The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

"'Taan' no fault o' mine ter be bad, ef I caan' help it. Come now," said Flor sullenly, seeing little hope of respite,—"should t'ink 'twas de Ol' Sarpint hisself!"

"And 'taan' no virtue of yours to be good, ef you caan' help it; you 'd jus' stay put—jus' between—in de brown earth, as you said. You 'd never see that beautiful land beyond the grave, wid the river of light flowing troo der place, an' the people singing songs before the great white t'rone."

"Tell me 'bout dat ar, Sarp," said Flor, forgetfully.

"Dey 's all free there, Lome."

"How was dis dey got dere? Could n' walk nowes, an' could n' fly"–

"Haan' you seen into Miss Emma's prayer-book the angels with wings high and shining all from head to foot?"

"Yes," said Flor,—"Angels."

"And one of them you 'll be, Lome, ef you jus' choose,—ef, for instance, you choose liberty to-day."

"Lors now, Sarp, I doan' b'lieb a word you say! Get out wid yer conundrums! Likely story, little black nigger like dis yere am be put into de groun' an' 'come out all so great an' w'ite an' shinin'-like!"

"'For God shall deliver my soul from the power of the grave.' 'Shall.' That's a promise,—a promise in the Book. Di'n't yer eber plant a bean, Lome,—little hard black bean? And did a little hard black bean come up? No, but two wings of leaves, and a white blossom jus' ready to fly itself, and so sweet you could smell it acrost de field. So they plant your body in the earth, Lome"–

"You go 'long, Sarp! Ef you plant beans, beans come up," said Flor, decisively.

This direct and positive confutation rather nonplussed Sarp, his theory not being able at once to assimilate his fact, and he himself feeling, that, if he pushed the comparison farther, he would reach some such atrocity as that, if the white and shining flower produced in its season again the black bean from which it sprung, so the white and shining soul must once more clothe itself in the same sordid, unpurified body from which it first had sprung. He had a vague glimmer that perhaps his simile was too material, and that this very body was the clay in which the springing, germinating soul was planted to bloom out in heaven, but dared not pursue it unadvised, for fear of the quicksands into which it might betray him. He merely tied a knot in the thread of his discourse by answering,—

"Jus' so. The bean planted, the bean comes up. You planted, and what follows?"

"I come up," said Flor, consentingly, and quite as if he had got the better of the discussion.

Then he rose, and Flor led the way back to Miss Emma,—having first, upon Sarp's serious hesitation, pledged herself for Miss Emma's secrecy and gratitude with tears and asseverations.

In spite of the fact that he had never meant nor cared to see it again, there was something pleasant to Sarp in the face of the sleeper upturned in a moonbeam. He stooped and lifted her tenderly, and laid her head on his shoulder. The young girl opened her eyes vacantly, but heard Flor's voice beside her still,—

"Doan' ye be scaret now, honey! Bress you, 's a true frien': he'll get us shet ob dis yere swamp mighty sudd'n!"

And soothed by the dreamy motion, entirely fatigued, borne swiftly along in strong arms, under the low, waving boughs in the dim forest darkness, she was drowsed again with slumber, from which she woke only on being placed in the bottom of a skiff to turn over into a deeper dream than before. Flor nodded triumphantly to her companion, in the beginning, keeping pace beside him with short runs,—there could be no fear of babble about that of which one knew nothing,—and took her seat at last in the boat as he directed, while with a long pole he pushed out into the deeper water away from the shadow of the shore, and then went steering between the jags and gnarls, that, half protruding from the dark expanses, seemed the heads of strange and preternatural monsters. Now and then a current carried them; now and then their boatman sculled, now and then in shallower places poled along; sometimes he rested, and in the intervals took occasion to continue his missionary labor upon Flor,—his first object being to convince her she had a soul, and his second that in bondage every chance to save that soul alive was against her. Then he drew slight pictures of a different way of things, such as had solaced his own imagination, rude, but happy idyls of freedom: the small house, one's own; the red light in the window, a guiding star for weary feet at night coming home to comfort and smiles and cheer; no dark, haunting fear of a hand to reach between one and those loved dearest; no more branding like cattle, manhood and womanhood acknowledged, met with help and welcome and kind hands, cringing no more, but standing erect, drinking God's free sunshine, and growing nearer heaven. How much or how little of all his dream poor Sarp realized, if ever he reached the land of his desire at all, Heaven only knows. But Flor listened to him as if he recited some delightful fairy-tale,—charming indeed, but all as improbable as though one were telling her that black was white. Then, too, there was another dream of Sarp's,—the dream of a whole race loosening itself from the clinging clod. Flor got a glimmer of his meaning,—only a glimmer; it made her heart beat faster, but it was so grand she liked the other best.

