University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX:

`And what is um massa perpose?' said
Cæsar, after Gordon had spoken, seeing that
he remained silent and undecided whether to
speak further or not. `I ready to do any
ting for you, massa, coz I knows you be a
berry nice gemman.'

`Well, Cæsar, what I have to propose is
this: `Before we can succeed in getting the
father of my friend from prison some stratagem
must be resorted to; do you understand
what I mean by stratagem?'

`Oh, yes massa. It am—am—am—it am a
sort ob a cheat! dust in um eye!'

`You have it, Cæsar. The keeper of the
jail must have dust thrown in his eyes.'

`Yah! yah! yiss, massa. I see 'em now.
But who hab you for frow de dust—make the
stratagery?' asked Cæsar, with great interest.

`My plan is this: The jail has an office on
the street which is kept open until nine o'clock,
and the keeper usually is found there, with
the inner door to the prison open. Over
this door hangs the prison keys.'

`Yiss, massa, I sees 'em now.'

`You do, hey?'

`I means in de maginashum, massa.'

`I have obtained a bunch of keys precisely
like those in size and shape. Now if we
could get possession of those keys we should
be able to effect our purpose if other things
favor us.'

`'Spose Cæsar go in and knock de keeper
down and snatch de keys, massa?'

`You are a faithful fellow, Cæsar. But
that would not do. There must be no violence
used; and besides, violence would defeat
our object. What would you do
with the keys after you had knocked
the keeper down and seized upon them?'

`Go in and unlock old massa's cell and let
him out.'

`And in the meanwhile be locked up
yourself. You could not knock him down in
an open office on the street without peril.
You would be seen. Some other way I have
hit upon; one far more quiet, and likely to
succeed.'

`Wat dat, massa? I see dat it wont do to
knock um down.'

`No, I have thought if I could find some
young woman who would consent to act the
part of a strawberry or flower girl and go in
and offer the contents of her basket for sale,
she might manage to let him smell of a bottle
which I have also prepared, of which if a
man smell but once he shall become insensible
the next moment.'

`Dat berry nice, massa. Dat better dan
knock um down. It make no noise.'

`Yes; but the difficulty remains as to obtaining
such a person. I want a young woman
who will not be rudely driven away by
the keeper; for she must succeed in holding
him in conversation. Do you know, Cæsar,
of any one who, for fifty dollars, would take
this part, and whom we could safely trust?'

The negro started, as if with a pleasurable
idea, then seemed to hesitate, and shook
his head.

`I did tink ob de captain's daughter, Miss
Jenny; but I'd rather she no put herself in
such danger, massa. It nebber do. If she
be taken up they hang her. No, no massa,
not her. Somebody else.'

`I know of nobody else, Cæsar. Think
of the fifty dollars I offer her. Think of her
destitution. She would hardly thank you for

refusing her such an offer. Besides there is
no danger. Who will ever suspect her, though
we should fail, of having had anything to do
with it?'

`Dat berry true, massa,' answered Cæsar,
thoughtfully. `If she will go, she be berry
best person you can get, massa.'

`Will you go with me to see her, that I
may ask her? Perhaps when I see her I
may not be satisfied that it will be safe to
trust her; for we must have one who is sensible,
courageous, quick of wit, and self-possessed,
as well as sufficiently interesting in her appearance
to attract the eye of the keeper
and induce him to gossip with her.'

`Miss Jenny all dat. But, massa, `de
captain may not like to hab her go.'

`I can but try, Cæsar. You must not betray
me, now, for I am going with you as a
common sailor, and you must pass me for one
of your shipmates.'

As Gordon spoke, he went into a closet,
and took from a trunk an ordinary suit of
seamen's clothes, jacket and duck trowsers
well tarred, and, removing his pea jacket,
drew them on over his uniform. He also added
a huge pair of false whiskers and settled
the patch over his eye more securely. With
his tarpaulin cocked to one side, he re-appeared
before Cæsar, so metamorphosed that
the surprised black started back, exclaiming:

`Bress my soul, dat ont you sure enuff,
Massa mate?'

`Yes,' answered Gordon, `it is me, Cæsar.
I go in this disguise that I may not be recognized
by the captain, should he have ever seen
me, or that should my errand fail, I may not
be afterwards recognized. It becomes me
to be safe in every movement I make.'

