THE ROAR OF ST. DOMINGO.
Captain Bangham, with a mortal aversion to Lafitte, hovered about the
outside of the glass door, and left the office several times, before the
talk on business was concluded. In those beatific days Cotton was King,
and His Majesty’s concerns required a great deal of mercantile, as well
as political, attention.
It was about eleven o’clock when, the talk on business concluded, Mr.
Lafitte strolled up State street, with the intention of dropping in at
Parker’s to lunch. If anything had been needed to complete his elation,
the warm and beautiful blue day which shone upon the crowded city, would
have done it. Like Sir Ralph the Rover, in Southey’s poem, his heart was
joyful to excess; and equally true was it that like that Rover, this
Rover’s mirth was wickedness. He felt, as he himself would have expressed
it, refreshingly wicked.
Lunch over, and a drink taken, Mr. Lafitte thought it would be pleasant
diversion to visit that Nigger Hill he had heard so much about, and see
how the colored brethren were lodged. Enchanted with the idea, he engaged
a carriage, and lighting a cigar, got in, and told the driver where to
carry him.
The carriage set off, and Mr. Lafitte, lolling back on the cushions,
smoked placidly, and indolently gazed out of the window at the
passengers. Presently, instead of passengers to gaze at, there were the
elegant aristocratic dwellings in the streets on Beacon Hill, and soon
after there were the dingy houses of the negro quarter.
His cigar smoked out, Mr. Lafitte enjoyed whatever there was to enjoy in
the prospect the carriage window afforded. It was pretty near dinner-time
in that region, and most of the people were indoors. A few colored men
and women stood at some of the thresholds or looked out at the windows,
and colored urchins were playing in the streets. The carriage driving
slowly, Belknap street, South Russell street, Butolph street, Garden
street, Centre street, May street, Grove street, and all the streets
of the quarter, passed in successive review under the interested and
inspecting eyes of the gallant Southerner.
In Grove street, a fancy came upon him to walk a few steps and note the
effect from the pavement. Stopping the carriage, he got out, and bidding
the driver wait there for him, he walked on, and turned the corner into
Southac street.
Walking slowly, and contemplatively twirling his moustache, while he
softly hummed an air, he gazed with a roving eye at the squalid and
sunlit houses of mingled brick and wood which stood in the vertical light
on either side of the street. There were few people about, fewer even
than he had seen in the streets he had passed through, and beginning to
find it a bore, he was turning to go back to the carriage, when his eye
chanced to rest on the closed window of a house obliquely opposite to
him, and stopping in the midst of his humming, his hand fell from his
moustache, and he stood still.
There, behind the closed window of the second story, absently gazing out
straight before him, stood William Roux! Mr. Lafitte knew him at the
first glance, and an infernal joy bathed his heart. Afraid the next
instant that he would be seen, he drew back into a narrow alley near by,
still gazing up at the window. But he had no reason for apprehension, for
the negro was apparently lost in reverie, and stood with his hands in his
pockets, looking straight before him.
The entire abstraction of Roux’s manner suggested to Mr. Lafitte that
there was no other person up there in the room, and a demoniac idea
leaped at once into the brain of the slaveholder and took possession of
him. Here was the carriage within fifty paces just round the corner. What
was to prevent him from quietly walking up into that room, taking Roux
by the arm, and quickly marching him off to it? It flashed into his mind
just how Roux would behave. The submissive, docile negro, so different
from that sullen, fiery Antony, overcome with fright he would never
think of struggling, and with the old servile habit of instant obedience
falling again upon him, cowed by the stern mandate, paralyzed by the
strong grasp, thunder-stricken by the unexpected appearance of his old
master, he would just march along without a word. Quickly he would walk
him, cram him into the carriage, pull down the curtains, and drive away
like fury. Ha! the moment when he should have him safe, rushed upon his
brain like fire. One bold stroke—now for it!
Emerging from the alley, he quickly crossed the street, and mounted the
wooden steps which he saw led up to Roux’s room. The door was ajar, and
pausing for one moment to listen, with torrents of hellish exultation
pouring through his being, he recognized by the silence that Roux was
alone. Softly pushing open the door, which floated inward without a
sound, he saw his victim standing with his back to him at the window, and
crossing the floor on noiseless tiptoe, he tapped him on the shoulder.
