into the pit.
On a certain day in 1810 that prayer was answered.
Cavil was kneeling in the curing shed, which was mostly empty, seeing how last year's burly crop was long since sold and this year's was still a-greening in the field. He'd been wrestling in prayer and confession and dark imaginings until at last he cried out, "Is there no one to hear my prayer?"
"Oh, I hear you right enough," said a stern voice.
Cavil was terrified at first, fearing that some stranger - his overseer, or a neighbor - had overheard some terrible confession. But when he looked, he saw that it wasn't anyone he knew. Still, he knew at once what the man was. From the strength in his arms, his sun-browned face, and his open shirt - no jacket at all - he knew the man was no gentleman. But he was no White trash, either, nor a tradesman. The stern look in his face, the coldness of his eye, the tension in his muscles like a spring tight-bound in a steel trap: He was plainly one of those men whose whip and iron will keep discipline among the Black fieldworkers. An overseer. Only he was stronger and more dangerous than any overseer Cavil had ever seen. He knew at once that this overseer would get every ounce of work from the lazy apes who tried to avoid work in the fields. He knew that whoever's plantation was run by this overseer would surely prosper. But Cavil also knew that he would never