Flash For Freedom!

It was a fair-sized place, even in those days, for half the cotton in the world seemed to find its way there, but to my jaundiced eye it appeared to be made entirely out of mud. It had rained from first light, and by the time we had walked through the churned-up streets, and been splashed by wagons and by damfools who didn't look where they were going, we were in a sorry state. But the crowded bustle of the place, and the foul weather, made me feel happier, because both lessened the chance of anyone recognising us.

Now all that remained to be done was for me to sell a runaway slave and arrange for us to get out of town without any holes in our hides. Easy enough, you may think, for a chap of Flashy's capabilities, and I'll admit your confidence wouldn't be misplaced. But I wonder how many young chaps nowadays, in this civilised twentieth century, would know how to go about it, if they were planked down, near penniless and with their boots letting in, on a foreign soil, and asked to dispose of a fine-strung mustee woman whose depression and nervousness were growing steadily as the crisis approached? It takes thought, I tell you, and a strong grip on one's own gorge to keep it from leaping out.

The first thing was to find when the next sale was, and here we were lucky, for there was one in the market that very afternoon, which meant we could do our business and, God willing, be out by nightfall. Next I must inquire about steamboats, so leaving Cassy under the shelter of a shop porch, I pioshed down to the levee to make inquiries. It was pouring fit to frighten Noah by now, with a howling wind as well, and by the time I tacked up to the steamboat office I was plastered with gumbo to the thighs and sodden from there up. To add to my difficulties, the ancient at the office window, wearing a dirty old pilot cap and a vacant expression, was both stone deaf and three parts senile; when I bawled my inquiries to him above the noise of the storm he responded with a hand to his ear and a bewildered grin.

'Is there a boat to Louisville tonight?' I roared.

'Hey?'

'Boat to Louisville?'

'Cain't hear you, mister. Speak up, cain't ye?'

I dragged my collar closer and dashed the rain out of my eyes.

'Boat to Louisville — tonight?' I yelled.

'Boat to where?'

'Oh, for pity's sake! LOUIS! —' I gathered all my lung power '— VILLE! Is there a boat tonight?'

At last he beamed and nodded.

'Shore 'nough, mister. The new Missouri. Leaves at ten.'

I thanked him forcibly and ploughed back up town. Now all that must be done was render myself and Cassy as respectable as possible and go to work with our hands on our hearts. The first part we managed, roughly, in the back room of a cheap apartment house which I hired for the day; my good coat, which had been thrown over my head when I left Greystones — a prodigious stroke of luck that, for it had Spring's precious papers sewn in the lining — was sadly soiled, but we made the best of it, and rehearsed the final details of our plan. I was in a sweat about how Cassy would slip away from her new owner, but this she brushed aside; what made her grit her teeth to stop them chattering was the thought of mounting the slave block and being sold, which seemed strange to me, since it had happened to her before, and didn't involve any pain or danger at all.

She was to run late that evening, make her way back to the apartment house, knock at my window, which was on the ground floor, and be admitted. I would have clothes for her by then, and we'd make our way to the levee and go aboard the Missouri as Mr and Mrs James B. Montague, of Baton Rouge, travelling north. In the dark it should be simple enough.

'If I do not come — wait,' says she. 'I will come in the end. If I don't come by tomorrow, I'll be dead, and you will be able to go where you will. But until then I hold you to your word — your pledged promise, remember?'

'I remember, I remember!' says I, jittering. 'But suppose you can't run — suppose he chains you up, or something. What then?'

'He won't,' says she, cahnly. 'Be assured, I can run. There is nothing hard about running — any slave can do it. But to stay free — that is the impossible part, unless you have a refuge, a protector. I have you.'

Well, I've been called a few things in my time, but these were new. If she'd known me better she'd have thought different, no doubt, but she was desperate, and I was her only hope-a hellish pickle for a girl to be in, you'll agree. I strove to calm my fluttering bowels, and presently we set out for the slave market.

