another white man to be dragged away to some vile plantation, herded with niggers, flogged to work like a beast — it couldn't be true, surely? All I'd done was rattle Mandeville's wife — well, if I ever caught a man doing the like to Elspeth, I'd want to kill him, probably, and I could understand Mandeville wanting to as well — but how could he doom me to the living hell of black slavery? It must be their ghastly idea of a joke — it couldn't be true, it just could not be!
But it was. How long I lay in that cupboard I don't know, but it was dark when the door opened and I was dragged out. They had brought my coat, and it was wrapped over my head, and then I felt the horror of fetters being clapped on my ankles. I tried to scream through my gag, and struggled, but they carried me away bodily, muttering and laughing, and presently I was flung on to the hard surface of a Cart. I heard Luke say, 'Take good care o' that valuable merchandise, Tom Little,' and laughter, and then we were jolting away in the darkness.
I twisted in my bonds, half-crazed with the abomination of it, and then the jacket was pulled away, and in the dimness of the cart a woman's voice said:
'Lie still. There's no use struggling. Believe me, I tried struggling — once. It's no good. You must wait — wait and hope.'
She pulled out the gag, but my mouth was too parched to speak. She laid her hand on my head, stroking it, and in the dark her voice kept whispering:
'Rest, don't struggle. Wait and hope. Lie still. Wait and hope.'
11
Her name was Cassy, and I believe that without her I must have gone mad on that first night on the slave cart. The darkness, the close animal stench of the enclosed space in which we were cooped up, and most of all the horror of what lay ahead, reduced me to a croaking wreck. And while I lay shuddering and moaning to myself, she stroked my head and talked in a soft, sibilant voice-hardly a trace of nigger, more New Orleans Frenchy, like Annette's — telling me to be easy, and rest, and not to waste my breath on foolish raving. All very well, but foolish raving is a capital way of releasing one's feelings. However, she talked on, and in the end it must have soothed me, because when I opened my eyes the cart was stopped, and a little sunlight was filtering through cracks in the board roof, giving a dim illumination to the interior.
The first thing I did was to crawl about the place-it wasn't above four feet high — examining it, but it was as tight as a drum, and the doors appeared to be padlocked. I couldn't see a hope of escape. I was chained by the legs — the woman had managed to untie the cord at my wrists — and even if I had succeeded in breaking out, what could I have done against two armed men? They would doubtless be making for Alabama by back roads and trails, far from any hope of assistance, and even if, by some miracle, I got out and gave them the slip, they would easily run me down, hobbled as I was.
The horror of it overcame me again, and I just lay there and wept. There was no hope, and the woman's voice suddenly came to confirm my fears.
'It won't seem so bad after a while,' she said. 'Nothing ever does.'
I turned to look at her, and for a moment a crazy thought struck me-that she, too, was white, and the victim of some fearful plot like my own. For she was no more like a nigger than I was, at first glance. You have seen her head on old Egyptian carvings, both chin and forehead sloping sharply away from a thin curved nose and wide heavy lips, with great almond-shaped devil's eyes which can look strong and terrible in that delicate face. She was unusually tall, but everything about her was fine and fragile, from the high cheekbones and thin black hair bound tight behind her head to the slender ankles locked in slave fetters; even her colour was delicate, like very pale honey, and I realised she was the lightest kind of nigger, what they call a musteefino.37 She reminded me of a Siamese cat, graceful and sinuous and probably far stronger than she looked.
Mind you, my thoughts weren't running in their usual direction; I was too powerfully occupied with my predicament for that, and I fell to groaning and cursing again. I must have babbled something about escape, because she suddenly said:
'Why do you waste your breath? Don't you know better by now — there's no escape. Not now, or ever.'
'My God!' I cried. 'There must be. You don't know what they're going to do to me. I'm to be enslaved on a plantation — for life!'
'Is that so strange?' said she, bitterly. 'You're lucky you haven't been there before. What were you — a house slave?'
