Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863

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In an instant the man vanished and the slave appeared. Freedom was too
new a boon to have wrought its blessed changes yet, and as he started
up, with his hand at his temple and an obsequious "Yes, Ma'am," any
romance that had gathered round him fled away, leaving the saddest of
all sad facts in living guise before me. Not only did the manhood seem
to die out of him, but the comeliness that first attracted me; for, as
he turned, I saw the ghastly wound that had laid open cheek and
forehead. Being partly healed, it was no longer bandaged, but held
together with strips of that transparent plaster which I never see
without a shiver and swift recollections of the scenes with which it is
associated in my mind. Part of his black hair had been shorn away, and
one eye was nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel sabre-cut so
marred that portion of his face, that, when I saw it, I felt as if a
fine medal had been suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking
type of human suffering and wrong than Michel Angelo's bronze prisoner.
By one of those inexplicable processes that often teach us how little we
understand ourselves, my purpose was suddenly changed, and though I went
in to offer comfort as a friend, I merely gave an order as a mistress.

"Will you open these windows? this man needs more air."

He obeyed at once, and, as he slowly urged up the unruly sash, the
handsome profile was again turned toward me, and again I was possessed
by my first impression so strongly that I involuntarily said,--

"Thank you, Sir."

Perhaps it was fancy, but I thought that in the look of mingled surprise
and something like reproach which he gave me there was also a trace of
grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of spiritless humility
these poor souls learn so soon,--

"I a'n't a white man, Ma'am, I'm a contraband."

"Yes, I know it; but a contraband is a free man, and I heartily
congratulate you."

He liked that; his face shone, he squared his shoulders, lifted his
head, and looked me full in the eye with a brisk--

"Thank ye, Ma'am; anything more to do fer yer?"

"Doctor Franck thought you would help me with this man, as there are
many patients and few nurses or attendants. Have you had the fever?"

"No, Ma'am."

"They should have thought of that when they put him here; wounds and
fevers should not be together. I'll try to get you moved."

He laughed a sudden laugh,--if he had been a white man, I should have
called it scornful; as he was a few shades darker than myself, I suppose
it must be considered an insolent, or at least an unmannerly one.

"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up here with the fever than down
with those niggers; and there a'n't no other place fer me."

Poor fellow! that was true. No ward in all the hospital would take him
in to lie side by side with the most miserable white wreck there. Like
the bat in AEsop's fable, he belonged to neither race; and the pride of
one, the helplessness of the other, kept him hovering alone in the
twilight a great sin has brought to overshadow the whole land.

"You shall stay, then; for I would far rather have you than my lazy
Jack. But are you well and strong enough?"

"I guess I'll do, Ma'am."

He spoke with a passive sort of acquiescence,--as if it did not much
matter, if he were not able, and no one would particularly rejoice, if
he were.

"Yes, I think you will. By what name shall I call you?"

"Bob, Ma'am."

Every woman has her pet whim; one of mine was to teach the men
self-respect by treating them respectfully. Tom, Dick, and Harry would
pass, when lads rejoiced in those familiar abbreviations; but to address
men often old enough to be my father in that style did not suit my
old-fashioned ideas of propriety. This "Bob" would never do; I should
have found it as easy to call the chaplain "Gus" as my tragical-looking
contraband by a title so strongly associated with the tail of a kite.

"What is your other name?" I asked. "I like to call my attendants by
their last names rather than by their first."

"I've got no other, Ma'am; we have our masters' names, or do without.
Mine's dead, and I won't have anything of his about me."

"Well, I'll call you Robert, then, and you may fill this pitcher for me,
if you will be so kind."

He went; but, through all the tame obedience years of servitude had
taught him, I could see that the proud spirit his father gave him was
not yet subdued, for the look and gesture with which he repudiated his
master's name were a more effective declaration of independence than any
Fourth-of-July orator could have prepared.