So, creeping through narrow creeks, now they skirted the edges of the long, low, flat morass,—now wound round the giant trunk of a fallen tree that nearly bridged the pool whose dark mantle they severed,—now pushed the boat's head up into a wall of weeds, that bent back and let it through the deep cut flooded by the rain, where the wild growth shut off everything but the high hollow of a luminous sky, with ribbon-grasses and long prickly leaves brushing across their faces from either side, here and there a sudden dwarf palmetto bristling all its bayonets against the peaceful night, and all the way singular uncouth shapes of vegetation, like conjurations of magic, cutting themselves out with minuteness upon the vast clear background so darkly and weirdly that the voyagers seemed to be sliding along the shores of some new, strange under-world,—now they got out, and, wading ankle-deep in plashy bog, drew the boat and its slumberer heavily after them,—now went slowly along, afloat again, on the broad lagoons, which the moon, from the deep far heaven, shot into silver reaches, and, with the trees, a phantom company of shadows, weeping in their veils along the farther shore, with all the quaint outlines of darkness, the gauzy wings that flitted by, the sweet, wild scents across whose lingering current they drifted, the broad silence disturbed only by the lazy wash of a seldom ripple, made their progress, through heavy gloom and vivid light, an enchanted journey.

At length they lifted overhanging branches, and glided out upon a sheet of open water, a little lake fed by natural springs; and here, paddling over to the outlet, a tide took them down a swift brook to the river. Sarp stemmed this tide, made the opposite bank of the brook, and paused.

"Have you chosen, Lome?" said he. "Will you go back with me, and so on to the Happy Land of Freedom? Not that I'll have my own liberty till I've earned it,—till I've won a country by fighting for it. But I'll see you safe; and if I'm spared, one day I'll come to you. Will you go?"

Flor hung back a moment. "I'd like to go, Sarp, right well," said she, twisting up the corner of her little tatter of an apron. "But dar am Miss Emma, you see."

"We can leave her on the bank here. She'll be all right when de day breaks, and fin' the house herself. There's as good as she without a roof this night."

"She's neber been use' to it. She would n' know a step o' de way. Oh, no, Sarp! I 'longs to Miss Emma; she could n' do widout me. She'd jus' done cry her eyes out an' die,—'way here in de wood. No, Sarp, I mus' take her back. She's delicate, Miss Emma is. I'd like to go right well, Sarp,—'ta'n't much ob a 'sapp'intment,—I's use' to 'em,—I'd like for to go wid you."

Lingering, irresolute, she stood up in the swaying skiff, keeping her balance as if she were dancing; then, the motion, perhaps, throwing her back into her old identity, she sprang to the shore like a cat. Sarp laid Miss Emma beside her, and then shot away, back over all the desolate reaches and lonely shining pools; and Flor, with a little wail of despair, hid her face on the ground, that her weakened and bewildered little mistress might not see the flood of tears that wet the grass beneath it.

It was between two and three o'clock in the morning, when, chilled, draggled, and dripping wet, they reached the house. Lights were moving everywhere about it: no one had slept there that night. There was a great shout from high and low as the two forlorn little objects crept into the ray. Miss Emma was met with severe reproaches, afterwards with tears and embraces; and cordial drinks and hot flannels were made ready for her in a trice. As for Flor, she was warmed after another fashion,—being sent off for punishment; and, in spite of the implorations of Miss Emma and the interference of Miss Agatha, the order was executed. It was the first time she had ever received such reward of merit in form; and though it was a slight affair, after all, the hurt and wrong rankled for weeks, and, instead of the gay, dancing imp of former days, henceforth a silent, sullen shadow slipped about and haunted all the dark places of the house.

