CHAPTER XXX.
AFRICA.
The Captain took his place at the reins, his picturesque velvet jacket,wide hat, bright hair, and gay shirt, thighings, belt, and boots,deserving all Patty Cannon's encomiums as he made a polite adieu andthrew his whip like a thunderbolt, and a cheer rose from the discardedvolunteers loitering about the tavern as he drove Joe Johnson and Levinaway.
The road was nearly dead level for five miles, but, being the oldtravelled road from Laurel and the south to Easton, and pointing towardsBaltimore, numerous farms and clearings were seen, and tobacco-fieldsalternated with the dry corn and new-ploughed wheat patches. Here andthere, like a measure of gold poured upon the ground, the yellow earslay in the gaunt corn-rows, to become the ground meal of the slave andthe cattle's winter substance. Joe Johnson's popularity was everywhereapparent, and many a shout was given of, "Good luck to ye, Joe!" "Toteus a nigger back from Delaway, Joe!" "Don't be too hard on them ar blackBlue Hen's chickens, Joe!"
Van Dorn was too far above the comprehension of his neighbors, or,indeed, of anybody, to be familiarly addressed, but "Patty Cannon's man"was the term of injured inferiority towards him after he had passed.
At Federalsburg they crossed the branch of the Nanticoke piercing to thecentre of Delaware state, and saw one large brick house of colonialappearance dominating the little wooden hamlet, and here, as generallywithin the Maryland line, hunting negroes was the "lark" or the seriousoccupation of many an idle or enterprising fellow, who trained his negroscouts like a setter, or more often like a spaniel, and crossed the lineon appointed nights as ardently and warily as the white trader in Africatakes to the trails of the interior for human prey.
"Joe," said Van Dorn, "what is to be your disposition of the prisonerswe have?"
"All goes with me to Norfolk but one,--the nigger boxer; I burn himalive on Twiford's island. If the white chap is too pickle to sell, I'llthrow him overboard; he ain't safe."
"_Ea! sus!_ it is boyish to burn the old lad. I have had many a blowfrom a black, and stab, too. A dog will bite you if you lasso him."
"No nigger can knock me down and git off with selling."
"Then you are a bad trader. The negro's price is all the negro is; whymake him your equal by hating him?"
"I am a Delaware boy," Joe Johnson said, "and it's the pride with me togive no nigger a chance. In Maryland you pets 'em, like ole Colonel NedLloyd over yer on the Wye; he's give his nigger coachman a gole watchan' chain because he's his son! What a nimenog! Some day he'll raise anigger that'll be makin' politikle speeches, an' then I don't want tolive no more."[5]
"_Chito!_ Since the Delaware lawyer sent you to the post, son-in-law,you're morose. I have had to eat with negro princes, dance with theirqueens, and be ceremonious as if they had been angels."
"It would be the reign of Queen Dick for me! I couldn't do it, nohow."
"And, by the way, Joseph, I may see your friend, the lawyer Clayton, atDover, to-night: he may send me to the post, too; and I fear no Delawaregovernor will take off the cropping of my ears, as was done for you instate patriotism."
"Beware of that imp of Tolobon!" Joe Johnson muttered. "How I wish youcould kill him, Van Dorn. He's got to be a senator; some day he'll bechief-justice of Delaware: then, what'll niggers be wuth thar?"
"I fancy, Joseph, you might be a legislator in Delaware if yourinclinations ran that way?"
"Easy enough, but I makes legislators. My wife, Margaretta--her firsthusband's sister is the wife of the chancellor."
"Hola! oh! How came that great alliance?"
"She was housekeeper; he was a close old bachelor and must break a leg.'Well,' she says, 'you're a daddy; justice is your trade, and I musthave it.' So, from bein' his peculiar, she becomes the madam; but sheinwented the kid."
"I have never been in Dover; how shall I tell where Lawyer Claytondwells?"
"It's on the green a-middle of the town, a-standin' by thestate-house--a long, roughcast house in the corner, three stories high,with two doors; the door next the state-house is his office. Go past thestate-house, which has a cupelo onto it, an' you see the jug an'whippin'-post. He's got 'em handy fur you."
Levin listened with all his ears. The liquor was now well out of hissystem, and he thanked God he had refused Patty Cannon's burning dram,else he might be this night--he thought it with remorse--the recklessmate for Owen Daw, whose own mother had predicted the gallows for him.