We spent a curious week together. Robert seldom left his room, except
upon my errands; and I was a prisoner all day, often all night, by the
bedside of the Rebel. The fever burned itself rapidly away, for there
seemed little vitality to feed it in the feeble frame of this old young
man, whose life had been none of the most righteous, judging from the
revelations made by his unconscious lips; since more than once Robert
authoritatively silenced him, when my gentler hushings were of no avail,
and blasphemous wanderings or ribald camp-songs made my cheeks burn and
Robert's face assume an aspect of disgust. The captain was a gentleman
in the world's eye, but the contraband was the gentleman in mine;--I was
a fanatic, and that accounts for such depravity of taste, I hope. I
never asked Robert of himself, feeling that somewhere there was a spot
still too sore to bear the lightest touch; but, from his language,
manner, and intelligence, I inferred that his color had procured for him
the few advantages within the reach of a quick-witted, kindly treated
slave. Silent, grave, and thoughtful, but most serviceable, was my
contraband; glad of the books I brought him, faithful in the performance
of the duties I assigned to him, grateful for the friendliness I could
not but feel and show toward him. Often I longed to ask what purpose was
so visibly altering his aspect with such daily deepening gloom. But I
never dared, and no one else had either time or desire to pry into the
past of this specimen of one branch of the chivalrous "F.F.Vs."

On the seventh night, Dr. Franck suggested that it would be well for
some one, besides the general watchman of the ward, to be with the
captain, as it might be his last. Although the greater part of the two
preceding nights had been spent there, of course I offered to
remain,--for there is a strange fascination in these scenes, which
renders one careless of fatigue and unconscious of fear until the crisis
is passed.

"Give him water as long as he can drink, and if he drops into a natural
sleep, it may save him. I'll look in at midnight, when some change will
probably take place. Nothing but sleep or a miracle will keep him now.
Good night."

Away went the Doctor; and, devouring a whole mouthful of gapes, I
lowered the lamp, wet the captain's head, and sat down on a hard stool
to begin my watch. The captain lay with his hot, haggard face turned
toward me, filling the air with his poisonous breath, and feebly
muttering, with lips and tongue so parched that the sanest speech would
have been difficult to understand. Robert was stretched on his bed in
the inner room, the door of which stood ajar, that a fresh draught from
his open window might carry the fever-fumes away through mine. I could
just see a long, dark figure, with the lighter outline of a face, and,
having little else to do just then, I fell to thinking of this curious
contraband, who evidently prized his freedom highly, yet seemed in no
haste to enjoy it. Doctor Franck had offered to send him on to safer
quarters, but he had said, "No, thank yer, Sir, not yet," and then had
gone away to fall into one of those black moods of his, which began to
disturb me, because I had no power to lighten them. As I sat listening
to the clocks from the steeples all about us, I amused myself with
planning Robert's future, as I often did my own, and had dealt out to
him a generous hand of trumps wherewith to play this game of life which
hitherto had gone so cruelly against him, when a harsh, choked voice
called,--

"Lucy!"

It was the captain, and some new terror seemed to have gifted him with
momentary strength.

"Yes, here's Lucy," I answered, hoping that by following the fancy I
might quiet him,--for his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and
his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so often precedes death.
His dull eye fixed upon me, dilating with a bewildered look of
incredulity and wrath, till he broke out fiercely,--

"That's a lie! she's dead,--and so's Bob, damn him!"

Finding speech a failure, I began to sing the quiet tune that had often
soothed delirium like this; but hardly had the line,

"See gentle patience smile on pain,"

passed my lips, when he clutched me by the wrist, whispering like one in
mortal fear,--

"Hush! she used to sing that way to Bob, but she never would to me. I
swore I'd whip the Devil out of her, and I did; but you know before she
cut her throat she said she'd haunt me, and there she is!"

He pointed behind me with an aspect of such pale dismay, that I
involuntarily glanced over my shoulder and started as if I had seen a
veritable ghost; for, peering from the gloom of that inner room, I saw a
shadowy face, with dark hair all about it, and a glimpse of scarlet at
the throat. An instant showed me that it was only Robert leaning from
his bed's-foot, wrapped in a gray army-blanket, with his red shirt just
visible above it, and his long hair disordered by sleep. But what a
strange expression was on his face! The unmarred side was toward me,
fixed and motionless as when I first observed it,--less absorbed now,
but more intent. His eye glittered, his lips were apart like one who
listened with every sense, and his whole aspect reminded me of a hound
to which some wind had brought the scent of unsuspected prey.

"Do you know him, Robert? Does he mean you?"

"Lord, no, Ma'am; they all own half a dozen Bobs: but hearin' my name
woke me; that's all."