Mas'r Henry, being a native of Charleston, was also a gentleman of culture, and fond of the fine arts to some extent. Indeed, looking at it in a poetical view, the feudality of slavery, even more than the inevitable relation of property, was his strong tie to the institution. He had a contempt for modern progress so deeply at the root of his opinions that he was only half aware of it; and any impossible scheme to restore the political condition of what we call the Dark Ages, and retain the comforts of the present one, would have found in him a hearty advocate. One of his favorite books was a little green-covered volume, printed on coarse paper, and smelling of the sea which it had crossed: a book that seemed to bring one period of those past centuries up like a pageant,—so vividly, with all the flying dust of their struggle in the sunbeam before him, did its opulent vitality reproduce, in their splendors and their sins, the actual presences of those dead men and women, now more unreal substance than the dust of their shrouds. He liked to carry this mediaeval Iliad round with him, and, taking it out at propitious places, go jotting his pencil down the page. He had heard it called an incomprehensible puzzle of poetry; it gave him pleasure, then, to unriddle and proclaim it plain as print. He was thus delectating himself one day, while Flor, still in her phase of moodiness, stood behind Miss Agatha's chair; and, the passage pleasing him, he read it aloud to Miss Agatha, whom, in the absence of his son, her husband, he was wont to consider his opponent in the abstract, however dear and precious in the concrete.

"As, shall I say, some Ethiop, past pursuitOf all enslavers, dips a shackled foot,Burnt to the blood, into the drowsy, black,Enormous watercourse which guides him backTo his own tribe again, where he is king;And laughs, because he guesses, numberingThe yellower poison-wattles on the pouchOf the first lizard wrested from its couchUnder the slime, (whose skin, the while, he stripsTo cure his nostril with, and festered lip,And eyeballs bloodshot through the desert blast,)That he has reached its boundary, at lastMay breathe; thinks o'er enchantments of the South,Sovereign to plague his enemies, their mouth,Eyes, nails, and hair; but, these enchantments triedIn fancy, puts them soberly asideFor truth, projects a cool return with friends,The likelihood of winning mere amendsErelong; thinks that, takes comfort silently,Then from the river's brink his wrongs and he,Hugging revenge close to their hearts, are soonOffstriding to the Mountains of the Moon."

Flor stood listening, with eyes that shone strangely out of the gloom of her face.

"Well, child," said her master to Miss Agatha, "how does that little monodrame strike you? Which do you find preferable, tell me, Ashantee at home or Ashantee abroad? civilized or barbarized? the institution or the savage? Eh, Blossom," turning to Flor, "what do you think of the condition of that ancestor of yours?"

"Mas'r Henry," said Flor, gravely, "he was free."

"Eh? Free? What! are you bitten, too?"

And Mas'r Henry laughed at the thought, and pictured to himself his dancer dancing off altogether, like the swamp-fire she was. Then his tone changed.

"Flor," said he, sternly, "who has been talking to you lately? Do you know, Agatha? I have seen this for some time. I must learn what one among the hands it is that in these times dares breed disaffection."

"No one's talked to me, Sah," said Flor,—"no one onter der place."

"Some one off of it, then."

"Mas'r Henry, I's been havin' my own t'oughts. Mas'r knows I could n' lebe Miss Emma nowes. Could n' tief her property nowes. But ef Mas'r Henry 'd on'y jus' 'sider an' ask li'l' Missy for to make dis chil' a presen' ob myse'f"–

"So that's what it means!" And Mas'r Henry smiled a moment at the ludicrous idea presented to him.

"Flor," said he then, abruptly, "I have never heard the whole of that night in the swamp. It must be told."

"Lors, Sah! So long ago, I's done forgot it!"

"You may have till to-morrow morning to quicken your memory."

"Haan' nof'n' more to 'member, Mas'r."

"You heard me. You have your choice to repeat it either now or to-morrow morning."

"Could n' make suf'n', whar nof'n' was. Could n' tink o' nof'n' all ter once. Could n' tell nof'n' at all in a hurry," said Flor, with a twinkle. "Guess I'll take tell de mornin', any-wes, Mas'r." And she was off.

And Mas'r Henry went, back to his book,—the watcher nodding on his spear,—and all the stormy scenes he expected soon to realize in his own life, when the sword of conscription had numbered his old head with the others.

Flor went out from the presence defiant, as became a rebel.

