He was about as white as anybody on the plantation; and in manliness of form, and comeliness of features, he bore a very striking resemblance to Mr.Murray Lloyd.

It was whispered, and pretty generally admitted as a fact, that William Wilks was a son of Col.

Lloyd, by a highly favored slave-woman, who was still on the plantation.

There were many reasons for believing this whisper, not only in William's appearance, but in the undeniable freedom which he enjoyed over all others, and his apparent consciousness of being something more than a slave to his master.

It was notorious, too, that William had a deadly enemy in Murray Lloyd, whom he so much resembled, and that the latter greatly worried his father with importunities to sell William.
Indeed, he gave his father no rest until he did sell him, to Austin Woldfolk, the great slave-trader at that time.