Cudjo's Cave Part 44

Mrs. Sprowl, although understanding no word that was spoken, perceived that the borrowed property formed the theme of their remarks.

"Have some?" she hastened to say, with extreme politeness, as the Germans approached the provisions.

"Tank ye," said they, finding some bread and cold meat. And they ate with appet.i.te, exchanging glances, and grunting with satisfaction.

"O, take all you want!" said the widow. "You're welcome to anything there is in the house, I'm sh.o.r.e!"--adding, within herself, "I am so glad these soldiers have come! Now, whatever is missing will be laid to them."

"You de lady of de house?" said the foreigners, munching.

"Yes, help yourselves!" smiled the hospitable widow.

"You Mrs. Stackridge?" they inquired, more particularly.

"Yes; take anything you like!" replied the widow.

"Where your husband?"

"My husband! my poor dear husband! he has been dead these----"

She checked herself, remembering that the soldiers took her for Mrs.

Stackridge. If she undeceived them, then they would know she had been stealing.

"Dead?" The Germans shook their heads and smiled. "No! He was here last night. He was seen. You take dese tings to him up in de mountain."

"Would you like some cheese?" said the embarra.s.sed widow.

"Tank ye. Dis is better as rations."

Mrs. Sprowl returned to the pantry, in order to replace the provisions she had so generously given away, and prepared to depart with the basket and pail; inviting the guests repeatedly to make themselves quite at home, and to take whatever they could find.

"Wait!" said they. Each had a knee on the floor, and one hand full of bread and cheese. They looked up at her with broad, complacent, unctuous faces, smiling, yet resolute. And one, with his unoccupied hand, laid hold of the handle of the basket, while the other detained the pail.

"You will tell us where is your husband," said they.

"O, dear me, I don't know! I'm a poor lone woman, and where my husband is I can't consaive, I'm sh.o.r.e!"

"You will tell us where is your husband," repeated the men; and one of them, getting upon his feet, stood before her at the door.

"He's on the mountain somewhars. I don't know whar, and I don't keer,"

cried the widow, excited. There was something in the stolid, determined looks of the brothers she did not like. "He's a bad man, Mr. Stackridge is! I'm a secessionist myself. You are welcome to everything in the house--only let me go now."

"You will not go," said the soldier at the door, "till you tell us. We come for dat."

On entering, they had placed their muskets in the corner. The speaker took them, and handed one to his comrade. And now the widow observed that out of the muzzle of each protruded the b.u.t.t-end of a small cowhide. Each soldier held his gun at his side, and laying hold of the said b.u.t.t-end, drew out the long taper belly and dangling lash of the whip, like a black snake by the neck.

The widow screamed.

"It's all a mistake. Let me go! I ain't Mis' Stackridge"

Nothing so natural as that the wife of the notorious Unionist should deny her ident.i.ty at sight of the whips. The soldiers looked at each other, muttered something in German, smiled, and replaced their muskets in the corner.

"You tell us where is your husband. Or else we whip you. Dat is our orders."

This they said in low tones, with mild looks, and with a calmness which was frightful. The widow saw that she had to do with men who obeyed orders literally, and knew no mercy.

"I hain't got no husband. I ain't Mis' Stackridge. I'm a poor lone widder, that jest come over here to borry a few things, and that's all."

"Ve unterstan. You say shust now you are Mrs. Stackridge. Now you say not. Dat make no difruns. Ve know. You tell us where is your husband, or ve string you up."

This speech was p.r.o.nounced by both the foreigners, a sentence by each, alternately. At the conclusion one drew a strong cord from his pocket, while the other looked with satisfaction at certain hooks in the plastering overhead, designed originally for the support of a kitchen pole, but now destined for another use.

"Don't you dast to tech me!" screamed the false Mrs. Stackridge. "I'm a secessionist myself, that hates the Union-shriekers wus'n you do, and I've got a son that's a capting, and a poor lone widder at that!"

"Dat we don't know. What we know is, you tell what we say, or we whip you. Dat's Captain Shprowl's orders."

"Capting Sprowl! That's my son! my own son! If he sent you, then it's all right!"

"So we tink. All right." And the soldiers, seizing her, tied her thumbs as Lysander had taught them, pa.s.sed the cords over the hook as they had pa.s.sed the clothesline over the crossbeam the night before, and drew the shrieking woman's hands above her head, precisely as they had hauled up Toby's. They then turned her skirts up over her head, and fastened them.

This also they had been instructed to do by Lysander. It was, you will say, shameful; for this woman was free and white. Had she been a slave, with a different complexion, although perhaps quite as white, would it have been any the less shameful? Answer, ye believers in the divine rights of slave-masters!

"Now you vill tell?" said the phlegmatic Teutons, measuring out their whips.

"Go for my son! My son is Capting Sprowl!" gasped the stifled and terror-stricken widow.

"Dat trick won't do. You shpeak, or we shtrike."

"It is true, it is true! I am Mrs. Sprowl, and my husband is dead, and my son is Capting Sprowl, and a poor lone widder, that if you strike her a single blow he'll have you took and hung!"

"If he is your son, den by your own son's orders we whip you. He vill not hang us for dat. You vill not tell? Den we give you ten lash."

Blow upon blow, shriek upon shriek, followed. The soldiers counted the strokes aloud, deliberately, conscientiously, as they gave them, "Vun, two, tree," &c, up to ten. There they stopped. But the screams did not stop. This punishment, which it was sport to inflict upon a faithful old negro, which it would have been such a good joke to have bestowed upon the wife of a stanch Unionist, was no sport, no joke, but altogether a tragic affair to thy mother, O Lysander!

Then she, who had so often wished that she too owned slaves, that when she was angry she might have them strung up and flogged, knew by fearful experience what it was to be strung up and flogged. Then she, who sympathized with her son in his desire to see every man, woman, and child, that loved the old Union, served in this fas.h.i.+on, felt in her own writhing and bleeding flesh the stings of that inhuman vengeance.

Terrible blunder, for which she had only herself to thank! Robbery of her neighbor's house--the dishonest "borrowing," not of these ill-gotten goods only, but also of her neighbor's name--had brought her, by what we call fatality, to this strait.

Fatality is but another name for Providence.

The soldiers waited for a lull in the shrieks, then put once more the question.

"You tell now? Where is your husband? No? Den you git ten lash more.

Always ten lash till you tell."

A storm of incoherent denial, angry threats, sobs, and screams, was the response. One of the soldiers drew her skirts over her head again, and gave another pull at the cords that hauled up her thumbs, while the other stood off and measured out his whip.

Just then the door opened, and Captain Sprowl looked in.

"How are you getting on, boys?"

The question was accompanied by an approving smile, which seemed to say, "I see you are getting on very well."