The Entailed Hat Part 50

"How's the purty gals, Jimmy? I shall see' em in my dreams, I' spect, if I _am_ sold Souf. I ain't got long to stay, nohow, Jimmy, fur I'm mos'

sixty. If you ever git out, tell my marster to buy dat gal Virgie, an'

make her free. She ain't fit to be a slave."

"Gals has their place," said Phoebus, "but not whair men has to fight for liberty. How many fighting men are we here?"

"I 'spect you's de only one, Jimmy; we's all chained up; dese n.i.g.g.e.r-dealers is all blacksmifs an' keeps b.a.l.l.s, hobbles, gripes, an'

clevises, an' loads us wid iron."

"Who is that woman back yonder so quare an' still?"

"Why, Jimmy, don't you know Aunt Hominy, Jedge Custis's ole cook? Dey brought her in dis mornin' wi' two little children outen Teackle Hall kitchen; one of dem you give dat silver to--little Ned. Hominy ain't said a word sence she come."

Jimmy Phoebus went back to the corner of the den where the old woman cowered, and called her name in many different accents and with kind a.s.surances:

"Hominy, ole woman, don't you know Ellenory's Jimmy? Jedge Custis is comin' for you, aunty. I'm yer to take you home."

She did not speak at all, and Phoebus lifted her without resistance nearer to the moonlight. Her lips mumbled unintelligibly, her eyes were dull, she did not seem to know them.

Samson crawled forward, and also called her name kindly:

"Aunt Hominy, Miss Vesty's sent fur you. Dis yer is Jimmy Phoebus."

The little boy Ned now spoke up:

"Aunt Hominy ain't spoke sence dat Quaker man killed little Phillis."

"Jimmy," solemnly whispered Samson, "Aunt Hominy's lost her mind."

"Yes," spoke up the dejected and elegant mulatto prisoner, "she's become an idiot. They sometimes take it that way."

Phoebus bent his face close down to the poor old creature's, sitting there in her checkered turban and silver earrings, clean and tidy as servants of the olden time, and he studied her vacant countenance, her tenantless eyes, her lips moving without connection or relevance, and felt that cruelty had inflicted its last miraculous injury--whipped out her mind from its venerable residence, and left her body yet to suffer the pains of life without the understanding of them.

"Oh, shame! shame!" cried the sailor, tears finally falling from his eyes, "to deceive and steal this pore, believin' intelleck! To rob the cook of the little tin cup full o' brains she uses to git food fur bad an' fur good folks! Why, the devils in Pangymonum wouldn't treat that a way the kind heart that briled fur 'em."

"De long man said he was Quaker man," exclaimed Vince, the larger boy, "an' he come to take Hominy to de free country. Hominy was sold, she said, an' must go. De long man had a boat--Mars Dennis's boat--an' in de night little Phillis woke up an' cried. n.o.body couldn't stop her. De long man picked little Phillis up by de leg an' mashed her skull in agin de flo'. Aunt Hominy ain't never spoke no mo'."

"Did you hear the long man speak after that, Vince?"

"Yes, mars'r. I heerd de long man tell Mars Dennis dat if he didn't steer de boat an' shet his mouf, he'd shoot him. I heerd de pistol go off, but Mars Dennis wasn't killed, fur I saw him steerin' afterwards."

"Thank G.o.d!" spoke the sailor, kissing the child. "Ellenory's boy was innocent, by smoke! That n.i.g.g.e.r-trader shot me an' threatened Levin's life if he listened to me hailing of him. The noise I heard was the murder of the baby, whose cries betrayed the coming of the vessel.

Samson, thar's been treachery ever sence we left Salisbury, an' that n.i.g.g.e.r Dave's a part of it."

"He said he hated me caze I larned him to box. Maybe my fightin's been my punishment, Jimmy, but I never struck a man a foul blow."

"And what was _your_ hokey-pokey?" the pungy captain cried to the man who had been making so much religious din. "Did they sell you fur never knowin' whar to stop a good thing?"

The man hoa.r.s.ely explained, himself interested by the disclosures and fraternity around him:

"I was slave to a local preacher in Delaware, an' de s.e.xton of de church. It was ole Barrett's chapel, up yer between Dover an'

Murderkill--de church whar Bishop c.o.ke an' Francis Asbury fust met on de pulpit stairs. My marster an' me was boff members of it, but he loved money bad, an' I was to be free when I got to be twenty-five years ole, accordin' to de will of his Quaker fader, dat left me to him. Las'

Sunday night dey had a long cla.s.s-meetin' dar, an' when n.o.body was leff in de church but my marster an' me, he says to me, 'Rodney, le's you an'

me have one more prayer togedder befo' you put out dat las' lamp. You pray, Rodney!' I knelt an' prayed for marster after I must leave him to be free next year, an', while I was prayin' loud, people crept in de church an' tied me, and marster was gone."

