"I'll take the risk on the title, Zindorf. You and Ordez were
partners in this traffic. Ordez gives you a general assignment
of all slaves on hand for three thousand dollars and lights out
of the country. He leaves his daughter here among the others.
And this general assignment can be construed to include her. Her
mother was a slave and that brings her within the law. We know
precisely who her mother was, and all about it. You looked it up
and my lawyer, Mr. Cable, looked it up. Her mother was the
octoroon woman, Suzanne, owned by old Judge Marquette in New
Orleans.
"There may have been some sort of church marriage, but there's no
legal record, Cable says.
"The woman belonged to Marquette, and under the law the girl is a
slave. You got a paper title out of Marquette's executors,
privily, years ago. Now you have this indefinite assignment by
Ordez. He's gone to the Spanish Islands, or the devil, or both.
And if Mr. Pendleton can draw a deed of sale that will stand in
the courts between us, I'll take the risk on the validity of my
title."
He paused.
"The law's sound on slaves, Judge Madison has a dozen himself,
not all black either; not three-eighths black!" and he laughed.
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