University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER 26 Return to Mississippi

The evening, for the season, was very fine; the sky beautiful; the stars shining unusually bright; while Henry, alone on the hurricane deck of the “Queen of the West,” stood in silence abaft the wheel-house, gazing intently at the golden orbs of Heaven. Now shoots a meteor, then seemingly shot a comet, again glistened a brilliant planet which almost startled the gazer; and while he yet stood motionless in wonder looking into the heavens, a blazing star whose scintillations dazzled the sight, and for the moment bewildered the mind, was seen apparently to vibrate in a manner never before observed by him.

At these things Henry was filled with amazement, and disposed to attach more than ordinary importance to them, as having an especial bearing in his case; but the mystery finds interpretation in the fact that the emotions were located in his own brain, and not exhibited by the orbs of Heaven.

Through the water plowed the steamer, the passengers lively and mirthful, sometimes amusingly noisy, whilst the adventurous and heart-stricken fugitive, without a companion or friend with whom to share his grief and sorrows, and aid in untangling his then deranged mind, threw himself in tribulation upon the humble pallet assigned him, there to pour out his spirit in communion with the Comforter of souls on high.

The early rising of the passengers aroused him from apparently an abridged night of intermitting sleep, when creeping away into a by-place, he spent the remainder of the day. Thus by sleeping through the day, and watching in the night — induced by the proximity to his old home — did the runaway spend the time during the first two days of his homeward journey.

Falling into a deep sleep early on the evening of the third day, he was suddenly aroused about eleven o'clock by the harsh singing of the black firemen on the steamer:

sung to an air with which they ever on the approach of a steamer,

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greet the place, as seemingly a sorrowful reminiscence of their ill-fated brethren continually sold there; when springing to his feet and hurrying upon deck, he found the vessel full upon the wharf boat stationed at the Natchez landing.

Taking advantage of the moment — passing from the wheelhouse down the ladder to the lower deck — thought by many to have gone forever from the place, Henry effected without detection an easy transit to the wharf, and from thence up the Hill, where again he found himself amid the scenes of his saddest experience, and the origination and organization of the measures upon which were based his brightest hopes and expectations for the redemption of his race in the South.