He spoke quite naturally, and lay down again, while I returned to my
charge, thinking that this paroxysm was probably his last. But by
another hour I perceived a hopeful change, for the tremor had subsided,
the cold dew was gone, his breathing was more regular, and Sleep, the
healer, had descended to save or take him gently away. Doctor Franck
looked in at midnight, bade me keep all cool and quiet, and not fail to
administer a certain draught as soon as the captain woke. Very much
relieved, I laid my head on my arms, uncomfortably folded on the little
table, and fancied I was about to perform one of the feats which
practice renders possible,--"sleeping with one eye open," as we say: a
half-and-half doze, for all senses sleep but that of hearing; the
faintest murmur, sigh, or motion will break it, and give one back one's
wits much brightened by the brief permission to "stand at ease." On this
night, the experiment was a failure, for previous vigils, confinement,
and much care had rendered naps a dangerous indulgence. Having roused
half a dozen times in an hour to find all quiet, I dropped my heavy head
on my arms, and, drowsily resolving to look up again in fifteen minutes,
fell fast asleep.

The striking of a deep-voiced clock woke me with a start. "That is one,"
thought I, but, to my dismay, two more strokes followed; and in
remorseful haste I sprang up to see what harm my long oblivion had done.
A strong hand put me back into my seat, and held me there. It was
Robert. The instant my eye met his my heart began to beat, and all along
my nerves tingled that electric flash which foretells a danger that we
cannot see. He was very pale, his mouth grim, and both eyes full of
sombre fire,--for even the wounded one was open now, all the more
sinister for the deep scar above and below. But his touch was steady,
his voice quiet, as he said,--

"Sit still, Ma'am; I won't hurt yer, nor even scare yer, if I can help
it, but yer waked too soon."

"Let me go, Robert,--the, captain is stirring,--I must give him
something."

"No, Ma'am, yer can't stir an inch. Look here!"

Holding me with one hand, with the other he took up the glass in which I
had left the draught, and showed me it was empty.

"Has he taken it?" I asked, more and more bewildered.

"I flung it out o' winder, Ma'am; he'll have to do without."

"But why, Robert? why did you do it?"

"Because I hate him!"

Impossible to doubt the truth of that; his whole face showed it, as he
spoke through his set teeth, and launched a fiery glance at the
unconscious captain. I could only hold my breath and stare blankly at
him, wondering what mad act was coming next. I suppose I shook and
turned white, as women have a foolish habit of doing when sudden danger
daunts them; for Robert released my arm, sat down upon the bedside just
in front of me, and said, with the ominous quietude that made me cold to
see and hear,--

"Don't yer be frightened, Ma'am: don't try to run away, fer the door's
locked an' the key in my pocket; don't yer cry out, fer yer'd have to
scream a long while, with my hand on yer mouth, before yer was heard.
Be still, an' I'll tell yer what I'm goin' to do."

"Lord help us! he has taken the fever in some sudden, violent way, and
is out of his head. I must humor him till some one comes"; in pursuance
of which swift determination, I tried to say, quite composedly,--

"I will be still and hear you; but open the window. Why did you shut
it?"

"I'm sorry I can't do it, Ma'am; but yer'd jump out, or call, if I did,
an' I'm not ready yet. I shut it to make yer sleep, an' heat would do it
quicker 'n anything else I could do."

The captain moved, and feebly muttered, "Water!" Instinctively I rose,
to give it to him, but the heavy hand came down upon my shoulder, and in
the same decided tone Robert said,--

"The water went with the physic; let him call."

"Do let me go to him! he'll die without care!"

"I mean he shall;--don't yer interfere, if yer please, Ma'am."

In spite of his quiet tone and respectful manner, I saw murder in his
eyes, and turned faint with fear; yet the fear excited me, and, hardly
knowing what I did, I seized the hands that had seized me, crying,--

"No, no, you shall not kill him! it is base to hurt a helpless man. Why
do you hate him? He is not your master?"

"He's my brother."

I felt that answer from head to foot, and seemed to fathom what was
coming, with a prescience vague, but unmistakable. One appeal was left
to me, and I made it.

"Robert, tell me what it means? Do not commit a crime and make me
accessory to it. There is a better way of righting wrong than by
violence;--let me help you find it."

My voice trembled as I spoke, and I heard the frightened flutter of my
heart; so did he, and if any little act of mine had ever won affection
or respect from him, the memory of it served me then. He looked down,
and seemed to put some question to himself; whatever it was, the answer
was in my favor, for when his eyes rose again, they were gloomy, but not
desperate.

"I _will_ tell you, Ma'am; but mind, this makes no difference; the boy
is mine. I'll give the Lord a chance to take him fust; if He don't, I
shall."

