I banish Will from my mind and as my eyes rove around the gallery I see the other two in whom I have placed my trust.
Owned like Will by Nathaniel Francis, Sam is a mulatto, a wiry muscular young field hand with freckles and ginger-colored hair.
He is intractable and high-strung, also many times a runaway, The Confessions of Nat Turner
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and his yellow skin is knobbed and striped by the lash. I value him for his intelligence but also for his color: he is light of hue and his presence thus commands considerable respect among many of the Negroes, especially the simple-minded, and I feel that when my scheme achieves momentum Sam’s appearance will be useful in gaining new recruits. He is skillful in quiet, furtive intrigue and has already won for the cause Henry, who sits beside him now, eyes shut, rocking slightly, with a look of beatitude and calm. So far as I can tell, he is sound asleep.
Short, square in shape, very black, he alone among my group is of a religious nature. He is owned by Richard Porter, a devout and kindly master who has never raised a hand against him. At forty, Henry lives among Biblical fancies, in a shadowland of near-silence, almost completely deaf from boyhood by a blow on the head from a drunken overseer whose name or face he can no longer remember. It is the recollection of that blow that feeds his calm fury . . .
The sound of organ music fills the air. The sermon is ended.
Down below, the white people have risen, joining together in song.
“Can we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?”
The black people do not sing but stand respectfully in the hot gallery, mouths agape or with sloppy uncomprehendingsmiles, shuffling their feet. Suddenly they seem to me as meaningless and as stupid as a barn full of mules, and I hate them one and all. My eyes search the white crowd, finally discover Margaret Whitehead, her dimpled chin tilted up as, with one arm entwined in her mother’s, she carols heavenward, a radiance like daybreak on her serene young face. Then slowly and softly, like a gentle outrush of breath, my hatred of the Negroes diminishes, dies, replaced by a kind of wild, desperate love for them, and my eyes are wet with tears.
“Salvation, O Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
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Till each remotest nation
Has learnt Messiah’s name . . .”
And later that afternoon—after the hurried secret parley by the creek—driving the carriage back home through the parched and windless fields, I hear behind me two voices now, Margaret Whitehead’s and her mother’s, fondly: I do think Boysie’s sermon was most inspiring, don’t you, little Miss Peg?
There is a short space of silence, then her bright laughter: Oh, Mother, it’s the same old folderol, every year! Just folderol for the darkies!
Margaret! What an expression to use! Folderol indeed! I’m simply appalled! If your sainted father were here, to hear you talk like that about your own brother. Shame!
Then suddenly, to my surprise, I realize that Margaret is close to tears. Oh, Mother, I’m sorry, I just don’t know. And she is quietly sobbing now. I just don’t know. I just don’t know . . .
And I hear the woman draw Margaret to her with a rustle. There, there, dear. I understand. It must be a bad time of the month.
We’ll be home soon and you can just go lie down and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea . . .
High over the flat land thunderheads loom, their undersides churning, promising a storm. I feel the sweat rolling down my back. After a bit I let my eyes close, and I smell the rich odor of horse droppings as I make a silent prayer: Forsake me not, O
Lord: O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O
Lord my salvation, for the hour of my battle comes near . . .
“Nat Turner! Stand up!”
I rose to my feet in the courtroom. It was hot and very still, and for a long time as I stood clumsily in my chains leaning against the table there was no interruption to the silence save for the panting and roaring of the stove. I turned to face Jeremiah Cobb.
As I did so, regarding him for the first time straight on, I saw that his face was as white as tallow; drawn and almost fleshless, it was the face of a cadaver, and it trembled and nodded as if with palsy. He looked down at me, the eyes sunk deep within their The Confessions of Nat Turner
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sockets, so that the effect was that of a gaze from some immeasurable distance, profound as all eternity. Then all of a sudden I realized that he too was close to death, very close, almost as close as I myself, and I felt a curious pang of pity and regret.
Cobb spoke again. “Have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against you?” His voice was tremulous, feeble, dead.
