Flash For Freedom!

so they were lenient with me — only ten lashes! Can you understand what that did to me? Can you? For they make a spectacle of it — oh, yes! I was tied up naked, and whipped before an audience of men! Can you even begin to dream what it is like — the unbelievable, frightful shame of it? But how could I make you understand!' She was beating her fist on my knee by now, crying into my face. 'You are a man — what would it do to you, to be stripped and bound and flogged before a pack of leering, laughing women?'

'Oh, well,' says I, 'I don't really know —'

'They cheered me! Do you hear that — cheered me, because I Wouldn't cry, and one of them gave me a dollar! I ran back, blind with tears, with that receipt in my hand, and the she-devil who kept that brothel said: 'Keep it to remind you of what disobedience brings'. And I kept it, with the other. So that I shall never forget!'

She buried her head on my knee, weeping, and I was at a loss for once. I could think of one good way of comforting us both, but I doubted if she'd take kindly to it. So I patted her head and said:

'Well, it's a hard life, Cassy, there's no denying. But cheer up — there's a good time coming, you know. We'll be away to Memphis in the morning, raffle you off, collect the cash, and then, hey! for the steamboat! Why, we can have a deuced good time of it, I daresay, for I'm bound for the east coast, you know, and we can travel together. Why, we can —'

'Do you swear it?' She had lifted her head and was gazing up at me, her face wasted with crying. God, she was a queer one, one minute all cold steel and killing two men, and then getting the jumps over 'em — and from that she was plotting calmly, and suddenly raging with passion, and now imploring me with the wistful eyes of a child. By George, she was a handsome piece — but it wasn't the time or place, I knew. She was too much in a taking — I'll wager she had talked more that night than she'd done for years. But women have always loved to confide in me; I think it's my bluff, honest, manly countenance-and my whiskers, of course.

'You do promise?' she begged rue. 'You will help me, and never desert me? Never, until I'm free?'

Well, you know what my promises are; still I gave it, and I believe I meant it at the time. She took my hand, and kissed it, which disturbed me oddly, and then she says, looking me in the eyes:

'Strange, that you should be an Englishman. I remember, years ago, on the Pierrepoint Plantation, the slaves used to talk of the underground railroad — the freedom road, they called it — and how those who could travel it in safety might win at last to Canada, and then they could never be made slaves again. There was one old man, a very old slave, who had a book that he had gotten from somewhere, and I used to read to them from it — it was called Nore's Epitome of Navigation, all about the sea, and ships, and none of us could understand it, but it was the only book we had, and so they loved to hear me read from it.' She tried to smile, with her eyes full of tears, and her voice was trembling. 'On the outside there was a picture of a ship, with a Union Jack at its mast, and the old man used to point to it and say: 'Dat's de flag o' liberty, chillun; dat de ol' flag'. And I used to remember what I had once beard someone say — I can't recall where or when, but I never forgot the words.' She paused a moment, and then said in a whisper almost: ''Whoever stands on British soil, shall be forever free'. It's true, isn't it?'

'Oh, absolutely,' says I. 'We're the chaps, all right. Don't hold with slavery at all, don't you know.'

And, strange as it may seem, sitting there with her looking at me as though I were the Second Coming, well — I felt quite proud, you know. Not that I care a damn, but — well, it's nice, when you're far away and don't expect it, to hear the old place well spoken of.

'God bless you,' says she, and she let go my hand, and I thought of making a grab at her, for the third time, but changed my mind. And we went to sleep on opposite sides of the fire, after I'd stoked it up and shoved Little's body into the bushes; deuce of a weight to move he was, too.

* * *

It took us two full days to Memphis, and the closer we got the more uneasy I became about the scheme we had undertaken. The chief risk was that we would be recognised by somebody, and if looking back I can say that it was only a chance in a thousand — well, that's still an uncomfy chance if your neck depends on it.

I was in high enough spirits when we set off from our camping place at dawn, for the glow of being free again hadn't worn off. It was with positive zest that I hauled the corpses of Little and George well into the thickets, and dumped them in a swampy pool full of reeds and frogs; then I tidied up the tracks as well as I could, and we set off. Cassy sat in the back of the cart, out of sight, while I drove, and we rolled along through the woods over the rutted road — it was more like a farm-track, really — until I Came to a fork running north-west, which was the direction we Wanted to go.

We followed it until noon without seeing a soul, which I now know was pretty lucky, but soon after we had cooked up a fry and moved on we came to a small village, and here something hap pened which damped my spirits a good deal, for it showed me what a small place even the American backwoods can be, and how difficult it is to pass through without every Tom, Dick and Harry taking an interest in you.

The village was dozing in the afternoon, with only a nigger or two kicking about, a dog nosing in a rubbish tip, and a baby wailing on a porch, but just the other side of town there was the inevitable yokel whittling on a stump, with his straw hat over his eyes and his bare feet stuck in the dust. I decided it was safe to make an inquiry, and pulled up.

'Hollo,' says I, cheerily.

'Hollo, y'self,' says he.

'Am I on the road to Memphis, friend?' says I.

He thought about this, chewing and polishing up one of those cracker-barrel witticisms which are Mississippi's gift to civiisation. At last he said:

'Well, if y'don't know for sartain, you're a damfool to be headin' along it, ain't you?'

'I would be, if I wasn't sure of direction from a smart man like you,' says I.

He cocked an eye at me. 'How come you're so sure?'

It's like talking before salt with the Arabs, or doing business with a Turk; you must go through the ritual.

'Because it's a hot day.'

'That makes you sure?'

'Makes me sure you're thirsty, which makes me sure you'll take a suck at the jug I've got under my seat — and then you'll tell me the road to Memphis.' I threw the jug at him, and he snapped it up like a trout taking a fly.

'Guess I might sample it, at that,' says he, and sampled about a pint. 'Jay-zus! That's drinkin' liquor. Ye-ah — I reckon you might be on the Memphis road, sure enough. Should git there, too, provided you don't fall in Coldwater Creek or git elected guy-nor or die afore you arrive.' He threw the jug back, and I was about to whip up when he says:

'You f'm Nawth? You don't talk like ol' Miss, nor Arkinsaw, neether.'

'No, I'm from Texas.'

'You don't say? Long ways off, the Texies. Young Jim Noble, be went down there, 'bout two years back. Ever run across Jim?'

'I reckon not.'

'No.' He considered me, the sharp, sleepy little eyes peeping out under the frayed straw brim. 'Would that be Tom Little's wagon your drivin'? Seems I know that broken spoke — an' the horse.'

For a moment my blood ran cold, and I stopped my hand from going to the pistol in the back of my belt.

'Well, it was Tom Little's wagon,' says I. 'Still would be, if be hadn't loaned it me yesterday. When I take it back, it will be his again, I guess.' If I'd stayed in that country, and learned to whittle with a Barlow knife, and chew tobacco, I'd have made president.

'That a fact,' says he. 'First time I heerd o' Tom lendin' anything.'

'Well, I'm his cousin,' says I. 'So he didn't mind lending it to me.' And I whipped up and made off.

'Good for him,' calls the yokel after me. 'He might ha' told you the road to Memphis, while he was about it.'

By George, it rattled me, I can tell you. When we were out of sight I conferred with Cassy, and she agreed we must press on as hard as we could go. With every loafer in the county weighing us up, the sooner we were clear the better. So we pushed on, and might have made it next day if I hadn't had to rest the horsespavined old bitch she was. We had to sleep another night out, and the following morning we left the cart beside a melon patch, telling a nigger to mind it for us, and walked the last mile into Memphis town.