If ever you have to run slaves—which seems unlikely nowadays, although you never can tell what may happen if we have the Liberals back—the way to do it is by steamboat. The Sultana, bound for Cincinnati by way of Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, Memphis and Cairo, beat the old Balliol College all to nothing. It was like cruising upriver in a fine hotel, with the niggers out of sight, mind and smell, no pitching or rolling to disturb the stomach, and above all, no John Charity Spring.
The speed and sureness with which Crixus and his minions organised our departure had almost banished my first fears. I had woken on a resolve to run from the house and take my chance with the Navy, but they kept far too close a watch on things for that, and by the afternoon I was glad of it. Crixus spent four hours drilling me in the minutest details of the journey, about cash, and passage tickets, and how the slaves would be fed en route, how I might answer casual inquiries and take part in river gossip without appearing too out of place, and by the end of it I realised how little chance I would have stood as a fugitive on my own account. The main thing was to talk as little as possible; there were enough Englishmen on the river in those days to make an extra one nothing out of the ordinary, but since I was meant to be a new-fledged slave trader it was important that I shouldn’t make any foolish slips. My story would be that I had recently forsaken African blackbirding in favour of river dealing—I had all the expert knowledge for that, at any rate.
Really, it was astonishing how easy it was. In mid-afternoon, with a broad-brimmed planter’s hat, my long-tailed coat, and half-boots, I joined my coffle in the cellars of Crixus’s house. There were six of them, in light ankle irons, with Randolph in the middle, looking damned miffed, which cheered me considerably. The other five, by the way, were free niggers in Crixus’s employ, and like him devoted to the underground railroad. There was much hand-shaking and God-blessing, and then we were conducted through what seemed like miles of cellars to a deserted yard, from which it was a short step to the levee.
I had my heart in my mouth as I strode along, trying to look like Simon Legree, with my gang of coons shuffling behind; I had protested to Crixus that if the Navy were on the look-out for me the waterfront would be a deuced dangerous place, but he said not at the steamboat wharves, and he was right. We pushed through the crowds of niggers, stevedores, boatmen, passengers and bummarees without anyone giving us a glance; there were coffles by the score, with fellows dressed like me shepherding and spitting and cursing, bawling to each other and chewing on big black cigars; old ladies with hat-boxes and parasols and men with carpet-bags and stove-pipe hats were hurrying for their boats; niggers with carts were loading piles of luggage; the big twin smoke-stacks were belching and the whistles squealing; it was like the Tower of Babel with the scaffolding about to give way. I pushed ahead until I found the Sultana, and within an hour we were thrashing upstream, close inshore, on the slow bend past what is now called Gretna—and with the great jam of ships and rafts and scuttling small boats along its levee, anything less like the real Gretna you never saw. My niggers were stowed down on the main deck at water-level, where the baggage and steerage people go, and I was reclining in my state-room up on the texas deck, smoking a cigar and deciding that things had turned out not so badly after all.
You see, it had gone so well and naturally in the first hour that I was beginning to believe Crixus. The purser fellow had accepted my ticket, in the name of James K. Prescott, without a blink, and bawled to one of his niggers to come an’ take the gennelman’s coffle and see ’em disposed forrard, thankee sir, straight ahead there to the stairway, an’ mind your head. And with the boat so crowded with passengers I felt security returning; this looked like an easy trip to the point where one Caleb Cape, trader and auctioneer, would meet me at Cincinnati and take my coffle, and I would steam on up the Ohio, free as a bird.
In the meantime I set out to enjoy the trip as far as possible. The Sultana was a big fast boat, and held the New Orleans-Louisville record of five and a half days; she had three decks from the texas to the water-line, with the boiler deck in the middle.35 This was where the main saloon and state-rooms were, all crystal chandeliers and gilding and plush, with carved furniture and fine carpets; my own cabin had an oil painting on the door, and there were huge pictures in the main rooms. All very fine, in a vulgar way, and the passengers matched it; you may have heard a great deal about Southern charm and grace, and there’s something in it where Virginia and Kentucky are concerned—Robert Lee, for instance, was as genteel an old prig as you’d meet on Pall Mall—but it don’t hold for the Mississippi valley. There they were rotten with cotton money in those days, with gold watch-chains and walking-sticks, loud raucous laughter, and manners that would have disgraced a sty. They spat their “terbacker” juice on the carpets, gorged noisily in the dining saloon—the sight of jellied quail being shovelled down with a spoon and two fingers, and falling on a shirt-front with a diamond the size of a shilling in it, is a sight that dwells with me still, and I ain’t fastidious as a rule. They hawked and belched and picked their teeth and swilled great quantities of brandy and punch, and roared to each other in their hideous plantation voices.