“I have not,” I replied. “I have made a full confession to Mr. Gray and I have nothing more to say.”
“Attend then to the sentence of the court. You have been arraigned and tried before this court and convicted of one of the highest crimes in our criminal code. You have been convicted of plotting in cold blood the indiscriminate destruction of men, of helpless women, and of infant children . . . The evidence before us leaves not a shadow of doubt but that your hands were imbrued in the blood of the innocent, and your own confession tells us that they were stained with the blood of a master—in your own language, too indulgent.Could I stop here your crime would be sufficiently aggravated . . . But the original contriver of a plan, deep and deadly, one that never could be effected, you managed so far to put it into execution as to deprive us of many of our most valuable citizens, and this was done when they were asleep under circumstances shocking to humanity . . . And while upon this part of the subject, I cannot but call your attention to the poor misguided wretches who have gone before you.” He paused for an instant, breathing heavily. “They are not few in number—they were your bosom associates, and the blood of all cries aloud, and calls upon you as the author of their misfortune.
Yes. You forced them unprepared from time to eternity . . . Borne down by this load of guilt, your only justification is that you were led away by fanaticism.”
He paused again, gazing at me from the awful and immeasurable distances where not alone his eyes but his dying flesh and spirit seemed to dwell, remote as the stars. “If this be true,” he concluded slowly, “from my soul I pity you, and while you have my sympathies I am nevertheless called upon to pass sentence of the court . . . The time between this and your execution will necessarily be very short, and your only hope must be in another world. The judgment of the court is that you be taken hence to the jail from whence you came, thence to the The Confessions of Nat Turner
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place of execution, and on Friday next, November eleventh, at sunrise, be hung by the neck until you are dead! dead! dead!—
and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”
We gazed at each other from vast distances, yet close, awesomely close, as if sharing for the briefest instant some rare secret—unknown to other men—of all time, all mortality and sin and grief. In the stillness the stove howled and raged like a tumultuous storm pitched in the firmament between hell and heaven. A door flew open with a clatter. Then we ceased looking at each other, and outside a human roar went up like thunder.
That evening as Hark talked to me through the cracks of the jail wall, his voice came pained and laborious and with a sort of faint gurgle or croak, like a frog’s. Only Hark could have lived so long.
He had been shot through the chest on that day in August when they broke us up. Time after time they had carried him to court on a litter and they were going to have to hang him roped to a chair. The two of us would be the last to go.
Dusk was coming on: as the cold day lengthened, light began to drain away from the cell as from a vessel, turning the corners dark, and the cedar plank I was lying on grew as chill as a slab of stone. A few leaves clung to the branches
outside and through the gray twilight a cold wind whispered sharply, and often a leaf would flicker to earth or scuttle through the cell with a dry rattling sound. Every now and then I listened to Hark, but mainly I waited on Gray. After the trial he had said that he would come again this evening, and he promised to bring me a Bible. The idea of a Bible kept me in a greedy suspense, as if after a day’s long thirst in some parched and burning field someone was about to fetch me brimming pails of cool clear water.
“Oh yes, Nat,” I heard Hark say beyond the wall, “yes, dey was lots and lots of niggers kilt afterwards, w’ile you was hid out. And warn’t our niggers neither. Dey tells me roun’ about a hundred, maybe lots mo’. Yes, Nat, de white folks come down like a swarm of golly-wasps and plain long stomped de niggers ev’ywheres. You didn’ know about dat, Nat? Oh yes, dey was plain long stomped. White folks dey come fum all over ev’ywheres. Dey come a-gallopin’ down from Sussex an’ Isle of Wight and all dem other counties an’ run de niggers clean into de groun’. Didn’ make no nem’mine dat dey didn’ fight fo’ Nat Turner. If’n he had a black ass, dey fill hit full of lead.” Hark was silent for a while and I could hear his thick, tortured breathing.
