A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION.
SIGH FOR DEATH.--A MURDER IN MY HEART.--THE AXE
RAISED.--CONSCIENCE SPEAKS AND I AM SAVED.--GOD BE PRAISED!
Now all outward nature seemed to feed my gloomy thoughts. I know
not what most men see in voyaging down the Mississippi. If gay and
hopeful, probably much of beauty and interest. If eager merchants,
probably a golden river, freighted with the wealth of nations. I saw
nothing but portents of woe and despair. Wretched slave-pens; a smell
of stagnant waters; half-putrid carcasses of horses or oxen floating
along, covered with turkey buzzards and swarms of green flies,--these
are the images with which memory crowds my mind. My faith in God
utterly gave way. I could no longer pray or trust. He had abandoned
me and cast me off forever. I looked not to him for help. I saw
only the foul miasmas, the emaciated frames of my negro companions;
and in them saw the sure, swift, loving intervention of the one
unfailing friend of the wretched,--death! Yes; death and the grave!
"There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the
oppressor." Two years of this would kill me. I dwelt on the thought
with melancholy yet sweet satisfaction. Two years! and then I should
be free. Free! ever my cherished hope, though not as I had thought it
would come.
As I paced backwards and forwards on the deck, during my watch, it may
well be believed I revolved in my mind many a painful and passionate
thought. After all that I had done for Isaac and Amos Riley, after
all the regard they had professed for me, such a return as this for
my services, such an evidence of their utter disregard of my claims
upon them, and the intense selfishness with which they were ready
to sacrifice me, at any moment, to their supposed interest, turned
my blood to gall, and changed me from a lively, and, I will say, a
pleasant-tempered fellow, into a savage, morose, dangerous slave. I
was going not at all as a lamb to the slaughter; but I felt myself
becoming more ferocious every day; and as we approached the place
where this iniquity was to be consummated, I became more and more
agitated with an almost uncontrollable fury. I said to myself, "If
this is to be my lot, I cannot survive it long. I am not so young as
those whose wretched condition I have but just now seen, and if it has
brought them to such a condition, it will soon kill me. I am to be
taken by my masters and owners, who ought to be my grateful friends,
to a place and a condition where my life is to be shortened, as well
as made more wretched. Why should I not prevent this wrong if I can,
by shortening their lives, or those of their agents, in accomplishing
such detestable injustice? I can do the last easily enough. They have
no suspicion of me, and they are at this moment under my control,
and in my power. There are many ways in which I can dispatch them
and escape; and I feel that I should be justified in availing myself
of the first good opportunity." These were not thoughts which just
flitted across my mind's eye and then disappeared. They fashioned
themselves into shapes which grew larger and seemed firmer every
time they presented themselves; and at length my mind was made up to
convert the phantom shadow into a positive reality.
I resolved to kill my four companions, take what money there was in
the boat, then to scuttle the craft, and escape to the north. It was
a poor plan, maybe, and would very likely have failed; but it was as
well contrived, under the circumstances, as the plans of murderers
usually are; and blinded by passion, and stung to madness as I was, I
could not see any difficulty about it. One dark, rainy night, within
a few days' sail of New Orleans, my hour seemed to have come. I was
alone on the deck; Master Amos and the hands were all asleep below,
and I crept down noiselessly, got hold of an axe, entered the cabin,
and looking by the aid of the dim light there for my victims, my eye
fell upon Master Amos, who was nearest to me; my hand slid along the
axe-handle; I raised it to strike the fatal blow,--when suddenly the
thought came to me, "What! commit _murder_! and you a Christian?"
I had not called it murder before. It was self-defence,--it was
preventing others from murdering me,--it was justifiable, it was even
praiseworthy. But now, all at once, the truth burst upon me that it
was a crime. I was going to kill a young man who had done nothing to
injure me, but was only obeying commands which he could not resist;
I was about to lose the fruit of all my efforts at self-improvement,
the character I had acquired, and the peace of mind that had never
deserted me. All this came upon me instantly, and with a distinctness
which almost made me think I heard it whispered in my ear; and I
believe I even turned my head to listen. I shrunk back, laid down the
axe, and thanked God, as I have done every day since, that I had not
committed murder.
My feelings were still agitated, but they were changed. I was filled
with shame and remorse for the design I had entertained, and with
the fear that my companions would detect it in my face, or that a
careless word would betray my guilty thoughts. I remained on deck
all night, instead of rousing one of the men to relieve; and nothing
brought composure to my mind but the solemn resolution I then made,
to resign myself to the will of God, and take with thankfulness, if I
could, but with submission, at all events, whatever he might decide
should be my lot. I reflected that if my life were reduced to a brief
term, I should have less to suffer; and that it was better to die
with a Christian's hope, and a quiet conscience, than to live with
the incessant recollection of a crime that would destroy the value
of life, and under the weight of a secret that would crush out the
satisfaction that might be expected from freedom and every other
blessing.
It was long before I recovered my self-control and serenity; but I
believe that no one but those to whom I have told the story myself,
ever suspected me of having entertained such thoughts for a moment.