Stories in Verse Part 6

And Karagwe, who pulled a silent oar, Shut the winged words in cages of his heart; But Coralline was angry at the speech, And rained disdain on n.o.ble Stanley's head, Scorning his Northern thought and Northern blood, And sighed that it had been their lot to meet.

"If that is true," he said, "then let us part, And let us hope we shall not meet again.

Adieu! for I shall see you never more."

The boat was near the bank; he sprang to it, And left her sitting in the gilded prow-- Her pride, a raging Hector of the hour, Fighting a thousand tears, whose war-cry rose: Thin patience brings thick damage in the end.

XVII.

When Richard Wain found that the deed was lost, Which he had won at play with Dalton Earl, Chagrin and rage were ready at a beck, Like waters in a dam, to pa.s.s the race, And turn the voluble mill-wheel of his tongue.

He half suspected Dalton Earl the thief, Yet knew, if this were true, the threat he made To gain Ruth from him, would have been in vain.

And so, because he feared to lose his power, He kept his secret that the deed was lost.

PART SECOND.

Now through the mighty pulses of the land Throbbed the dark blood of war; and Sumter's guns Were the first heart-beats of a better day.

The avenging angel, with a scourging sword Of fire and death, with triumph on his face, Swept o'er the nation with the cry of War!

Ten thousand boroughs, dreaming peace, awake.

War in the South, with the South! War! War!

The shame we nourished stings us to the death.

O, fair, false wife, South! lo, thy lord, the North, Loveth thee still, though thou hast gone astray.

In truth's great court, vain has thy trial been, For no divorce could there be granted thee.

The child you bore was bitter curse and shame, And not the child of thy husband, the North.

It has led thee to miry paths, and raised The gall of despair to thy famished lips; It were better that such a child should die.

I.

The first year of the war had pa.s.sed away When Richard Wain, the planter, sprang to arms.

The day for his departure had been set; To-morrow it would be, and as the night Fell on the misty hills, and on the vales, He sat alone in his accustomed room; Thinking, he drowsed; his chin couched on his breast; A dim light wrought at shadows on the walls.

Slowly the sash was raised behind him there.

Perhaps he slept; he did not heed the noise, And Karagwe sprang in, and faced his foe.

He held a long knife up and brandished it, And said, "As surely as you call or move, Tour life will not be worth a blade of gra.s.s; But if you do not call, and sign the words, That I have written on a paper here, No harm will come, and I shall go away."

He drew the paper forth; the planter read: _I promise if the deed is ever found Of Dalton Earl's estate, I in no way Shall lay a claim to it to make it mine.

I here surrender all my right to it._

"Why, this I shall not sign, of course," he said.

"You might have asked me to give back your Ruth, And I would not have minded; but your game Lies deeper than a check upon the queen."

"Sign!" cried the negro; and at Ruth's name, A sudden madness leaped along his nerves, Like flame among the dry prairie gra.s.s.

"Sign! for unless you sign this writing now, You shall not live; now promise me to sign!"

He caught the planter fiercely by the throat, Starting his quailing eyes, "Now will you sign or not?

You have ten seconds more to make your choice."

"Give me the paper then, and I will sign."

The name was written, and the negro went; But not an hour had pa.s.sed, before the hounds Of Richard Wain and Dalton Earl were slipped, And scenting on his track through stream and field.

II.

The slave first ran toward the hollow tree; There left the paper signed by Richard Wain, Disturbing not the deed; but took the Book, And up the tireless road, tied on and on, Until he gained the borders of a marsh.

The night was dark, but darker still the clouds That loomed along the rim where day had gone.

The wind blew cold, and hastened quickly past, Escaping, like a slave, the hound-like clouds Whose thunder-barkings sounded in its ears.

And Karagwe had only reached the marsh, When on his track he heard the savage dogs.

He knew the paths and windings many miles, And even in the darkness found his way, And gained a covert island, where a hut, Built by some poor and friendless fugitive, Afforded shelter and secure abode.

He tarried here until along the hills The red-lipped whisper of the morning ran.

Then, when he would have ventured from the door, A large black hound arose, and licked his hand.

The dog was Dalton Earl's; he started back.

The dream of freedom nourished many years Seemed withering, and for the moment lost.

For long the slave had thought of liberty, And worshipped her, as in that elder time A tyrant's subjects worshipped, praying her That she would not delay, but hasten forth, And bridge the hated gulf 'twixt rich and poor, By freeing all the ma.s.s from ignorance, By lifting up the worthy of the earth, And making knowledge paramount to wealth.

III.

O strange, that in our age, and in a land Where liberty was laid the corner-stone, A slave, perforce, should be obliged to dream, And dote on freedom, like the poor oppressed Who lived and hoped two thousand years ago!

And slavery to this slave was like a fruit-- A bitter and a hateful fruit to taste-- The fruit of error and of ignorance, Made rank with superst.i.tion and with crime.

Yet though the fruit was bitter to the core, Many there were who died for love of it.

O, many they who listen through long nights To hear a footstep that will never come.

There is not a flower along the border blown, From Lookout Mountain to the Chesapeake, But has in it the blood of North and South.

IV.

Karagwe went back, and on a paper wrote,-- "Your dog has harmed me not, and why should you, That I have never wronged, plot harm to me?

You made me slave, you sold away my bride, And now you set your hounds upon my track, Because I seek the freedom that is mine.

Though you have wronged me, still I do you good, For in an oak, the largest of the grove, Upon the cotton-field of Richard Wain, Hid in a hollow near the second limb, Is the lost deed that holds your house and lands."

The paper fastened round the hound's strong neck, The negro bade him go, and forth he went; And Earl read what the slave had written down, And that day found the deed hid in the tree, And that day ceased pursuing any more.

For two long weeks the negro in the swamps Wandered toward the North, living at times On berries and on fruit. Above him leaned The tall trees, bower-like 'neath their wrestling arms; Beneath, the murky waters, black as death, Stirred only to the plunge of venomed things.

The long, seared gra.s.ses clung to every bough Whose trailing robe hung near the sluggish lymph.

And here and there, among the savage moss, Blossomed alone some snowy gold-spired flower, Like G.o.d's own church found in a heathen land.

The birds o'erhead, that, plumaged like the morn, Caroled their sweetness, sang the holy psalms.

V.

But now across his path the negro found A belt of water falling with the tide.

Two heavy logs he lashed, and launched them out, Then, with a pole for help in case of need, Sprang on the float, and drifted down the stream.

Thus for two days he drifted, eating naught Except the berries growing near the sh.o.r.e.

Then on a cool, bright morning, when the wind And tide agreed, he saw again the sea.

Far off a buoy was tossing on the waves, Much like the red heart of the joyful deep-- Much like a heart upon a sea of life; And ships were in the offing, sailing on Like the vague ships that with our hopes and fears Put from their harbors to return no more.

VI.

The raft went oceanward. The negro raised Upon the pole the coat that he had worn, Hoping for succor from the distant ships; And not in vain; for ere the sun had set, Half starved, he clambered up a vessel's side, And found himself with friends, and on his way To freedom, 'neath the steadfast northern star.

VII.

Two years of war, two years of many tears, And Richard Wain, a captain of renown, In ranks led on by error, fought and fell.