"He sold you fur life to them kidnappers, boy, becaze you was goin' to be free next year. Don't your Bible tell you to watch _an'_ pray?"

"Yes, marster."

"Well, then, boys, it's all watch to-night and no more praying," cried Jimmy Phoebus, cheerily. "Here are four men, loving liberty, bound to have it or die. Thar's one of' em with a knife, an' the first kidnapper that crosses that sill, man or woman--fur we'll trust no more women, Samson--gits the knife to the hilt! The blessed light that shone onto Calvary an' Bunker Hill is a gleamin' on the blade. Work off your irons, if you kin; I'll git you rafters outen this roof to jab with if you can't do no better. Are you all with me?"

"I am, Jimmy," answered Samson, quietly.

"I'll die with ye, too," exclaimed the praying man, with rekindled spirit.

"We will all be murdered, gentlemen," protested the dejected mulatto. "I know these desperate people."

"Then you crawl over in the corner," Phoebus commanded, "and see three men fight fur you. We don't want any fine buck n.i.g.g.e.r to spile his beauty for us."

The man crawled back into the blackness of the den again, and Phoebus began to search the open half of the garret for implements of war. He found two long pieces of chain, with which determined men might beat out an adversary's brains.

"Now, boys," Jimmy delivered himself, "I hain't lost my head yisterday nor to-day neither, by smoke! I'm goin' to kill the first person that comes yer, an' git the keys of this den from him, an' lock all of you in fast, an' the dead kidnapper, too. Then they won't git at you to ship you off till I kin git to Seaford, over yer in Delaware--it's not more than six mile--whar I know three captains of pungies, and all of' em's in port thar now--all friends of Jimmy Phoebus, all well armed, and their crews enough to handle Pangymonum!"

A noise was heard at the lock of the lower door, and Phoebus slipped into the enclosed den and took his station just within the door.

"Remember," he whispered, "I open the fight."

The lock snapped at the door below the step-ladder, the bolt fell, and the light of a lamp flashed up the hatchway and upon the naked roof, and through the cracks of the boarded garret pen.

The sailor's knife was in his belt-pouch, where he carried it over the hip. As he leaned down to look through a crack in the low door, he felt a hand from the gloom behind touch him.

Instinctively he felt for his knife, and it was gone.

"Captain," cried the voice of the dejected mulatto, as the door of the pen flew open and the bandit-looking stranger appeared with the lamp, "there's a white man here going to kill you. I've taken his knife from him and saved your life. It's a rebellion, captain!"

"Help! Patty! Joe!" cried the man, with a loud voice, as Jimmy Phoebus threw himself upon him and extinguished the lamp, and the two powerful men rolled on the floor together in a grip of mortal combat.

Phoebus was a man of great power, but his antagonist was strong and slippery, too, and a spirited rough-and-tumble fighter.

The pungy captain was on top, the bandit man locked him fast in his arms and legs, and tried to stab him in the side, as Phoebus felt the handle of a clasp-knife, which seemed slow to obey its spring, strike him repeatedly all round the groin, in strokes that would have killed, inflicted by the blade.

Phoebus attempted to drag the man to the hatchway and force him down it, while the two negro a.s.sistants of Phoebus beat down the negro traitor with their chains, and searched him vainly for the knife he had filched.

At last Phoebus prevailed, and his antagonist rolled down the open hatchway, seven feet or more, still keeping his desperate hold on Phoebus, and dragging him along; and both might have cracked their skulls but for a woman just in the act of hurrying up the ladder, against whom their two bodies pitched and were cushioned upon her.

The shock, however, stunned both of them, and when Phoebus recollected himself he was tied hand and foot and lying on the garret floor again, and over him stood Joe Johnson, flourishing a cowhide.

The bandages had again been torn from Phoebus's face, and he was bleeding at the flesh-wound in his cheek, and breathless from his conflict. A woman had dashed a vessel of water into his face, and this had revived him.

The other man, called "captain," had, meantime, by the aid of this woman--the same Phoebus had seen down-stairs--subdued and tied the black insurgents, and both of them were flourishing their whips over the backs and heads of the prisoners, big and little, so that the garret was no slight reflection of the place of eternal torment, as the shadows of the monsters, under the weak light, whipped and danced against the beams and shingles, and shrieks and shouts of "Mercy!" blended in hideous dissonance.