Theirs weren’t the only manners to cause me concern, either. That first evening I went down to the main deck to see that my slaves were being properly housed and fed, as a good owner should, and to enjoy the sight of the precious Master Randolph regaling himself on pulse and pone. A slave’s life didn’t suit him one little bit; he had taken his place in the coffle that afternoon with a very ill grace, and much self-pitying nobility for Crixus’s benefit. When he and his fellows were herded off to their passage quarters he had still been damned peaked and sulky, and now he was sitting with a bowl of hash from the communal copper, sniffing at it with disgust.
“How d’ye like it, George?” says I. “You and the other niggers feeding well?”
He gave me a glance of sheer hate, and seeing there was no one else at hand, he hissed:
“This filth is inedible! Look at it—smell it, if you can bear the nauseating stuff!”
I sniffed the bowl; it would have sickened a dog. “Capital stew!” says I. “Eat it down, heartily now, or I shall begin to fear I have been spoiling you, my boy. Now, you other niggers, are you all pitching into your vittles, hey? That’s the spirit.”
The other five all cried: “Yes, massa, shore ’nuff, mighty fine, massa.” Either they had more acting gumption than Randolph or else they liked the awful muck. But he, all a-quiver with indignation, whispers fiercely:
“Capital stew, indeed! Could you bear to eat this foulness?”
“Probably not,” says I, “but I’m not a nigger, d’ye see.” And without another glance at him I strolled off to my own dinner, resolving to describe it to him later. I never believe in neglecting the education of my inferiors.
It was worth describing, too. Mississippi food, once you get outside Orleans, tends to be robust and rich, and I wolfed my stewed chicken, prime steak and creamed chocolate with all the more relish for the thought of Randolph squatting on the main deck grubbing at his gristle. I had champagne with it, too, and a very passable brandy, and finally topped the whole thing off with a buxom little cracker girl in my cabin. Her name was Penny or Jenny, I forget which; she had dyed gold hair which went vilely with her yellow satin dress, and she was one of your squealing hoydens, but she had tremendous energy and high pointed breasts of which she was immensely proud, which made up for a lot. Most of the women on the boat were noisy, by the way; the respectable ones clacked and squawked to each other interminably, and the mistresses and whores, of whom there seemed to be a great number, were brassy enough to be heard in San Francisco. Penny (or Jenny) was one of the quieter ones; she didn’t scream with laughter above once a minute.
I was lying there, drowsy and well satisfied, listening to her prattling, when a nigger waiter comes up with a message that I was wanted on the main deck—something to do with my coffle, he said. Wondering what the devil was what, I went down, and to my rage and concern discovered that it was that confounded George up to his nonsense again.
The overseer was swearing and stamping over in the corner where my slaves were, with Randolph standing in front of him looking as arrogant as Caesar.
“What’s the matter with it, damn ye?” the overseer was shouting, and then, seeing me:
“Say, look here, Mist’ Prescott—here’s this jim-dandy nigger o’ yours don’ like this yere ’commodation. No suh, ’pears like ’taint good enough for him. Now, then!”
“What’s this I hear, George?” says I, pushing forward. “What are you about, my boy? Turning up your nose at the quarters—what’s wrong with them, sir?”
He looked me straight in the eye, with as much side as old Lord Cardigan.
“We have been given no straw to make beds for ourselves. We are entitled to this; it is covered in the money you have paid for our passage.”
“Well,—me drunk, will ye hear that, now?” cries the overseer. “Entye—entitt—ent-what-the-hell-you-say! Don’ you give me none o’ your shines, ye black rascal! Beds, by thunder! You’ll lay right down where you’re told, or by cracky you’ll be knocked down! Who’re you, that you gotta have straw to keep yore tender carcase offen the floor? ’Tother hands is layin’ on it, ain’t they? Now, you git right down there, d’ye hear?”
“My master has paid for us to have straw,” says Randolph, looking at me. “The other slaves over yonder have it; only our coffle goes without.”
“Well, there ain’t no more goddamed straw, you no-good impident son-of-a-bitch!” cries the overseer. “So now! I never heerd the like—”
I could have felled that bloody ass Randolph on the spot—perhaps I should have done. Couldn’t the fool understand that he must behave as a slave, even if he didn’t feel like one? How the devil he ever existed on a plantation was beyond me—it must have taken a saint or a lunatic to put up with his insolent airs. All I could do was play the just master, kindly but firm.
