Part 20 (1/2)

Here and there the great purple swallows boldly cleft the air, or, poised on wing by the entrance of their gourd-sh.e.l.l dwellings, uttered their cheerful ”tweet--tweet--tweet;” while the fragrant odour of the China-trees and magnolias scented the atmosphere to a long distance around.

When nearer still, I could distinguish the hum of human voices--of men, women, and children--in that peculiar tone which characterises the voice of the African. I fancied the little community as I had before seen it--the men and women engaged in various occupations--some resting from their labour, (for it was now after field hours,) seated in front of their tent-like cabins, under the shade-tree, or standing in little groups gaily chatting with each other--some by the door mending their fis.h.i.+ng-nets and tackle, by which they intended to capture the great ”cat” and ”buffalo fish” of the bayous--some ”chopping” firewood at the common ”wood-pile,” which half-grown urchins were ”toating,” to the cabins, so that ”aunty” might prepare the evening-meal.

I was musing on the patriarchal character of such a picture, half-inclined towards the ”one-man power”--if not in the shape of a slaveholder, yet something after the style of Rapp and his ”social economists.”

”What a saving of state machinery,” soliloquised I, ”in this patriarchal form! How charmingly simple! and yet how complete and efficient!”

Just so, but I had overlooked one thing, and that was the imperfectness of human nature--the possibility--the probability--nay, the almost certainty, that the _patriarch_ will pa.s.s into the _tyrant_.

Hark! a voice louder than common! It is a cry!

Of cheerful import? No--on the contrary, it sounds like the utterance of some one in pain. It is a cry of agony! The murmur of other voices, too, heard at short intervals, carries to my ear that deep portentous sound which accompanies some unnatural occurrence.

Again I hear the cry of agony--deeper and louder than before! It comes from the direction of the negro quarter. What is causing it?

I gave the spur to my horse, and galloped in the direction of the cabins.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DEVIL'S DOUCHE.

In a few seconds I entered the wide avenue between the cabins, and drawing bridle, sat glancing around me.

My patriarchal dreams vanished at the sight that met my eyes. Before me was a scene of tyranny, of torture--a scene from the tragedy of slave-life!

At the upper end of the quarter, and on one side of the overseer's house, was an enclosure. It was the enclosure of the sugar-mill--a large building which stood a little further back. Inside the fence was a tall pump, rising full ten feet in height, with the spout near its top. The purpose of this pump was to yield a stream of water, which was conducted to the sugar-house by means of a slender trough, that served as an aqueduct.

A platform was raised a few feet above the ground, so as to enable the person working the pump to reach its handle.

To this spot my attention was directed by seeing that the negroes of the quarter were grouped around it, while the women and children, clinging along the fence, had their eyes bent in the same direction.

The faces of all--men, women, and children--wore an ominous and gloomy expression; and the att.i.tudes in which they stood betokened terror and alarm. Murmurs I could hear--now and then e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns--and sobs that bespoke sympathy with some one who suffered. I saw scowling brows, as if knit by thoughts of vengeance. But these last were few--the more general expression was one of terror and submission.

It was not difficult to tell that the cry I had heard proceeded from the neighbourhood of the pump, and a glance unfolded the cause. Some poor slave was undergoing punishment!

A group of negroes hid the unfortunate from my view, but over their heads I could see the slave Gabriel, his body naked to the breech, mounted upon the platform and working the pump with all his might.

This Gabriel was a Bambarra negro, of huge size and strength, branded on both shoulders with the _fleur-de-lis_. He was a man of fierce aspect, and, as I had heard, of fierce and brutal habit--feared not only by the other negroes, but by the whites with whom he came in contact. It was not he that was undergoing punishment. On the contrary, he was the instrument of torture.

And torture it was--I knew the punishment well.

The trough or aqueduct had been removed; and the victim was placed at the bottom of the pump, directly under the spout. He was fast bound in a species of stocks; and in such a position that he could not move his head, which _received the continuous jet in the very centre of the crown_!

Torture? No doubt, you are incredulous? You fancy there can be no great torture in that. A simple shock--a shower-bath--nothing more!

You are right. For the first half-minute or so it is but a shock, a shower-bath, but then--

Believe me when I declare to you--that a stream of molten lead--an axe continually cras.h.i.+ng through the skull--would not be more painful than the falling of this cold-water jet! It is torture beyond endurance-- agony indescribable. Well may it be called the ”devil's douche.”