by Reid, Mayne
They could see the pirogue, and both the negro and myself standing by the bow.
“Surrender!” shouted a voice in a loud, firm tone. “If you resist, your lives be on your own heads!”
Notwithstanding this summons, the boats did not advance any nearer. They knew that I carried pistols, and that I knew how to handle them—the proofs, were fresh. They approached, therefore, with caution—thinking I might still use my weapons.
They had no need to be apprehensive. I had not the slightest intention of doing so. Resistance against twenty men—for there were that number in the boats, twenty men well armed—would have been a piece of desperate folly. I never thought of such a thing; though, if I had, I believe the Bambarra would have stood by me to the death. The brave fellow, steeled to a supernatural courage by the prospect of his punishment, had even proposed fight! But his courage was madness; and I entreated him not to resist—as they would certainly have slain him on the spot.
I meant no resistance, but I hesitated a moment in making answer.
“We’re all armed,” continued the speaker, who seemed to have some authority over the others. “It is useless for you to resist—you had better give up!”
“Damn them!” cried another and a rougher voice; “don’t waste talk on them. Let’s fire the tree, and smoke ’em out; that moss ’ll burn, I reckon!”
I recognised the voice that uttered this inhuman suggestion. It came from Bully Bill.
“I have no intention of making resistance,” I called out in reply to the first speaker. “I am ready to go with you. I have committed no crime. For what I have done I am ready to answer to the laws.”
“You shall answer to us,” replied one who had not before spoken; “we are the laws here.”
There was an ambiguity in this speech that I liked not; but there was no further parley. The skiffs and canoes had suddenly closed in around the tree. A dozen muzzles of pistols and rifles were pointed at me, and a dozen voices commanded the negro and myself to get into one of the boats.
From the fierce, determined glances of these rough men, I saw it was death or obedience.
I turned to bid adieu to Aurore, who had rushed out of the tree-cave, and stood near me weeping.
As I faced round, several men sprang upon the buttress; and, seizing me from behind, held me in their united grasp. Then drawing my arms across my back, tied them fast with a rope.
I could just speak one parting word with Aurore, who, no longer in tears, stood regarding my captors with a look of scornful indignation. As they led me unresistingly into the boat, her high spirit gave way to words, and she cried out in a voice of scorn—
“Cowards! cowards! Not one of you dare meet him in a fair field—no, not one of you!”
The lofty spirit of my betrothed echoed mine, and gave me proof of her love. I was pleased with it, and could have applauded; but my mortified captors gave me no time to reply; for the next moment the pirogue in which I had been placed shot out through the branches, and floated on the open water of the lake.
* * *
Chapter Seventy Six.
A Terrible Fate.
I saw no more of Aurore. Neither was the black brought along. I could gather from the conversation of my captors, that they were to be taken in one of the skiffs that had stayed behind—that they were to be landed at a different point from that to which we were steering. I could gather, too, that the poor Bambarra was doomed to a terrible punishment—the same he already dreaded—the losing of an arm!
I was pained at such a thought, but still more by the rude jests I had now to listen to. My betrothed and myself were reviled with a disgusting coarseness, which I cannot repeat.
I made no attempt to defend either her or myself. I did not even reply. I sat with my eyes bent gloomily upon the water; and it was a sort of relict to me when the pirogue again passed in among the trunks of the cypress-trees, and their dark shadow half concealed my face from the view of my captors. I was brought back to the landing by the old tree-trunk.
On nearing this I saw that a crowd of men awaited us on the shore; and among them I recognised the ferocious Ruffin, with his arm slung in his red kerchief, bandaged and bloody. He was standing up with the rest.
“Thank Heaven! I have not killed him!” was my mental ejaculation. “So much the less have I to answer for.”
The canoes and skiffs—with the exception of that which carried Aurore and the black—had all arrived at this point, and my captors were landing. In all there were some thirty or forty men, with a proportion of half-grown boys. Most of them were armed with either pistols or rifles. Under the grey gloom of the trees, they presented a picturesque tableau; but at that moment my feelings were not attuned to enjoy it.
I was landed among the rest; and with two armed men, one before and another immediately at my back, I was marched off through the woods. The crowd accompanied us, some in the advance, some behind, while others walked alongside. These were the boys and the more brutal of the men who occasionally taunted me with rude speech.
I might have lost patience and grown angry, had that served me; but I knew it would only give pleasure to my tormentors, without bettering my condition. I therefore observed silence, and kept my eyes averted or turned upon the ground.
We passed on rapidly—as fast as the crowd could make way through the bushes—and I was glad of this. I presumed I was about to be conducted before a magistrate, or “justice of the peace,” as there called. Well, thought I. Under legal authority, and in the keeping of the officers, I should be protected from the gibes and insults that were being showered upon me. Everything short of personal violence was offered; and there were some that seemed sufficiently disposed even for this.
I saw the forest opening in front. I supposed we had gone by some shorter way to the clearings. It was not so, for the next moment we emerged into the glade. Again the glade!
Here my captors came to a halt; and now in the open light I had an opportunity to know who they were. At a glance I saw that I was in the hands of a desperate crowd.
