University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
ENGEDI.

The question may occur to our readers, why a retreat
which appeared so easily accessible to the negroes of the
vicinity in which our story is laid, should escape the vigilance
of hunters.

In all despotic countries, however, it will be found that
the oppressed party become expert in the means of secrecy.
It is also a fact that the portion of the community who are
trained to labor enjoy all that advantage over the more
indolent portion of it which can be given by a vigorous
physical system, and great capabilities of endurance. Without
a doubt, the balance of the physical strength of the South
now lies in the subject race. Usage familiarizes the dwellers
of the swamp with the peculiarities of their location,
and gives them the advantage in it that a mountaineer has
in his own mountains. Besides, they who take their life in
their hand exercise their faculties with more vigor and
clearness than they who have only money at stake; and this
advantage the negroes had over the hunters.

Dred's “strong hold of Engedi,” as we have said, was
isolated from the rest of the swamp by some twenty yards
of deep morass, in which it was necessary to wade almost
to the waist. The shore presented to the eye only the
appearance of an impervious jungle of cat-brier and grape-vine
rising out of the water. There was but one spot
on which there was a clear space to set foot on, and that
was the place where Dred crept up on the night when we
first introduced the locality to our readers' attention.

The hunters generally satisfied themselves with exploring
more apparently accessible portions; and, unless betrayed
by those to whom Dred had communicated the clue, there
was very little chance that any accident would ever disclose
the retreat.

Dred himself appeared to be gifted with that peculiar
faculty of discernment of spirits which belonged to his father,
Denmark Vesey, sharpened into a preternatural intensity
by the habits of his wild and dangerous life. The men he
selected for trust were men as impenetrable as himself, the
most vigorous in mind and body on all the plantations.

The perfectness of his own religious enthusiasm, his
absolute certainty that he was inspired of God, as a leader
and deliverer, gave him an ascendency over the minds of
those who followed him, which nothing but religious enthusiasm
ever can give. And this was further confirmed by
the rigid austerity of his life. For all animal comforts he
appeared to entertain a profound contempt. He never tasted
strong liquors in any form, and was extremely sparing in his
eating; often fasting for days in succession, particularly
when he had any movement of importance in contemplation.

It is difficult to fathom the dark recesses of a mind
so powerful and active as his, placed under a pressure of
ignorance and social disability so tremendous. In those
desolate regions which he made his habitation, it is said
that trees often, from the singularly unnatural and wildly
stimulating properties of the slimy depths from which they
spring, assume a goblin growth, entirely different from their
normal habit. All sorts of vegetable monsters stretch their
weird, fantastic forms among its shadows. There is no
principle so awful through all nature as the principle of
growth. It is a mysterious and dread condition of existence,
which, place it under what impediment or disadvantage you
will, is constantly forcing on; and when unnatural pressure
hinders it, develops in forms portentous and astonishing.
The wild, dreary belt of swamp-land which girds in those
states scathed by the fires of despotism is an apt emblem,

in its rampant and we might say delirious exuberance of
vegetation, of that darkly struggling, wildly vegetating
swamp of human souls, cut off, like it, from the usages and
improvements of cultivated life.

Beneath that fearful pressure, souls whose energy, well-directed,
might have blessed mankind, start out in preternatural
and fearful developments, whose strength is only a
portent of dread.

The night after the meeting which we have described
was one, to this singular being, of agonizing conflict. His
psychological condition, as near as we can define it, seemed to
be that of a human being who had been seized and possessed,
after the manner related in ancient fables, by the wrath of
an avenging God. That part of the moral constitution, which
exists in some degree in us all, which leads us to feel pain
at the sight of injustice, and to desire retribution for cruelty
and crime, seemed in him to have become an absorbing sentiment,
as if he had been chosen by some higher power as
the instrument of doom. At some moments the idea of the
crimes and oppressions which had overwhelmed his race
rolled in upon him with a burning pain, which caused him
to cry out, like the fated and enslaved Cassandra, at the
threshold of the dark house of tyranny and blood.

This sentiment of justice, this agony in view of cruelty and
crime, is in men a strong attribute of the highest natures;
for he who is destitute of the element of moral indignation
is effeminate and tame. But there is in nature and in the
human heart a pleading, interceding element, which comes
in constantly to temper and soften this spirit and this element
in the divine mind, which the Scriptures represent by
the sublime image of an eternally interceding high priest,
who, having experienced every temptation of humanity,
constantly urges all that can be thought in mitigation of
justice. As a spotless and high-toned mother bears in her
bosom the anguish of the impurity and vileness of her child,
so the eternally suffering, eternally interceding love of
Christ bears the sins of our race. But the Scriptures tell us

that the mysterious person, who thus stands before all worlds
as the image and impersonation of divine tenderness, has
yet in reserve this awful energy of wrath. The oppressors,
in the last dread day, are represented as calling to the
mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the
wrath of the Lamb. This idea had dimly loomed up before
the mind of Dred, as he read and pondered the mysteries
of the sacred oracles; and was expressed by him in the form
of language so frequent in his mouth, that “the Lamb was
bearing the yoke of the sins of men.” He had been deeply
affected by the presentation which Milly had made in their
night meeting of the eternal principle of intercession and
atonement. The sense of it was blindly struggling with the
habitual and overmastering sense of oppression and wrong.

