University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

Here we remained in no little anxiety for the space of nearly
two hours, in which time, however, the African showed no sort
of impatience, and none of that feverish anxiety which made us
restless in body and eager, to the last degree, in mind. We
tried to fathom his mysteries, but in vain. He contented himself
with assuring us that the witchcraft which he used, and that
which he professed himself able to cure, was one that never
could affect the white man in any way. He insisted that the respective
gods of the two races were essentially very different;
as different as the races themselves. He also admitted that
the god of the superior race was necessarily equal to the task of
governing both, while the inferior god could only govern the one
—that of taking charge of his, was one of those small businesses,
with which it was not often that the former would soil his hands.
To use his own phrase, “there is a god for de big house, and another
for de kitchen.”

While we talked over these topics, and strove, with a waste of
industry, to shake the faith of the African in his own peculiar
deities and demons, we heard the sound of Scipio's gun—a sound
that made us forget all nicer matters of theology, and set off with
full speed towards the quarter whence it came. The wizard followed
us slowly, waving his wand in circles all the way, and pulling
the withes from his neck, and casting them around him as he
came. During this time, his mouth was in constant motion, and
I could hear at moments, strange, uncouth sounds breaking from
his lips. When we reached Scipio, the fellow was in a state little
short of delirium. He had fired both barrels, and had cast
the gun down upon the ground after the discharge. He was
wringing his hands above his head in a sort of phrensy of joy,
and at our approach he threw himself down upon the earth,
laughing with the delight of one who has lost his wits in a dream
of pleasure.

“Where's the crow?” demanded his master.

“I shoot um—I shoot um in he head—enty I tell you, mossa,
I will hit um in he head? Soon he poke he nose ober de ground,
I gib it to um. Hope he bin large shot. He gone t'rough he
head,—t'rough and t'rough. Ha! ha! ha! If dat crow be Gullah
Sam! if Gullah Sam be git in crow jacket, ho, mossa! he
nebber git out crow jacket 'till somebody skin um. Ha! ha! ho!
ho! ho! ki! ki! ki! ki! la! ki! Oh, mossa, wonder how Gullah
Sam feel in crow jacket!”

It was in this strain of incoherent exclamation, that the invalid
gave vent to his joyful paroxysm at the thought of having put a
handful of duck shot into the hide of his mortal enemy. The unchristian
character of his exultation received a severe reproof
from his master, which sobered the fellow sufficiently to enable
us to get from him a more sane description of his doings. He
told us that the crow had come to bedevil him as usual, only—
and the fact became subsequently of considerable importance,—
that he had now lost the gray dirt from his wing, which had so peculiarly
distinguished it before, and was now as black as the most
legitimate suit ever worn by crow, priest, lawyer, or physician.
This change in the outer aspect of the bird had somewhat confounded
the negro, and made him loth to expend his shot, for fear of wasting
the charmed charge upon other than the genuine Simon Pure.
But the deportment of the other—lazy, lounging, swaggering, as
usual—convinced Scipio in spite of his eyes, that his old enemy
stood in fact before him; and without wasting time, he gave him
both barrels at the same moment.

“But where's the crow?” demanded the master.

“I knock um ober, mossa; I see um tumble; 'speck you find
um t'oder side de cornhill.”

Nothing could exceed the consternation of Scipio, when, on
reaching the designated spot, we found no sign of the supposed
victim. The poor fellow rubbed his eyes, in doubt of their visual
capacities, and looked round aghast, for an explanation, to the wizard
who was now approaching, waving his wand in long sweeping
circles as he came, and muttering, as before, those strange uncouth
sounds, which we relished as little as we understood. He

did not seem at all astonished at the result of Scipio's shot, but
abruptly asked of him—“Whay's de fus' water, brudder Scip?”

“De water in de bay, Mass 'Tuselah,” was the reply; the
speaker pointing as he spoke to the little spot of drowned land on
the very corner of the field, which, covered with thick shoots of
the small sweet bay tree,—the magnolia glauca,—receives its
common name among the people from its almost peculiar growth.

“Push for de bay! push for de bay!” exclaimed the African,
“and see wha' you see. Run, Scip; run, nigger—see wha' lay
in de bay!”