Gayarre himself was in their midst, and beside him his own overseer, and the negro-trader, and the brutal Larkin. With these were some half-dozen Creole-Frenchmen of the poorer class of proprietaires, weavers of cottonade, or small planters. The rest of the mob was composed of the very scum of the settlement—the drunken boatmen whom I had used to see gossiping in front of the “groceries,” and other dissipated rowdies of the place. Not one respectable planter appeared upon the ground—not one respectable man!
For what had they stopped in the glade? I was impatient to be taken before the justice, and chafed at the delay.
“Why am I detained here?” I asked in a tone of anger.
“Ho, mister!” replied one; “don’t be in such a hell of a hurry! You’ll find out soon enough, I reckon.”
“I protest against this,” I continued. “I insist upon being taken before the justice.”
“An’ so ye will, damn you! You ain’t got far to go. The justice is hyar.”
“Who? where?” I inquired, under the impression that a magistrate was upon the ground. I had heard of wood-choppers acting as justices of the peace—in fact, had met with one or two of them—and among the rude forms that surrounded me there might be one of these. “Where is the justice?” I demanded. “Oh, he’s about—never you fear!” replied one. “Whar’s the justice?” shouted another. “Ay, whar’s the justice?—whar are ye, judge?” cried a third, as if appealing to some one in the crowd. “Come on hyar, judge!” he added. “Come along!—hyar’s a fellar wants to see you!”
I really thought the man was in earnest. I really believed there was such an individual in the mob. The only impression made upon me was astonishment at this rudeness towards the magisterial representative of the law.
My misconception was short-lived, for at this moment Ruffin—the bandaged and bloody Ruffin—came close up to me; and, after scowling upon me with his fierce, bloodshot eyes, bent forward until his lips
almost touched my face, and then hissed out—
“Perhaps, Mister nigger-stealer, you’ve niver heerd ov Justice Lynch?”
A thrill of horror run through my veins. The fearful conviction flashed before my mind that they were going to Lynch me!
* * *
Chapter Seventy Seven.
The Sentence of Judge Lynch.
An undefined suspicion of something of this sort had already crossed my thoughts. I remembered the reply made from the boats, “You shall answer to us. We are the law.” I had heard some mysterious innuendoes as we passed through the woods—I had noticed too, that on our arrival in the glade, we found those who had gone in the advance halted there, as if waiting for the others to come up; and I could not comprehend why we had stopped there at all.
I now saw that the men of the party were drawing to one side, and forming a sort of irregular ring, with that peculiar air of solemnity that bespeaks some serious business. It was only the boys, and some negroes—for these, too, had taken part in our capture—who remained near me. Ruffin had simply approached to gratify his revengeful feelings by tantalising me.
All these appearances had aroused wild suspicions within me, but up to that moment they had assumed no definite form. I had even endeavoured to keep back such a suspicion, under the vague belief, that by the very imagination of it, I might in some way aid in bringing it about!
It was no longer suspicion. It was now conviction. They were going to Lynch me!
The significant interrogatory, on account of the manner in which it was put, was hailed by the boys with a shout of laughter. Ruffin continued—
“No; I guess you han’t heerd ov that ar justice, since yur a stranger in these parts, an’ a Britisher. You han’t got sich a one among yur bigwigs, I reckin. He’s the fellar that ain’t a-goin’ to keep you long in Chancery. No, by God! he’ll do yur business in double-quick time. Hell and scissors! yu’ll see if he don’t.”
Throughout all this speech the brutal fellow taunted me with gestures as well as words—drawing from his auditory repeated bursts of laughter.
So provoked was I that, had I not been fast bound, I should have sprung upon him; but, bound as I was, and vulgar brute as was this adversary, I could not hold my tongue.
“Were I free, you ruffian, you would not dare taunt me thus. At all events you have come off but second best. I’ve crippled you for life; though it don’t matter much, seeing what a clumsy use you make of a rifle.”
This speech produced a terrible effect upon the brute—the more so that the boys now laughed at him. These boys were not all bad. They were incensed against me as an Abolitionist—or “nigger-stealer,” as they phrased it—and, under the countenance and guidance of their elders, their worst passions were now at play; but for all that, they were not essentially wicked. They were rough backwoods’ boys, and the spirit of my retort pleased them. After that they held back from jeering me.
Not so with Ruffin, who now broke forth into a string of vindictive oaths and menaces, and appeared as if about to grapple me with his one remaining hand. At this moment he was called off by the men, who needed him in the “caucus;” and, after shaking his fist in my face, and uttering a parting imprecation, he left me.
I was for some minutes kept in suspense. I could not tell what this dread council were debating, or what they meant to do with me—though I now felt quite certain that they did not intend taking me before any magistrate. From frequent phrases that reached my ears, such as, “flog the scoundrel,” “tar and feathers,” I began to conjecture that some such punishment awaited me. To my astonishment, however, I found, upon listening a while, that a number of my judges were actually opposed to these punishments as being too mild! Some declared openly, that nothing but my life could satisfy the outraged laws!
