THE ESCAPE
IT had not seemed to Jack that he had been asleep, but vision-like
recollections of the happenings of the day skimmed ceaselessly in
a panorama-like vision through his tired brain. Now he saw the hot
stretch of clearing as he had seen it that afternoon—the quivering,
pulsing air, the slanting sun, the distant river, the blue further
shore. Again and again he thought he struggled with his master.
Sometimes he dreamed that the next day had come, and that his master
had forgiven him. But through all these vision-like dreams there ever
loomed, big and terrible in the background of his half-consciousness,
the unknown fate that awaited him in the morning, and he would awaken
to find those dreams dissolve into a black and terrible reality in
which there was no spark of hope.
Suddenly he was startled from one of these half-waking visions by the
sound of footsteps passing overhead, and then by the noise of a key
rattling furtively in the lock. It sounded loud in the death-like
silence. Then the door at the head of the cellar-steps opened, and
the yellow light of a candle slid slanting down along the wall. Jack
looked with straining eyes, and then he saw that it was Peggy Pitcher
who was coming. She was in her stocking feet, and wore a loose wrapper
and a mob-cap tied under her chin. “Why, Mrs. Pitcher,” whispered Jack,
tremulously, “is that you?”
“Yes,” she said, “’tis I, but you be quiet.”
“What time of night is it?” Jack whispered.
“Why, ’tis early yet—not more than nine o’clock, I reckon.”
“Is that all?” said Jack.
She did not reply, but set the candle down upon the floor and stood
for a while regarding Jack, her arms akimbo. “Well,” she said at last,
speaking angrily, “’tis all your own fault that you’re here, and ’tis
none of my business. I told you not to go away from home with Dennis,
but you did go in spite of all, and now you see what’s come of it. By
rights I should let you alone; but no, here I be,” and she tossed her
head. “Well,” she continued, “I’m not going to stand by and see you
beat to death, and that’s all there be of it.”
Jack’s very heartstrings quivered at her latter words. “What do you
mean, Mrs. Pitcher?” he said, hoping dumbly that he had somehow
misunderstood.
“Why,” said she, “I mean that his honor’s in that state of mind
I wouldn’t trust him not to have you whipped to pieces out of
pure deviltry. I never saw him as mad as this before, and I don’t
know what’s got into him. He’s been away from home somewhere, and
something’s gone wrong, and the very black evil’s got into him. I’ve
been talking to him ever since he sent you here, but he won’t listen to
anything. I’ve seen him in bad humors, but I never saw him in as black
a humor as he’s in to-night. If he sets on you to-morrow he’ll never
stop till he finishes you, and that I do believe.”
Jack could not speak. He sat looking at her in the light of the candle.
“Well,” Mrs. Pitcher burst out at last, “I’ve thought it all over and
I’ve made up my mind. I dare say I’m a fool for my pains, but I’m going
to let you get away. For the long and short of it is that I sha’n’t
stay by and see ye beat to pieces like he beat one of the blackies
last summer. After Dennis had locked you up, his honor must needs send
for him and ask where you was, and if you was safe; and then he must
needs have the key of the cellar in his own pockets. He was dead tired,
and so went to bed a while ago, and I’ve just contrived to steal the
keys out of his pockets. Now I’m going to let you go, I am.”
“Oh, Peggy!” cried Jack, hoarsely. His mouth twitched and writhed, and
it was all he could do to keep from breaking down. “But how about you?”
he said, wiping his hand across his eyes.
“Never you mind about me,” said Mrs. Pitcher, angrily. “You mind your
own business, and I’ll mind my business. I ain’t going to see you
whipped to death—that’s all there is about it. So you just mind your
business and I’ll mind mine.”
“But where shall I go after you let me out, Mrs. Pitcher?”
“Why,” said she, “that you’ll have to settle for yourself. ’Tis as much
as I can do to let you go. All I know is, you must get away from here.
Now go, and don’t you lag about any longer. If his honor should chance
to wake and find his keys gone, and suspicioned you’d got away, ’twould
be a worse lookout for you than ever, not to speak of myself.”
Then Jack realized that he was free to escape. “I’ll—I’ll never forget
what you’ve done for me,” said he in a choking voice, “as long as ever
I live.”
“There, you go now,” she said, and she pushed him roughly toward the
cellar stairway. “As for me, don’t you think anything about me, Jack;
I’ll do well enough for a poor wicked creature, and even if his honor
does find out that ’twas I let you go, why, he won’t murder me. But
then he won’t find out,” she added. “So, now you go.”
“Good-by, Mrs. Pitcher,” said Jack; “won’t you say good-by?”
“No, I won’t,” said she. “You go, and don’t you lose any more time
about it.”