"Oh, no! remember, he is your brother."

An unwise speech; I felt it as it passed my lips, for a black frown
gathered on Robert's face, and his strong hands closed with an ugly sort
of grip. But he did not touch the poor soul gasping there behind him,
and seemed content to let the slow suffocation of that stifling room end
his frail life.

"I'm not like to forget that, Ma'am, when I've been thinkin' of it all
this week. I knew him when they fetched him in, an' would 'a' done it
long 'fore this, but I wanted to ask where Lucy was; he knows,--he told
to-night--an' now he's done for."

"Who is Lucy?" I asked hurriedly, intent on keeping his mind busy with
any thought but murder.

With one of the swift transitions of a mixed temperament like this, at
my question Robert's deep eyes filled, the clenched hands were spread
before his face, and all I heard were the broken words,--

"My wife,--he took her"--

In that instant every thought of fear was swallowed up in burning
indignation for the wrong, and a perfect passion of pity for the
desperate man so tempted to avenge an injury for which there seemed no
redress but this. He was no longer slave or contraband, no drop of black
blood marred him in my sight, but an infinite compassion yearned to
save, to help, to comfort him. Words seemed so powerless I offered none,
only put my hand on his poor head, wounded, homeless, bowed down with
grief for which I had no cure, and softly smoothed the long neglected
hair, pitifully wondering the while where was the wife who must have
loved this tender-hearted man so well.

The captain moaned again, and faintly whispered, "Air!" but I never
stirred. God forgive me! just then I hated him as only a woman thinking
of a sister woman's wrong could hate. Robert looked up; his eyes were
dry again, his mouth grim. I saw that, said, "Tell me more," and he
did,--for sympathy is a gift the poorest may give, the proudest stoop to
receive.

"Yer see, Ma'am, his father,--I might say ours, if I warn't ashamed of
both of 'em,--his father died two years ago, an' left us all to Marster
Ned,--that's him here, eighteen then. He always hated me, I looked so
like old Marster: he don't,--only the light skin an' hair. Old Marster
was kind to all of us, me 'specially, an' bought Lucy off the next
plantation down there in South Car'lina, when he found I liked her. I
married her, all I could, Ma'am; it warn't much, but we was true to one
another till Marster Ned come home a year after an' made hell fur both
of us. He sent my old mother to be used up in his rice-swamp in Georgy;
he found me with my pretty Lucy, an' though young Miss cried, an' I
prayed to him on my knees, an' Lucy run away, he wouldn't have no mercy;
he brought her back, an'--took her, Ma'am."

"Oh! what did you do?" I cried, hot with helpless pain and passion.

How the man's outraged heart sent the blood flaming up into his face and
deepened the tones of his impetuous voice, as he stretched his arm
across the bed, saying, with a terribly expressive gesture,--

"I half murdered him, an' to-night I'll finish."

"Yes, yes,--but go on now; what came next?"

He gave me a look that showed no white man could have felt a deeper
degradation in remembering and confining these last acts of brotherly
oppression.

"They whipped me till I couldn't stand, an' then they sold me further
South. Yer thought I was a white man once;--look here!"

With a sudden wrench he tore the shirt from neck to waist, and on his
strong brown shoulders showed me furrows deeply ploughed, wounds which,
though healed, were ghastlier to me than any in that house. I could not
speak to him, and, with the pathetic dignity a great grief lends the
humblest sufferer, he ended his brief tragedy by simply saying,--

"That's all, Ma'am. I've never seen her since, an' now I never shall in
this world,--maybe not in t' other."

"But, Robert, why think her dead? The captain was wandering when he said
those sad things; perhaps he will retract them when he is sane. Don't
despair; don't give up yet."

"No, Ma'am, I guess he's right; she was too proud to bear that long.
It's like her to kill herself. I told her to, if there was no other way;
an' she always minded me, Lucy did. My poor girl! Oh, it warn't right!
No, by God, it warn't!"

As the memory of this bitter wrong, this double bereavement, burned in
his sore heart, the devil that lurks in every strong man's blood leaped
up; he put his hand upon his brother's throat, and, watching the white
face before him, muttered low between his teeth,--

"I'm lettin' him go too easy; there's no pain in this; we a'n't even
yet. I wish he knew me. Marster Ned! it's Bob; where's Lucy?"

