CHAPTER XXI
THE CAW CAW SWAMP
THAT night after Virginia had retired, Giles brought up the incident of the homeward drive.
"I wonder if they caught that poor beggar. My word, they were harrying him! Who would ever believe that such things could happen in a great enlightened country like the States? Not that it's so very civilized, though—" he concluded, with a naïvete which made the other two men smile.
"You may be assured they caught somebody," said Manning. "They don't often come back empty handed from those expeditions. If they find out afterwards that they have lynched the wrong man they are usually sportsmanlike enough to admit that the joke is on them!"
"No!—really?" cried Giles. "It isn't as bad as that! Do they often get the wrong man?"
"It has been known to occur," answered Manning, dryly. His voice altered, became hard. "Such ideas of justice are the only remedy this country has, Giles." He turned sharply to Leyden. "Is it not so, Dr. Leyden?"
"Lynchings and the like are consistent and no doubt very satisfactory forms of revenge," said Leyden. "But I fail to see where the remedy comes in."
"Why do you say that?" asked Manning sharply. "If you knew what it was to live under the constant fear of these terrible atrocities; to be a poor farmer, we will say, like one of the men you met, and to come home with your ax over your shoulder and find your cabin the scene of a ghastly and revolting tragedy …!" He looked expectantly at the naturalist.
"I can understand the blood rage of the father and husband," replied Leyden quietly. "I was simply questioning the remedy, the, to me, mistaken casuistry which makes it appear such."
"Why mistaken? Can you suggest a better? Anything possible—effective, yet humane?"
"Possibly not; that is scarcely the question, which is whether the present course is a remedy at all. Do you know that, from my knowledge of the fanciful, morbid, perverse elements of the negroid mentality, I firmly believe that each spectacular lynching of a negro for a crime of this sort is the direct cause of others of similar character. There is no human brain upon which suggestion acts so strongly, so imperatively, as upon his."
"But where does the suggestion come in when a negro is lynched—burned, we will say, for some atrocity?"
"In the most powerful way; by exciting his sense of the morbid, the horrible. For instance, a negro commits an atrocity; he is hounded, caught, carried by a howling mob to some dreary spot and there tortured, finally killed, annihilated, remnants of his carcass being carried off by ghouls worse than the madman, because they are not themselves mad. Other negroes are naturally terrified; they hear the thing related, discuss it with quickened breath and rolling eyes. Upon one less mentally stable than the others it makes a profound impression; he broods upon it, dreams of it, is haunted … until some day the opportunity occurs and because the image of this thing is greater in his lop-sided brain than his sense of logic he rushes blindly on and does this thing, and is in turn taken, burned, and made material for other madmen to work on. It works the same in other natures where perhaps the deranged impulse is instead homicide or pyromania; runs in epidemics, as do all crankisms, bomb throwing, and the like. If the man could be taken quietly and killed without any sensation there would be far less of this sort of thing, to my mind."
"I will not attempt to argue with you, doctor," answered Manning wearily. "I have heard somewhat similar views advanced. Perhaps you are right."
Leyden, regretting the discussion, for he was aware of Manning's distaste of the topic, quickly and tactfully changed the conversation.
The following morning Manning took Leyden to inspect the rice fields. As they were walking their horses along the top of one of the huge dikes which held back the vast cypress-studded expanse of water in the closed reserve, they came upon a white man sitting upon the rim of the main trunk. His rifle lay across his knee. Manning glanced at him sharply, decided that he was awaiting a shot at one of the wild, unmarked hogs which wreaked such havoc with the dikes, and was about to pass on with a brief greeting, when Leyden paused. He had recognized the man as one of the band of the day before.
"Did you catch your negro?" he asked. The man grinned sheepishly.
"No, sir! we never did come up on 'im—" He nodded toward the swamp. "He's in yander."
"Do you expect him to come out while you are sitting here?" asked Manning.
"There ain't many places where he kin come aout, and we got men watchin' them. We'll git im!"