“Come, come, George,” I said sternly. “Let us have no more of this. Lie down where you are told directly—what, is this how you repay my kind usage, by impertinence? Have you forgotten yourself altogether, that you speak back to a white man? Lie down at once, sir, this instant!”
He stared at me; I was urging him with my eyes, and he had just wit enough to obey, but with no great humility, plumping down on the deck and folding his arms stubbornly round his knees. The overseer growled.
“I’d take the starch outer that jackanapes right smart, if he was mine. You be ’vised, Mist’ Prescott, an’ give that uppity yaller bastard a good dressin’ down, or he’ll have the whole passel on ’em as bad as hisself. Beds, by Christ! An’ sassin’ back to me! That’s the trouble with all these fancy house-niggers, with bein’ roun’ white folks they start thinkin’ they white, too. Peacocky high-an’-mighties, every last dam’ one of them. He’ll have bin brought up ’mong white ladies, I don’t doubt; too much dam’ pettin’ when he’s young. You trim him up smart, Mist’ Prescott, like I say, or he’ll be a heap o’ trouble to ye.”
He stumped off, muttering to himself, and Randolph sneered softly to himself.
“The gentleman is not without perception,” says he. “He, at least, was not brought up among white ladies; white sows, perhaps.” He glared up at me. “We are entitled to straw to lie on—why did you not insist that he provides it? Isn’t it enough that I am chained up like a beast in this verminous place, fed on nauseating slops? Aren’t you meant to protect me—you, who neglect me to the mercies of that uncouth white scum?”
I wondered if the fellow was insane—not for the way he spoke to me, but for the purblind stupidity with which he overlooked the position he was in, the role he was meant to be playing. He was five days away from freedom, and yet the idiot insisted on drawing attention to himself and provoking trouble. Ordinarily I’d have taken my boot to him, but he so mystified me that I was alarmed. I glanced round; the overseer was out of sight.
“Come over by the rail,” says I, and when we were standing apart:
“Look—haven’t you got sense enough to keep your mouth shut and your head down? Where the hell do you think you are—the House of Lords? D’ye think it matters whether you get straw or not—or whether I’ve paid for it or not? D’ye expect me to take your side against a white man—it’d be the talk of the boat in five minutes, you fool. Just you forget your lofty opinion of yourself for once, and talk humble, and don’t be so damned particular, or you’ll never see Ohio this trip!”
“I need no advice from you!” he flashed back. “You would be better remembering the duty you have promised to do, which is to take me north in safety, than to spend your time in gorging with white-trash sluts.”
It took my breath away—not just the insolence, but the discovery of how fast news travels among niggers. And there was just a note in his indignation that made me decide to put my anger aside and be amused instead.
“What’s the matter, Sambo?” says I. “Jealous?”
If looks could kill there’d have been a corpse at his feet.
“I have no words to express my contempt of you, or of the slatterns you … you associate with,” says he, and his voice was shaking. “But I will not have you endanger my freedom, do you hear? What kind of guardian are you? That swine of an overseer might have provoked me beyond endurance—while you were at your beastliness. It is your task to see me to Canada—that is all that matters.”
There was no piercing this one’s arrogance, I saw, not by reason or taunts. So I put my hands on my hips and stuck my face into his.
“All that matters, you black mongrel! I’ll tell you what matters—and that is that you keep your aping airs to yourself, touch your forelock, and say ‘Yes, massa’ whenever I or any white man talks to you. That way you might get to Canada—you just might.” I shook my fist at him. “If you haven’t the brain in that ape skull of yours to see that kicking up the kind of shines you’ve been at today is the surest way of setting us all adrift—if you can’t see that, I’ll teach it to you, by God! I’ll follow that overseer’s advice, Mr Randolph, and I’ll have you triced up, Mr Randolph, and they’ll take a couple of stone of meat off you with a raw-hide, Mr Randolph! Then maybe you’ll learn sense.”
If you think a quadroon can’t go red with rage, you’re wrong.
“You wouldn’t dare!” he choked furiously. “To me! Why, you … you …”
“Wouldn’t I, though? Don’t wager your big black arse on that, George, or you’ll find you’ve only half of it left. And what would you do about it, eh? Holler ‘I’m a runaway nigger, and this man is smuggling me to Canada?’ Think that over, George, and be wise.”
