Flash For Freedom!

sitting round a camp fire in Mississippi, with two dead bodies lying by. And before it was done she had thrown off her fit of the shakes — after all, when you're new to it, killing is almost as disturbing as nearly being killed — and was telling me what we must do next. My admiration increased — why, she had thought it out all beforehand, in the wagon, down to the last detail.

It had been my remark about slave-catchers not touching a white man that had set her thinking, and shown her how she could make a successful run this time, with me to help her.

'We must travel as master and slave,' says she. 'That way no one will give us a second thought — but we must go quickly. It may be a week before Mandeville discovers that this wagon never reached Forster's place, and that these two men' — she gave a little shudder — 'are missing. It might even be longer, but we dare not count on it — we dare not! Long before then we must be out of the state, on our way north.'

'In that?' says I, nodding to the cart, and she shook her head.

'It can take us no farther than the river; we must go faster than it will carry us. We must go by steamboat.'

'Hold on, though — that costs money, and these two hadn't but fifteen dollars between them. We can't get a passage on that.'

'Then we'll steal money!' says she, fiercely. 'We have pistols — you are a strong man! We can take what we need!'

But I wasn't having that — not that I'm scrupulous, but I'm no hand as a foot-pad. It's too risky by half, and so I told her.

'Risk!' she blazed. 'You talk of risk, after what I have done this night? Don't you see-we have two murders on our hands — isn't that a risk? Do you know what will happen if we're caught — you will be hanged, and I'll be burned alive! And you talk of robbery as a risk!'

'Holding someone up will only increase the danger,' says I, 'for then we would be hunted, whereas if we go our way quietly there'll be no hue and cry until these two are found — if they ever are.'

'Whoever we robbed could go the way these went,' says she. 'Then there would be no added danger.' By God, she was a coldblooded one, that. When I protested, she lost her temper:

'Why should we be squeamish over white lives? D'you think I care if every one of these filthy slave-driving swine is torn to pieces tomorrow? And why should you shrink from it, after what they would have done to you? Are they your people, these?'

I tried to convince her it wasn't principle, but pure lack of nerve, and we argued on, she waxing passionate — she hated with a lust for revenge that frightened me. But I wouldn't have it, and eventually she gave up, and sat staring into the fire, her hands clenched on her knees. At last she says, very quietly:

'Well, money we must have, however we come by it. And if you will not steal for it — well, there is only one other way. It does not add greatly to the risk, but … but I would do almost anything to avoid it.'

Possibly I'm a natural-born pimp, for I jumped to the conclusion that she was thinking of whoring her way upriver, with me as her protector, but it was something far grander than that.

'We must go to Memphis,' says she. 'It is a town on the river, not more than fifty miles from here, so far as I can judge. That would be for the day after tomorrow — perhaps another day. That in itself is no great risk, for we have to go to the river anyway, and if God is kind to us none of Mandeville's friends, or people of Forster's, who would know me, will cross our path. And when we are there … we can find the money. Oh, yes, we can find the money!'

And to my astonishment she began to weep — not sobbing, but just great tears rolling down her cheeks. She dashed them away, and then fumbled inside her dress, and after a moment she produced a paper, soiled but very carefully-folded, which she passed to me. Wondering, I opened it, and saw that it was a bill of sale, dated February 1843, for one Cassy, a negro girl, the property of one Angel de Marmalade (I swear that was the name) of New Orleans, now duly sold and delivered to Fitzroy Howard, of San Antonio de Bexar. There was another scrap of paper with it which fluttered down — she made a grab, but not in time to prevent me seeing the words scrawled on it in a coarse, lumpy hand:

'Wensh Cassy. Ten lashys. Wun dollar,' and a signature that was illegible.

She drew away, and spoke with her head turned from me.

