[Flashy: Well, Crixus was only saying what he and most of the North believed, but the truth of the matter was that Brown and his boys had gone to the homes of five pro-slave men who weren’t threatening anybody, ordered them outside, and sliced ’em up like so much beef with sabres; the men were unarmed, and it was done in cold blood. J.B. himself never denied the deed, though he claimed not to have killed anyone himself. That was the Pottawatomie Massacre, the first real reprisal by the Free Staters, and the most notorious act of J.B.’s life, bar Harper’s Ferry three years later, and even his worshippers have never been able to explain it away; most of ’em just ignore it.]
“So now,” says Crixus, “he was a hunted outlaw, he and his brave band. They must live like beasts in the wild, while the full fury of the Border Ruffians was turned on the unhappy land. Men were slaughtered, homes and farms burned – two hundred men, Mr Comber, died in the fighting of that terrible summer of ’56, property valued at thousands of dollars destroyed – but John Brown held the banner of freedom aloft, and his name was a terror to the tyrants. At last the Border Ruffians descended in overwhelming force on his home at Ossawatomie, put it to the torch, slew his son Frederick, and drove the heroic father from the territory – too late! John Brown’s work in Kansas was done! It is free soil today, and shall so remain, but more, far more than this, he had lighted Liberty’s beacon for all America to see, and shown that there can be but one end to this struggle – war to the bitter end against slavery!”
[Flashy: On the whole, I agree. J.B. hadn’t ensured Kansas’s freedom – the will of the majority, and the fact that its climate was no good for slave crops like cotton and sugar and baccy saw to that. But Crixus was right: he had lit the beacon, for while he and his boys were only one of many gangs of marauders and killers who fought in “Bleeding Kansas”, his was the name that was remembered; he was the symbol of the fight against slavery. The legend of the Avenging Angel grew out of the Pottawatomie Massacre and the battle at Black Jack, where he licked the militia and took them prisoner. To the abolitionists back east he was the embodiment of freedom, smiting the slavery men hip and thigh, and the tale lost nothing in the telling by the Yankee press. You may guess what the South thought of him: murderer, brigand, fiend in human shape, and arch-robber – and I’m bound to say, just from what he later told me himself, that he did his share of plundering, especially of horses, for which he had a good eye. But whatever else he did in Kansas, John Brown accomplished one thing: he turned the anti-slavery crusade into an armed struggle, and made North and South weigh each other as enemies. He put gunsmoke on the breeze, and the whole of America sniffed it in – and didn’t find the odour displeasing.]18
Crixus had paused for breath and another sip of brandy, but now he leaned forward and gripped my hands in his excitement.
“Do you know what he said, Mr Comber, this good and great old man, as he gazed back at his burning home, his revolvers smoking in his hands, his eyes brimmed with tears for his murdered child? Can you guess, sir, what were those words that have rung like a trumpet blast in the ears of his countrymen?”
I said I couldn’t imagine, and he gulped and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “He said: ‘God sees it. I have only one death to die, and I will die fighting in this cause. There will be no peace in the land until slavery is done for. I will carry the war into Africa!’”
“I say! Why Africa? I mean, it’s the dooce of a long way, and what about transport and –”
“No, no!” cries he impatiently. “By Africa he meant the South – the land of darkness and savage oppression. For now he knew that the time was come to realise his dream – that vision of which I spoke!” He was spraying slightly, and I could see that the great news was coming at last. “The invasion of Virginia – that, sir, was his plan, and the hour is nigh for its fulfilment, after years of maturing and preparation. He purposes an armed raid to seize a federal arsenal, and with the captured munitions and supplies, to equip the slaves who will cast off their bonds and rush to join his standard! They will withdraw into the mountain fastnesses, and there wage guerrilla war against their former masters – oh, he has studied the ancient wars, sir, and Lord Wellington’s campaign in Spain! Formerly it was his design to found an independent black republic, but now his vision has soared beyond, for can it be doubted that once his army is in the hills, every slave in the South will rise up in arms? There will be such a rebellion as was never seen, and whatever its outcome, the greater battle will be joined! Free men everywhere will rally to the standard that John Brown has raised, and slavery will be whelmed forever in the irresistible tide of liberty!”
