University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER 24 A Flying Cloud

Safely in Mobile Henry landed without a question, having on the way purchased of a passenger who was deficient of means to bear expenses, a horse by which he made a daring entry into the place. Mounting the animal which was fully caparisoned, he boldly rode to the principal livery establishment, ordering for it the greatest care until his master's arrival.

Hastening into the country he readily found a friend and seclusion in the hut of Uncle Cesar, on the plantation of Gen. Audly. Making no delay, early next morning he returned to the city to effect a special object. Passing by the stable where the horse had been left, a voice loudly cried out:

“There's that Negro boy, now! Hallo, there, boy! didn't you leave a horse here?”

Heeding not the interrogation, but speedily turning the first corner, Henry hastened away and was soon lost among the inhabitants.

“How yeh do, me frien'?” saluted a black man whom he met in a by-street. “Ar' yeh strangeh?”

“Why?” enquired Henry.

“O, nothin'! On'y I hearn some wite men talkin'j's now, an' da say some strange nigga lef' a hoss dar, an' da blev 'e stole 'em, an' da gwine ketch an' put 'em in de jail.”

“If that's all, I live here. Good morning!” rejoined he who soon was making rapid strides in the direction of Georgia.

Every evening found him among the quarters of some plantations, safely secreted in the hut of some faithful, trustworthy slave, with attentive, anxious listeners, ready for an issue. So, on he went with flying haste, from plantation to plantation, till Alabama was left behind him.

In Georgia, though the laws were strict, the Negroes were equally hopeful. Like the old stock of Maryland and Virginia blacks from whom they were descended, they manifested a high degree of intelligence for slaves. Receiving their messenger with open arms, the aim of his advent among them spread like fire in a stubble. Everywhere seclusions were held and organizations completed, till Georgia stands like a city at the base of a burning mountain, threatened with destruction by an overflow of the first outburst of lava from above. Clearing the state without an obstruction, he entered that which of all he most dreaded, the haughty South Carolina.

Here the most relentless hatred appears to exist against the Negro, who seems to be regarded but as an animated thing of convenience or a domesticated animal, reared for the service of his master. The studied policy of the whites evidently is to keep the blacks in subjection and their spirits below a sentiment of self-respect. To impress the Negro with a sense of his own inferiority is a leading precept of their social system; to be white is the only evidence necessary to establish a claim to superiority. To be a “master” in South Carolina is to hold a position of rank and title, and he who approaches this the nearest is heightened at least in his own estimation.

These feelings engendered by the whites have been extensively incorporated with the elements of society among the colored people, giving rise to the “Brown Society” an organized association of mulattos, created by the influence of the whites, for the purpose of preventing pure-blooded Negroes from entering the social circle, or holding intercourse with them.[14]

Here intelligence and virtue are discarded and ignored, when not in conformity with these regulations. A man with the prowess of Memnon, or a woman with the purity of the “black doves” of Ethiopia and charms of the “black virgin” of Solomon, avails them nothing, if the blood of the oppressor, engendered by wrong, predominates not in their veins.

Oppression is the author of all this, and upon the heads of the white masters let the terrible responsibility of this miserable stupidity and ignorance of their mulatto children rest; since to them was left the plan of their social salvation, let upon their consciences rest the penalties of their social damnation.

The transit of the runaway through this state was exceedingly difficult, as no fabrication of which he was capable could save him from the penalties of arrest. To assume freedom would be at once to consign himself to endless bondage, and to acknowledge himself a slave was at once to advertise for a master. His only course of safety was to sleep through the day and travel by night, always keeping to the woods.

At a time just at the peep of day when making rapid strides the baying of hounds and soundings of horns were heard at a distance.

Understanding it to be the sport of the chase, Henry made a hasty retreat to the nearest hiding place which presented, in the hollow of a log. On attempting to creep in a snarl startled him, when out leaped the fox, having counterrun his track several times, and sheltered in a fallen sycamore. Using his remedy for distracting dogs, he succeeded the fox in the sycamore, resting in safety during the day without molestation, though the dogs bayed within thirty yards of him, taking a contrary course by the distraction of their scent.

For every night of sojourn in the state he had a gathering, not one of which was within a hut, so closely were the slaves watched by patrol, and sometimes by mulatto and black overseers. These gatherings were always held in the forest. Many of the confidants of the seclusions were the much-dreaded runaways of the woods, a class of outlawed slaves, who continually seek the lives of their masters.

One day having again sought retreat in a hollow log where he lay sound asleep, the day being chilly, he was awakened by a cold application to his face and neck, which proved to have been made by a rattlesnake of the largest size, having sought the warmth of his bosom.

