Cudjo's Cave Part 43

Lieutenant Ropes arrived, bringing into the guard-house a formidable cat-o'-nine-tails.

"String that n.i.g.g.e.r up," said Silas.

Ropes was not the man to await patiently the issue of the woman-whipping, while here was a chance for a little private sport. He remembered how Toby had got away from him once--that he too owed him a flogging. Debts of this kind, if no others, Silas delighted to pay; and accordingly the negro was strung up. It was well for the lieutenant that Carl had irons on his wrists.

The sound of the poor old man's groans,--the sight of his gashed, oozing, and inflamed back, bared again to the whip,--was to Carl unendurable. But as it was not in his power to obey the impulse of his soul, to spring for a musket and slay that monster of cruelty, Ropes, on the spot,--he must try other means, perhaps equally unwise and desperate, to save Toby from torture.

"Vait, sir, if you please, vun leetle moment," he called out to Silas.

"I have a vord or two to shpeak."

He had as yet, however, scarcely made up his mind what to propose. A moment's reflection convinced him that only one thing could purchase Toby's reprieve; and perhaps even that would fail. Regardless of consequences to himself, he resolved to try it.

"I know petter as he does about the cave; I vos there," he cried out, boldly.

"Hey? You offer yourself to be whipped in this old n.i.g.g.e.r's place?" said Ropes.

"Not wery much," replied Carl. "I can go mit you or anypody you vill send, and show vair the cave is. I remember. But if you vill have me whipped, I shouldn't be wery much surprised if that vould make me to forget. Whippins," he added, significantly, "is wery pad for the memory."

"You mean to say, if you are licked, then you won't tell?"

"That ish the idea I vished to conwey."

"We'll see about that." Silas laughed. "In the mean time we'll try what can be got out of this n.i.g.g.e.r."

Toby, who had had a gleam of hope, now fell again into despair. Just then Captain Sprowl came in.

"Hold! What are you doing with that n.i.g.g.e.r?"

Silas explained, and Carl repeated his proposal. Lysander caught eagerly at it. He remembered Salina's warning, and was glad of any excuse to liberate the old negro.

"You promise to take me to the cave?" Carl a.s.sented. "Why, then, lieutenant, that's all we want, and I order this boy to be set free."

"This boy" was Toby, who was accordingly let off, to his own inexpressible joy and Ropes's infinite disgust.

"If Carl he take de responsumbility to show de cave, dat ain't my fault.

'Sides, dat boy am bright, he am; de secesh can't git much de start o'

him!"

Thus the old negro congratulated himself on his way home. At the same time Carl, still in irons, was saying to himself,--

"So far so goot. If they had whipped Toby, two things vould be wery pad--the whipping, for one, and he would have told, for another. But I have made vun promise. It vas a pad promise, and a pad promise is petter proken as kept. But if I preak it, they vill preak my head. Vot shall I do? Now let me see!" said Carl.

And he remained plunged in thought.

x.x.xIV.

_CAPTAIN LYSANDER'S JOKE._

Since the time when she lost her best feather-bed and her boarder, the worthy widow Sprowl had suffered serious pecuniary embarra.s.sment. She missed sadly the regular four dollars a week, and the irregular gratuities, she had received from Penn. So much secession had cost her, without yielding as yet any of its promised benefits. The Yankees had not stepped up with the alacrity expected of them, and thrust their servile necks into the yoke of their natural masters. The slave trade was not reopened. n.i.g.g.e.rs were not yet so cheap that every poor widow could, at a trifling expense, provide herself with several, and grow rich on their labor. In the pride of seeing her son made what she called a "capting," and in the hope of enjoying some of the golden fruits of his valor, she had given him her last penny, and received up to the present time not a penny from him in return. In short, Lysander was ungrateful, and the widow was a disappointed woman.

So it happened that the sugar-bowl and tea-canister were often empty, and the poor widow had no legitimate means of replenis.h.i.+ng them. In this extremity she resorted to borrowing. She borrowed of everybody, and never repaid. She borrowed even of the hated Unionists in the neighborhood, and confessed with bitterness to her son that she found them more ready to lend to her than the families of secessionists.

