Among the Pines Part 20

"Well, what then?" inquired the Colonel.

"Wen de ole debble seed he hadn't finished Jake, he war gwine to gib him anudder dig, but jus den I drap de gun on his cocoanut, and he neber trubble us no more. 'Twar mons'rous hard work to git him out ob de swamp, 'cause he war jess like a dead man, and had to be toted de hull way; but he'm dar now, ma.s.sa (pointing to the old cabin), and de bracelets am on him."

"Where is Jake?" asked the Colonel.

"Dunno, ma.s.sa, but reckon he'm to hum."

"One of you boys go and bring him to the cabin," said the Colonel.

A negro man went off on the errand, while we and the darkies resumed our way to the overseer's quarters. Arrived there, I witnessed a scene that words cannot picture.

Stretched at full length on the floor, his clothes torn to shreds, his coa.r.s.e carroty hair matted with blood, and his thin, ugly visage pale as death, lay the overseer. Bending over him, wiping away the blood from his face, and swathing a ghastly wound on his forehead, was the negress Sue; while at his shackled feet, binding up his still bleeding legs, knelt the octoroon woman!

"Is _she_ here?" I said, involuntarily, as I caught sight of the group.

"It's her nature," said the Colonel, with a pleasant smile; "if Moye were the devil himself, she'd do him good if she could; another such woman never lived."

And yet this woman, with all the instincts that make her s.e.x angel-ministers to man, lived in daily violation of the most sacred of all laws--because she was a slave. Can Mr. Caleb Cushing or Charles O'Conor tell us why the Almighty invented a system which forces his creatures to break laws of His own making?

"Don't waste your time on him, Alice," said the Colonel, kindly; "he isn't worth the rope that'll hang him."

"He was bleeding to death; unless he has care he'll die," said the octoroon woman.

"Then let him die, d---- him," replied the Colonel, advancing to where the overseer lay, and bending down to satisfy himself of his condition.

Meanwhile more than two hundred dusky forms crowded around and filled every opening of the old building. Every conceivable emotion, except pity, was depicted on their dark faces. The same individuals whose cloudy visages a half hour before I had seen distended with a wild mirth and careless jollity, that made me think them really the docile, good-natured animals they are said to be, now glared on the prostrate overseer with the infuriated rage of aroused beasts when springing on their prey.

"You can't come the possum here. Get up, you ---- hound," said the Colonel, rising and striking the bleeding man with his foot.

The fellow raised himself on one elbow and gazed around with a stupid, vacant look. His eye wandered unsteadily for a moment from the Colonel to the throng of cloudy faces in the doorway; then, his recent experience flashing upon him, he shrieked out, clinging wildly to the skirts of the octoroon woman, who was standing near, "Keep off them cursed hounds--keep them off, I say--they'll kill me! they'll kill me!"

One glance satisfied me that his mind was wandering. The blow on the head had shattered his reason, and made the strong man less than a child.

"You wont be killed yet," said the Colonel. "You've a small account to settle with me before you reckon with the devil."

At this moment the dark crowd in the doorway parted, and Jake entered, his arm bound up and in a sling.

"Jake, come here," said the Colonel; "this man would have killed you.

What shall we do with him?"

"'Taint for a darky to say dat, ma.s.sa," said the negro, evidently unaccustomed to the rude administration of justice which the Colonel was about to inaugurate; "he did wuss dan dat to Sam, ma.s.sa--he orter swing for shootin' him."

"That's _my_ affair; we'll settle your account first," replied the Colonel.

The darky looked undecidedly at his master, and then at the overseer, who, overcome by weakness, had sunk again to the floor. The little humanity in him was evidently struggling with his hatred of Moye and his desire for revenge, when the old nurse yelled out from among the crowd, "Gib him fifty lashes, Ma.s.sa Davy, and den you wash him down.[H] Be a man, Jake, and say dat."

Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of the octoroon caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as if by magnetic power.

"Do you say that, boys;" said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes; "shall he have fifty lashes?"

"Yas, ma.s.sa, fifty lashes--gib de ole debble fifty lashes," shouted about fifty voices.

"He shall have them," quietly said the master.

The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than the cry of men, seemed to arouse Moye to a sense of his real position.

Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then, sinking on his knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her dress, he shrieked, "Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy, save me!"

Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she mildly said, "Fifty lashes would kill him. _Jake_ does not say that--your master leaves it to him, and _he_ will not whip a dying man--will you, Jake?"

