"Quickly!" she cried. "Come out! They're both done for!"
I was out, fetters and all, in a twinkling. George lay spreadeagled at my feet, the top half of his face a bloody mash — she had given him the buckshot at point-blank range. I looked round and saw Little, crouched on his knees by the camp-fire, his head down; even as I started toward's him he rolled over, with a little bubbling sob, and I saw the knife hilt sticking out of the crimson soaking mess that stained his shirt. He twitched for a moment, bubbling, and then was still.
Cassy was at the wagon, holding weakly to the door, her head hanging. I hopped over to her, grabbed her round the waist and swung her off her feet.
"Oh, you wonderful nigger!" I shouted, spinning her round. "You little black beauty, you! Bravo! Two at one stroke, by George! Well done indeed!" And I kissed her gleefully.
"Set me down!" she gasped. "In God's name, set me down!"
So I put her down, and she shuddered and sank to the ground, all of a heap. For a moment I thought she'd fainted, but she was a prime girl, that one. With her teeth chattering she grabbed up her dress, pulling it down over her head, which seemed a pity, for she cut a truly splendid figure in the firelight. I patted her on the shoulder, telling her what a brave wench she was.
"Oh, God!" says she, with her eyes tight shut. "Oh, horrible! I didn't know … what it was like … when I drew the knife from his belt and …" She put her face in her hands and sobbed.
"Serve him right," says I. "You've done him a power of good. And the other one, too — couldn't have done better myself, by jove, no, I couldn't! You're a damned good-plucked 'un, young Cassy, and you may tell 'em that Tom Arnold said so!"
But she sat there, shivering, so I wasted no more time but searched Tom's pockets for the keys to our fetters, and soon had us both loose. Then I went through their pockets, but apart from fifteen dollars there was nothing worth a curse. I stripped George's body, because it struck me that he was about my size, and his togs might come in handy. Then I looked to their guns — one musket, two pistols, with powder and ball — saw that the wagon horse was all to rights, and all the time my heart was singing inside me. I was free again, thanks to that splendid nigger wench. By gum, I admired that girl, and still do — she'd have made a rare mate for my old Sergeant Hudson — and while I heated up some coffee and vittles left by the late unlamented, I told her what I thought of her.
She was crouched by the fire, staring straight ahead of her, but now she seemed to shake herself out of her trance, for she threw back that lovely Egyptian head and looked at me. "You remember your promise?" says she, and I assured her I did — assured her twenty times over. I can see her now, those wonderful almond eyes watching me while I prattled on, praising her resource and courage-it was a strange meal that, a runaway slave girl and I, sitting round a camp fire in Mississippi, with two dead bodies lying by. And before it was done she had thrown off her fit of the shakes — after all, when you're new to it, killing is almost as disturbing as nearly being killed — and was telling me what we must do next. My admiration increased — why, she had thought it out all beforehand, in the wagon, down to the last detail.
It had been my remark about slave-catchers not touching a white man that had set her thinking, and shown her how she could make a successful run this time, with me to help her.
"We must travel as master and slave," says she. "That way no one will give us a second thought — but we must go quickly. It may be a week before Mandeville discovers that this wagon never reached Forster's place, and that these two men" — she gave a little shudder — "are missing. It might even be longer, but we dare not count on it — we dare not! Long before then we must be out of the state, on our way north."
"In that?" says I, nodding to the cart, and she shook her head.
"It can take us no farther than the river; we must go faster than it will carry us. We must go by steamboat."
"Hold on, though — that costs money, and these two hadn't but fifteen dollars between them. We can't get a passage on that."
"Then we'll steal money!" says she, fiercely. "We have pistols — you are a strong man! We can take what we need!"
But I wasn't having that — not that I'm scrupulous, but I'm no hand as a foot-pad. It's too risky by half, and so I told her.
"Risk!" she blazed. "You talk of risk, after what I have done this night? Don't you see-we have two murders on our hands — isn't that a risk? Do you know what will happen if we're caught — you will be hanged, and I'll be burned alive! And you talk of robbery as a risk!"
"Holding someone up will only increase the danger," says I, "for then we would be hunted, whereas if we go our way quietly there'll be no hue and cry until these two are found — if they ever are."
"Whoever we robbed could go the way these went," says she. "Then there would be no added danger." By God, she was a coldblooded one, that. When I protested, she lost her temper:
"Why should we be squeamish over white lives? D'you think I care if every one of these filthy slave-driving swine is torn to pieces tomorrow? And why should you shrink from it, after what they would have done to you? Are they your people, these?"
I tried to convince her it wasn't principle, but pure lack of nerve, and we argued on, she waxing passionate — she hated with a lust for revenge that frightened me. But I wouldn't have it, and eventually she gave up, and sat staring into the fire, her hands clenched on her knees. At last she says, very quietly:
"Well, money we must have, however we come by it. And if you will not steal for it — well, there is only one other way. It does not add greatly to the risk, but … but I would do almost anything to avoid it."
Possibly I'm a natural-born pimp, for I jumped to the conclusion that she was thinking of whoring her way upriver, with me as her protector, but it was something far grander than that.
"We must go to Memphis," says she. "It is a town on the river, not more than fifty miles from here, so far as I can judge. That would be for the day after tomorrow — perhaps another day. That in itself is no great risk, for we have to go to the river anyway, and if God is kind to us none of Mandeville's friends, or people of Forster's, who would know me, will cross our path. And when we are there … we can find the money. Oh, yes, we can find the money!"
And to my astonishment she began to weep — not sobbing, but just great tears rolling down her cheeks. She dashed them away, and then fumbled inside her dress, and after a moment she produced a paper, soiled but very carefully-folded, which she passed to me. Wondering, I opened it, and saw that it was a bill of sale, dated February 1843, for one Cassy, a negro girl, the property of one Angel de Marmalade (I swear that was the name) of New Orleans, now duly sold and delivered to Fitzroy Howard, of San Antonio de Bexar. There was another scrap of paper with it which fluttered down — she made a grab, but not in time to prevent me seeing the words scrawled on it in a coarse, lumpy hand:
"Wensh Cassy. Ten lashys. Wun dollar," and a signature that was illegible.
She drew away, and spoke with her head turned from me.
"That was my second bill of sale. I was fourteen. I stole it from Howard, when he was drunk and I ran from him. They caught me, but he was dead by then, and when they auctioned me with his other … goods, they didn't bother to look for the old bill. I kept it — to remember. Just to remember, so that when I was free, and far away, I should never forget what it was to be a slave! No one ever found it! — they never found it!" Her voice was rising, and she swung her head round to stare at me, her eyes brimming. "I never thought it might serve to win my freedom! But it will!"
"How, in heaven's name?"