Manning and Leyden passed on with no further comment The "cracker" drew out a piece of tobacco, gnawed off a corner, and continued to watch.
Leyden remained for three days upon the plantation and then left for Florida, promising to return before proceeding to Mexico. At the last moment Giles decided not to accompany him, but compromised by driving him into Charleston.
Virginia, finding herself alone, for Manning had ridden off to look at a tract of timber, decided to take a walk. It was a delightful day in the middle of November; the air was soft but fine, inviting exercise. Having been repeatedly forbidden by Manning to go out of call of the plantation house, Virginia eased her conscience by taking with her a large Danish boarhound, an animal meek in disposition, and not cursed with an undue amount of courage, but of formidable aspect and much feared by the plantation negroes. She carried also in the pocket of her jacket a small pistol, in the use of which Giles had instructed her. It was one of the deadly little modern arms which will fire nine times without further effort than repeated pressures of the trigger.
Virginia was not timid, but when confronted with danger she was impulsive, erratic, apt to lose her head. Her nature was one of those ever ready to run a risk, but insufficient to face the danger with coolness when it arrives.
She slipped unseen from the rear of the house, crossed the park of live oaks, skirted the edge of a meadow where a herd of mules was grazing, and came out finally upon the main canal. This waterway was the great feeder, the aorta of the wonderful vascular system which supplied the rice fields which stretched away as far as the eye could reach. The canal was a small river; some boats were moored to the bank and the presence of these suggested to Virginia that it would be rather nice to row. It was a quarter of a mile to the next trunk; there the canal skirted a strip of piney woods, "high land," as it was locally called. Ten feet above the level of the marsh constitutes high land in the rice belt.
Virginia loosed the boat and picked up the oars, laughing to herself at the awkwardness of the whole craft; nevertheless she pulled easily along the bank and reached the other end breathless and glowing, her supple young muscles throbbing from the weight of the clumsy oars. Eric, her dog, had ambled along the bank whimpering his disapproval of the irregular proceeding.
Virginia had never visited this especial spot and decided to explore. She climbed the bank, reached the shelter of the trees, and then cried out with pleasure at the view. Even from that slight elevation her line of vision was much extended, and as she gazed out across the vast tract of rice lands, interspersed with patches of wooded "high land" her heart swelled with the pride of possession. The thought that all, as far as she could see, belonged to Manning and herself; the great granaries which it filled, the thousands which it fed, the revenues, the organization by which its great wheels were made to turn—all brought the color to her cheeks, quickened her breathing.
For many minutes Virginia stood, deep in these reflections. Had she been less abstracted she might have noticed the canine symptoms of disquiet proceeding from the hound crouched at her feet.
A deep growl called back her straying fancies; a roar from the dog as he sprang bristling to his feet startled the girl to the point of syncope and, turning in terror, she saw a strange and savage spectacle.
Behind her stood a colossus, a black; half naked, bare of head and feet. His eyes were bloodshot, bulging, and rolled toward her wildly. Such clothes as he wore hung from him in rags, the arms bare; behind him was a background of lustrous holly.
He stared at her in a wild-eyed silence. For a full moment Virginia was held rigid, fascinated as a bird who raises its head above the rim of the nest to find it almost touching the cold nose of a snake. She could not move; could not scream; caught her breath with an effort. The dog had sprung away, cowardly, bristling, snarling, but fearing to defend its mistress.
Some quality in the sinister figure called back Virginia's panic-fled senses. She looked, seeingly, understandingly, and the wonder of the thing struck away her palsy of fear.
"Dessalines!" she gasped. "Dessalines!"
The great head fell slightly forward, the thick fingers twitched; she saw the thick lips move spasmodically.
"Dessalines!" repeated Virginia, more loudly this time.
The great head seemed to hang from the massive shoulders by the thick-thewed neck. He did not answer. Virginia examined him closely; her wonder gave way to pity. She saw on his bare limbs new wounds, some healed, some not. Where the skin was not actually rent it was a mass of scratches; also he was emaciated; there was no rotundity to the bony prominences; these stood out broad and square and angular, and where the great muscles crossed or ran parallel, they left deep sulci between; the muscles themselves stood out clear and sharp, distinct in outline even as they hung at rest.