But it was not until he was fairly out into the starlit night that he
realized that he had really escaped. He ran some little distance away
before he stopped. Then he stood looking about him. Where was he to go
now? Where was he to escape to? He stood still thinking. He wondered if
Dennis would help him. Then without any especial object he crept around
back of the group of huts. He could see that there was a faint light
in Dennis’s cabin, but he was afraid to approach closer. Some one was
singing in the darkness beyond, and he knew that it was Little Coffee
chanting in his high-pitched voice. He crept slowly and cautiously
toward the sound of the singing, and presently he could distinguish the
outline of Little Coffee’s form against the sky. He was sitting perched
upon the fence. “Coffee!” whispered Jack, “Little Coffee!” But Little
Coffee did not hear him and continued his barbaric chant, which seemed
to consist chiefly of a repetition of the words, “White man came to de
green tree, black man, he go ‘way.” “Little Coffee!” whispered Jack
again, and then instantly the singing ceased.
There was a moment or two of listening silence. “Who da?” said Little
Coffee presently, and Jack could see that he had turned his face toward
him in the darkness.
“Hush!” whispered Jack, “’tis I, Jack.”
“Who?—Jack?—Dat you, boy?” said Little Coffee.
“Yes,” answered Jack.
Little Coffee jumped down instantly from the fence and came in the
darkness toward Jack’s voice. “How you git away?” said he to Jack, “dey
say Massa Dennis lock you up in de cellar. How you git out, boy?”
“Never mind that,” said Jack; “’tis enough that I got out, and here I
am. Come out here, Coffee, away from the cabins; somebody’ll hear us.”
He led the way down toward the edge of the bluff, and Little Coffee
followed him for a while in an amazed silence. “What you go do now,
boy?” he asked after a little while.
Jack did not answer immediately. “I’m going to run away,” he said at
last.
“You no run away,” said Little Coffee, incredulously. Jack did not
reply. “How you going to run away, anyhow?” asked Little Coffee.
“I am going to go off in the boat,” said Jack.
“You no run away, boy,” said Little Coffee again.
“Yes, I will, too,” said Jack; and then he added, almost despairingly,
“I’ve got to run away, Little Coffee. I wonder if the oars are down by
the dug-out?”
“Yes, ‘im be,” said Little Coffee; “I see Kala prop de oars up ag’in’
de bank when he come in from de pot-nets! Where you run away to,
anyhow?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jack; and then, as the thought came to him, he
said: “First of all, I’m going over the river to Bullock’s Landing.
I don’t know where I’ll go then—most likely down to North Carolina.
That’s where all the runaways go. I’ll try to get to England from
there.”
Little Coffee looked at him in the darkness for a while. “I be no more
‘fraid to run away dan you be ‘fraid to run away,” said he at last.
“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” Jack cried out eagerly; “then you shall go
along with me if you choose.” He grasped at the chance of a companion
in his escape; for now, that every step brought him more nearly face
to face with what he had to do, he began to see what a thing it was to
undertake. It seemed to him that if he had someone with him it would
make it easier for him.
The two stood looking out across the water. From the edge of the bluff
bank where they stood the water stretched away, vast and mysterious,
into the distance. The rude dug-out canoe in which Kala had rowed
over to the nets was lying drawn up on the shore. Jack could see its
shapeless form below in the darkness. He descended the steps to the
beach, followed by Little Coffee. The oars still stood leaning against
the bank where Kala had left them. Jack gathered them up and carried
them down to the dug-out. Some water had leaked through the cracks into
the boat, and before he pushed it off he baled it out with the gourd
dipper. Little Coffee stood looking silently at the preparations he was
making. “You going to run away for sure, boy?” he said at last.
“Why, don’t you see I am?” said Jack.
“Den you berry foolish,” said Little Coffee. “I no run away with you,
boy.”
“What’s that?” said Jack, standing up abruptly and facing Little
Coffee. “What’s that? Why, you just now said you’d run away with me if
I went.”
“I no say dat,” said Little Coffee, “I say maybe I run away.” And then
he burst out indignantly, “Guess you tink me fool, boy!”
“And so you’d let me go alone, would you?” said Jack bitterly. Little
Coffee made no reply. “Well, then, help me push the boat off, anyhow,”
Jack said.
Little Coffee sprang eagerly enough to lend him a hand, and as the
two pushed the clumsy boat off into the water, Jack stepped into it.
He placed the oars carefully in the rowlocks, and then spat upon his
hands. All around him was the night and the water. The bluff bank
loomed big against the sky. He could see Coffee’s dim form standing
upon the shore, but still he sat resting without pulling the boat off.
“Won’t you go with me, Little Coffee?” he said, making a last appeal.
“Um!—um!” Little Coffee grunted in negative.
The water lapped and gurgled against the side of the boat, and the
current drifted it slowly around against the shore. Jack still
hesitated and lingered. For one moment of failing courage he told
himself that he would go back and face what he would have to face
the next day, and then, with a rush of despair, he recognized how
impossible it would be to face it. “I believe you be ‘fraid to run
‘way, after all,” said Little Coffee from where he stood.
The jar of the words roused Jack to action. “Good-by, Little Coffee,”
said he hoarsely, and then he dipped the oars into the water and pulled
off from the shore into the night.