Roux turned with a start, and with his black face flaring into ashen
fright, he would have fallen to the floor, but Lafitte caught him by the
throat with both hands, and upheld him.
“Not one word, you dog!” he hissed, glaring into his bulging eyes. “I
have you! Stand!”
He released his throat, and Roux stood with a terrific look of agony on
his visage, which seemed at once to have grown thin and grey.
“Oh, Master Lafitte!” he gasped in a horrified whisper, his whole frame
shaking as if he had the palsy.
“Silence, cur!” hissed the slaveholder, grasping his arm like a vice.
“Come with me! Not a word—not a sign—or I’ll dash your brains out.”
Roux, though not a strong nature, was no coward, and under ordinary
circumstances, he would have fought to the death for his liberty. But
this horrible phantom that had risen upon him! It was not a man—it was
Fate—it was the anaconda, and he crushed in the vast and muscular gripe
of its folds! The deadening ether of utter horror fell upon him, and
passive as one falling from a precipice, with the iron clutch of his
master on his arm he moved with him to the door.
At the first step, there was a bounce in the entry, and Tugmutton
appeared on the threshold. In less than a second, the blobber-cheeked
guffaw-grin of glee fell from the fat face of the broad-limbed Puck into
a shock-haired white-eyed stare of goblin terror, and with a shrill yell
he vanished. His chattering screech outside was heard by Lafitte just
as he got within a yard of the door with his victim, and at the same
instant, there was a bound, and Harrington bursting into the room like a
thunderbolt, dashed the slaveholder with a crash against the wall.
Roux tottered back and fell prone in a dead swoon. Pale as marble,
dilated, regnant, terrible, eyes and nostrils open, Harrington stood over
his prostrate body, his front turned in war upon his foe, while Muriel,
brave and radiant, sprang like flame into the room by his side.
“Spawn of hell!” howled the Southerner, “you die!”
With the hoarse snarl of a tiger, he came rushing at Harrington,
bowie-knife in hand. Muriel would have leaped between her lover and
the weapon, but Harrington held her back with his left arm, and stood
fronting his enemy with terrible and dauntless eyes, which stopped the
infuriated wretch in midcourse like a rampart of swords. Lafitte was
brave as a brute is brave, but the Bengal tiger will not spring against a
man when his godhood is in his eyes, and arrested by the regal prowess
of that bright and fearless gaze, the livid fiend stood all acrouch, the
knife gleaming in his hand, his wild-beast orbs drained of their bloody
fire, and his breath breaking in gasping snarls on the silence. The
next instant he slunk back shivering, and stood with the knife in his
nerveless grasp, conquered!
Harrington dropped his arm, which had lain like a bar across the bosom of
Muriel, and advanced upon the cowering wretch before him.
“Listen!” said he, in a voice like bronze, deep, solemn and awful.
“Listen to those murmurs in the street! Hark!”
In the dead hush, there was a noise like a coming sea, pierced with
shrill sounds like the distant screams of the curlew.
“Man!” thundered Harrington, “you came here to rob your fellow of all God
gave him! You dared to risk your life among these plundered and trampled
poor—despoiled and outraged daily by you and such as you! Are you ready
to die?”
Silent, amidst the ominous gathering murmurs and inarticulate shrill
sounds, the slaveholder stood, with his livid, ghastly, sweat-bedabbled
face turned toward Harrington’s. Suddenly the surging ocean swelled and
tossed in wild confusion, and sinking into a pouring rush of running
feet, rose again in a savage and appalling roar.
“Hark to the coming of your doom!” cried Harrington, his voice pealing
up amidst the din, and his arms uplifted like a prophet of ruin. “Hark
to the hoarse blood-roar! Hark to the roar of St. Domingo! They come,
the people you have trodden upon, they come to tear you limb from limb!
In five minutes your head will roll in that street—your body be trampled
into bloody mire!”
“My God!” shrieked the trembling wretch, “am I to die here like a rat!
Let me go—let me fight my way through the hounds!”
Brandishing the knife, he rushed with forlorn bravery for the door.
“Back!” thundered Harrington. “That way leads to certain death!”
He sprang upon him as he spoke, wrested the knife from his hand, and
hurling it across the room, flung him back to the wall. The wretched man
covered his face with his hands!