When his associates had all dispersed to their dwellings,
he threw himself on his face, and prayed, “O, Lamb of God,
that bearest the yoke, why hast thou filled me with wrath?
Behold these graves! Behold the graves of my brothers,
slain without mercy, and, Lord, they do not repent! Thou
art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on
iniquity. Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously,
and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth
the man that is more righteous than he? They make men as
fishes in the sea, as creeping things that have no ruler over
them. They take them up with the angle. They catch them
in their net, and gather them in their drag. Therefore they
rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their
net, and burn incense unto their drag, because by them
their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. Shall they,
therefore, empty their net, and not spare continually to
slay the nations? Did not he that made them in the womb
make us? Did not the same God fashion us in the womb?
Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant
of us, and Israel acknowledgeth us not. Thou, O God, art
our Father, our Redeemer. Wherefore forgettest thou us forever,
and forsakest us so long a time? Wilt thou not judge
between us and our enemies? Behold, there is none among

them that stirreth himself up to call upon thee, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. They lie in
wait, they set traps, they catch men, they are waxen fat,
they shine, they overpass the deeds of the wicked, they
judge not the cause of the fatherless; yet they prosper, and
the right of the needy do they not judge. Wilt thou not
visit for these things, O Lord? Shall not thy soul be
avenged on such a nation as this? How long wilt thou
endure? Behold under the altar the souls of those they
have slain! They cry unto thee continually. How long,
O Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge? Is there any that
stirreth himself up for justice? Is there any that regardeth
our blood? We are sold for silver; the price of our blood
is in thy treasury; the price of our blood is on thine altars!
Behold, they build their churches with the price of our hire!
Behold, the stone doth cry out of the wall, and the timber
doth answer it. Because they build their towns with blood,
and establish their cities by iniquity. They have all gone
one way. There is none that careth for the spoilings of the
poor. Art thou a just God? When wilt thou arise to
shake terribly the earth, that the desire of all nations may
come? Overturn, overturn, and overturn, till he whose
right it is shall come!”

Such were the words, not uttered continuously, but
poured forth at intervals, with sobbings, groanings, and
moanings, from the recesses of that wild fortress. It was
but a part of that incessant prayer with which oppressed
humanity has besieged the throne of justice in all ages.
We who live in ceiled houses would do well to give heed
to that sound, lest it be to us that inarticulate moaning
which goes before the earthquake. If we would estimate
the force of almighty justice, let us ask ourselves what a
mother might feel for the abuse of her helpless child, and
multiply that by infinity.

But the night wore on, and the stars looked down serene
and solemn, as if no prayer had gone through the calm, eternal
gloom; and the morning broke in the east resplendent.

Harry, too, had passed a sleepless night. The death of
Hark weighed like a mountain upon his heart. He had
known him for a whole-souled, true-hearted fellow. He had
been his counsellor and friend for many years, and he had
died in silent torture for him. How stinging is it at such a
moment to view the whole respectability of civilized society
upholding and glorifying the murderer; calling his sin by
soft names, and using for his defence every artifice of legal
injustice! Some in our own nation have had bitter occasion
to know this, for we have begun to drink the cup of
trembling which for so many ages has been drank alone by
the slave. Let the associates of Brown ask themselves if
they cannot understand the midnight anguish of Harry!

His own impulses would have urged to an immediate
insurrection, in which he was careless about his own life,
so the fearful craving of his soul for justice was assuaged.
To him the morning seemed to break red with the blood of
his friend. He would have urged to immediate and precipitate
action. But Dred, true to the enthusiastic impulses
which guided him, persisted in waiting for that sign from
heaven which was to indicate when the day of grace was
closed, and the day of judgment to begin. This expectation
he founded on his own version of certain passages in the
prophets, such as these:

“I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the
earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke! The
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before that great and notable day of the Lord shall come!”

Meanwhile, his associates were to be preparing the minds
of the people, and he was traversing the swamps in different
directions, holding nightly meetings, in which he read and
expounded the prophecies to excited ears. The laborious
arguments, by which Northern and Southern doctors of
divinity have deduced from the Old Testament the divine
institution of slavery, were too subtle and fine-spun to reach
his ear amid the denunciations of prophecies, all turning on
the sin of oppression. His instinctive understanding of the

spirit of the Bible justified the sagacity which makes the
supporter of slavery, to this day, careful not to allow the
slave the power of judging it for himself; and we leave it
to any modern pro-slavery divine whether, in Dred's circumstances,
his own judgment might not have been the
same.