He was almost falling out of his chair with enthusiasm, and Moody had to settle him while Joe refilled his glass and helped him take a refreshing swig; neither of them said anything, but Crixus was staring at me with the eager expectancy of a drawing-room tenor who has just finished butchering “The Flowers on Mother’s Grave”, and awaits applause. Plainly this fellow Brown was a raving loose screw, and I knew Crixus was no better, but it behoved me to respond as Comber would have responded, and then take my leave for the British ministry. So …
“Hallelujah!” says I. “What a splendid stroke! Why, it will give these … these slavers the rightabout altogether! A capital notion, and will be well received … er, everywhere, I’ll be bound! I suppose it’s a well-kept secret at the moment, what? Just so, that’s prudent – I’ll not breathe a word, of course. Well, it’s getting late, so –”
“It is no secret, Mr Comber,” says he solemnly. “The where and when John Brown has yet to determine, but the intent is known, if not to the public at large, certainly to all who labour secretly for liberty – aye, even in Congress it is known, thanks to the treachery of Captain Brown’s most trusted lieutenant. You stare, Mr Comber? Well you may, for the traitor was a countryman of your own, a rascal named Forbes, enlisted for his military experience, gained in Italy with Garibaldi. He it was who babbled the secret, abusing Brown’s name because, he claimed, his pay was in arrears! Fortunately, those Senators in whom he confided were no friends to slavery, so no great harm was done, and Brown at least became aware what a viper he had nourished in his bosom.19 Nor has he himself sought to conceal his design. Since leaving Kansas he has been about the North, preaching, exhorting, raising the funds necessary for his great enterprise, purchasing arms, rifles and revolvers and pikes –”
“Pikes, did you say?”
“Indeed, to arm the slaves when the hour strikes! Wherever he has gone, men have fallen under his spell, seeing in him another Cromwell, another Washington, destined to bring his country liberty! Everywhere he rallies support. Alas,” he shook his head, glooming, “more have promised than performed; his treasury is low, his army stout of heart but few in number, and even those devoted leaders of opinion who wholeheartedly approve his end, shrink timidly at the mention of his means. Oh, blind! Do they think pious words can prevail against the shackle and the lash and the guns of the Border Ruffians? The dam’ fools!” cries he, in unwonted passion. “Oh, they are sincere – Parker and Gerrit Smith, Sanborn and Higginson, members of the Secret Six who are heart and soul in the cause, yet fearful of the storm that John Brown’s scheme would unloose! The North is with him in sympathy, Mr Comber, aye, many even in the halls of Congress, but when his hand goes to his pistol butt, they quake like women, dreading lest he destroys the Union – as if that mattered, so it is made whole again when slavery is dead –”
“But hold on – a moment, sir, if you please!” I tried to calm him before he did himself a mischief. “You say they know in Congress – in the government? And he goes about, er, preaching and so forth … well, how does he escape arrest, I mean to say?”
“Arrest John Brown?” He gave a bitter cackle. “Why, then, sir, we should have a storm indeed! The North would not abide it, Mr Comber! He is our hero! And he goes silently, without fanfare, appearing only in those public places where his enemies would not dare raise their voices, let alone their hands
! Oh, Missouri has set a bounty of $3000 on his head, and that pusillanimous wretch who calls himself our President, and whose cowardice has rent the Democratic Party in twain, has sunk so low as to offer $250 – why not thirty, in silver, false Buchanan? – for his apprehension! But who in the North would try to claim such rewards?”