“They come! they are here!” cried Harrington.
He sprang to the open door, and stood on the threshold, while amidst a
tumbling sea of shouts and yells, came a tumultuous rush of feet on the
wooden stairs.
“Save me, save me,” wailed the miserable creature, rushing forward, and
flinging himself on his knees with clasped hands at the feet of Muriel.
“Up, up,” she cried, “quick, quick, and stay here.”
She dragged him up on his feet as she spoke, and hurrying him into the
inner room, closed the door upon him, and flew with the courage of an
angel to the side of Harrington, just as the dense and raving mob of
negroes poured headlong into the passage-way.
He stood on the threshold, resolute and tranquil, knowing well that
his own life was in imminent danger at that moment, as well as the
slaveholder’s. Muriel stood by him, as calm and brave in that terrible
crisis as he. Arrested in their fury by these strong, still presences,
the sullen-browed and heavy-lipped grotesque throng hung lowering and
swaying for the rush of the next instant. In their front stood the tall
and muscular form of Elkanah Brown, with his knife in his hand.
“Mr. Brown,” said Harrington, with magnetic dignity, “come here.”
The stalwart negro stepped forward, with a face of fearful fierceness,
amidst a deep hush in front, while shouts and murmurs still rose behind.
“Mr. Brown,” said Harrington, in the same tone, “I want to speak with you
a moment in this room, and I want you to ask our friends to remain where
they are till you come out to them.”
The negro hesitated for a moment, fiercely glaring at Harrington. Then,
his glance falling on the sweet and solemn face of Muriel, grew gentler;
and slowly turning, with a limber-hipped, insouciant movement, he waved
his hand to his fellows.
“Just wait here till I come out,” he said with a commanding air; then
turning again, he entered the room, amidst a wild swarming of voices, and
Harrington, closing the door, bolted it and faced him.
“Is William Roux dead?” asked Brown, glancing gloomily at the prostrate
body.
“No, he is unharmed—he has only fainted,” said Harrington.
“Where’s that soul-driving hound of a kidnapper?” roared the negro,
gnashing his teeth, and rolling his fierce and torrid eyes around the
room. “The boy said he was in here. Where’ve you hid him? Let me at him,
till I cut his heart out!”
“Listen to me, Brown,” said Harrington, in a solemn and majestic voice,
fronting the roused passion of the negro with his soul divinely splendid
in his eyes. “You are a brave man and the son of the brave. Your father
fought in the black corps with Jackson, at New Orleans. Face to face with
the foe, in honorable war. You yourself, walked from slavery in Louisiana
to freedom in Massachusetts, knife in hand, through a land of enemies.
You slew the hounds that followed you. You struck dead the armed hunters
that opposed you. Man to man, in honorable war, with the odds against
you, you proved yourself a brave man. Is it for you to stain the bravery
of your manhood now, with the blood of a murder?”
Half-subdued by the electric majesty of Harrington’s bearing, for the
speech had poured from him as by inspiration, and he stood masterful and
dauntless, the centre of magnetic forces such as darted from Rienzi to
quell the tempest fury of old Rome; gratified, too, by the just tribute
to his prowess which the young man had paid him, and with his nobler
nature dimly rising through the black and bloody seethe of vengeance, the
negro remained for a moment in silence, with an irresolute and startled
air, while the shouts and murmurs swelled and tossed like a rising sea of
sound around the dwelling.
“Murder, Mr. Harrington?” he faltered.
“Yes, murder,” replied Harrington. “This base wretch lies here, helpless
and at your mercy. To kill him, and you a thousand to one, is murder. You
who never slew a man save in fair fight, will you slaughter him and the
helpless in your hands? Think! When this hour of passion is over, will
you feel proud that this miserable wretch was butchered by you in his
helplessness? Think!”
The negro stood glaring at Harrington with parted lips, and sombre and
torrid eyes.
“He took the risk himself!” he answered sullenly, with mounting rage.
“The soul-driving hound dared to come here where we live, and try to drag
off one of us. What right has he to mercy? Look at that man there, scared
into a dead faint! He did it”—
“He did worse!” cried Harrington, with stern energy: “he enslaved a
hundred of your people! He heaped on them every wrong and outrage worse
than death. They were in his power, and he never spared them. Now the
power is yours. How will you use it? As basely as he did? Will you
degrade yourself by following his example? Will you lower yourself to the
level of a brute that has not manhood enough for mercy?”