Although that special mode of martyrdom was not proper to the plantation, and Flor felt in herself few particles of the stuff of which martyrs are made, she was determined, that, as to telling so much as that Sarp was still in the swamp, let alone betraying the way to his late habitat,—even were she able,—she never would do it, though burned at the stake. The determination had a dark look; nevertheless, two glimmers lighted it: one was the hope, in a mistrust of her own strength, that Sarp had already gone; the other was a perception that the best way to keep Sarp's secret was to make off with it. She began to question what authority Mas'r Henry had to demand this secret from her; she answered in her own mind, that he had no authority at all;—then she was doubly determined that he should not have it. She had heard talk of chivalry at table and among guests; she had half a comprehension of what it meant; she wondered if this were not a case in point,—if it were, after all, the color, and not the sex, that weighed. That aroused her indignation, aroused also a feeling of race: she would not have changed color that moment with the fairest Circassian of a harem, could the white slave have appeared in all the dazzle of her beauty.—Mas'r Henry had called that man, of whom he read aloud to-day, her ancestor. She knew what that was, for she had heard Miss Emma boast of her progenitors. But he was free; then it followed that she was not a slave by nature, only by vicious force of circumstance. Mas'r Henry had no right to her whatever; instead of her stealing herself, he was the thief who retained her against her will. What could be the name of the country where that man had lived? It was somewhere a long way from this place, down the river, perhaps beyond the sea;—there were others there, then, still, most likely. Flor had an idea that among them she might be a superior, possibly received with welcome, invested with honors;—she lingered over the pleasant vision. But how was one ever to find the spot? Ah, that book of Mas'r Henry's would tell, if she could but take it away to those kind people Sarp had told of. So she meditated awhile on the curious travels with Sordello for a guide-book, till old affections smote her for having thought of taking the thing, when "Mas'r Henry set so by it," and she put the vision aside, endeavoring to recall in its place all that Sarp had told her of the North. She realized then, personally, what a wide world it was. Why should she stay shut in this one point upon it all: a hill and the fir wood behind her; marshes on this side; woods again on the other; low hills far away before her; out of them all, the dark torrent of the river showing the swift way to freedom and the great sea? She drew in a full breath, as if close air oppressed her.—A bird flew over her then, high above her head, careering in fickle circles, and at length sailing down out of sight far into other heavens. Flor watched him bitterly; she comprehended Zoë's scorn of her past content;—if only she had wings to spread! But Sarp had told her, that, if she went away, she would one day have wings. None of Sarp's other arguments weighed a doit,—but wings to roam with over this beautiful world! The liberty of vagabondage! She watched the clouds chasing one another through the sunny heaven, watched their shadows chasing along the fields and hills below; her heart burned that everything in the world should be more free than she herself. She felt the wind fanning over her on its way, she took the rich odors that it brought, she looked after the flower-petal that fluttered away with it, she saw the strong sunshine penetrating among the shadows of a jungly spot and catching a thousand points of color in the gloom, she recognized the constant fluent interchange among all the atoms of the universe;—why was she alone, capable of flight, chained to one spot?—She gazed around her at the squalor and the want, the brutish shapes and faces, her own no better, at the narrow huts; thought of the dull routine of work never to enrich herself, the possibility of purchase and cruelty;—she sprung to her feet, all her blood boiling; it seemed out of the question for her to endure it another moment.—Mas'r Henry had told her once that he could make his fortune with her dancing, if he chose; she stood as much in need of a fortune as Mas'r Henry,—why not make it for herself? why not be off and away, her own mistress, earning and eating her own bread, sending some day for Zoë, finding Sarp in those far-off happy latitudes?—It occurred to her, like a discovery of her own, that, doing the work she was bidden, taking the food she was given, whipped at will, and bought and sold, she was no better than one among the cattle of the place;—the sudden sense of degradation made even her dark cheek burn. She laid a hand down on the earth, her great Teraph, to see if it were possible it could still be warm and such a wrong done to her its child. Then, all at once, she understood that wood and river were open to her fugitive feet, and if she stayed longer in slavery, it was the fault of no one but herself.—She stood up, for some one called her; she obeyed the call with alacrity, for she found it in her power to do so or not as she chose. She felt taller as she stepped along, and held up her head with the dignity of personality. She acknowledged, perhaps, that she was no equal of Miss Emma's,—that the creative hand, making its first essay on her, rounded its complete work in Miss Emma; but she declared herself now no mere offshoot of the sod,—she was a human being, a being of beating pulses and affections, and something within her, stifled here, longing to soar and away.