If you've never seen a slave auction, I can tell you it's no different from an ordinary cattle sale. The market was a great low shed, with sawdust on the floor, a block at one end for the slaves and auctioneer, and the rest of the space taken up with the buyers and spectators — wealthy traders on seats at the front, very much at ease, casual buyers behind, and more than half the whole crew just spectators, loafers, bumarees and sightseers, spitting and gossiping and haw-hawing. The place was noisy and stank like the deuce, with clouds of baccy smoke and esprit de corps hanging under the beams.

I'd been scared stiff that when I entered Cassy for sale there would be all sorts of questions, cross- examination, and the like, which I wouldn't be able to answer convincingly, but I had been fretting unduly. I believe if you entered a Swedish albino at a Memphis sale and swore he was a nigger, they'd stick him on the block, no questions asked. That auctioneer would have sold his own grandfather, and probably had. He was a small, furious, redbearded man with a slouch hat, a big cigar, and a quart bottle of forty-rod in his coat pocket which he sucked at in between accusing his assistants of swindling him and bawling to everyone to give him some sellin' room.

When I entered Cassy he hardly glanced at her bill of sale, but spat neatly between my feet and asked me aggressively if I was an underground railroad agent who'd thought better of convoying a nigger to Canada and decided to sell her off for private gain.

The crowd round him all haw-hawed immensely at this, and said he was a prime case, which relieved my momentary horror at his question, and the auctioneer said he didn't give a damn, anyhow, and where the hell was Eli Bowles's nigger's papers, because he hadn't got them, and they'd drive a man out of his mind in this country, what with their finickin' regulations, and would they get the hell out of his way so he could start the sale? No, he wouldn't put up Jackson's buck Perseus, because he was rotten with pox, and everyone knew it; Jackson had better put him out to stud over in Arkansas, where nobody noticed such things. No, he wouldn't take notes of hand from any but dealers he knew — he'd enough tarnation paper as it was, and his clerk just used it to confuse him and line his own pockets, and he knew all about it, and one of these days wouldn't he make that clerk's ass warm for him. And, strike him dumb, but his bottle was half empty and he hadn't even started the sale yet — would they git out from under his feet or did they want to be still biddin' their bollix off at two in the morning?

And more of the same, all of which was mighty reassuring. I left Cassy to be herded off with the other niggers, and got a place by the wall to watch the sale, which the little auctioneer conducted as if he was a ring- master, pattering away incessantly, and keeping up his style of irascible confusion all the time. The crowd loved it, and he was good, too, taking an occasional swill at his bottle and firing his comments at the lots while the bids came in.

'See this here old wench of Masterson's, who died last week. Masterson died, that is, not her. Not a day over forty, an' a prime cook. Well, y'only had to look at the belly Masterson had on him; that's testimony enough, I reckon. Yes sir, it was her fine cookin' that kilt him — now then, what say? Eight hurinert to start — nine, for the best vittles-slinger 'tween Evansville an' the Gulf.' Or again: 'This buck of Tomkins, he sired more saplin's than Methuselah — that's why they call him George, after George Washington, the father of his country. Why, 'thout this boy, the nigger pop'lation'd be only half what it is — we wouldn't hardly be havin' this sale today, but for this randy little hero. There was talk of a syndicate to send him back to Afriky to keep the numbers up — now then, who'll say a thousand?'

But there was someone there who knew more about raising prices than even he did, and that was Cassy. When she took the block, after a whispered conference with the auctioneer, he went on about how she spoke French, and could embroider and 'tend to growing children or be a lady's maid or governess and play the piano and paint — but it was all sham. He knew what she would be sold for, and the mob kept chorusing 'Shuck her down! Let's get a look at her!' while she stood, very demure, with her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed. She was pale, and I could see the strain in her face, but she knew what to do, and presently when the auctioneer spoke to her she took off her shoes and then let down her hair, very carefully, so that it hung down her back almost to her waist.