A wave of compassion rushed over Virginia. Leyden had told her that Dessalines had failed in his purpose; she had never dreamed that his failure could come to this. She thought of him as she had seen him last, rich, honored, a celebrity, enjoying the best which the world had to give; proud, confident, ambitious; assured of a triumph, a crown. Her eyes dimmed as they rested upon him. Her warm heart poured out a tide of pity.
Still Dessalines did not look up; the dog ceased its snarling and slunk away. Tears fell from the negro's face, splashed upon the huge bare feet; his sobs shook his wasted frame, but still he did not speak.
"Dessalines," said Virginia softly, "my poor friend"
The sobs ceased, the deep chest filled, the great voice rumbled up. He slowly raised his head and the tears welled into the girl's eyes at the utter hopelessness of the black face.
"I have lost my soul!" said Dessalines. The crushing weight of eternal doom rested upon the honest, negro features.
"No," answered Virginia gently; "you have lost your courage. I heard that you had failed, and was sorry; but I did not think that it could be … as bad as this."
Dessalines groaned; his sobbings became more audible.
"You shall come with me to the house, Count Dessalines," said Virginia firmly. "You shall be our guest—you are still our friend."
"No!" The negro raised his great hand. "I am not fit to go under your roof. I am a negro, a creature of inferior race; the same God does not love us both; our souls have their separate heavens—and hells!"
"You have suffered, Count Dessalines," said Virginia in the tone one would use to a grieving child. "I heard that you were betrayed by one who you thought was your friend. How he"
"I betrayed him."
"That I do not believe, but it makes no difference; you are in trouble and you once saved Giles's life and mine. You must let us help you now."
Dessalines wept silently, hopelessly, like a child by the corpse of its mother. "Poor Dessalines," he whimpered, "poor, poor Dessalines!" He dropped upon his haunches, hid his face in his great hands, rocked to and fro in an agony of weeping; while Virginia, overcome with pity, felt the tears coursing down her cheeks. "Poor Dessalines," said he, "poor Dessalines."
Virginia grew firm. "When did you last eat?" she asked.
Dessalines looked up vacantly. "Eat? Oh, oh, … not for … days. It is a long time since I have eaten, …. except the little things which I have found in the swamp … in the woods. Yes, I would like to eat! I am very hungry, … but not so much as at first. Poor Dessalines is hungry!" He began to sob, and the great emaciated frame of his body was shaken.
"Come," said Virginia. "This will not do, Count Dessalines. You must have courage; come now to the house with me." She paused, startled at his sudden expression of terror.
"No, no, no! They would see me! They would kill me!"
"Nonsense," said Virginia sharply. She thought that his suffering, his famine, had made him light-headed. "Who wishes to kill you?"
"The men on horseback; they have shot at me many times. Look there!" He stepped to the girl's side and pointed across the rice fields to where, half a mile away, the main dike skirted the edge of the Caw Caw Swamp. "Do you see that single tree? follow this canal; it is where it stops. That is the only place within a mile where a man can leave the swamp; where the rattoons spring far enough apart to make it possible to shove a bateau between. The water is deeper than one's head. There are other places like that and there is a man with a rifle watching for me at each. Perhaps you can see that black speck; that is a man!" His intelligence seemed to return; to take strength in the protecting atmosphere of Virginia.
"But—but why do they wish to kill you?" she asked.
"They think that I am another man; I will tell you the whole story." He began to mumble the words again; Virginia with difficulty followed his speech. "After I failed in Hayti I was without friends, without money; if I had been found they would have killed me. A woman set them after me, but I escaped. I got to Curaçoa and from there I worked my way to Pensacola on a schooner; then I came here. I was in prison in Alabama and with a gang of convicts, but I threw the guard down the bank of the railroad and got away … and they hunted me, but I came here. I knew that you were my friend and I thought that perhaps you would help me … give me some money to get away! …" There was no break in the monotony of the mumbling voice. "I thought that perhaps Giles would take me to England. I am very strong and I understand horses; I could work in the stables. All of my money is gone and I am just a poor negro whom everybody wants to kill." Sobs strangled the words. "God hates me; I cannot pray…" He mumbled, squatting; hid his face in his hands. His moaning voice continued through the thick fingers.