“You … you scoundrel!” He mouthed at me. “This shall be reported, when I reach Cincinnati—the underground railroad shall hear of it—what manner of creature they entrust with—”
“Oh, shut up, can’t you? I don’t give a fig for the railroad—and if you weren’t a born bloody fool you wouldn’t even mention their name. ‘When you reach Cincinnati,’ no less. You won’t reach Cincinnati unless I please—so if you can’t be grateful, Randolph, just be careful. Now, then, take off your airs, close your mouth, and get back there among your brothers—lively now! Cross me or that overseer again, and I’ll have the cat to you—I swear it. Jump to it, nigger!”
He stood there, sweat running down his face, his chest heaving with passion. For a moment I thought he would leap at me, but he changed his mind.
“Some day,” says he, “some day you shall repent this most bitterly. You heap indignities on me, when my hands are tied; you insult me; you mock my degradation. As God is my witness you will pay for it.”
There was no dealing with him, you see. It was on the tip of my tongue to yell for the overseer, and have him string Master George up and raw-hide the innards out of him, just for the fun of hearing him howl, but with this kind of quivering violet you couldn’t be certain what folly he mightn’t commit if he was pushed too far. There was a spite and conceit in that man that passed anything I’ve ever struck, so I lit a cigar while considering how to catch him properly on the raw.
“I doubt if I’ll pay for it,” says I. “But supposing I did—it’s something you can never hope to emulate.” I blew smoke at him. “You’ll never be able to pay for this trip, will you?”
I turned on my heel before he had a chance to reply and strode off, leaving him to digest the truth which I guess he hated more than anything else. That would boil his bile for him, but I wasn’t so certain that my threats would have the desired effect on his conduct. Well, if they didn’t, I’d carry them out, by God, and he could get to Canada with a new set of weals to show on his lectures to the Anti-Slavery Society.
What beats me, looking back, is the stupidity of his ingratitude. Here was the railroad—and for all he knew, myself—in a sweat to save his black hide for him, but would he show a spark of thanks, or abate his uppity pride one jot? Not he. He thought he had a right to be assisted and cosseted, and that we had a duty to put up with his airs and ill humour and childishness, and still help him for his own sweet sake. Well, he’d picked the wrong man in me; I was ready to drop the bastard overboard just to teach him the error of his ways—indeed, I paused on the ladder going up to reflect whether I could get away with selling him to a trader or in one of the marts on the way north. He would fetch a handy sum to help me on my way home—but I saw it wouldn’t do. He’d find a way to drag me down, and even if he didn’t, the underground railroad would hear of it, and I’d developed too healthy a respect for Mr Crixus and his legions to wish them on my tail with a vengeance. No, I’d just have to carry on with the plan, and hope to God that Randolph wouldn’t get us into some fearful fix with his wilful white-niggerishness.
It’s an interesting thought, though, that within a few short weeks I’d found myself engaged in running niggers into slavery, and running ’em out again, and all the hundreds of black animals on the Balliol College, with every reason to resist and mutiny and raise cain, hadn’t given a tenth of the trouble I was getting from this single quadroon, who should have been on his knees in gratitude to me and Crixus and the others. Of course, he was civilised, and educated, and full of his own importance. Lincoln was right; they’re a damned nuisance.
One consolation I had on that first night was that it didn’t look as though our trip would be a long one, and I could look forward to being shot of Master George Randolph within a week. We thrashed up and down the river in fine style—I say up and down because the Mississippi is the twistiest watercourse you ever saw, doubling back and forth, and half the time you are steaming south-east or south-west round a bend to go north again. It’s a huge river, too, up to a mile across in places, and unlike any other I know, in that it gets wider as you go up it. There was nothing to see as far as the banks were concerned except mud flats and undergrowth and here and there a town or a landing place, but the river itself was thick with steamboats and smaller vessels, and great lumber rafts piled high with bales and floating lazily down the muddy brown waters towards the gulf.
It’s a slow, ugly river, and the ugliness isn’t in what you can see, but what you can feel. There’s a palling closeness, and a sense of rot and corruption: it’s a cruel river, to my mind at any rate, both in itself and its people. Mind you, I may be prejudiced by what it did to me, but even years later, when I came booming down it with the Union Army—well, they boomed, and I coasted along with them—I still felt the same oppressive dread of it. I remember what Sam Grant said about it: “Too thick to drink and too thin to plough. It stinks.” Not that he’d have drunk it anyway, unless it had been pure corn liquor from Cairo down.