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Henry made a hasty retreat, ever after declining the hollow of a tree. With rapid movements and hasty action, he like a wind cloud flew through the State of South Carolina, who like “a thief in the night” came when least expected.

Henry now entered Charleston, the metropolis, and head of the “Brown Society,” the bane and dread of the blacks in the state, an organization formed through the instrumentality of the whites to keep the blacks and mulattos at variance. To such an extent is the error carried, that the members of the association, rather than their freedom would prefer to see the blacks remain in bondage. But many most excellent mulattos and quadroons condemn with execration this auxiliary of oppression. The eye of the intelligent world is on this “Brown Society”; and its members when and wherever seen are scanned with suspicion and distrust. May they not be forgiven for their ignorance when proving by repentance their conviction of wrong?

Lying by till late next morning, he entered the city in daylight, having determined boldly to pass through the street, as he might not be known from any common Negro. Coming to an extensive wood-yard he learned by an old black man who sat at the gate that the proprietors were two colored men, one of whom he pointed out, saying:

“Dat is my mausta.”

Approaching a respectable-looking mulatto gentleman standing in conversation with a white, his foot resting on a log:

“Do you wish to hire help, sir?” enquired Henry respectfully touching his cap.

“Take off your hat, boy!” ordered the mulatto gentleman. Obeying the order, he repeated the question.

“Who do you belong to?” enquired the gentleman.

“I am free, sir!” replied he.

“You are a free, boy? Are you not a stranger here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you lie, sir,” replied the mulatto gentleman, “as you know that no free Negro is permitted to enter this state. You are a runaway, and I'll have you taken up!” at the same time walking through his office looking out at the front door as if for an officer.

Making a hasty retreat, in less than an hour he had left the city,

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having but a few minutes tarried in the hut of an old black family on the suburb, one of the remaining confidentials and adherents of the memorable South Carolina insurrection, when and to whom he imparted his fearful scheme.

“Ah!” said the old man, throwing his head in the lap of his old wife, with his hands around her neck, both of whom sat near the chimney with the tears coursing down their furrowed cheeks. “Dis many a day I been prayin' dat de Laud sen' a nudder Denmark 'mong us! De Laud now anseh my prar in dis young man! Go on, my son — go on — an' may God A'mighty bress yeh!”

North Carolina was traversed mainly in the night. When approaching the region of the Dismal Swamp, a number of the old confederates of the noted Nat Turner were met with, who hailed the daring young runaway as the harbinger of better days.[15] Many of these are still long-suffering, hard-laboring slaves on the plantations; and some bold, courageous, and fearless adventurers, denizens of the mystical, antiquated, and almost fabulous Dismal Swamp, where for many years they have defied the approach of their pursuers.

Here Henry found himself surrounded by a different atmosphere, an entirely new element. Finding ample scope for undisturbed action through the entire region of the Swamp, he continued to go scattering to the winds and sowing the seeds of a future crop, only to take root in the thick black waters which cover it, to be grown in devastation and reaped in a whirlwind of ruin.

“I been lookin' fah yeh dis many years,” said old Gamby Gholar, a noted high conjurer and compeer of Nat Turner, who for more than thirty years has been secluded in the Swamp, “an' been tellin' on 'em dat yeh 'ood come long, but da 'ooden' heah dat I tole 'em! Now da see! Dis many years I been seein' on yeh! Yes, 'ndeed, chile, dat I has!” and he took from a gourd of antiquated appearance which hung against the wall in his hut, many articles of a mysterious character, some resembling bits of woollen yarn, onionskins, oystershells, finger and toenails, eggshells, and scales which he declared to be from very dangerous serpents, but which closely resembled, and were believed to be those of innocent and harmless fish, with broken iron nails.

These he turned over and over again in his hands, closely inspecting them through a fragment of green bottle glass, which he claimed to be a mysterious and precious “blue stone” got at a peculiar and unknown

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spot in the Swamp, whither by a special faith he was led — and ever after unable to find the same spot — putting them again into the gourd, the end of the neck being cut off so as to form a bottle, he rattled the “goombah,” as he termed it, as if endeavoring to frighten his guest. This process ended, he whispered, then sighted into the neck, first with one eye, then with the other, then shook, and so alternately whispering, sighting and shaking, until apparently getting tired, again pouring them out, fumbling among them until finding a forked breast-bone of a small bird, which, muttering to himself, he called the “charm bone of a treefrog.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Gamby as he selected out the mystic symbol handing it to Henry, “got yeh at las'. Take dis, meh son, an' so long as yeh keep it, da can' haum yeh, dat da can't. Dis woth money, meh son; da ain't many sich like dat in de Swamp! Yeh never want for nothin' so long as yeh keep dat!”

