I understood all right, but ass that I was, I didn’t see what it had to do with me. I suggested sending him by sea.
“Impossible. The risk is too great. Ironically, his safest route is the one that would appear most dangerous—up the Mississippi to the free states. One slave in a coffle may pass unnoticed—my one fearful problem is the white agent to go with him. I tell you, Mr Comber, I was at my wits’ end—and then, in answer to my prayers, I had word of you from Washington, and that you would be coming to Orleans.”
I absolutely said: “Christ!” but he was in full spate.
“I saw then that God had sent you. Not only are you a man dedicated to fighting the abomination of slavery, but you are one who scorns danger, who has come unscathed through perils ten times greater than this, who has the experience, the intelligence—nay, the brilliance—and the cold courage such an enterprise requires. And, above all this, you are not known!” He smacked his fist on the table excitedly. “If I had all the world to choose from, I should have asked for such a man as you. You, who I had never heard of ten days ago. Mr Comber, will you do this for me—and strike yet another, greater blow above all those you have surely struck already?”
Well, of all the appalling nonsense I had ever heard, this beat everything, even Bismarck. By George, they were two of a kind—the same fanatic gleam in the eye, the same fierce determination to thrust a hapless fellow-human into the stew, head first, to further their own lunatic schemes. But Bismarck had had a pistol to my head; this idiot didn’t. I was on the point of telling him straight what I thought of his revolting suggestion, laughing right in his eager little face, and I suddenly checked—I was Comber. How would he have refused—my God, he probably wouldn’t, the reckless fool. I had to go very canny.
“Well, sir? Well—is this not such a crusade as your heart desires?”
There was a fine, short answer to that, but I daren’t give it. “Sir,” says I, “this is a startling proposal. Oh, you honour me, indeed you do. But sir, my duty is to my country—I must return at once—”
He laughed exultantly. “But of course, and you shall! You may do this thing and be in England faster than if you wait here to catch a packet home. Listen, sir—you would go upriver by steamboat, as a slave-trader, with a coffle for—Kentucky, let us say. But you sail straight on to Cincinnati—why, you will be there in six days, pass Randolph to our agent there, and continue to Pittsburgh. You may be in New York in a week or a little more from now, sir, and a sailing there will have you home far more speedily than a boat from Orleans—if you could even get one here. Remember, the Navy are watching for you.”
“But, sir,” I protested, cudgelling fearfully for excuses, “consider the danger, not to me, but to my own mission—the information I hold, if I went astray, would be lost to my own government, and yours—”
“I have thought of it,” cries he. Of course, he would, rot his measly little soul. “You may commit it to paper here, sir, this very night, under seal, and I swear upon my honour it shall go straight to London. No one in Washington, no one at all, shall see it. You have my word. But, Mr Comber,” he went on earnestly, “there is no risk of that. You will come through without the slightest danger—no slave-catcher will give you a second glance. They know us, sir, but not you. And you will be serving the cause dear to your heart; I implore you, sir, say you will aid us in this.”
Well, I knew the cause dear to my heart, if he didn’t. “Sir,” says I, “I am sorry. Believe me, I would aid you if I could, but my duty must come above my personal inclination.”
“But you will be doing that duty, don’t you see? Better than if you refuse—for if you do, why then, I could only apologise for bringing you here, and—send you back to the Navy Department. I should be reluctant—it would delay you still further, for they would keep you here for the trial of Spring and his pirates. But that would plainly be my only course.”
So there it was. Blackmail, the pious little scoundrel. Oh, he was twinkling solemnly; he thought, you see, that all I had to fear from being delivered back to the clutches of the Navy and the U.S. Government was delay and more inconvenient questioning. He didn’t know that if I appeared at the Balliol College trial my true identity must appear, and it would be into the dock for Flashy with the rest of the crew. Then it would be prison—my God, they might even hang us. Against that, the risk—which he said was no risk—of running a fugitive nigger to Ohio. He had me, the little serpent, but he didn’t know how he had me, and he mustn’t find out.
Well, if I refused him, I was done for, that was sure. So presumably, I must accept. I tried to think straight, tried to reason, tried to see a way out, but couldn’t. My innards quailed at what he had proposed, but it was only a risk against a certainty. And he didn’t think the risk was much at all—not that I put any faith in that. What could I do, though? I’ve been trapped so often, between two loathsome choices, and it’s in my coward’s nature to choose what seems the less dangerous. That was all I could do now, at this moment, and see what turned up. Yes, that was it: I must accept, and be ready to fly at the first hint of danger. If I must take this lout Randolph north, well, there it was. If things went adrift, I’d slide out somehow. I’d deny him, if I had to. But if all went well—and the chances were they would—why, I’d be half way home, with Spring and the U.S. Navy and the rest far astern. Looking back, I can only say it seemed the lesser of two evils. Well, I’ve been wrong before.
When you have to bow the knee, do it with grace.
“Very well, sir,” says I, looking solemn, “I must accept. I must combine duty—” and I forced myself to look him in the eye “—with the desire of my heart, which is to assist you and your worthy cause.”
Comber couldn’t have said it better, and the little monster was all over me. He wrung my hand, and called me a saviour, and then he got business-like again. He called in another chap, a long-faced zealot, this one, and introduced me “—our own names” he added to me, “I think it wiser not to divulge to you, Mr Comber. I choose to be known as Mr Crixus, which you will no doubt consider appropriate, ha-ha.”34
And then it was all joy and good fellowship and be damned, they were so delighted, and my mind was in a turmoil, but I couldn’t for the life of me see a way clear. Crixus bustled about, calling in two other chaps who I suspected were the men who had brought me, and told them the glad news, and they shook hands, too, and blessed me, full of solemn delight. Yes, they said, all was ready, and the sooner things were started the better. Crixus nodded eagerly, rubbing his hands, and then beamed at me:
“And now I promise myself another little pleasure. I told you, Mr Comber, that George Randolph was in hiding. He is—in this house, and it shall now be my privilege to present to each other two of the greatest champions of our cause. Come, gentlemen.”