The majority took this view of the case; and it was to add to their strength that Ruffin had been summoned!
A feeling of terrible fear crept over me—say rather a feeling of horror—but it was only complete when the ring of men suddenly broke up, and I saw two of their number lay hold of a rope, and commence reeving it over the limb of a gum-tree that stood by the edge of the glade.
There had been a trial and a sentence too. Even Judge Lynch has his formality.
When the rope was adjusted, one of the men—the negro-trader it was—approached me; and in a sort of rude paraphrase of a judge, summed up and pronounced the sentence!
I had outraged the laws; I had committed two capital crimes. I had stolen slaves, and endeavoured to take away the life of a fellow-creature. A jury of twelve men had tried—and found me guilty; and sentenced me to death by hanging. Even this was not permitted to go forth in an informal manner. The very phraseology was adopted. I was to be hung by the neck until I should be dead—dead!
You will deem this relation exaggerated and improbable. You will think that I am sporting with you. You will not believe that such lawlessness can exist in a Christian—a civilised land. You will fancy that these men were sporting with me, and that in the end they did not seriously intend to hang me.
I cannot help it if you think so; but I solemnly declare that such was their design: and I felt as certain at that moment that they intended to have hanged me, as I now feel that I was not hanged!
Believe it or not, you must remember that I would not have been the first victim by many, and that thought was vividly before my mind at the time.
Along with it, there was the rope—there the tree—there stood my judges before me. Their looks alone might have produced conviction. There was not a ray of mercy to be seen.
At that awful moment I knew not what I said or how I acted.
I remember only that my fears were somewhat modified by my indignation. That I protested, menaced, swore—that my ruthless judges answered me with mockery.
They were actually proceeding to put the sentence into execution—and had already carried me across to the foot of the tree—when the sound of trampling hoofs fell upon our ears, and the next moment a party of horsemen galloped into the glade.
* * *
Chapter Seventy Eight.
In the Hands of the Sheriff.
At sight of these horsemen my heart leaped with joy, for among the foremost I beheld the calm, resolute face of Edward Reigart. Behind him rode the sheriff of the parish, followed by a “posse” of about a dozen men—among whom I recognised several of the most respectable planters of the neighbourhood. Every one of the party was armed either with a rifle or pistols; and the manner in which they rode forward upon the ground, showed that they had come in great haste, and with a determined purpose.
I say my heart leaped with joy. An actual criminal standing upon the platform of the gallows could not have been more joyed at sight of the messenger that brought him reprieve or pardon. In the new-comers I recognised friends: in their countenances I read rescue. I was not displeased, therefore, when the sheriff, dismounting, advanced to my side, and placing his hand upon my shoulder, told me I was his prisoner “in the name of the law.” Though brusquely done, and apparently with a degree of rudeness, I was not displeased either by the act or the manner. The latter was plainly assumed for a purpose; and in the act itself I hailed the salvation of my life. I felt like a rescued man.
The proceeding did not equally content my former judges, who loudly murmured their dissatisfaction. They alleged that I had already been tried by a jury of twelve free citizens—that I had been found guilty of nigger-stealing—that I had stolen two niggers—that I had resisted when pursued, and had “wownded” one of my pursuers; and that, as all this had been “clarly made out,” they couldn’t see what more was wanted to establish my guilt, and that I ought to be hung on the spot, without further loss of time.
The sheriff replied that such a course would be illegal; that the majesty of the law must be respected; that if I was guilty of the crimes alleged against me, the law would most certainly measure out full punishment to me; but that I must first be brought before a justice,
and the charge legally and formally made out; and, finally, expressed his intention to take me before Justice Claiborne, the magistrate of the district.
An angry altercation ensued between the mob and the sheriffs party—in which but slight show of respect was paid to the high executive—and for some time I was actually in dread that the ruffians would carry their point. But an American sheriff is entirely a different sort of character from the idle gentleman who fills that office in an English county. The former is, in nine cases out of ten, a man of proved courage and action; and Sheriff Hickman, with whom my quasi judges had to deal, was no exception to this rule. His “posse,” moreover, hurriedly collected by my friend Reigart, chanced to have among their number several men of a similar stamp. Reigart himself, though a man of peace, was well-known to possess a cool and determined spirit; and there was the landlord of my hotel, and several of the planters who accompanied several of the young planters, behaved in a handsome manner; and the law prevailed.
Yes! thank Heaven and half-a-dozen noble men, the law prevailed—else I should never have gone out of that glade alive!
Justice Lynch had to give way to Justice Claiborne, and a respite was obtained from the cruel verdict of the former. The victorious sheriff and his party bore me off in their midst.
But though my ferocious judges had yielded for the present, it was not certain that they would not still attempt to rescue me from the hands of the law. To prevent this, the sheriff mounted me upon a horse—he himself riding upon one side, while an assistant of tried courage took the opposite. Reigart and the planters kept close to me before and behind; while the shouting, blaspheming mob followed both on horseback and afoot. In this way we passed through the woods, across the fields, along the road leading into Bringiers, and then to the residence of “Squire” Claiborne—Justice of the Peace for that district.