Virginia saw in him the great, cowering, broken-spirited animal; this knowledge, his helplessness, gave her strength, resource. Mistress, bound to protect her whimpering slave.
"Tell me the rest," she said, "and then I will decide what is best for you."
His hands dropped, bent knuckles on the ground. He glanced up under his furrowed brows, a look of hope in his gaunt face.
"You will help me?" he mumbled. He took up his narrative. "When I was not far from here I met a negro; he was running and crying and covered with blood; he seemed mad. His feet were cut and he carried an ax. When he saw me he begged me to give him my shoes for his ax. He said that he had killed a hog belonging to a white and that if he was caught he would be killed. He said that he could hardly walk because of his cut feet. I did not want his ax, but I knew enough of these low whites to know that they would kill him for stealing a hog, so I gave him my shoes." Dessalines paused and gazed about wildly.
"And then?"
"Then I went on … and soon I heard bloodhounds baying; first I thought they were after this other man, but I soon found that they were after me."
"Ah!"
"Yes; he had put on my shoes; I was barefooted and for a short distance I walked in his tracks; then on the edge of the woods two of the dogs overtook me—great mongrel brutes. One was behind the other, and as they came up the first sprang, but I caught him in my hands—" The bloodshot eyes grew lurid, the white teeth gleamed. "I beat his head against a tree. The second had already buried his fangs in my shoulder … here." He turned back a rent in the ragged shirt and showed wounds before which Virginia recoiled. "I tore him off, and in my pain ripped him to pieces. I was mad … crazed, and then the men came up and shot at me from a distance, but I escaped into the woods. They had another hound on a leash; I crossed the rice fields and ran along the dike … over there, and soon I found a bateau tied to the bank. Then I paddled into the swamp. …" He began to mumble again. "They did not think that I could get out, but I discovered them, and last night swam and climbed and waded for nearly a mile and came out at a different place … that is all. Do you think that Giles will help me? Don't tell your brother."
Virginia reflected; emotion gave way before the need of action.
"It is better that you remain here until after dark," she said presently, "then you shall come to the house and we will take care of you and see that you get safely back to England. I shall return now; I shall send you a basket of food by a man whom I can trust and as soon as my brother returns I will see that he has you brought"
"Hands up, niggeh!" rasped a harsh, metallic voice. "Step one side, please, ma'am!"
There were four of them. They had trailed their quarry with a dog, a cur possessed of scent and some random corpuscles of hound blood; a dog used for the hunting of the small local deer and trained for this purpose to course silently. The trail was taken at a spot on the soft bank of the canal where one of the stealthy watchers had found the print of the big, naked foot.
These men were of a low type; they were the descendants of the refuse and sweepings of British manufacturing towns, brought to colonize districts where no man would live. From such spring the "crackers," "sandhillers," "poor whites," or "white trash," as the negroes correctly designate them. Where these have been transplanted to better soil, there has been some regeneration; one sees this among the mountaineers of the Cumberland and other ranges. Where nature has grudgingly supported them they have only continued to exist—ignorant, cowardly, savage, cruel; hospitable, it is true, where their regard is earned, but there are few classes of savages who are not hospitable until this curiosity is satisfied. Such hospitality is no more than a barter of food and shelter for diversion.
Virginia, glancing quickly about, saw that they were surrounded. Savage, scowling, each looking to the other for his cue, the four men crouched, rifles ready, their small, cruel eyes glinting beneath their long, unkempt hair. Undecided whether to kill or capture, to advance or retreat, they were like four snarling curs about a great black boar.