So we filed out, downstairs, and came to the back of the house, and into a plain room where a young nigger was sitting at a table, writing by the light of an oil lamp. He looked up, but didn’t rise, and one sight of his face told me that here was a fellow I didn’t like above half.
He was about my age, slim but tall, and a quadroon. He had a white man’s face, bar the thickish lips, with fine brows and a most arrogant, damn-you-me-lad expression. He sat while Crixus poured out the tale, turning his pencil in his hand, and when he had been told that here was the man who would pilot him to the promised land, and Crixus had got round to presenting me, he got up languidly and held out a fine brown hand. I took it, and it was like a woman’s, and then he dropped it and turned to Crixus.
“You are in no doubt?” says he. His voice was cold, and very precise. A right uppity white nigger, this one was. “We cannot afford a mistake this time. There have been too many in the past.”
Well, this took me flat aback; for a moment I almost forgot my own fears. And Crixus, to my astonishment, was all eagerness to reassure him.
“None, George, none. As I have told you, Mr Comber is a proved fighter on our side; you could not be in
better hands.”
“Ah,” says Randolph, and sat down again. “That is very well, then. He understands the importance of my reaching Canada. Now, tell me, exactly how do we proceed from here? I take it the modus operandi is as we have already discussed it, and that Mr Comber is capable of falling in with it precisely.”
I just gaped. I don’t know what I had expected—one of your woolly-headed darkies, I suppose, massa-ing everyone, and pathetically grateful that someone was going to risk his neck to help him to freedom. But not your Lord George Bloody Randolph, no indeed. You’d have thought he was doing Crixus a favour, as the old fellow went through the plan, and our runaway sat, nodding and occasionally frowning, putting in his points and pursing his lips, like a judge on the bench. Finally he says:
“Very well. It should answer satisfactorily. I cannot pretend that I welcome some of the … er … details. To be chained in a gang of blacks—that is a degradation which I had hoped was behind me. But since it must be—” he gave Crixus a pained little smile “—why, it must be endured. I suppose it is a small price to pay. My spirit can sustain it, I hope.”
“It can, George, it can,” cries Crixus. “After all you have suffered, it is a little thing, the last little thing.”
“Ah, yes—always the last little thing!” says Randolph. “We know about the camel, do we not, and the final feather. Do you know, when I look back, I ask myself how I have borne it? And this, as you say, is a trifle—why should it seem so bitter a trifle? But there.” He shrugged, and then turned in his chair to look at me—I was still standing, too.
“And you, sir? You know the gravity of what lies before us. Your task should not be hard—merely to ride on a steamboat, in rather greater comfort than I shall be. Are you confident of …”
“Yes, yes, George,” says Crixus. “Mr Comber knows; I talked to him in the library,”
“Ah,” says Randolph. “In the library.” He looked about him, with a little, crooked smile. “In the library.”
“Oh, now, George,” cries Crixus, “you know we agreed it was safer here …”
“I know.” Randolph held up a slim hand. “It is of no importance. However, I was speaking to Mr Comber—yes, you will have been told, sir, how vitally important is this journey of ours. So I ask again, do you trust yourself entirely to carry it through—simple though it should be?”
I could have kicked the black bastard off his chair. But caught as I was, in the trap Crixus had sprung on me, what was there to do but cram down my resentment on top of my fears—I was an overloaded man, believe me—and say:
“No, I’ve no doubts. Play your part on the lower deck, and I’ll play mine in the saloon—George.”
He stiffened just a little. “You know, I believe I prefer Mr Randolph, on first acquaintance.”
I nearly hit him, but I held it in. “D’you want me to call you Mr Randolph on the steamboat?” says I. “People might talk—don’t ye think?”
“We shall be on the steamboat soon enough,” says he, and there our discussion ended, with Crixus fidgeting nervously as he ushered me out, and telling Randolph to get some sleep, because we must soon be off. But when the door had closed I let out my breath with a whoosh, and Crixus says hurriedly:
“Please, Mr Comber—well, I know what you may be thinking. George can be … difficult, I guess, but—well, we have not endured what he has endured. You saw his sensitivity, the delicacy of his nature. Oh, he is a genius, sir—he is three parts white, you know. Think what slavery must do to such a spirit! I know he is very different from the negroes with whom you are used to dealing. Dear me, I sometimes myself find it … but there. I remember what he means to our cause—and to all those poor, black people.” He blinked at me. “Compassionate him, sir, as you compassionate them. I know, in your own loving heart, you will do so.”
“Compassion, Mr Crixus, is the last thing he wants from me,” says I, and I added privately: and it’s the last thing he’ll get, too. Indeed, as later I tried unsuccessfully to sleep under that strange roof, I found myself thinking that I’d find Master Randolph’s company just a little more than I could stomach—not that I need see him much. My God, thinks I, what am I doing? How the devil did I get into this? But even as my fears reawoke, it came back to the same thing: almost any risk was preferable to letting the U.S. authorities get me, unmask me, and—. After all, this would be the quicker way home, and if things went adrift, well, Master Randolph could shift for himself while Flashy took to the timber. He would be all right; he was a genius.
Chapter 9
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 b
awled 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.
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