It was dark before Flor had ceased her novel course of thinking, pursued through all her little tasks,—beautiful star-lighted dark, full of broken breezes, soft and warm, and loaded with passionate spices and flower-breaths; she was alone again, under the shadows of the trees, entirely surrendered to her whirling fancies. In these few hours she had lived to the effect of years. She was neither hungry nor tired; she was conscious of but a single thing,—her whole being seemed effervescing into one wild longing after liberty. It was not that she could no longer brook control and be at the beck of each; it was a natural instinct, awakened at last in all the strength of maturity, that would not let her breathe another breath in peace unless it were her own,—that made her feel as though her chains were chafing into the bone,—that taught her the unutterable vileness and loathliness of bonds,—that convicted her, in being a slave, of being something foul upon the fair face of creation. She sat casting about for ways of escape. It was absurd to think she could again blunder on that secure retreat of the swamp before being overtaken; no boats ever passed along down the foaming river; if she were some little mole to hide and burrow in the ground till danger were over,—but no, she would rather front fear and ruin than lose one iota of her newly recognized identity. But there was no other path of safety; she clutched the ground with both hands in her powerlessness; in all the heaven and earth there seemed to be nothing to help her.

So at last Flor rose; since she could not get away, she must stay; as for the next day's punishment, she could laugh at it,—it was not its weight, but its wickedness, that troubled her; but escape, some time, she would. Lying in wait for method, ambushed for opportunity, it would go hard, if all failed. Of what value would life be then? she could but throw that after. So at some time, that was certain, she would go,—when, it was idle to say; it might be years before affairs were more propitious than now,—but then, at last, one day, the place that had known her should know her no more. Nevertheless, despite all this will and resolution, the heart of the child had sunk like a plummet at thought of leaving everything, at fear of future fortune; this deferring, after all, was half like respite.

Flor drew near the out-door fire, where Zoë and one or two others busied themselves. Something excited them extremely, it was plain to see and hear. Flor, beyond the circle of the light, strained her ears to listen. It was only a crumb of comfort that she obtained, but one of those miraculous crumbs to which there are twelve baskets of fragments: the Linkum gunboats were down at the mouth of the river. Oh! heaven a boat's length off! A day and night's drifting and rowing; then climbing the side slaves, treading the deck freemen,—the shackles fallen, the hands loosened, the soul saved!

But the boat? There was not such a thing along these banks. Improvise one. That was not possible. Flor listened, and the wild gasps of hope died out again into the dulness of despair. Some other time,—not this. As she stood still, idly and hopelessly hearkening to the mutter of the old women, with the patches of flickering fire-light falling on their faces in strange play and revelation, there stole upon her ear a sweeter and distincter sound, the voice of Miss Agatha, as, leaning out upon the night, she sang a plaint that consorted with her melancholy mood, learned in her Northern home in happier hours, without a thought of the moment of misery that might make it real.

Sooner or later the storms shall beatOver my slumber from head to feet;Sooner or later the winds shall raveIn the long grass above my grave.I shall not heed them where I lie,Nothing their sound shall signify,Nothing the headstone's fret of rain,Nothing to me the dark day's pain.Sooner or later the sun shall shineWith tender warmth on that mound of mine;Sooner or later, in summer air,Clover and violet blossom there.I shall not feel in that deep-laid restThe sheeted light fall over my breast,Nor ever note in those hidden hoursThe wind-blown breath of the tossing flowers.Sooner or later the stainless snowsShall add their hush to my mute repose;Sooner or later shall slant and shiftAnd heap my bed with their dazzling drift.Chill though that frozen pall shall seem,Its touch no colder can make the dreamThat recks not the sweet and sacred dreadShrouding the city of the dead.Sooner or later the bee shall comeAnd fill the noon with his golden hum;Sooner or later on half-paused wingThe blue-bird's warble about me ring,—Ring and chirrup and whistle with glee,Nothing his music means to me,None of these beautiful things shall knowHow soundly their lover sleeps below.Sooner or later, far out in the night,The stars shall over me wing their flight;Sooner or later my darkling dewsCatch the white spark in their silent ooze.Never a ray shall part the gloomThat wraps me round in the kindly tomb;Peace shall be perfect for lip and browSooner or later,—oh, why not now!

Little of this wobegone song touched Flor even enough to let her know there was some one in the world more wretched than herself. The last word, the last phrase, rang in her ears like a command,—now, why not now?—waiting for times and chances, hesitating, delaying, since go she must,—then why not now? What more did she need than a board and two sticks? Here they were in plenty. And with that, a bright thought, a fortunate memory,—the old abandoned scow! And if, after all, she failed, and went to watery death, did not the singer tell in how little time all would be quiet and oblivious once again? Oh, why not now?