She’s a treacherous river, too, as I realised on the morning after we had boarded the Sultana, and she ran aground on a mud bank on the Bryaro bend, not far below Natchez. The channels and banks are always shifting, you see, and the pilots have to know every twist and stump and current; ours didn’t, we stuck fast, and a special pilot, the celebrated Bixby, had to be brought down from Natchez to get us afloat again.36 All of which consumed several hours, with the great man strutting about the pilot house and making occasional dashes out to the texas rail to peer down at the churning wheel, and scampering back to roar down his tube: “Snatch her! Hard down! Let her go, go, go!” while the Mississippi mud churned up in huge billows alongside and you could feel the boat shuddering and heaving to be off. And when she finally “snatched”, and reared off the shoal into the water, Bixby was half over the rail again, yelling to the nigger leadsman, and the scream of the whistles all but drowned their great bass voices singing out: “Eight feet—eight and a half—nine feet—quarter-less-twain!” And then as she surged out; “Mark twai-ai-ain!” and the whole ship roared and cheered and stamped and Bixby clapped his tall hat on his head and resumed his kid gloves while they pressed cigars on him and offered him drinks from their flasks. It was quite fun, really, and I’d have enjoyed it if I hadn’t been so anxious to get ahead, for I like to see a man who’s good at something, doing it, and throwing on a bit of extra side, just for show. As I’ve said, I don’t have many kindly memories of the Mississippi, but the best are of the steamboats riding tall, and the swaggering pilots, and the booming voices ringing “De-eep four!” and “Quarter-twa-ain!” across the brown waters. I’ll never hear them again—but they wouldn’t sound the same today anyway.
However, after Mr Bixby’s performance we steamed on to Natchez, and there any slight enjoyment I’d been getting from our cruise came to an abrupt end. From now life on the Mississippi was to be one horror after another, and I was to regret most bitterly the day I’d clapped eyes on her dirty waters.
I had no inkling of anything wrong until we were away and steaming up river again, and I sauntered down to see my coffle getting their evening meal—and no doubt, I thought, to discuss the menu with Black Beauty himself. I was considering a few taunts to add sauce to his diet, and wondering if it was wise to stir up his hysteria again, but the sight of his face drove them clear out of my mind. He looked strained and ugly, and quite deaf to the sneering abuse that the overseer gave him as he received his hash from the copper. He shuffled off with his bowl, glancing round at me, and I followed him out of eyeshot round the bales to the rail, where we could be alone.
“What’s the matter?” says I, for I knew something had shaken him badly. He looked left and right up the rail.
“Something dreadful has happened,” says he in a low voice. “Something unforeseen—my God, it can undo us utterly. It is the most terrible chance—a chance in a thousand—but Crixus should have anticipated it!” He beat his fist on the rail. “He should have seen it, I tell you! The fool! The blind, incompetent blunderer! To send me into this peril, to—”
“What the hell is it?” I demanded, now thoroughly terrified. “Spit it out, in God’s name!”
“A man came aboard at Natchez. I was watching, when the passengers came up the plank, and by God’s grace he did not see me. He knows me! He is a trader from Georgia—the very man who sold me to my first master! The first time I escaped, he was among those who brought me back! Don’t you see, imbecile—if he should catch sight of me here, we are finished! Oh, he knows all about George Randolph—he will know me on the instant. He will denounce me, I will be dragged back to—oh, my God!” And he put his head in his hands and sobbed with rage and fear.
He wasn’t the only one to be emotionally disturbed, I can tell you. He would be dragged back—by George, he would have company, unless I looked alive. I stood appalled—this was what my very first instinct had told me might happen, when Crixus had proposed this folly to me. But he had been so sure it would all be plain sailing, and in my cowardice I had allowed myself to be persuaded. I could have torn my hair at my own stupidity—but it was too late now. The damage was done, and I must try to think, and see a way out, and quieten this babbling clown before panic got the better of him.
“Who could have thought that it would happen?” he was chattering. “Not a soul in Mississippi or Louisiana knows me—not a soul—and this fiend from Georgia has to cross my path! What is he doing here? Why didn’t Crixus see that this could happen? Why did I let myself be driven into this calamity?” He jerked up his head, glaring through his tears. “What are you going to do?”
“Shut up!” says I. “Keep your voice down! He hasn’t seen you yet, has he?” I was trying to weigh the chances, to plan ahead in case we were discovered. “Perhaps he won’t—there’s no reason why he should, is there? He’ll be travelling on the boiler deck or the texas—there’s no reason why he should come down here, unless he has niggers with him, by God! Has he?”
“No—no, there were no new coffles came aboard at Natchez. But if he should, if—”
“He won’t, then. Even if he did, why should he see you, if you lie low and keep out of sight? He’s not going to go peering into the face of every nigger just for fun. Look, what’s his name?”
