“It is no light and easy task, Phebe, to which Heaven has called us. The circumstances of our lives, though we are still very young, have been so strangely ordered that we cannot but see the hand of God in it. An immediate Providence is surely visible in the arrangement of that series of events which, contrary to all human calculation, has brought us thus together on the spot where, perhaps, beyond all others upon earth, we may hope to serve the cause for which the Son of the Most High gave his own sacred blood. In this belief we shall find hope, strength, long-suffering, and courage, unto the end. Have you this belief, Phebe?”
“I do believe that you, Master Edward, may have been chosen by the wise God to teach and to save poor negroes. But — Oh, no! that would be to think myself equal to you and to Miss Lucy. But I do not want such a thought as that to make me faithful. Tell me what to do; and if I do it not, then scorn the poor black girl, even as she is scorned by all other white men. What shall I do, Master Edward?”
“First, Phebe,” replied Edward, “endeavour to ascertain with certainty who among the numerous slaves who are your fellow-labourers on the estate to which you belong are the most likely to listen to the word of God. Let me and my sister know their names, and in what quarter they are employed. It will then be necessary before we begin our work, to arrange the time and place where, with the least danger to themselves, they may be able to meet and listen to us. When this is done, we must take measures to receive them. You thus perceive, my good Phebe, that your services will be most essential to us.”
Phebe’s only reply was again dropping on her knees, and kissing the ground that his advancing step would press — but she spoke not a single word. Then, rising to her feet, she resumed her place beside him; but as she did so, a deep sigh smote on the ear of Lucy.
“You sigh, Phebe!” said her former mistress kindly. “Be candid with us — conceal nothing! — Tell me why is it that you sigh thus heavily? — Something is on your mind, Phebe. You fear to do what Edward asks of you.”
“Miss Lucy!” said the girl, suddenly standing still, “thanks to your blessed teaching, I know much — for a poor black girl, I know very much, and may the God of all knowledge reward you for it. But still my mind is dark compared to yours; and if I sigh, it is because I cannot see — not so clearly as I ought to see — beyond the stripes, and chains, and tortures that must come upon us here. Tell me, dear mistress, dear master — tell me, when we are dead, when we have died for this business we have got to do, will not both of you be great and powerful, and high and happy — very, very happy in heaven?”
“Die for it, Phebe!” exclaimed Lucy trembling, “Die for it? — Surely the reading the Bible to such of the poor slaves as wish to hear it can endanger the life of no one.”
“You are terrified, my poor girl,” said Edward, gently; “do not be afraid to tell me so. You fear the overseer’s lash — is it not so? I will not involve you in the business, Phebe; I will myself make acquaintance from time to time among the slaves when they are least watched — and I will only seek the aid of Heaven.”
The black girl burst into tears.
“Oh! could I speak as you speak, Master Edward,” she said, “could I know how to show what is in my heart, — you would not think that it was the overseer’s lash, nor any other thing that could harm me, that made me fear to help you in this. But I know one thing, one dreadful thing better than you do — I know that to teach a slave will bring down vengeance on Miss Lucy and on you; I know it, and my blood runs cold as I look at you both, with the soft, quiet moonlight that seems full of God’s own goodness shining on you — when, perhaps, the next time it comes round again it may light the wicked ones to look for you and to find you.”
Phebe ceased to speak, for tears choked her utterance, and neither of her companions answered her. Edward was weighing solemnly, and, as he hoped, wisely, the purport of her words; and Lucy remained in anxious expectation that he would answer them. But it was Phebe who again spoke. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and said with firmness, “Now, dear master-now, dear mistress, I have told you all, and never more will Phebe speak a backward word concerning the good work. If you die for it, happy and glorified will I be to die with you. I know two slaves, Master Edward, that I think will listen to me at once; shall I bring them just to those dark trees to-morrow night?” she said, pointing to a group of ilex.
The young slave now spoke without faltering; she knew the danger they were about to incur infinitely better than her hearers did. Of this she was well aware, and the idea that it was her duty to tell them so, and perhaps thereby to check their hopes, had made this conversation terrible to her. But never did martyr give himself body and soul to the work which he knew must bring him to the stake, more devotedly than did black Phebe henceforward bind herself to this. Her last word of warning was uttered.
If Edward Bligh had listened with doubt and dread to her predictions for one short moment, it was infinitely more for the sake of his beloved sister, and also of the poor slave herself, than from any consideration touching his personal safety. When, therefore, Phebe’s last words seemed to urge him on, he caught them as if they were a fresh awakening sent from heaven, and at once, and, as he hoped, for ever, shaking off the creeping sense of danger which had unnerved him for an instant, he eagerly accepted the appointment, and then dismissed her to her mother’s hut with an ardent and affectionate blessing; after which he carefully led back his trembling sister through a narrow forest-path to her humble and anxious pillow. Their walk was wholly silent, each being absorbed by thoughts which worked too strongly within them to permit of conversation.
Edward’s soul was wrapt into the highest state of enthusiasm. He now felt himself launched on the career which he had so long and ardently desired to pursue; while Lucy pondered heavily the words of fearful foreboding to which the too well-instructed slave had given utterance.
