He had no experimental knowledge of it; nay, regular meals, on the contrary, gave him anxious concern, yet had the effect--spite of his apprehension that he was being fattened for a purpose--of restoring the herculean puissance which formerly in Africa had made him the terror of the battle.
When one day he had come to be quite himself, he was invited out into the sunshine, and escorted by the driver (a sort of foreman to the overseer), went forth dimly wondering.

They reached a field where some men and women were hoeing.

He had seen men and women--subjects of his--labor--a little--in Africa.

The driver handed him a hoe; he examined it with silent interest--until by signs he was requested to join the pastime.
"What ?" He spoke, not with his lips, but with the recoil of his splendid frame and the ferocious expansion of his eyes.

This invitation was a cataract of lightning leaping down an ink-black sky.