Dessalines crouched whimpering at the feet of Virginia; he plucked at her skirt, his gaunt face twitching with terror. It was this frightened, childish act, this plucking at her skirt, which awakened in her the old feudal spirit transmitted through generations of lordly ancestors. She stood upon her own broad domain which had never belonged to any other than a Moultrie; at her feet crouched one seeking sanctuary; an outcast, a fugitive. A wave of sovereign authority swept through her, thrilling each nerve; exhilarating in its righteous strength. It drew her regal figure to its full height, lit fires in her golden-hued eyes, infused her voice with an imperative ring. All fear left her.
"You cannot have this man," she said to the one nearest her. "He has done no harm; he has come to me for protection and he shall have it. You may as well go." She laid her hand upon the great shoulder.
The four gaped. Theirs was the silence of utter incomprehension. Virginia felt her anger mounting. These men were obviously low in the human scale; they were peasants; their sullen silence angered her.
"Will you go!" she commanded fiercely. "You are on my land; I do not want you here. Go! Do you hear me?"
One man stirred; one stared with wide eyes and gaping mouth; the others glanced at one another and grinned.
"Reckin this yeah's Major Moultrie's land," ventured one, "but hit don't make no diffe'unce. We want that niggeh, ma'am, and we shore are goin' to have him."
"You are not going to have him!" retorted Virginia. "You are talking to Miss Moultrie. If you think that you have any claim to this man you may go to my brother, Mr. Moultrie; but now—go!"
The faces of the men stiffened; one moved the rifle restlessly in his hands. Virginia caught the motion and it reminded her that she too was armed. She thrust her hand into her pocket and drew out the deadly little pistol.
"I will shoot the first man who tries to harm this negro!" she said, and at the words she felt Dessalines stir, move, partly rise.
"Put up your pistol, ma'am," said one of the "crackers" roughly. "Y' all ain't no call to interfere. This yeah is our business … do y' all know what for we want this big niggeh?"
"I do not know and I do not care!" answered Virginia. "You cannot have him, do you understand? I tell you to go!" To emphasize her command she waved them from her with the hand which held the weapon.
There was a sharp report; the man, not twenty feet from her, slightly staggered; the high-power bullet from the pistol had mushroomed against the barrel of the rifle; the impact sent the man reeling backward; the rifle flew from him.
His companions, startled, fell back a pace and it was at this moment that Dessalines, trapped animal that he was, saw his opening for escape. Straight from the feet of Virginia he sprang, struck; sprang again like a black panther, and like the great cat he fell upon his prey. Before the terrified man could recover himself the negro's great paw was upon his throat.
Right from his feet he swung the screaming man as one might swing up a sack of corn; up he swung him, and with a circular twist of one great arm threw him across his shoulder, and as the writhing body went backward, suspended alone from that single strangling grip, those listening heard a muffled click; such a noise as might be made by a snapping twig, but duller—and the writhing ceased.
Before one could interfere or a shot be fired Dessalines, his body shielded in part by that of his victim, had dashed down the bank, out upon the dike, and so to the swamp beyond.
When he had disappeared Virginia turned. The men had gone; she was quite alone. The sun was setting; shadows were creeping over the Caw Caw Swamp.
•••••••
The drab, flat line drawn by the stagnant water upon the cypress boles, marked the point of separation between life and death. Strangely the death was all above it, the life beneath; weird, monstrous, slimy, unknown forms of life; the life that is born of death, for the existence of which death is the primary necessity; the life of the reek and ooze which belongs itself to an age long dead.
Above there were only silence and shadow, the throbbing silence of a cypress swamp. Over the flat, stale, stinking water, sanious from rotting leaves, there hung a luminous glow. It was not light, for light illumines objects near; this was simply the absence of darkness; it illumined only itself; the phosphine, fue-follet, the stuff which ghosts are made of, more repellent than the umbra the terrors of which are negative. At intervals, it concentrates in definite shape, becoming luminous and glowing in a sickly, lambent flame.