`Yiss, massa mate,' answered Cæsar, grinning
as he surveyed him from head to foot
`sure enuff, you look just like one ob my
shipmates. I nebber 'spect you was ebber
mate ob a ship.'

Gordon secretly smiled as he imagined
what Cæsar's surprise would be did he know
that he was an officer of the navy, and that
his mate's costume was only a disguise.

`Come, Caesar, let us go; we have but
little time to spare.'

They passed down stairs together, and
walked out through the crowd of tars in the
tap-room unnoticed, so many were constantly
coming and going at the Two Anchors. On
reaching the street, Cæsar took the lead,
and soon conducted Gordon to the end of
the pier where Robert Alison dwelt. It was
about nine o'clock in the morning when
they reached the sunken doorway, The
shutters of the corner room were opened to
the fresh air that blew from the water, and on
the window Gordon noticed a little geranium.

`She has-taste; she is good hearted and
kind, for she loves flowers,' he said, half
aloud.

`Are you ready, massa mate?' asked Cæsar,
as he laid his hand upon the latch.

`You forget; you must call me shipmate,
or Jack,' warned Gordon in a low tone.
`Knock, and let us go in. You can say you
merely brought me with you to have a chat
with the captain, and then leave all to me.'

`Yes, mas—I mean shipmate,' said Cæsar
correcting his error, and then opening the
outer door, which led into a dilapidated entry,
Upon the left was a door at which he
tapped lightly.

`Come in,' called a man's voice in rather
feeble and husky tones.

Cæsar opened the door and entered the
room which we described in the scenes of the
evening before. Robert Alison was seated
facing the entrance, with his broken leg supported
on an old box. He was smoking, his
only luxury, to pay for which he had of late
made little paper boxes, and sold them to a
match seller for a penny the half dozen,
upon seeing who it was that opened the
door he half rose, his face beamed, and with
a smile, and in grateful tones he cried:

`How do you do, Cæsar? You never forget
to come and see your old captain, if he

is keeled up, and condemned as unseaworthy.
I have at least one friend left, and there is
my hand, Cæsar, for though your skin is
black, your soul is as white as an angel's.'

`I hopes I sees you well, massa captain,'
said Cæsar, as he respectfully shook the captain
by the hand, at the same time uncovering
his head to him.

`Tolerably, and better by twenty degrees
for seeing you. But who have you astern here
with you?' asked Capt. Alison, catching sight
of Gordon, who had stopped to arrange his
huge false whiskers and cover his eye, for he
felt that it would be imprudent to expose himself
to any subsequent recognition if his plan,
after being proposed to the captain, should be
disapproved of.

`This is a shipmate, captain; I thought
I'd bring him along to see you.'

`Glad you did. Have a chair my lad,
though I have only one to offer you. Cæsar,
you take a seat on this box here, but be careful
of my foot.'

`Don't your leg get any better, massa?'

`No, not that I see. There is that same
issue running, and keeps me down. I never
expect to be any better, Cæsar, till I'm laid in
my grave. The world and I have parted
hawsers, Cæsar, and the sooner I am sewed
up in my hammock the better.'

`Shouldn't talk so, massa cap'n. You should
keep fair weather abeam for Miss Jenny's
sake.'

`I'd do anything for that dear child's sake,
Cæsar. But I don't, when I can help it, let
her hear me talk so desponding. She's now
gone up town.'

`I berry sorry; I want to see her, coz I got
someting make her berry happy, massa. When
she come back?'

`Soon; she has gone to take home some
shirts she has made, and get more work. More
and more work it is for the poor child every
day. But I do wrong to complain so before
a stranger. Are you long from sea, my man?'
he asked, turning to Gordon, who had been
gazing from the fine looking old seaman round
upon his wretched quarters with the deepest
commisseration and interest in him and his
unknown child. He thought, too, that he
recognized the features, pale and thin though
they were, and evidently much altered from
their healthy aspect; and as the captain spoke,
he was endeavoring to recollect where he
could have seen him.

`A few weeks, sir,' he answered, respectfully
touching the front of his tarpaulin, which
he did not wish to remove as it aided his disguise.

`What ship?'

`The Macedonian.'

`That is a frigate.'

`Merchantmen is sometimes named it, massa,'
answered-Cæsar, who wondered his ship-mate
should have given such a name, when it
was evident from his dress that he was a fore-mast
man of a merchant ship.

`Have you been long lame, sir?' asked Gordon,
resolved in his turn to become questioner
as the safest course.