“Omohundro—Peter Omohundro of Savannah. He is a terrible creature, I tell you—”
“Look, there’s nothing to do but sit tight,” says I. It was a nasty shaker, no error, but common sense told me it wasn’t as bad as he made out it was. I don’t need any encouragement to terror, as a rule, but I can count chances, and there wasn’t a damned thing to be done except watch out and hope. The odds were heavy that Omohundro wouldn’t come anywhere near him; if he did, thinks I, then Master Randolph can look out for himself, but in the meantime the best thing to do is get some of his almighty cockiness back into him.
“You keep out of sight and keep quiet,” says I. “That’s all we can do—”
“All! You mean you intend to do nothing! To wait until he sees me?”
“He won’t—unless your vapourings attract attention!” I snapped. “I’ll watch out for him, never fear. At the first hint that he may come down here, I’ll be on hand. You’ve got the key to your irons hidden, haven’t you? Well, then, you stay behind the bales and keep your eyes open. There isn’t a chance in a million of his seeing you, if you are careful.”
That calmed him down a little; I believe that he had been more angry than frightened, really, which in itself was a relief to me. He blackguarded Crixus some more, and threw in a few withering remarks about my own shortcomings, and there I left him, with a promise to return later and report any developments. I won’t deny I was rattled, but I’ve had a lot worse perils hanging over me, and when I considered the size of the boat, and the hordes of folk aboard, white and nigger, I told myself we should be all right.
The first thing was to get a sight of Omohundro, which wasn’t difficult. By discreet inquiry I got him pointed out to me by a nigger waiter: a big, likely-looking bastard with a scarred face and heavy whiskers, one of your tough, wide-awake gentlemen who stared carefully at whoever was talking to him, spoke in a loud, steady way, and laughed easily. I also discovered that he was travelling only as far as Napoleon, which we ought to reach on the following evening. So that was all to the good, as I told Randolph later; he wasn’t going to have much time for prying about the boat. But I didn’t sleep much that night; even the outside risk of catastrophe is enough to keep me hopping to the water closet, and reaching for the brandy bottle.
Next day passed all too slowly; we lost time at Vicks-burg, and I became fretful at the realisation that we wouldn’t reach Napoleon and get rid of Omohundro before midnight. The man himself did nothing to set my bowels a-gallop; he spent the morning loafing about the rail, and sat long after luncheon with a group of Arkansas planters, gossiping. But he never stirred off the boiler deck, and I became hopeful again. With evening and darkness coming, it looked as though we were past the most dangerous time.
I kept an eye on him at dinner, though, and afterwards, when he went into the saloon and settled himself with the planters to booze and smoke the evening away, I was glad of a chance offered me to stay on hand. Through Penny-Jenny I had made the acquaintance of two or three fellows on the boat, and one of them, a red-faced old Kentuckian called Colonel Potter, invited me to make up a game of poker. He was one of your noisy, boozy sports, full of heavy humour and hearty guffaws; he fumbled at Penny’s thighs under the table, slapped backs, twitted me about the Battle of New Orleans, and generally played Bacchus. With him there was a pot-bellied planter named Bradlee, with a great fund of filthy jokes, and a young Arkansan called Harney Shepherdson, who had a yellow whore in tow. Just the kind of company I like, and I was able to watch Omohundro at the same time.
He left his friends after a while, and during a pause in our game he approached our table. Potter welcomed him boisterously, pressed him to sit down, introduced us all round, called for another bottle, and said would Omohundro take a hand.
“No, thankee, colonel,” says he. “Matter of fact, I’m taking the liberty of intrudin’ on your little party in the hope I can kindly have a little word with your friend here—” he indicated Bradlee, to my relief “—on a matter of business. If the ladies will forgive, that is; I’m due off at Napoleon in an hour or two, so hopin’ you won’t mind.”
“Feel free, suh; help y’self,” cries Potter, and Omohundro turns to Bradlee.
“Understand you have some niggers below, suh,” says he, and my innards froze at the words. “Couple of Mande’s ’mong ’em, accordin’ to my friends yonder. Now, while I’m not on a buyin’ trip, you understand, I never miss a Mande if I can help it. Wonder if you feel inclined to talk business, suh, an’ if so, I might take a look at ’em.”
I leaned back, hoping no one would notice how the sweat was beginning to pump off me, as I waited for Bradlee’s answer.
“Always talk business, anytime,” says he. “Got to warn you though, suh, my niggers don’t come cheap. Could be askin’ a right nice price.”