After daylight, Harry saw Dred standing, with a dejected
countenance, outside of his hut.

“I have wrestled,” he said, “for thee; but the time is
not yet! Let us abide certain days, for the thing is secret
unto me; and I cannot do less nor more till the Lord giveth
commandment. When the Lord delivereth them into our
hands, one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand
to flight!”

“After all,” said Harry, “our case is utterly hopeless!
A few poor, outcast wretches, without a place to lay our
heads, and they all revelling in their splendor and their
power! Who is there in this great nation that is not
pledged against us? Who would not cry Amen, if we
were dragged out and hung like dogs? The North is as
bad as the South! They kill us, and the North consents
and justifies! And all their wealth, power, and religion,
are used against us. We are the ones that all sides are
willing to give up. Any party in church or of state will
throw in our blood and bones as a make-weight, and think
nothing of it. And, when I see them riding out in their
splendid equipages, their houses full of everything that is
elegant, they so cultivated and refined, and our people so
miserable, poor, and down-trodden, I have n't any faith
that there is a God!”

“Stop!” said Dred, laying his hand on his arm. “Hear
what the prophet saith. `Their land, also, is full of silver
and gold; neither is there any end of their treasures. Their
land, also, is full of horses; neither is there any end of their
chariots. Their land also is full of idols. They worship
the work of their own hands. Enter into the rock, and
hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory

of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,
and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of
the Lord of Hosts shall be on every one that is proud and
lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be
brought low! And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are
high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and
upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are
lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every
fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon
all pleasant pictures! And the loftiness of man shall be
bowed down, the haughtiness of man shall be made low!
And they shall go in the holes of the rocks, and in the caves
of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for his majesty,
when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth!'”

The tall pines, and whispering oaks, as they stood waving
in purple freshness at the dawn, seemed like broad-winged
attesting angels, bearing witness, in their serene and solemn
majesty, to the sublime words, “Heaven and earth shall
not pass away till these words have been fulfilled!”

After a few moments a troubled expression came over
the face of Dred.

“Harry,” he said, “verily, he is a God that hideth
himself! He giveth none account to any of these matters.
It may be that I shall not lead the tribes over this Jordan;
but that I shall lay my bones in the wilderness! But the
day shall surely come, and the sign of the Son of Man shall
appear in the air, and all tribes of the earth shall wail,
because of him! Behold, I saw white spirits and black
spirits, that contended in the air; and the thunder rolled,
and the blood flowed, and the voice said, `Come rough,
come smooth! Such is the decree. Ye must surely bear
it!' But, as yet, the prayers of the saints have power;
for there be angels, having golden censers, which be the
prayers of saints. And the Lord, by reason thereof, delayeth.
Behold I have borne the burden of the Lord even
for many years. He hath covered me with a cloud in the

day of his anger, and filled me with his wrath; and his
word has been like a consuming fire shut in my bones!
He hath held mine eyes waking, and my bones have waxed
old with my roarings all the day long! Then I have said,
`O, that thou wouldst hide me in the dust! That thou
wouldst keep me secret till thy wrath be past!'”

At this moment, soaring upward through the blue sky,
rose the fair form of a wood-pigeon, wheeling and curving
in the morning sunlight, cutting the ether with airy flight,
so smooth, even, and clear, as if it had learnt motion from
the music of angels.

Dred's eye, faded and haggard with his long night-watchings,
followed it for a moment with an air of softened
pleasure, in which was blent somewhat of weariness and
longing.

“O, that I had wings like a dove!” he said. “Then
would I flee away and be at rest! I would hasten from the
windy storm and tempest! Lo, then I would wander far
off, and remain in the wilderness!”

There was something peculiar in the power and energy
which this man's nature had of drawing others into the
tide of its own sympathies, as a strong ship, walking
through the water, draws all the smaller craft into its
current.

Harry, melancholy and disheartened as he was, felt himself
borne out with him in that impassioned prayer.

“I know,” said Dred, “that the new heavens and the
new earth shall come, and the redeemed of the Lord shall
walk in it. But, as for me, I am a man of unclean lips, and
the Lord hath laid on me the oppressions of the people!
But, though the violent man prevail against me, it shall
surely come to pass!”

Harry turned away, and walked slowly to the other side
of the clearing, where Old Tiff, with Fanny, Teddy, and
Lisette, having kindled a fire on the ground, was busy in
preparing their breakfast. Dred, instead of going into his
house, disappeared in the thicket. Milly had gone home

with the man who came from Canema. The next day, as
Harry and Dred made a hunting excursion through the
swamp, returning home in the edge of the evening, they
happened to be passing near the scene of lawless violence
which we have already described.