'That was my second bill of sale. I was fourteen. I stole it from Howard, when he was drunk and I ran from him. They caught me, but he was dead by then, and when they auctioned me with his other … goods, they didn't bother to look for the old bill. I kept it — to remember. Just to remember, so that when I was free, and far away, I should never forget what it was to be a slave! No one ever found it! — they never found it!' Her voice was rising, and she swung her head round to stare at me, her eyes brimming. 'I never thought it might serve to win my freedom! But it will!'

'How, in heaven's name?'

'You'll carry it to Memphis — you'll be Mr Fitzroy Howard! No one knows him this far north — he died in Texas four years ago — four years he's been screaming in Hell! And you'll sell me in Memphis — oh, I'll fetch a fine price, you'll see! A thousand, two thousand dollars — maybe three, for a choice mustee wench, fancy-bred, only nineteen, and schooled in a New Orleans brothel! Oh, they'll buy all right!'

Well, this seemed first-rate business to me, and I said so.

'Three thousand dollars — why, woman, what were you ever thinking of highway robbery for? Half that sum will see us rolling upriver in style-but wait though! If you're sold — how'll you get away?'

'1 can run. Oh, believe me, I can run! The moment you have the money, you'll buy passages on a boat north — we'll have decided which one beforehand. Leave it to me to run at the right time — we'll meet at the levee or somewhere and go aboard together. You'll be what they call a nigger-stealer then, and I a runaway slave-but they won't catch us. What, Mr and Mrs Whatever-we-choose-to-call-ourselves, first-class passengers to Louisville? Oh, no, we'll be safe enough — if you keep our bargain.'

Well, it had crossed my mind, of course, in the last two seconds, from the moment she'd reminded me of the nasty stigma of nigger-stealing, that it would be a sight safer to catch a different boat, all on my own, with the three thousand dollars, and leave Miss Cassy to fend for herself. But she was as quick as I was.

'If I didn't get out of Memphis,' says she, slowly and intently, leaning forward to look into my face, 'I'd give myself up — and tell them how we had run together, and you had killed two men back in Mississippi, and where the bodies were, and all about you. You wouldn't get far, Mr — what is your name, anyway?'

'Er, Flash — , er, Brown, I mean. But, look here, my dear girl, I promised not to desert you — remember? D'you think I'm the kind to break his word? I must say —'

'I don't know,' says she, slowly. 'I only tell you what will happen if you do. It may cost me my life, but it will certainly cost you yours, Mr Flash-er-Brown.'

'I wouldn't dream of leaving you,' says I, seriously. 'Not for a moment. But, I say, Cassy — this is a top-hole plan! Why didn't you tell me before-it's absolutely splendid!'

She gazed at me, and took a deep breath, and then turned to gaze into the fire.

'You would think so, I suppose. Perhaps it seems a little thing to you — to be placed on a block, and auctioned like a beast to the highest bidder. To be pawed over and fumbled by dirty hands — stripped even, and gloated over!' The tears were starting again, but her voice never shook. 'How could you even begin to imagine it? The hideous shame — the humiliation!' She swung round on me again — a habit of hers which I confess made me damned jumpy.

'Do you know what I was, until I was thirteen? I was a little Creole girl, in a fine house in Baton Rouge, with my papa and two brothers and two sisters, all older than I. Their mother was dead — she was white-and my mother, who was a slave mustee, was mother to them as well. We were the happiest family in the world — I loved them, and they loved me, or so I thought, until my father died. And then they sold us — my loving brothers sold me, their sister, and my mother, who had been more than a mother to them. They sold us! My mother to a planter — me to a bawd in New Orleans!'

She was shaking with passion. Something seemed called for, so I says:

'Pretty steep work, that. Bad business.'

'I was a whore — at thirteen! I ran away, back to my family — and they gave me up! They put me in a cellar until my owner came, and took me back to New Orleans. You saw that other paper, with the bill of sale. Do you know what it is? It is a receipt from a whipping-house-where slaves are sent to be corrected! I was only thirteen,