'I'm not a bloody slave!' I shouted. 'I'm a white man.'
She stared at me through the dimness. 'Oh, come now. We stop saying that when we're ten years old.'
'It's true, I tell you! I'm an Englishman! Can't you tell?'
She moved across the cart, peering at my face, frowning. Then:
'Give me your hand,' she says.
I let her look at my nails; she dropped my hand and sat back, staring at me with those great amber-flecked eyes. 'Then what are you doing here, in God's name?'
You may be sure I told her — at length, but leaving out the juicy parts: Mandeville suspected me unjustly, I told her. She sat like a graven image until it was done, and then all she said was:
'Well, now one of you knows what it feels like.' She went back to her corner. 'Now you know what a filthy race you belong to.'
'But, dear Christ!' I exclaimed. 'I must get out of it, I must —'
'How?' Her lips writhed in a sneer. 'Do you know how many times I've run? Three times! And each time they caught me, and dragged me back. Escape! Bah! You talk like a fool.'
'But … but … last night … in the dark … you said something about waiting and hoping …'
'That was to comfort you. I thought you were … one of us.' She gave a bitter little laugh. 'Well, you are, now, and I tell you there isn't any hope. Where can you run to, in this vile country? This land of freedom! With slave-catchers everywhere, and dogs, and whipping-houses, and laws that say I'm no better than a beast in a sty!' Her eyes were blazing with a hatred that was scaring. 'You try and run! See what good it does you!'
'But slave-catchers can't touch me! If only I can get out of this cursed wagon! Look,' I went on, desperately, 'there must be a chance-when they open the doors, to feed us —'
'How little you know of slavery!' she mocked me. 'They won't open the doors — not till they get me to Forster's place, and you to wherever you're going. Feed us! — that's how they feed us, like dogs in a kennel!' And she pointed to a hatch in the door, which I hadn't noticed. 'For the rest, you foul your sty — why shouldn't you? You're just a beast! Did you know that was what the Romans called us — talking beasts? Oh, yes, I learned a lot about slavery, in the fine house I was brought up in. Brought up so that I could be made the chattel of any filthy ruffian, any beggar or ignorant scum of the levees — just so he was white!' She sat glaring at me, then her shoulders drooped. 'What use to talk? You don't know what it means. But you will. You will.'
Well, you may guess how this raised my spirits. The very fierceness of the woman, her bitter certainty, knocked what little fight I had out of me. I sat dejected, and she silent, until after a while I heard Little and his companion talking outside, and presently the hatch was raised, and a tin dish was shoved in, and a bottle of water. I was at the hatch in a flash, shouting to them, pleading and offering money, which set them into roars of laughter.
'Say, hear that now! Ain't that bully? What about you, Cass — ain't you got a thousand dollars to spare for ifn we let you go? No? Well, ain't that a shame, though? No, my lord, I'm sorry, but truth is me an' George here, we don't need the money anyways. An' I ain't too sure we'd trust your note o' hand, either. Haw-haw!'
And the cruel brute slammed down the hatch and went off, chuckling.
Through all this Cass never said a word, and when we had tried to eat the filthy muck they had given us, and rinsed our throats from the bottle, she went back to her corner and sat there, her bead against the boards, staring into vacancy. Presently the cart started up, and for the rest of the day we jolted slowly over what must have been a damned bad road, while the atmosphere in the cart grew so hot and stifling that I was sure we must suffocate before long. Once or twice I bawled out to Little, pleading with him, but all I got was oaths and obscene jokes, so I gave up, and all the time Cassy sat silent, only occasionally turning to stare at me, but making no reply to my croaks and questions. I cursed her for a black slut, but she didn't seem to hear.
Towards sunset, the cart stopped, and immediately Cassy seemed to come to life. She peered through a crack in the side of the wagon, and then crawled over to me, motioning me to talk in whispers.