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“After you was hid out I heerd tell of some ole free nigger dat was standin’ in a field up somewheres aroun’ Drewrysville. Dese white folks rode up an’ stop dere. ‘Is dis yere Southampton?’ dey holler. Nigger he say, ‘Yassuh, boss, you done jes’ passed de county line over yondah.’ ‘Pon my soul, Nat, dem white folks shot him dead.” Again he was silent, then he said: “I heerd tell of a nigger name of Statesman livin’ down aroun’ Smith’s Mill what ain’t even heerd of de ruction, bein’ slow in de head, you know?
Anyways, his massah he powerful exercise’ an’ mad an’ he take ole Statesman out an’ tie him to a tree an’ shoot him so full of holes you could see de sun shine th’ough. Oh me, Nat. Some sad stories I done heerd all dese months in jail . . .”
I watched the wintry gray light stealing softly away from the cell, thinking: O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God, forgive me the blood of the innocent and slain . . . But it was not a prayer at all, there was no echo, no understanding that it had reached God’s almighty hearing, only the sense of its falling away futile on the air like a wisp of smoke. A shudder passed through my bones and I clasped my arms around my legs, trying to still their shaking. Then as if to blot out this new knowledge, I broke in upon Hark, saying: “Tell me, Hark, tell me. Nelson. Tell me about Nelson. How did he die? Did he die brave?”
“Why sho he die brave,” Hark said. “Hung ole Nelson back in September. Him and Sam together, standin’ up straight as you could pray for, both dem. Dey tells me ole Sam wouldn’ die right off, flew off’n dat hangin’ tree an’ jes’ jiggle dere like a turkey gobbler a-jumpin’ and a-twitchin’.” Feebly, softly, Hark began to laugh. “Reckon dat li’l ole yellow nigger was too light fo’ de rope.
Dem white folks had to yank on old Sam’s feet afore he’d give up de ghost. But he died brave, though, him an’ Nelson. Didn’ hear no mumblin’ nor groanin’ when dem two niggers died.” He paused and sighed, then said: “Onliest thing ole Sam was sad about was dat we didn’ cotch dat mean sonabitch Nat Francis dat owned him. Cotched his overseer and two chillun but not Nat Francis. Dat’s what give Sam a misery. I seed Nat Francis in de cou’troom de day dey tried ole Sam. Jesus jumpin’ Judas! Talk
‘bout a mad white man! Oo-ee, Nat, he let out a howl and jump straight over de railin’ an’ like to strangle dat Sam befo’ dey could haul him off. I heerd tell Nat Francis like to went clean out’n his head after we finished de ruction. Got him a gang of folks an’ rode from Cross Keys to Jerusalem, shootin’ down ev’y nigger in sight. Dey was a free nigger woman name Laurie, wife The Confessions of Nat Turner
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to old John Bright live up Cloud School way, you know? Well, dey took dat woman an’ leant her up ‘longside a fence and druv a three-foot spike right up her ole pussy like dey was layin’ out a barbecue. Oh me, Nat, de tales I heerd tell dese months and days! Dey was two white mens I heerd about, come up from Carolina, has actual got dem a real bunch of black nigger heads all nailed to a pole and was out to git dem some mo’ till de troops grabbed holt ‘em an’ run ‘em back to Carolina—”
“Hush,” I broke in. “Hush, Hark! That’s enough. I can’t bear no more of that. I can’t bear such talk no more.” I tried not to think, yet even as I tried could not help thinking, scraps of prayer afloat turbulent and spinning in my brain like twigs upon a flood: O
spare me, that I may recover strength. Before I go hence. And be no more.
I heard footsteps in the passageway, and suddenly Gray appeared at the door with the boy Kitchen, who noisily threw open the latch. “I can’t stay but a minute, Reverend,” he said as he stepped into the cell and sat himself down across from me slowly, with a soft weary grunt. He looked exhausted and unstrung. I noticed that he was carrying nothing with him, and I felt my heart sink like a stone; even before I could start to protest, though, he had begun to speak: “I know, I know, that durn Bible! I know I promised to fetch you one—I’m a man of my word, Reverend—but I run into a patch of difficulty, all unforeseen. The vote was five to one agin it.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Gray?” I exclaimed. “What vote? Mr.