"And now, Van Dorn, I turn back," Joe Johnson said; "I have a job to dodown the Peninsuly. McLane has become the owner of a gal thar, an' wantsher sneaked. I takes black Dave with me, an' when I'm back, my boat willbe ready an' my cargo packed. Then hey fur Floridey!"
He unhaltered his horse at the tail of the wagon, mounted him, and rodeback across the stream. Van Dorn touched his horses and entered thedense woods in a byway to the north.
"Get up here, Master Levin, and ride by me," the Captain said, verysoon, and he lifted Levin's old hat from his head and looked at hisbright hair parted in the middle, his fine, large eyes, needing thelight of knowledge, and his soft complexion and marks of goodextraction.
"Where is thy father, Levin, to let thee go so ragged, with suchgraceful limbs and feet as these?"
"Shipwrecked," said Levin; "gone down, I 'spect, on the privateer."
"A sailor, was he? Well, he should be home to clothe thee and see thatthou dost not cheat. I marked how Madam Cannon's punch was tossed out ofthe window."
"I thought you would not want me drunk beside you all night, sir, andthen I might enjoy your company. I don't want to drink no more liquor."
"You like my company?"
"Yes, sir."
The Captain blushed, and asked,
"Why do you like me?"
"Not fur nothin' you do, sir. I like you fur somethin' in your ways; Ireckon you're a smart man."
"_Si, senor_, that I am. I have gained the whole world and lost two."
"Two worlds, sir?"
"Yes, two immortal worlds; that is to say, two unaccountable worlds. Iam no Christian."
"Maybe you're Chinee or Mahometan, then, sir; I 'spect everybody's got areligion."
"I was a Mahometan for business ends," Van Dorn said. "Having become aslaver, it was nothing to be a renegade. Stealing a man's soul everyday, I put no value on mine. Yes, Mahomet is the prophet of God: so areyou."
"You have been in Afrikey, I 'spect," suggested Levin.
"A few years only, but long enough to be rich and to be ruined. I knowthe negro coast from the Gambia to Cape Palmas, and inland to Timbo. Ihave had an African queen and the African fever: I went to conquerAfrica and became a slave."
"In Africa, I 'spect, Captain," Levin remarked, without inference, "anigger-trader is respectable."
Van Dorn shook his head.
"I doubt if that trade is respectable anywhere on this globe, unless itbe _here_. No, I will say for these people, too, that while they do itlow lip homage, they look down on it. I was once the greatest guest inTimbo, housed with its absolute prince, attended by my suite, lookinglike an ambassador, and he called me 'his son' and drew me to hisbreast. Proclamations were made that I should be respected as such, yetevery human object fled before me. As I rode out alone to see thegardens and cassava fields, the roaming goats and oxen, and the richmountain prospects, and saw the sloe-eyed girls bathing in the brooks,the cry went round, 'Flesh-buyer is coming,' and huts were deserted,fields forsaken, the gray patriarchs and the little children ran, and Iwas left alone with the dumb animals, despised, abhorred."
"Don't they have slavery thair, sir?"
"Yes, slavery immemorial, yet the slave-buyer is no more respectablethan the procurer. The coin of Africa, its only medium, was the slave.He paid the debt of war, of luxury, and of business. Yet the soul ofman, in the familiar study of such universal slavery, grovels with it,and points to bright destiny no more with the head erect: I died inAfrica."
"Ain't you in the business now, sir?"
"Now I am a mere forest
thief and bushman, Levin. He who begins a basetrade rises early to its fulness, and in subsequent life must be a poorwolf rejected from the pack, stealing where he can sneak in. Such is thekidnapper eking out the decayed days of the slaver; such is the ruinedvoluptuary, living at last on the earnings of some shameless woman; sucham I: behold me!"
Van Dorn's eyes turned on Levin in their cold, heartless light, and yethe blushed, as usual.
"You ought to be a gentleman, Captain. What made you break the laws soand be a bad man?"