The negro stood touched, but irresolute. Harrington saw that the crisis
had come, and that a feather either way would turn the scale. A desperate
inspiration came to him, and with a bound he tore open the door of the
inner room, and dragged Lafitte front to front with the negro.
“Look at him!” he cried. “Helpless, miserable, merciless wretch, I cast
him on your mercy! Show him what it is to be a man. Teach him the lesson
that he never learned—how the brave can spare; and let him crawl home
with the shame upon him that he owes his life to the compassion of the
people he would destroy!”
The words swept from Harrington’s lips like a storm. An awful moment of
silence succeeded, disturbed only by the roaring clamor of voices that
surged around the dwelling. In that moment, the slaveholder, believing
that his hour had come, stood crouching and ahunch, stupefied with
terror, his hands clasped, his dead eyes staring on the visage of the
negro, his hair bedrenched and limp around his livid, sweat-bedabbled
face, his dark moustache hanging dank above his fallen jaw, his breath
coming and going in short, thick gasps, and his whole frame shaken like
an aspen. Muriel, calm, but still and pallid as a statue, stood gazing
on him with a white sparkle in her ashen eyes. The negro, dilated to his
full height, like a man in the presence of a wild beast, glared upon him
for an instant with a look of frightful ferocity, and then his expression
changing to contemptuous pity, he burst into a short, scornful guffaw.
“You damned soul-driving tyrant,” he bellowed at him, “I could split your
heart with this knife if you wasn’t too mis’ably mean for me to look at.”
And with this address, and another short, scornful guffaw, he turned
away, snorting with contempt, and sheathed his bowie-knife under his
waistcoat.
Muriel started from her stillness, and with something of her usual frank
and cordial air, advanced and held out her hand to him. The negro,
suddenly disturbed, as though just conscious of her presence, took the
offered hand, half ashamedly, and bowed low.
“Excuse my language, Miss Eastman,” he said, “but I kind o’ forgot you
were in here. Now, Mr. Harrington,” he said, hurriedly turning from her
with a look of trouble, “I don’t know how we’ll get this curse out of
here. I’m afeard the folks’ll fly at him when they see him. The women
folks’ll be the worst to manage. Hold on there!” he shouted, going to the
door, which was straining with the outside pressure, and resounding with
kicks and blows, “I’ll be out in a minute. The women folks, you see,” he
resumed, “they’ll have red pepper to throw, just as like as not. It’ll be
skittish business, I tell you.”
Harrington lifted Roux, who was recovering from his swoon, from the
floor, carried him into the other room, laid him on the bed, and returned.
“Listen, Brown,” he said, quickly. “It’s a hard matter, but you must use
all your influence to keep the people still. Unless you can persuade them
to disperse, there’s only one thing to be done. You and I must take him
between us, and go through the crowd.”
Lafitte seemed to catch what was going on, and abjectly slinking near
Harrington, gasped out that he had a carriage waiting for him round
the corner, if they could only get him to that. Harrington instantly
communicated this information to Brown.
“Mr. Brown,” said Muriel, “suppose you let in twenty or thirty of the men
outside for a body-guard. Then we can take him in the centre. How will
that do?”
“That’s a good idea,” replied Brown. “Mr. Harrington, come and help me to
stand the rush.”
He moved to the door accompanied by Harrington.
“Hallo, there!” roared Brown. “Stand back. I’m going to open the door.”
There was a sudden retrograde rush, with a swarming clamor of voices, and
sliding back the bolt, Brown flung the door open, and with Harrington by
his side, sprang upon the threshold.
“Back, now!” he shouted. “See here, I want some of you in here. Come in
as I call you. The rest wait.”
With his eye roving over the crowd, he called about thirty names in
succession, the men passing in between him and Harrington, as they were
summoned. Toward the end of the roll-call, Tugmutton appeared, and darted
into the room between the legs of Harrington, who tried to stop him.
“Now, then, gentlemen,” said Brown, in his grandiose way, addressing the
gaping crowd of negroes and mulattoes outside, “you wait there, and we’ll
be out soon.”