That’s America for you: a maniac at large, threatening to stir up war and slave rebellion, and nothing done about it. Not that I gave a dam; what with brandy and sitting down I was feeling easier than I’d done all day, and was becoming most infernally bored with Captain Brown and his madcap plans for setting the darkies against their owners (with pikes, I ask you!), and anxious to be gone. So I shook my head in wonder, expressed admiration for Brown and his splendid activities, didn’t doubt that he’d win a brilliant triumph, and hinted that I’d like to get to the British ministry this year, if possible. D’ye know, Crixus didn’t seem even to hear me? He was sitting back in his chair, brooding on me with an intense stare which I found rather unnerving. Suddenly he asked me if I’d had food lately, and it came as a shock to realise that my last meal had been in Baltimore that morning … my God, it had been turmoil since then, with no time to think of eating. I was famished, but said I could wait until I reached the ministry; he wouldn’t hear of it, reproaching himself for his thoughtlessness, bidding Joe rustle up sandwiches and drumsticks, waving me back to my chair, while Moody filled my glass and set a restraining hand on my shoulder, with a warning nod to me to humour the old buffoon.
So I sat, fretting, but wolfed the grub down when it came, while Crixus resumed his tale. It seemed that Brown, having squeezed as much cash as he could out of well-wishers, liberal philanthropists and rich free blacks, had lately returned to Kansas under the name of Shubel Morgan, and had set the border in uproar by raiding into Missouri, stealing eleven niggers, and bringing them to free soil, dodging posses all the way. (He also liberated several horses and a large amount of plunder, and left one unfortunate householder with his head blown off, but Crixus didn’t see fit to mention that.)
“The gallantry, the audacity of the deed has won all Northern hearts, and spread terror through the South,” says he. “From the very heart of the enemy camp he plucked them forth, shepherded them north through the bitter depths of winter, the pursuers baying at his heels, and brought them at last to safety. And only last month, Mr Comber, he saw them across the line to British soil – oh, my boy, does not your heart swell with patriotic pride at the thought that those poor fugitives, lately bound in the hell of slavery, dwell now in freedom beneath the benevolent folds of your country’s flag?”
I assured him, between sandwiches, that I was gratified beyond all measure, and was mentally rehearsing a tactful farewell when he startled me by pushing aside his rug, rising unsteadily, and confronting me with a pointing finger and bristling brows. He spoke slow and solemn.
“But that raid, Mr Comber, was only grace before meat. For now, his little army tried and tested, he is ready for the great attempt. In his last letter to me – for we are in weekly correspondence – he tells me that the hour is nigh. Only one thing –” he flourished the finger “– is lacking, and in this one thing he seeks my help. The defection of the traitor Forbes has left him without a lieutenant, without a trusty deputy practised in arms to train and marshal his band of adventurers, for though their hearts are high they are not soldiers, sir – and soldiers they must be if they are to foray into Virginia, storm a federal arsenal, overwhelm its garrison troops, and form the Praetorian Guard of the greatest slave army since Spartacus challenged the power of Rome!”
He stooped towards me, bright-eyed and panting, and seized my wrist as I was in the act of raising a drumstick to my mouth. “A lieutenant he must have, a clear military mind – aye, or a naval one! – to plan and to order, to chart the course and lead the charge, a strong right arm on which to lean in time of trial. ‘Find me a Joshua!’ is his cry to me. It has rung in my ears these nights past, and until yesterday I knew not where to turn. Oh, I have prayed – and now my prayers have been answered beyond my dearest hope!” He was gazing at me like a dervish on hashish, clutching my wrist, his eyes burning with the flame of pure barminess, as I sat open-mouthed, the chicken leg poised at my ashen lips. “I say it yet again: God has sent you to us – a Joshua for John Brown!”
Chapter 7
Looking back on life, I guess I can’t complain on the whole, but if I have a grievance against Fate, it’s that I seem to have encountered more than my fair share of madmen with a mission. Perhaps I’ve been unlucky, or possibly most of mankind is deranged; maybe it was my stalwart bearing, or my derring-do reputation, but whatever it was, they came at me like wasps to a saucer of jam. At this time in ’59, I was already an experienced loony-fancier, having been exposed to the brainstorms of Bismarck, Georgie Broadfoot, the White Raja of Sarawak, Yakub Beg the Khirgiz, and sundry smaller fry, to say nothing of Crixus himself, ten years earlier, and I’d learned that when they unfold their idiocies to you, and flight is impossible, you must take time, decide what mask to assume, and rely on your native wit and acting ability to talk your way out.