In this fearful abode for years of some of Virginia and North Carolina's boldest black rebels, the names of Nat Turner, Denmark Veezie, and General Gabriel were held by them in sacred reverence; that of Gabriel as a talisman. With delight they recounted the many exploits of whom they conceived to be the greatest men who ever lived, the pretended deeds of whom were fabulous, some of the narrators claiming to have been patriots in the American Revolution.

“Yeh offen hearn on Maudy Ghamus,” said an old man stooped with age, having the appearance of a centenarian. “Dat am me — me heah!” continued he, touching himself on the breast. “I's de frien' on Gamby Gholar; an' I an' Gennel Gabel fit in de Malution wah, an' da want no sich fightin' dare as dat in Gabel wah!”

“You were then a soldier in the Revolutionary War for American independence, father?” enquired Henry.

“Gau bress yeh, hunny. Yes, 'ndeed, chile, long 'for yeh baun; dat I did many long day go! Yes, chile, yes!”

“And General Gabriel, too, a soldier of the American Revolution?” replied Henry.

“Ah, chile, dat 'e did fit in de Molution wah, Gabel so, an' 'e fit like mad dog! Wen 'e sturt, chile, da can't stop 'im; da may as well let 'im go long, da can't do nuffin' wid 'im.”

Henry subscribed to his eminent qualifications as a warrior, assuring him that those were the kind of fighting men they then needed among

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the blacks. Maudy Ghamus to this assented, stating that the Swamp contained them in sufficient number to take the whole United States; the only difficulty in the way being that the slaves in the different states could not be convinced of their strength. He had himself for years been an emissary; also, Gamby Gholar, who had gone out among them with sufficient charms to accomplish all they desired, but could not induce the slaves to a general rising.

“Take plenty goomba an' fongosa 'long wid us, an' plant mocasa all along, an' da got nuffin' fah do but come, an' da 'ooden come!” despairingly declared Maudy Ghamus.

Gamby Gholar, Maudy Ghamus, and others were High Conjurors, who as ambassadors from the Swamp, were regularly sent out to create new conjurers, lay charms, take off “spells” that could not be reached by Low Conjurors, and renew the art of all conjurors of seven years existence, at the expiration of which period the virtue was supposed to run out; holding their official position by fourteen years appointments. Through this means the revenue is obtained for keeping up an organized existence in this much-dreaded morass — the Dismal Swamp.

Before Henry left they insisted upon, and anointed him a priest of the order of High Conjurors, and amusing enough it was to him who consented to satisfy the aged devotees of a time-honored superstition among them. Their supreme executive body called the “Head” consists in number of seven aged men, noted for their superior experience and wisdom. Their place of official meeting must be entirely secluded, either in the forest, a gully, secluded hut, an underground room, or a cave.

The seven old men who, with heightened spirits, hailed his advent among them, led Henry to the door of an ample cave — their hollow — at the door of which they were met by a large sluggish, lazily-moving serpent, but so entirely tame and petted that it wagged its tail with fondness toward Maudy as he led the party. The old men, suddenly stopping at the approach of the reptile, stepping back a pace, looked at each other mysteriously shaking their heads:

“Go back!” exclaimed Maudy waving his hand. “Go back, my chile! 'e in terrible rage! 'e got seben long toof, any on 'em kill yeh like flash!” tapping it slightly on the head with a twig of grapevine which he carried in his hand.

Looking at the ugly beast, Henry had determined did it approach to harm, to slay it; but instead, it quietly coiled up and lay at the door as if asleep, which reminded him of queer and unmeaning sounds as they approached, uttered by Gholar, which explained that the animal had been trained to approach when called as any other pet. The “Head” once in session, they created him conjuror of the highest degree known to their art.* With this qualification he was licensed with unlimited power — a power before given no one — to go forth and do wonders. The “Head” seemed, by the unlimited power given him, to place greater reliance in the efforts of Henry for their deliverance than in their own seven heads together.

“Go, my son,” said they, “an' may God A'mighty hole up yo' han's an' grant us speedy 'liverence!”

Being now well refreshed — having rested without the fear of detection — and in the estimation of Gholar, Ghamus and the rest of the “Heads”, well qualified to prosecute his project amidst the prayers, blessings, wishes, hopes, fears, pow-wows and promises of a never failing conjuration, and tears of the cloudy inhabitants of this great seclusion, among whom were the frosty-headed, bowed-down old men of the Cave, Henry left that region by his usual stealthy process, reaching Richmond, Virginia, in safety.