These words, scarcely understood by us, set Scipio in motion.
At full speed he set out, and, conjecturing from his movement,
rather than from the words of the African, his expectations, off
we set also at full speed after him. Before we reached the spot,
to our great surprise, Scipio emerged from the bay, dragging behind
him the reluctant and trembling form of the aged negro, Gullah
Sam. He had found him washing his face, which was covered
with little pimples and scratches, as if he had suddenly fallen
into a nest of briars. It was with the utmost difficulty we
could prevent Scipio from pummelling the dreaded wizard to
death.

“What's the matter with your face, Sam?” demanded Mr.
Carrington.

“Hab humour, Mass Carrington; bin trouble berry mosh wid
break out in de skin.”

“Da shot, mossa—da shot. I hit um in crow jacket; but whay's
de gray di't? Ha! mossa, look yer; dis de black coat ob Mass
Jim'son dat Gullah Sam hab on. He no wear he jacket with gray
patch. Da's make de diff'rence.”

The magician from St. Matthew's now came up, and our surprise
was increased when we saw him extend his hand, with an
appearance of the utmost good feeling and amity, to the rival he
had just overcome.

“Well, brudder Sam, how you come on?”

The other looked at him doubtfully, and with a countenance in
which we saw, or fancied, a mingling expression of fear and hostility;
the latter being evidently restrained by the other. He

gave his hand, however, to the grasp of Methuselah, but said nothing.

“I will come take supper wid you to-night, brudder Sam,” continued
the wizard of St. Matthew's, with as much civility as if
he spoke to the most esteemed friend under the sun. “Scip, boy,
you kin go to you mossa work—you quite well ob dis bus'ness.”

Scipio seemed loth to leave the company while there appeared
something yet to be done, and muttered half aloud,

“You no ax Gullah Sam, wha' da' he bin do in de bay.”

“Psha, boy, go 'long to you cornfiel'—enty I know,” replied
Methuselah. “Gullah Sam bin 'bout he own bus'ness, I s'pose.
Brudder, you kin go home now, and get you tings ready for supper.
I will come see you to-night.”

It was in this manner that the wizard of St. Matthew's was disposed
to dismiss both the patient and his persecutor; but here the
master of Scipio interposed.

“Not so fast, Methuselah. If this fellow, Sam, has been playing
any of his tricks upon my people, as you seem to have taken
for granted, and as, indeed, very clearly appears, he must not be
let off so easily. I must punish him before he goes.”

“You kin punish um more dan me?” was the abrupt, almost
stern inquiry of the wizard.

There was something so amusing as well as strange in the
whole business, something so ludicrous in the wo-begone visage
of Sam, that we pleaded with Mr. Carrington that the whole case
should be left to Methuselah; satisfied that as he had done so well
hitherto, there was no good reason, nor was it right, that he should
be interfered with. We saw the two shake hands and part, and
ascertained from Scipio that he himself was the guest of Gullah
Sam, at the invitation of Methuselah, to a very good supper that
night of pig and 'possum. Scipio described the affair as having
gone off very well, but he chuckled mightily as he dwelt upon the
face of Sam, which, as he said, by night, was completely raw
from the inveterate scratching to which he had been compelled to
subject it during the whole day. Methuselah the next morning
departed, having received, as his reward, twenty dollars from the
master, and a small pocket Bible from the young mistress of the
negro; and to this day, there is not a negro in the surrounding

country—and many of the whites are of the same way of thinking—who
does not believe that Scipio was bewitched by Gullah
Sam, and that the latter was shot in the face, while in the shape
of a common crow in the cornfield, by the enchanted shot provided
by the wizard of St. Matthew's for the hands of the other.

The writer of this narrative, for the sake of vitality and dramatic
force, alone, has made himself a party to its progress. The
material has been derived as much from the information of others,
as from his own personal experience; though it may be as well to
add, that superstition among the negroes is almost as active to
this day, in the more secluded plantations, as it was prior to the
revolution. Nor is it confined to the negro only. An instance
occurred only a few years ago,—the facts of which were given
me by a gentleman of unquestionable veracity,—in which one of
his poor, uneducated white neighbours, labouring under a protracted,
and perhaps, novel form of disease, fancied himself the
victim of a notorious witch or wizard in his own district, and
summoned to his cure the rival wizard of another. Whether the
controversy was carried in the manner of that between Gullah
Sam and Methuselah, I cannot say; nor am I sure that the conquest
was achieved by the wizard summoned. My authorities
are no less good than various, for the procès nécromantique, as detailed
above. It may be that I have omitted some of the mummery
that seemed profane or disgusting; for the rest—