"_Ayme! ayme_!" mused Van Dorn, "shall I tell you? It was Africa. I wasa high-minded youth, cool and bold, and with a thread of pleasure in me.I went to sea in a manly trade, and, fortune being slow, they whisperedto me, in the West Indies, that my clipper was just the thing for theslave-trade, and I made the first venture out of virtue, which is allthe voyage. In Africa I fell a prey to the voluptuous life a white manleads there, to which the very missionaries are not always exceptions.Young, pale, gentle, graceful, brave, my blushes instant as my passions,the ceaseless intrigue of that hot climate circled around me like adance in the harem around the young intruder: I forgot my native landand every obligation in it; I was enslaved by Africa to its swooningjoys; I went there like the serpent and was stung by the woman."
"Ain't they all right black and ugly in Africa, Captain?"
"The world has not the equals of Senegambia for beauty," said Van Dorn."The Fullah beauties are often almost white, and the black admixture isno more than varnish on the maple-tree. And even here, my lad, wherecivilization builds a wall of social fire around the slave, you oftenmark the idolatry of the white head to captive Africa."
"Did you make money?"
"For some years I did, plenty of it; but degradation in the midst ofpleasure weighed down my spirits. The thing called honor had flown fromover me like the heavenly dove, and in its place a hundred painted birdsflocked joyfully, the dazzling creatures of that thoughtless world. Oh,that I could have been born there or never have seen it! At last Istarted home, but the world had adopted a new commandment, 'Thou shaltnot trade in man.' They took my ship and all its black cargo, and I camehome naked. Then my heart was broke, and I turned kidnapper."
"Home is the best place," said Levin; "I 'spect it is, even if folks ispore. When Jimmy Phoebus give me a boat I thought I was rich as aJew."
"What is that name?" asked Van Dorn.
"James Phoebus: he's mother's sweetheart."
"_Ce ce ce!_" the Captain mused; "your mother lives, then?"
"Yes, sir. She's pore, but Jimmy loves her, and the ghost of fatherfeeds her."
"_Quedo!_ a ghost? what kind of thing is that? Aunt Patty sees them: Inever do."
"It comes an' puts sugar an' coffee in the window, an' sometimes a pairof shoes an' a dress. Mother says it's father: I guess it is."
"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn. "This Phoebus, is he a good man?"
"Brave as a lion, sir; pore as any pungy captain; the best friend I everhad. I hoped mother would marry him, he's been a-waitin' fur her solong. She's afraid father ain't dead."
"_O hala, hala!_ women are such waiters; but this man can wait too. Ishe strong?"
"He come mighty nigh givin' Joe Johnson a lickin' last Sunday, sir, inPrincess Anne. He hates a nigger-trader. Him an' Samson Hat, a blackfeller, thinks as much of each other as two brothers."
"And he gave you a boat?"
"Yes, sir: Joe Johnson hired it of me, but I didn't know he was goin' torun away niggers. He's got my boat an' ruined my credit, I 'spect, inPrincess Anne, an' what will mother do when I go to jail?"
"Why, this other man, Phoebus, is there to marry her or look afterher."
"Oh, Captain," sobbed Levin, putting his hands on Van Dorn's knees, andlaying his orphan head there too, "pore Jimmy's dead: Joe Johnson shothim."
The Captain did not move or speak.
"I've been a drunkard, Captain," Levin sobbed again, in the confidenceof a child; "that's whair all our misery comes from. I've got nothin'but my boat, an' people hires it to go gunnin' an' fishin' andspreein', and they takes liquor with 'em, an' I drinks. God help me; Inever will agin, but die first!"
"Are you not afraid to lean on me?" lisped Van Dorn.
"No, sir."
"I have killed people, too."
"The Lord forgive you, sir; I know you won't kill _me_."
A sigh broke from the bandit's lips, in place of his usual soft lisp,and was followed by a warm drop of water, as from the forest leaves nowbathed in night, that plashed on Levin's neck.
"O God," a soft voice said, "may I not die?"
Then Levin felt the same warm drops fall many times upon him, and hisnature opened like the plants to rain.
"I have found a friend, Captain," the boy spoke, after several minutes,but not looking up; "I feel you cry."
"_Chito! chito!_" lisped Van Dorn; "here is Punch Hall."
Levin raised his head, and saw nothing but an old house standing in thetrees, with a little faint light streaming from the door, and heard thelow hilarity of drinking men. The whole band poured out to receive VanDorn's commands.
"One hour here to feed and rest!" Van Dorn exclaimed. "Let those sleepwho can. Let any straggle or riot who dare!"