Oddly enough, this wasn’t a difficult one. For a split second his appalling proposal had frozen my blood, until I remembered who I was meant to be, and that I had a cast-iron excuse for refusal. Comber wouldn’t have laughed in his face or told him what to do with his disgusting suggestion, or dived for the window; all I must do was play Comber to the hilt, and I was safe.
So I stared at him bewildered for a second, and then with great deliberation I set down my drumstick, wiped my lips, rose, and with a smile of infinite compassion gently pressed the old Bedlamite back into his chair. I adjusted his rug, knelt down, took one of his claws in both hands (an artistic touch, that) and gazed on him like a wistful sheep-dog.
“Oh, my dear old friend!” says I, fairly dripping emotion. “You do me honour far beyond my deserts. That you should think me worthy to play a part in this … this great enterprise …” I bit my lip, trying like hell to start a tear. “I shall never forget it, never! But, alas, it cannot be. I have my own country’s service, my own mission which I must fulfil, before all others.” I sighed, shaking my head, while his wrinkled features sagged in dismay. “It grieves me to say you nay, but –”
“But you don’t understand!” cries he. “Whatever your mission, it cannot compare to this! That it is worthy and honourable, I am sure, but don’t you see – this is the crux, the vital moment! At one stroke, the whole rotten edifice of slavery will be cast down in ruin! America is its last vile stronghold! How can you hesitate? Oh, dear Mr Comber, all your work, all your valiant service in the cause, can be as nothing beside this crowning –”
“I’m sorry, sir! Believe me, it breaks my heart to deny you … but I’m bound by my duty, you see –”
“That’s what you said last time!” cries he petulantly.
“I know that, sir, and it was true – but you prevailed on me then to turn from it for George Randolph’s sake.” Blackmailing old swine. “But this time I cannot in honour turn aside –”
“Why not?” he bleated. “What could be more honourable than John Brown’s cause?” He twitched fretfully, like a baby denied its rattle, his dismay turning to anger. “You can’t fail him! I … I shan’t let you!” He tried another tack, stretching out a hand to me, whimpering. “Oh, my boy, I entreat you! Our need is desperate! Once before you served us, nobly and well – again, I implore you, for the sake of the great crusade which we both –”
“Ah, don’t make it harder for me, sir!” groans I, in noble anguish. I stood up, and I’m not sure I didn’t beat my fist against my brow. “I cannot do it. I must go to the British minister. If I could postpone or delay, I would, but I dare not. You won’t stay me, I know.”
You can’t, was what I meant. Again, history was repeating itself, but with a difference this time. Ten years ago he’d threatened to throw me to the U.S. Navy traps, and I’d had no hole to hide in; now, I had
the ministry, wherever the hell it was – and both Crixus and I were ten years older. I wasn’t as easy to bully now, and his cold steel had lost its edge with age – he sat now plucking at his rug, fit to burst with vexation, looking in distress to Moody and Joe, both of whom were regarding me hard-eyed.
“No!” He struck his bony hand on the chair. “No! It can’t be! I’ll not have it! You have come to us by a miracle – I can’t let you go, unpersuaded! I can’t!” It sounded like a tantrum, and then he gave a sudden squeal; for a moment I thought he was having a seizure, but it was just inspiration from on high. “I have it!” He turned to me, bright with passion. “You must see John Brown himself! That’s it – where I have failed, he shall prevail! Oh, my boy, once you have looked on his countenance, and heard him, and felt the power of his spirit – believe me, you will hesitate no longer. No one can resist him. Let me see – he’s in upper New York at present, but I know he means to visit Sanborn at Boston – yes, in a few days, you could see him and –”
“I can’t go to Boston, sir. I must report to my chief at once.” I said it as firmly as I dared, and he shot me such a glare that I thought it best to have an inspiration of my own. “Of course,” I added thoughtfully, “if the minister could be prevailed on to give me leave – to release me from duty … why, then …” I left it there, looking keen, thinking once let me inside that ministry and you won’t get me out with a train of artillery, you selfish little bastard. For a moment his face lit up, and then his lip came out, and I knew he was calculating that there wasn’t a hope in hell of the British minister giving me leave to join a foreign rebellion, and was wondering what card to play next.
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