Gray, I ain’t asked for much—”
“I know, I know,” he put in. “By all rights any man condemned to death should have the fullest spiritual comfort, be he black or white. And this afternoon when I petitioned the court for a Bible for your own personal use, I brought this fact out in the strongest terms. But like I say, Reverend, I run into a bit of difficulty. The majority of the Justices didn’t cotton to this idea in any way,shape, nor form. In the first place, they felt very strongly about the moot point in—and the general tenor of—the community feeling as it stands, namely, that no nigger is to be allowed to read or write anyhow. In the second place, and on account of this, since no nigger about to be hung in this county has ever been allowed to have a Bible, why then, they couldn’t make an exception in your case. So they took a vote. Five to one against your havin’ a Bible, with only the Chief Magistrate in The Confessions of Nat Turner
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favor—Mr. Jeremiah Cobb, who’s about to cash in hisself, so I guess he’s got good reason to be soft on matters pertainin’ to spiritual comfort.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Gray. It’ll be right tough on me without a Bible.”
Gray was silent for a while, a queer quizzical look on his face.
Then he said: “Tell me, Reverend, you ever heard tell of a galaxy?”
“A what?” I said. I was barely listening. I cannot describe my misery and desolation.
“A galaxy. G-a-l-a-x-y. Galaxy.”
“Well, sir,” I replied finally, “I may have heard that word used, but I can’t rightly say I know what it exactly means.”
“Well, you know what the sun is,” he said. “The sun don’t move around the earth, a great big ball up there. The sun is a star. You know about that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “it seems to me I did hear about that. There was a white man in Newsoms told some of the Negroes that, long time ago. He was one of those Quaker men.”
“And you believe it?”
“I used to think it was right hard to believe,” I said, “but I’ve come to believe it. By the Lord’s grace all things can be believed.”
“Well, you know the sun is a star, but you don’t exactly know what a galaxy is. That right?”
“No, I don’t know,” I replied.
“Well now, in England there’s a great astronomer name of Professor Herschel. Know what an astronomer is? Yes? Well, there was a big write-up on him not long ago in the Richmond newspaper. What Professor Herschel has found out is that this here star of our’n that we call the sun is but one of not th
ousands, not millions, but billions of stars all revolvin’ around in a great big kind of cartwheel that he calls a galaxy. And this sun of our’n is just a piddlin’ little third-rate star swimmin’ around amongst millions of other stars on the edge of the galaxy. Fancy that, Reverend!” He leaned forward toward me, and I could smell the sudden apple-sweet perfume of his presence. “Fancy that!
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Millions and even billions of stars all floatin’ around in the vastness of space, separated by distances the mind can’t even conceive of. Why, Reverend, the light we see from some of these stars must of left there long before man hisself ever dwelt on earth! A million years before Jesus Christ! How do you square that with your Christianity? How do you square that with God?”
I pondered this for a moment, then I said: “As I told you, Mr.
Gray, by the Lord’s grace all things can be believed. I accept the sun and the stars, and the galaxies too.”
“Hogwash!” he exclaimed. “Christianity is finished and done with.
Don’t you know that, Reverend? And don’t you realize further that it was the message contained in Holy Scripture that was the cause, the prime mover, of this entire miserable catastrophe?
Don’t you see the plain ordinary evil of your dad-burned Bible?”
He fell silent, and I too said nothing. Though I was no longer either as hot or cold as I had been that morning— indeed, for the first time that day I felt a tolerable comfort— my throat had gotten dry and I found it difficult to swallow. I closed my eyes for a second, opened them again: in the cold, pale, diminishing light Gray seemed to be smiling at me, though perhaps it was only the dimness of the twilight which blurred and made indistinct the configurations of his heavy round face. I felt that I had only faintly understood what Gray had said—grasped the barest beginnings of it; finally I replied in a dry voice, the frog still in my throat:
“What do you mean, Mr. Gray? I fear I don’t quite follow. Evil?”