With that, he and Harrington withdrew, bolting the door again. The first
thing Harrington saw, was the infuriated Tugmutton lightly prancing
around the wincing and crouching slaveholder, and punching and butting
him without mercy, and in perfect silence. Nothing could have more
completely indicated Lafitte’s utter prostration of spirit than his
submission to the pummelling he was receiving. Muriel was in the inner
room, bending over Roux, and the body of negroes, all grinning, were
the only witnesses, besides Harrington and Brown, of this extraordinary
transaction.
“Hallo there, Charles!” cried Harrington, “stop that!”
Tugmutton, who had just lifted his short, knurly leg for a kick, which
would have been like the kick of a Shetland pony, let his foot fall,
and stood, his broad limbs all dispread, and his blobber-cheeks puffed
out with rage under his shocks of wool. Harrington’s eye was on him, or
he would have given the enemy of his race a parting thump of one sort or
another; but as it was, he slunk off in the sulks to the adjoining room.
“See here, gentlemen,” said Brown, addressing the motley group of
negroes, who now stood fierce and open-mouthed, rolling their eyes upon
the slaveholder, “I’ve got something to say to you. There’s a lady here,
and what you’ve got to do is to behave like gentlemen.”
There was instantly great confusion of elaborate ducking and bowing to
the lady, Muriel having come from the inner room as Brown spoke. She
acknowledged their grotesque and extravagant politeness by smiling and
curtseying, which set them all going again with the added grace of much
good-natured grinning, and some spruce strutting on the part of the
younger men, especially the mulattoes. One could not help noticing, as
part of the general effect, the contrast between this facile affability
and anxious desire to please, and the uncouth and outlandish figures of
these courtiers, every one of whom had something singular and nondescript
about his apparel or bearing.
“Now gentlemen,” pursued Brown, after an embarrassed pause, in which
he kept moving his hand over his mouth as one in doubt what to say
next, “the reason I’ve asked you in here is because I’ve most especial
confidence in you. Fact is, gentlemen, we shall all get into trouble and
have the police down on us, unless we get that man there off safe. That’s
got to be done, gentlemen, and you’ve got to do it. What you’ve got to
do, gentlemen, is to form in a hollow square, and put him in the middle
of you, and walk him off handsome, to a carriage round the corner.”
They all stood staring open-mouthed with eyes revolving wildly at
the speaker. Lafitte, coming to his senses again, was in an agony of
apprehension, while both Muriel and Harrington stood with throbbing
hearts.
“Deacon Massey,” said Brown with some pomposity of manner, “what’s your
opinion as to whether this thing can be done?”
Deacon Massey, an elderly colored man of pragmatical aspect, with two
bunches of white wool protruding from under an old cap which he wore
on the back of his head, and with a general flavor of antiquity in his
shabby garments, instantly assumed an air of the profoundest deliberation.
“It my ’pinion, Brother Brown,” he said, with a very important air, after
a long pause, “that this thing can be done if these yer brethren’ll put
their trust in the Lord and stick together.”
There was an instant burst of declarations from the entire group that
they would trust the Lord and stick together, and do the thing in first
rate style.
“All right, gentlemen,” said Brown. “Now form.”
Amidst much bustle, Harrington directing, and Brown hustling them into
place, a hollow square was formed in the centre of the room.
“I will take Mr. Lafitte by one arm,” said Muriel, “and you Mr. Brown,
will take the other. Mr. Harrington will follow behind.”
Harrington looked grave. “You run great danger, Muriel?” he murmured. “I
think you’d better stay here.”
“No,” whispered Muriel, “with a woman on his arm, his risk will be
lessened. We must omit nothing that will protect him. Don’t fear for me.
I’m not afraid.”
“Miss Eastman,” said Brown, approaching with a bow, “you’re the bravest
lady I’ve ever seen by long odds. You can’t be beat, Miss Eastman.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” she said with a curtsey, almost gay. “Now, sir,”
she added gravely, turning to the shuddering Lafitte, “collect yourself,
keep your head down, and don’t look around you.”
She picked his hat up from the floor, and put it on him. He tried to bow
with something of his usual courtesy, but was too much agitated to do so.
Taking him firmly by the left arm, she led him into the centre of the
square, which closed around them with locked arms. The awful moment was
approaching.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Brown, firmly, “mind you stick together. Don’t
march till I give the word.”