After this statement, the reader will be at no loss to divine whose voice it was which had from time to time reached the ear of young Whitlaw in sounds which seemed to indicate reading and prayer; nor will it be difficult for him to conceive with what feelings the wretched Phebe listened to the licentious proposals of the man whose eye she knew was open and watchful to discover what she would willingly have given her life to hide.
With ingenuity inspired by affection, she had hitherto contrived effectually to conceal the visits of Edward at two or three of the remotest huts. His converts already amounted to fifty; and the more numerous they became, the more difficult was it to guard against surprise. But so ably had this young girl arranged the manner of their meetings, which were never general except at dead of night and in: die thickest covert of the forest, that not all the watchfulness of Whitlaw had hitherto enabled him to make any discovery. The voice he had heard was indeed that of Edward Bligh; but his auditors at these times never exceeded three or four, whom he deemed to be in want of especial instruction; and on such occasions Phebe not only kept guard, but had previously taken measures so effectually to ensure the timely retreat of those assembled, as to have rendered the repeated interruptions of Whitlaw perfectly harmless.
Her courage had therefore gradually increased; and the triumph of her success, made up as it was of various feelings, amounted to a glowing sense of happiness which lent luster to her eyes and elasticity to every movement.
The unhappy girl probably owed the first notice and admiration of the young libertine to this; and when persuaded that if instruction of any kind were going on Phebe must be engaged in it, he conceived the idea of gaining her affections, and thus discovering her secret, a most hateful union of passion and treachery took possession of his soul.
Fierce and frightful were the disappointment and the rage produced by the wretched girl’s silent but most eloquent abhorrence as she shrunk from his hateful caresses; and horrible were the blasphemies which burst from his young lips as he marked the appeal of her raised eyes to heaven. Scorn and revilings succeeded to his words of blandishment, and he at
length left the hut pronouncing in a tone that made her heart sink within her— “Slave and rebel! — Beware! You shall be taught to know your duty!”
CHAPTER XI.
ON all former occasions, when Whitlaw had entered a cabin whence Phebe’s timely caution had previously dismissed either Edward or Lucy Bligh and those met to listen to them, his departure from it had been a signal for thanksgiving and joy; but now the poor girl sank on the floor of her dwelling in an agony of terror and despair.
“Poor wench!” said her mother, turning her head from the tub at which she was washing. Two large tears fell over her dark cheeks, but she spoke not another word, or gave further token of sympathy or sorrow. A slave may feel her heart swell with tenderness or with grief; but beyond the mere animal functions of giving life and nourishment, she cannot show that she is a mother.
It had been arranged, and always carried into effect, that the time occupied by the intruder in looking round the hut and questioning the inhabitants should be employed by those who retreated from it in making their escape into the woods, which were close upon every habitation used for the prayer-meetings; and the consciousness that it would be no easy task to find them, was a never-failing source of triumph and delight to the negroes who remained to meet the puzzled eye of the inquisitor. But now Phebe would have suffered the lash patiently, could she by doing so have ensured a few minutes conversation with Lucy Bligh. From her she was sure of a species of sympathy which it was impossible she should find from anyone else, and she might give her counsel — most important counsel.
Black Phebe, from the first instant that Whitlaw gave her to understand his licentious purpose, was as steadfastly and desperately determined to resist it, as Rebecca to save herself from the Templar. There appeared but two ways to effect this — death and flight. The former, her simple but most devoted piety forbad; and for the second, the difficulties which must accompany it made her brain feel dizzy as she thought upon them. Her dear mistress and her master, as she ever called Edward and Lucy Bligh, might suggest something to help her in this her utmost need. But where were they? — Buried in thickets whose impervious shelter had hitherto been her best consolation. She rose from her abject position, and leaving the cabin by the door which opened upon the forest, she walked mournfully onward, with a sort of vague hope that she might chance to fall upon the retreat of her friends; but ere she had proceeded a hundred yards, her eye was caught by the movement of several of the large and heavy leaves of a tuft of palmetoes which grew beside the path. No breeze was stirring, and from the situation of the plant, no very light breeze could have produced such a movement as she had seen. Her first idea was that a large snake might be concealed beneath it; but a second glance showed a portion of the white dress in which the Louisianian gentlemen indulge during the summer months.
Whitlaw was so dressed, and Phebe instantly divined that it was he who lay couching there, probably in the hope of seeing her take the way by which those whose voices he insisted upon it he had heard, had made their escape.
This thought at once restored her presence of mind, for it recalled to her recollection the danger of her friends. Without changing her manner or her pace, she proceeded a little farther in the same direction, and then stopping at the foot of a locust-tree fully exposed to the view of whatever eyes might look forth from the shelter of the palmeto, she sat down, as if, naturally enough, she wished to meditate in solitude on the scene which had just occurred.
For many minutes she sat thus, without venturing again to look towards the spot where, as she believed, her enemy lay in ambush; and it was at length her ear, and not her eye, which again gave notice that some living thing was indeed concealed behind the rich foliage. The sound, however, was produced by a movement that no longer sought concealment; an active jump and a few bounding steps brought the object of her terror and her hatred to her side.