`Going on five years,' answered Robert
Alison, with a heavy sigh. I thought you
had told him all about me, Cæsar, by bringing
him,' he added impatiently, as if he did not
wish to refer to the past.

`Yiss, massa, and see what he has make you
a present of. He gave me dis to gib you, soon
as he hear 'bout you and Miss Jenny.'

And Cæsar took the purse from his pocket
and poured the gold out of it into the captain's
mechanically.

`How's this? Where did this come from?'
he cried, trembling with joy and doubt, and
looking first at the gold, then at Cæsar, and
then in the face of Gordon. `This gold is
not for me.'

`Every dollar and dime of it, massa,' answered
Cæsar resolutely, at the same time
tossing the empty purse back to Gordon,
`It all for you and Miss Jenny. I was gwine
to keep it till she comed in, and see her eyes
sparkle as I guv it to her; but seein' as how
you didn't like my shipmate's question, and
afeard you'd not like him from the first, I

outs wid it. So you see he your true frind,
massa cap'n.'

`But, but—I—I can't receive this money.
It's all the generous fellow's wages. No, no.
You must give it back to him, Cæsar. Here,
take it my noble man. God bless you! but
I can't rob you, poor as I am; I can't make
you poor even to lighten my child's toil.
The rich can give, but this is at least a half
year's savings of your toil. Keep it my
man, and God will reward you as much as if
I had accepted it.'

`It is not mine to receive back, sir,' answered
Gordon, deeply affected by his nobleness
of mind, `I gave it to Cæsar to do with
what he pleased.'

`And Cæsar gib it to massa Robert,' answered
the smiling negro, as he pushed the
captain's hand back, and forcibly closed the
fingers over the gold. `It is not yours to
gib back to me, for Missy Jenny's share is in it.

`Then for Jenny's sake I will keep it,
since I must, my kindest friends,' answered
the captain, while the tears ran like great
rain-drops from his eyes. `But I hope that I
am not taking what you can't spare, my dear
sir,' he said, surveying Gordon closely, as if
to judge whether he were a man likely to be
able to give so much away; for he had no
doubt that honest Cæsar's account of his and
his daughter's condition had opened the seaman's
heart to give without consulting his
head.

`I have enough more, captain,' answered
Gordon, as he drew from a pocket a handful
of guineas.

`Your gold has been given where God's
blessing will go with it,' said the captain, with
emotion. `I do not hope to be able to return
it—'

`Do not speak of it. I am able to bestow
it, sir,' answered Gordon. `I sincerely sympathize
with you in your misfortunes, and
having heard all your history, I for one acquit
you of all negligence in losing your ship.'

`You do?' cried the captain, with brightening
looks.

`I do, sir; for when I came into port last
we made the light, and then afterwards lost
it in a fog precisely as you did; and our
ship came near being lost, for we stood on,
trusting to the bearings of the light where
we last, saw it, and all at once we heard a
trumpet hailing, as it seemed, from the clouds,
and looking up we saw the light over our fore-top-gallant
yard, looming faintly down upon
us through the fog, while from the light-house
tower the keeper, who saw us first, was shouting
the alarm. We just succeeded and no
more in putting the ship about and saving
her. Another moment and we should have
gone ashore,'

`I am glad to hear that!' exclaimed the
captain, half rising and slapping his hands
together. `That is enough to make me ten
years younger.'

`When I tell you that it was a frigate that
got into this scrape, and that the captain
was not censured, it will be more gratifying
to you. If she had been lost the captain
would not have been blamed.'

`I wish my owner knew this, if only to do
me justice.'

`It was in the papers. They have no
doubt seen the account.'

`I know nothing of it. I am too poor to
buy a paper. But if they had seen it they
should have let me known that they did not
blame me so much. But I suppose I am quite
forgotten. But this news makes me almost
as happy as the gold. And I can hardly
realize that this money is mine,' he said,
gazing upon it with eyes filled with the hopes
of better days.

`Yours and Jenny's,' answered Cæsar.

`Who can separate my dear child from
me, Cæsar? She has shared my griefs, and
she must share my joys. Our hearts are one.
Hark, she is coming in at the door. I know
her step in a thousand. It always goes right
to my heart. She will be rejoiced to see
you, Cæsar, and then to know what a gift I
have for her,' and again the old captain's
eyes overrun with tears.