Noises there are in the swamp, having their source for the most part in the lower element of living deadness, and transmitted echoless beneath the miasmatic blanket shrouding the cypress tops; also, there come noises from above, noises droning, homophonous; doubtful noises like those emanating from the fever-stricken brain and seem now within, now without.
Light is shorter than shadow; death longer than life. A gnat lives in the sunshine and lives but a day; the worm lives in the mold and lives long. The lower the type of life the more tenacious it becomes of the little spark it holds.
The life of the swamp is so diluted with death that the line of demarcation is indistinct. The day is mostly night; the light is mixed with darkness; the heat carries a chill; motion is almost inert. Under the flat, green slime which hangs like a veil to screen the Present from the Past, lurk creatures of a properly forgotten age: baleful-eyed sauria, reptilia, ophidia, amphibia, zoölogic relics of a long-dead era, cold-blooded monsters of sluggish pulse, in the organism of which life and death so synchronously exist that at times they merge; cancerous animal growths, surviving their proper periods of evolution into higher types and flourishing exotically under conditions for which the hand of Nature never formed them.
A swamp like this is an hereditary ulcer on the face of the earth. A foul life beneath, forms a protective crust; shields it from a wholesome cleansing. It is to be treated as other infected wounds: opened, aërated, drained. Where this occurs, the malignant growth gives way to fresher, purer organisms, creatures of the epoch which constantly improve. If life were retrogressive the earth would have disappeared before the creation thereof.
Primitive creatures assume the aspect of environment; the mimicry of Nature. It is safer to merge than to contrast; also easier, and life is economic. A dark, somber shape which was forcing its way through the cypress swamp stood thus in no relief against the background. Under the misty arches of the emaciated trees with their ragged, moldy shrouds of moss, and through the fetid element which bathed the sinuous roots, this object hauled on its course. Toiling in and out, now backward to avoid the treacherous rattoons, now rapidly ahead, pawing slimy columns upholding the vague canopy above, toiled this dark, shapeless creature which seemed born of the blackness beneath. The water displaced in its passage gave way sullenly and without an undulation. The dead protested at this trespass of the living.
Gliding, sinister shapes coiled about the long lianas, slipped without a ripple into the ooze. Pale, diaphanous eyes, narrow and long, rose noiselessly from the slime to stare at the intruder. Behind, some raucous voice wailed hollow with amphorous tone and lost itself between the empty aisles.
Pawing, pushing, clutching slippery trunks, hanging boughs, torn on scapheus thorn trees, scooping at the heavy water which never splashed, the object emerged into an open space; the black wall of the cypress swamp was all about. Above the canopy of ambient mist, in the world of light and motion, there was a moon which gave a background to the gaunt, fantastic treetops with their masses of mistletoe. A faint draught of air, humid, foul, stirred the murky atmosphere.
In the pale opacity of the open space, the object gathered form and outline; the form of a negro of uncouth proportions forcing through the stagnant water a bateau of primitive design. He knelt in the stern; his massive shoulders heaved as the long arms swept the paddle in a silent powerful stroke or reached for a handful of floating moss. He forced the cumbersome craft in and out through the open water.
In front of him there lay a shapeless mass.
As they emerged from the shadow the anæmic moonlight was reflected wanly from the contours of this shapeless thing; it brought out in turn a sharply flexed knee, a glistening shoulder, a row of teeth, opalescent eyeballs.
From the edge of the swamp there came the wailing cry of a whip-poor-will. The droning breath of insect orchestra rose higher and higher in a humming diapason. Undefined noises welled from far beneath the bottom of the marsh. There came whisperings, sobbings, husky-throated breathings, stifled groans; sounds coming not from man nor beast, air nor water; they were the subtle intonations of the myriad revolutions of Nature's mechanisms; the breathings, metabolism, bodily functions of the very earth.
In the swamp one finds islands; islands floating in this sea of trees. It was at one of these that the bateau grounded; gave up its burden.
A crimson glow painted the tent of mist pitched from the treetops; beneath, the shadow gave out sounds at which the swamp held its breath to listen. There were words, gutterings; sounds to awake old memories; to recall the dim, red dawn.