“Well, now, I expect you’ll be more clever, my fine girl,” he began, “now that we’ve got neither mother nor brats to watch us I guess it’s a first chop bit of good luck for you having jest hit my fancy.”
This speech was accompanied by a repetition of the caresses he had proffered in the hut.
Phebe slipped from his embraces, and standing at some distance from him, said —
“When the white commands the black to labour, the black must obey; — but when the white commands the black to love, it is only the wicked who make believe to do his bidding.”
“That’s the slickest speech, Phebe, that ever I heard a nigger speak since first I carried a whip for ’em. Why, there isn’t a copper to choose between you and the play-actors at New Orlines. — But now, hear me a spell. If you won’t behave yourself as I would have you, and let me see you jump for joy into the bargain, there shall no more skin be left on your back than might serve the tailor for a pattern. — D’ye hear that, you black she-nigger?”
The poor girl clasped her hands together, fixed her eyes upon the ground, and replied not a word.
“You will run rusty then, you darnation idiot?”
Phebe neither spoke nor moved.
“And how long, now, d’ye think I shall keep courting, you smut you? ‘Till everlasting, maybe: — but I expect somehow that our courting will come to an end before either of us is much older — and I’ll tell you how it shall be, blackamoor miss. You’ll come to-night as the clock strikes nine to Paradise Plantation, and ask for Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw, the confidential clerk. I’ll take care you shall find him, and I’ll take care, too, that you shan’t get the lash for being about. — Come to me, d’ye see, at nine o’clock, and I’ll give you a pair of earrings. Stay away — that’s all — jest stay away, and you shall have Bill Johnson at your bed-side to-morrow morning with a new cat of first-rate elegant cow-hide, and we’ll see how soon your dainty niggership will be fit to be about and praying again.”
Saying these words, Whitlaw raised himself from the ground, on which he had stretched himself, and walked off, leaving Phebe rather in a state of meditation than of despair.
“If that be all,” thought she, “if the lash be all I have to fear for disobedience, let it come — I can bear it. But how shall I tell Miss Lucy to keep away? — It must be done to-night.”
In pursuance of this resolution, Phebe left her mother’s side at midnight, and found her way through thickets of briars, with no better light than the stars could give by darting a ray here and there through the trees. But she knew her way well to Fox’s clearing, and reached it, a distance of nearly four miles, within an hour. The loft in which Lucy Bligh lodged was also well known to her humble friend, and she succeeded in waking both her and her brother without disturbing any other inmate of the shanty.
It may be recorded as a proof of delicate and almost sublime affection on the part of the poor slave, that she was almost as anxious to conceal from her friends the knowledge of the corporeal suffering she was to endure on the following morning, as to prevent her connexion with them from being betrayed by their making a visit to her hut when she could no longer be on the alert to guard against discovery. But to achieve this, some skill and a little most innocent artifice were necessary.
In truth, Phebe’s spirits had been raised rather than depressed by the farewell words of Whitlaw; for it appeared to her that she was now in some sort the arbitrator of her own destiny, having the choice left her of obeying his commands by attending the rendezvous he had given, or of submitting to receive the lash on the morrow.
The hour of appointment having been long passed before she left her mother’s side, and no measures of coercion used to enforce her keeping it, her heart felt lightened of an intolerable load: — she believed the caprice which noticed her to be as short-lived as it appeared to her sudden, and shaking off, with a degree of firmness that might have befitted a heroine, the sick shudder which came over her as she remembered the torture she was to endure in the morning, she opened her communication to her wondering friends with composure, and almost with cheerfulness.
“You are frightened to see me here, Miss Lucy? — and Master Edward, too, almost? — But all is safe, and all is well; only Master Edward must not come to-morrow, nor dear Miss Lucy either — nor next day, nor the day after — and perhaps — Oh, yes! — it will be best and safest not to come at all till you see me here again some night to tell you.”
“How is this, Phebe?” said Edward gravely. “You tell us that all is safe and that all is well, and yet, that at this time, when our work is prospering more than ever it did before, you tell us that our labour must cease for many days — nay, longer perhaps, longer than you can say. How is this, Phebe? What does it mean?”
“Master Edward,” answered Phebe with the deepest earnestness, “trust to your faithful slave. I would not ask you to remain away, but for the safety of the good and holy cause you love so well. If you come before, I tell you — I shall not be able to watch for you as I have done.”
“And why not, Phebe?” said Lucy, who with a woman’s tact perceived in a moment that there was something on the poor girl’s mind which she did not mean to reveal, “Why not, Phebe? — Remember you are bound to tell us everything, whether good or bad, that concerns the object for which we are here: you must hide nothing from us, or how can we believe you true?”
“Oh! Miss Lucy — But I do not think you would believe me false, let me speak or not; so do not say so — dear, dear mistress, do not say that!”
“We do not, we cannot think you false,” said Edward; “but perhaps you take upon you to judge what is best, when, if you would conceal nothing, I might form my own opinion in a manner more conformable to the interest of the cause I serve, than you can do. — Why do you wish us to cease our visits, Phebe?”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 11