"No, ma'am--not--not ef you gwo agin it," replied the negro, with very evident reluctance.

"But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when Sam war nearer dead than _he_ am," said Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of speech.

"Because he was brutal to Sam, should you be brutal to him? Can you expect me to tend you when you are sick, if you beat a dying man? Does Pompey say you should do such things?"

"No, good ma'am," said the old preacher, stepping out, with the freedom of an old servant, from the black ma.s.s, and taking his stand beside me in the open s.p.a.ce left for the "w'ite folks;" "de ole man dusn't say dat, ma'am; he tell 'em dat de Lord want 'em to forgib dar en'mies--to lub dem dat pursyskute 'em;" and, turning to the Colonel, he added, as he pa.s.sed his hand meekly over his thin crop of white wool and threw his long heel back, "ef ma.s.sa'll 'low me I'll talk to 'em."

"Fire away," said the Colonel, with evident chagrin. "This is a n.i.g.g.e.r trial; if you want to screen the d---- hound you can do it."

"I dusn't want to screed him, ma.s.sa, but I'se bery ole and got soon to gwo, and I dusn't want de blessed Lord to ax me wen I gets dar why I 'lowed dese pore ig'nant brack folks to mudder a man 'fore my bery face. I toted you, ma.s.sa, 'fore you cud gwo, I'se worked for you till I can't work no more; and I dusn't want to tell de Lord dat _my_ ma.s.sa let a brudder man be killed in cole blood."

"He is no brother of mine, you old fool; preach to the nigs, don't preach to me," said the Colonel, stifling his displeasure, and striding off through the black crowd, without saying another word.

Here and there in the dark ma.s.s a face showed signs of relenting; but much the larger number of that strange jury, had the question been put, would have voted--DEATH.

The old preacher turned to them as the Colonel pa.s.sed out, and said, "My chil'ren, would you hab dis man whipped, so weak, so dyin' as he am, ef he war brack?"

"No, not ef he war a darky--fer den he wouldn't be such an ole debble,"

replied Jim, and about a dozen of the other negroes.

"De w'ite aint no wuss dan de brack--we'm all 'like--pore sinners all on us. De Lord wudn't whip a w'ite man no sooner dan a brack one--He tinks de w'ite juss so good as de brack (good Southern doctrine, I thought).

De porest w'ite trash wudn't strike a man wen he war down."

"We'se had 'nough of dis, ole man," said a large, powerful negro (one of the drivers), stepping forward, and, regardless of the presence of Madam P---- and myself, pressing close to where the overseer lay, now totally unconscious of what was pa.s.sing around him. "You needn't preach no more; de Cunnel hab say we'm to whip ole Moye, and we'se gwine to do it, by ----."

I felt my fingers closing on the palm of my hand, and in a second more they might have cut the darky's profile, had not Madam P---- cried out, "Stand back, you impudent fellow: say another word, and I'll have you whipped on the spot."

"De Cunnel am my ma.s.sa, ma'am--_he_ say ole Moye am to be whipped, and I'se gwine to do it--sh.o.r.e."

I have seen a storm at sea--I have seen the tempest tear up great trees--I have seen the lightning strike in a dark night--but I never saw any thing half so grand, half so terrible, as the glance and tone of that woman as she cried out, "Jim, take this man--give him fifty lashes this instant."

Quicker than thought, a dozen darkies were on him. His hands and feet were tied and he was under the whipping-rack in a second. Turning then to the other negroes, the brave woman said, "Some of you carry Moye to the house, and you, Jim, see to this man--if fifty lashes don't make him sorry, give him fifty more."

This summary change of programme was silently acquiesced in by the a.s.sembled negroes, but many a cloudy face scowled sulkily on the octoroon, as, leaning on my arm, she followed Junius and the other negroes, who bore Moye to the mansion. It was plain that under those dark faces a fire was burning that a breath would have fanned into a flame.

We entered the house by its rear door, and placed Moye in a small room on the ground floor. He was laid on a bed, and stimulants being given him, his senses and reason shortly returned. His eyes opened, and his real position seemed suddenly to flash upon him, for he turned to Madam P----, and in a weak voice, half choked with emotion, faltered out: "May G.o.d in heaven bless ye, ma'am; G.o.d _will_ bless ye for bein' so good to a wicked man like me. I doesn't desarve it, but ye woant leave me--ye woant leave me--they'll kill me ef ye do!"

"Don't fear," said the Madam; "you shall have a fair trial. No harm shall come to you here."