From the captain's lips there came a long faint sigh, and nothing but a
flutter of the eyelids showed that he still lived. A strange stillness
filled the room as the elder brother held the younger's life suspended
in his hand, while wavering between a dim hope and a deadly hate. In the
whirl of thoughts that went on in my brain, only one was clear enough to
act upon. I must prevent murder, if I could,--but how? What could I do
up there alone, locked in with a dying man and a lunatic?--for any mind
yielded utterly to any unrighteous impulse is mad while the impulse
rules it. Strength I had not, nor much courage, neither time nor wit for
stratagem, and chance only could bring me help before it was too late.
But one weapon I possessed,--a tongue,--often a woman's best defence;
and sympathy, stronger than fear, gave me power to use it. What I said
Heaven only knows, but surely Heaven helped me; words burned on my lips,
tears streamed from my eyes, and some good angel prompted me to use the
one name that had power to arrest my hearer's hand and touch his heart.
For at that moment I heartily believed that Lucy lived, and this earnest
faith rousted in him a like belief.

He listened with the lowering look of one in whom brute instinct was
sovereign for the time,--a look that makes the noblest countenance base.
He was but a man,--a poor, untaught, outcast, outraged man. Life had few
joys for him; the world offered him no honors, no success, no home, no
love. What future would this crime mar? and why should he deny himself
that sweet, yet bitter morsel called revenge? How many white men, with
all New England's freedom, culture, Christianity, would not have felt as
he felt then? Should I have reproached him for a human anguish, a human
longing for redress, all now left him from the ruin of his few poor
hopes? Who had taught him that self-control, self-sacrifice, are
attributes that make men masters of the earth and lift them nearer
heaven? Should I have urged the beauty of forgiveness, the duty of
devout submission? He had no religion, for he was no saintly "Uncle
Tom," and Slavery's black shadow seemed to darken all the world to him
and shut out God. Should I have warned him of penalties, of judgments,
and the potency of law? What did he know of justice, or the mercy that
should temper that stern virtue, when every law, human and divine, had
been broken on his hearthstone? Should I have tried to touch him by
appeals to filial duty, to brotherly love? How had his appeals been
answered? What memories had father and brother stored up in his heart to
plead for either now? No,--all these influences, these associations,
would have proved worse than useless, had I been calm enough to try
them. I was not; but instinct, subtler than reason, showed me the one
safe clue by which to lead this troubled soul from the labyrinth in
which it groped and nearly fell. When I paused, breathless, Robert
turned to me, asking, as if human assurances could strengthen his faith
in Divine Omnipotence,--

"Do you believe, if I let Marster Ned live, the Lord will give me back
my Lucy?"

"As surely as there is a Lord, you will find her here or in the
beautiful hereafter, where there is no black or white, no master and no
slave."

He took his hand from his brother's throat, lifted his eyes from my face
to the wintry sky beyond, as if searching for that blessed country,
happier even than the happy North. Alas, it was the darkest hour before
the dawn!--there was no star above, no light below but the pale glimmer
of the lamp that showed the brother who had made him desolate. Like a
blind man who believes there is a sun, yet cannot see it, he shook his
head, let his arms drop nervelessly upon his knees, and sat there dumbly
asking that question which many a soul whose faith is firmer fixed than
his has asked in hours less dark than this,--"Where is God?" I saw the
tide had turned, and strenuously tried to keep this rudderless life-boat
from slipping back into the whirlpool wherein it had been so nearly
lost.

"I have listened to you, Robert; now hear me, and heed what I say,
because my heart is full of pity for you, full of hope for your future,
and a desire to help you now. I want you to go away from here, from the
temptation of this place, and the sad thoughts that haunt it. You have
conquered yourself once, and I honor you for it, because, the harder the
battle, the more glorious the victory; but it is safer to put a greater
distance between you and this man. I will write you letters, give you
money, and send you to good old Massachusetts to begin your new life a
freeman,--yes, and a happy man; for when the captain is himself again, I
will learn where Lucy is, and move heaven and earth to find and give her
back to you. Will you do this, Robert?"

Slowly, very slowly, the answer came; for the purpose of a week, perhaps
a year, was hard to relinquish in an hour.

"Yes, Ma'am, I will."

"Good! Now you are the man I thought you, and I'll work for you with all
my heart. You need sleep, my poor fellow; go, and try to forget. The
captain is still alive, and as yet you are spared that sin. No, don't
look there; I'll care for him. Come, Robert, for Lucy's sake."

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