He went to the door and unbolting it, threw it open.
“Gentlemen,” he roared, in a tremendous voice, “this affair is settled.
We’re going to escort this man away from the neighborhood. Fall back, all
of you, and clear the way.”
He advanced upon them with waving arms.
There was an instant’s hesitation, and then, with a sudden movement, they
receded tumultuously, and poured down the wooden steps amidst a chorus of
shouts and cries, which was taken up below, and swelled into a ponderous
uproar.
Returning hastily to the room, Brown entered the hollow square, and
grasped Lafitte by the right arm. Harrington followed him and took his
place behind, and the square closed.
“Forward, march!”
As the words burst from the mouth of the negro, they marched from the
room, only breaking their order to get through the doorways. The moment
they appeared on the steps, the whole wild, tossing, sunlit multitude
sent up an appalling and tremendous howling roar. Lafitte almost fainted,
but encouraged by Muriel, he rallied, and keeping his head on his breast,
without looking at the crowd, he was got down the steps, and the next
instant the little phalanx, joining together with locked arms, plunged
into the living sea, which closed around them amidst an awful din.
They turned up the sidewalk, stepping quickly, with the mob parting
before them, and following on their left flank and behind them, and the
tossing and roaring multitude in the middle of the street crowding them
hard, and at times driving them to the wall of houses on their left.
Amidst the uproarious clamor, Brown’s voice pealed incessantly, calling
on those before him to clear the way, and to those on his left to stand
back. As Muriel had foreseen, her presence was an invaluable aid, for
at the sight of the beautiful, calm lady, the foremost of the flanking
multitude would crowd back upon those behind them, and driven forward
again, would again crowd and struggle backward. Soon, too, the imitative
faculty had its way, and the phalanx deepened by the accession of other
negroes who locked arms with it, till it filled the sidewalk to the
kerb-stone, which in turn opposed a slight barrier to the dense press
of the multitude. But the passage through the stifling crush was still
arduous, and the heat and foul odors made it more so. Awful, too, were
the howls and cries and imprecations which greeted every glimpse of the
Southerner. At that moment, Lafitte would have willingly given everything
he was worth in the world to be out of the danger which menaced him.
The height of the ordeal was when they reached Grove street, where they
had to cross to the carriage, with the multitude on each side of them. It
was but a short distance, but the phalanx, struggling and swaying in the
dense and roaring press, had to literally tear its way through. There was
already hustling and pushing, with angry words flying, and Harrington saw
that presently it would come to blows, when all would be lost. Bending
forward, he shouted in Brown’s ear to take the lead and endeavor to clear
the way. The negro instantly dropped Lafitte’s arm, which Harrington
seized, and gaining the van of the phalanx, he burst upon the crowd with
all the strength of his body and the thunder of his voice. They surged
back for an instant, leaving a clear space in front.
“Quick step! forward!” pealed the trumpet tones of Harrington.
The phalanx made a desperate rush, Brown flying in the van, and in an
instant the carriage was gained. Quick as thought Lafitte was forced into
it, and Harrington and Muriel sprang in beside him. The crowd poured
around with a clamor of shouts and cries, and while the horses, with
the frightened driver at their heads, reared and plunged, the carriage
itself, seized by the crowd, began to sway as if it would be overthrown.
Lafitte fainted dead away.
“Quick!” vociferated Brown to the driver. “Mount the box, and drive like
mad!”
The driver scrambled to his seat, and lashed the horses, while the negro
sprang inside. Away they rattled at a furious pace, with the howling
multitude surging along on either side and behind them. Muriel and
Harrington, flushed and bathed with perspiration, sat, with disordered
dresses, holding up the inanimate form of the slaveholder, while Brown,
in a reek of sweat, busied himself with beating off the hands that
clutched momently at the carriage door. Along Grove street into May, and
from thence up West Centre into Myrtle, the frightened horses tore like a
whirlwind; but before they reached Myrtle, the clamor was receding, and
the crowd had thinned and fallen behind, unable to keep up with them, but
still following in the distance.
“We’re safe!” cried Harrington, joyfully.
“Faith, yes,” returned Muriel, gaily, her golden eyes glowing in the
faint pink flush of her face, “but it was warm work while it lasted.”