“Could be payin’ one, for the right kind of cattle,” says Omohundro. “Be deeply ’bliged to you, suh, if I might take a look at ’em for myself; be much beholden to you.”
Bradlee said it was fine with him, and heaved himself up, with his apologies to the table. I was shuddering by this time; I must get down to the main deck before them, and get Randolph out of sight somehow. I was on the point of jumping to my feet and making my excuses, when Potter, the interfering oaf, sings out:
“Say, why’nt you take a look at Mr Prescott’s coffle while you about it, suh? He got some right prime stock there, ain’t you, though? Purtiest set o’ niggers I seen in a while—it’s so, suh, I assure you. Reckon Mr Prescott’s got good taste in mos’ things—eh, honey?” And he set Penny squealing with a pinch.
What possessed him to stick his oar in, God knows; just my luck, I suppose. I found Omohundro’s eyes on me.
“That so, suh? Well, I ain’t rightly buyin’, like I said, but if—”
“Nothing for sale, I’m afraid.” I strove to sound offhand, and he nodded.
“In that case, your servant, ladies, colonel, gentlemen,” and he and Bradlee went off towards the staircase, leaving me floundering. I had to get away, so I started to my feet, saying I must fetch something from my cabin. Potter cried that we were just about to go on with the game, and Penny squeaked that without me to guide her she couldn’t tell the little clover leaves from the other black things on the cards, but by that time I was striding for the staircase, cursing Potter and with panic rising in my chest.
I saw Omohundro and Bradlee disappear downwards just ahead of me, so I hung back, and then slipped down the spiral staircase in their wake. By the time I reached the main deck they were already over at the far port rail, where Bradlee’s coffle lay, calling for the overseer to bring another light. It was pretty dim on the main deck, with only a few flare lamps which cast great black shadows among the bales and machinery; the various coffles of niggers were scattered about, nesting among the cargo, with my own crew up forward, away from the rest.
I lurked in the shadows, debating whether to go and warn Randolph, and decided not to; you never knew what that high-strung gentleman might do if he thought there was danger close by. It seemed best to lurk in the shadows unobserved, keeping an eye on Bradlee and Omohundro, and ready to intervene—God alone knew how—if they decided to take an interest in my coffle. The truth was I just didn’t know what to do for the best, and so did nothing.
Peeping over a box I watched while Omohundro, by the light of the overseer’s lantern, examined a couple of Bradlee’s slaves, walking round them prodding and poking. I couldn’t hear what was said, what with the churning of the great paddle wheel and the steady murmur and crooning of the slaves, but after about five minutes Omohundro shook his head, I heard Bradlee laugh, and then the three of them moved slowly amidships, where Omohundro stopped to light a cigar. From where I lurked among the bales I began to hear their voices.
“… and of course I don’t blame you, pricin’ high.” Omohundro was saying. “Reckon your figure is about right, these days, but that wouldn’t leave any margin of profit. Still, I’m right sorry; good bucks you have, suh, an’ well schooled.”
“Guess I can train a nigger,” says Bradlee. “Yessir, I jus’ about think I can. Whup seldom, but whup good, my ol’ dad used to say, an’ he was right. Guess I ain’t laid a rawhide on a nigger o’ mine this las’ twelve-month; don’t have to. They got a respect for me, on ’count they know if I do trim one of ’em up, he’ll stay trimmed.”
“That’s the style with ’em,” chips in the overseer. “On’y way, otherwise they git spoiled. Breaks my heart to see good niggers spoiled, too, by soft handlin’, like the coffle that Englishman brung aboard.”
“How’s that?” says Bradlee. “I hear they’s prime; so Potter say in’.”
“Oh, prime enough—just now But he don’t know how to handle ’em, an’ he in a right way to ruinin’ ’em, to my way o’ thinkin’. Shame, it is.” And then to my horror, he added: “Care to see ’em, gennelmen?”
My heart stopped beating, and then Omohundro said:
“Reckon not; he ain’t sellin’, so he tell me.”
“No?” chuckles the overseer. “I guess he’ll be glad ’nough to, come a year or so. Leastways with one of ’em—the uppitiest yaller son-of-a-bitch you ever see. First-rate nigger, too—clean, straight, smart, an’ talks like a college p’fessor—oh, you know his sort, I reckon. All frills an’ goddam’ lip.”
“Uh-huh,” says Bradlee. “Educated, likely, an’ spoiled to hell an’ gone. Got no use for ’em, myself.”