Again, on the morning of the events related in the last chapter, she found herself in want of many things--tea, sugar, meal, beans, potatoes, snuff, and tobacco; for this excellent woman snuffed, "dipped," and smoked.

"Where shall I go and borry to-day?" said she, counting her patrons, and the number of times she had been to borrow of each, on her fingers.

"Thar's Mis' Stackridge. I hain't been to her but oncet. I'll go agin, and carry the big basket."

With her basket on her arm, and an ancient brown bonnet (which had been black at the time of the demise of the late lamented Sprowl,) on her head, and a mult.i.tude of excuses on her tongue, she set out, and walked to the farmer's house. This had one of those great, shed-like openings through it, so common in Tennessee. A door on the left, as you entered this covered s.p.a.ce, led to the kitchen and living-room of the family.

Here the widow knocked.

There was no response. She knocked again, with the same result. Then she pulled the latch-string--for the door even of this well-to-do farmer had a latch-string. She entered. The house was deserted.

"Ain't to home, none of 'em, hey?" said the widow, peering about her with a disagreeable scowl. "House wan't locked, nuther. Wonder if Mis'

Stackridge and the childern have gone to the mountains too? And whar's old Aunt Deb?"

Her first feeling was that of resentment. What right had Mrs. Stackridge to be absent when she came to borrow? As she explored the pantry and closets, however, and became convinced that she was absolutely alone in a well-provisioned farm-house, her countenance lighted up with a smile.

"I can borry what I want jest exac'ly as well as if Mis' Stackridge war to home," thought the widow.

And she proceeded to fill her basket. She helped herself to a pan of meal, borrowing the pan with it. "I'll fetch home the pan," said she, "when I do the meal,"--exposing her craggy teeth with a grim smile. "If I don't before, I'm a feared Mis' Stackridge'll haf to wait for't a considerable spell! What's in this box? Coffee! May as well take box and all. Bring back the box when I do the coffee. Wish I could find some tobacky somewhars--wonder whar they keep their tobacky!"

Now, the excellent creature did not indulge in these liberties without some apprehension that Mrs. Stackridge might return suddenly and interrupt them. Perhaps she had not followed Mr. Stackridge to the mountains. Perhaps she had only gone into the village to buy shoes for her children, or to call on a neighbor. "If she should come back and ketch me at it,--why, then, I'll tell her I'm only jest a borryin', and see what she'll do about it. The prop'ty of these yer durned Union-shriekers is all gwine to be confisticated, and I reckon I may as well take my sheer when I can git it. Thar's a paper o' black pepper, and I'll take it jest as 'tis. Thar's a jar o' lump b.u.t.ter,--wish I could tote jar and all!--have some of the lumps on a plate anyhow!"

She had soon filled her basket, and was regretting she had not brought two, or a larger one, when a handsome, new tin pail, hanging in the pantry, caught her eye. "Been wantin' jest sich a pail as that, this long while!" And she proceeded to fill that also.

Just as she was putting the cover on, she was very much startled by hearing footsteps at the door.

"O, dear me! What shall I do? If it should be Mr. Stackridge! But it can't be him! If it's only Mis' Stackridge or one of the n.i.g.g.e.rs, I'll face it out! They won't das' to make a fuss, for they're Union-shriekers, and my son's a capting in the confederate army!"

Thump, thump, thump!--loud knocking at the door.

"My, it's visitors! Who can it be?" She set down her pail and basket.

"I'll act jest as if I had a right here, anyhow!"

She was hesitating, when the string was pulled, and two strangers, stout, square built, with foreign looking faces, carrying muskets, and dressed in confederate uniform, entered.

"Mrs. Stackridge?" said they, in a heavy Teutonic accent.

"Ye--ye--yes--" stammered the widow, trying to hide the guilty basket and pail behind her skirts. "What do you want of Mis' Stackridge?"

One of the strangers said to the other, in German, indicating the plunder,--

"This is the woman. She is getting provisions ready to send to her husband in the mountains."

"Let us see what there is good to eat," said the other.