“That kind of fancy fetches a good price, though, once the tar’s been taken out of ’em,” says Omohundro. “Make valets, butlers, an’ so forth—ladies in Awlins an’ Mobile payin’ heavy money for ’em.” He paused. “Think the Englishman knows what this feller’s worth?”
“How could he?” says Bradlee. “He tells me he spent all his time in Afriky slave ships, till now. He don’t know the value of talkin’ niggers.”
Shut up, shut up about my bloody niggers, I found myself whispering. Mind your own business and get upstairs where you belong, can’t you. And they would have done but for that benighted swine of an overseer.
“Talkin’ niggers is right—this one of Prescott’s sure can handle his gab. Highest-falutin’ smart-assed buck in creation, answers back sassy as be damned. An’ what you think Mist’ Prescott do, gennelmen, hey? Why, he jus’ pats and smooths him! Yessir. Makes a body sick to listen.”
“The English is soft on niggers. Ev’yone know that,” says Bradlee. “I’d like to see the buck’d talk back to me; I’d just about like to hear that.”
“Well, suh, you don’t have to stir more’n twenty feet to see him,” cries the infernal clod. “Here, gennelmen, step across this ways—I see Mist’ Omohundro kinda interested anyway, that right, suh?”
I should have strode out then and there, I know, and done something, anything, to keep them away from my coffle. I might have talked them away, or damned their eyes for going near my blacks, or made some diversion. But my consternation had reached the point where I had lost my nerve altogether; I hesitated, and then the overseer was up forward, barking at my niggers to rise and let the white man have a look at them. I waited, helpless, for the blow to fall.
“Where that George?” the overseer was shouting. “Here, you George, ye black varmint, step out when I calls ye!”
It was like watching a play I had seen before, and a bloody tragedy at that. Randolph, unsuspecting, stood up among his fellows, blinking in the light.
“That one?” says Bradlee. “Well, he don’t look so dam’ pert, eh, Omohundro? Good clean buck, too, quadroon, I reckon—why, what’s the matter with you, boy? You seen a ghost?”
Randolph was staring, with his hand to his mouth, at Omohundro, who was stooping to peer at him.
“What’s that? Wait, though—hold on a minute! What’s your name, boy? I seen you before somewhere, ain’t I—yes! By God, I have!” His voice rose in a shout of amazement. “You’re George Rand—”
In that moment Randolph was on him like a tiger, carrying the big man to the deck, and then falling himself as his shackles tripped him. He was up in an instant though, agile as a cat, smashing a fist into Bradlee’s face before the overseer, swearing in astonishment, managed to close with him. They reeled against the bales, locked together, and then Randolph jerked his knee up, and the overseer staggered away yelping, clutching his groin.
“Get him!” bawls Omohundro. “He’s a runaway—Randolph! Stop him, Bradlee!”
Hobbled by his irons—he hadn’t time to get at his hidden key—Randolph half hopped, half ran for the rail, with Bradlee clutching at his shirt, trying to drag him back. Omohundro got a hold, too, but stumbled and fell, cursing; as they tried to grapple him Randolph broke away, and before his irons finally tripped him he had covered half a dozen yards which brought him to the big box where I was crouching. He saw me as he fell, and shouted:
“Help! Help me, Prescott! Fight them off!”
Such an appeal, addressed to Flashy, meets a prompt response. I ducked back behind cover just as Omohundro came crashing over the bales, clutching at Randolph’s feet. The quadroon kicked free, scrambled on to the rail, and was trying to roll over it when he must have realised that he would fall plumb in the path of the great thirty-foot paddle wheel; he shrieked, rearing up on the rail, the overseer’s pistol banged, and I saw Randolph’s body arch and his face contort with agony. He fell, outwards, and the huge wheel blades came churning down on him as he hit the water.
I daresay that if I had had a few minutes for quiet reflection it would have occurred to me that the safest course would be to stand my ground, playing the innocent trader amazed at the news that there had been a runaway in his coffle, and brazen it out that way. But I hadn’t those few minutes, and I’m not sure I’d have acted any differently anyway. The overwhelming feeling that I had when I saw Randolph’s body fall, with Omohundro and Bradlee roaring bloody murder and the whole deck in uproar, was that here was no place for Flashy any longer. I was skipping away between the bales before the echo of the shot had died; Omohundro’s bellow to me to stop merely assisted my flight. I crossed the deck in half a dozen strides, and launched myself over the starboard rail in a fine flat dive; there was no wheel on that side, I knew, and when I surfaced in the warm Mississippi water with all the breath knocked out of me the Sultana was already a hundred yards away upriver.