Cudjo's Cave Part 17

_AN ANTI-SLAVERY DOc.u.mENT ON BLACK PARCHMENT._

Penn was not surprised at this discovery. He had already recognized in Pomp the hero of a story which he had heard before.

"But all this happened before I came to Tennessee, did it not? Have you lived in this cave ever since?"

"It is three years since I took to the mountains. But I have spent but a little of that time here. Sometimes, for weeks together, I am away, tramping the hills, exploring the forests, sleeping on the ground in the open air, living on fish, game, and fruits. That is in the summer time.

Winters I burrow here."

"If you are so independent in your movements, why have you never escaped to the north?"

"Would I be any better off there? Does not the color of a negro's skin, even in your free states, render him an object of suspicion and hatred?

What chance is there for a man like me?"

"Little--very true!" said Penn, sadly, contemplating the form of the powerful and intelligent black, and thinking with indignation and shame of the prejudice which excludes men of his race from the privileges of free men, even in the free north.

"These crags," said the African, "do not look scornfully upon me because of the color of my skin. The watercourses sing for me their gladdest songs, black as I am. And the serious trees seem to love me, even as I love them. It is a savage, lonely, but not unhappy life I lead--far better for a man like me than servitude here, or degradation at the north. I have one faithful human friend at least. Cudjo, cunning and capricious as he seems, is capable of genuine devotion."

"Have you two been together long?"

"One day, a few weeks after I took to the mountains, I was watching for an animal which I heard rustling the foliage of a tree that grows up out of a chasm. I held my gun ready to fire, when I perceived that my animal was something human. It climbed the tree, ran out on one of the branches, leaped, like a squirrel, to some bushes that grew in the wall of the chasm, and soon pulled itself up to the top. Then I saw that it was a man--and a black man. He came towards the spot where I was concealed, sauntering along, chewing now and then a leaf, and muttering to himself; appearing as happy as a savage in his native woods, and perfectly unconscious of being observed. Suddenly I rose up, levelling my gun. He uttered a yell of terror, and started to cast himself again into the chasm. But with a threat I prevented him, and he threw himself at my feet, begging me to grant him his life, and not to take him back to his master.

"'Who is your master?' said I.

"'Job Coombs was my master,' said he, 'but I left him.'

"'You are Cudjo, then!' said I,--for I had heard of him. He ran away from a tolerably good master on account of unmercifully cruel treatment from the overseer. But as he had been frightfully cut up the night before he disappeared, it was generally believed he had crawled into a hole in the rocks somewhere, and died, and been eaten by buzzards. But it seems that he had been concealed and cured by an old slave on the plantation named Pete."

"Coombs's Pete!" exclaimed Penn.

"You have good cause to remember the name!" said Pomp. "As soon as Cudjo was well enough to tramp, he took to the mountains. It was a couple of years afterwards that I met him. We soon came to an understanding, and he conducted me to his cave. Here he lived. He has always kept up a communication with some of his friends--especially with old Pete, who often brings us provisions to a certain place, and supplies us with ammunition. We give him game and skins, which he disposes of when he can, generally to such men as Pepperill. He was going to Pepperill's house, after meeting Cudjo, that night when the patrolmen discovered and whipped him. That led to Pepperill's punishment, and that led to your being here."

"Does old Pete visit you since?"

"No, but he has sent us a message, and I have seen Pepperill."

"Not here!"

"n.o.body ever comes here, sir. We have a place where we meet our friends; and as for Pepperill, I went to his house."

"That was bold in you!"

"Bold?" The negro smiled. "What will you say then when I tell you I have been in Bythewood's house, since I left him? I wanted my medicine-case, and the bullet-moulds that belong with the rifle. I entered his room, where he was asleep. I stood for a long time and looked at him by the moonlight. It was well for him he didn't wake!" said Pomp, with a dancing light in his eye. "He did not; he slept well! Having got what I wanted, I came away; but I had changed knives with him, and left mine sticking in the bedstead over his head, so that he might know I had been there, and not accuse any one else of the theft."

"The sight of that knife must have given him a shudder, when he woke, and saw who had been there, and remembered his wrongs towards you!" said Penn.

"Well it might!" said Pomp. "Come here, Cudjo."

Cudjo had just entered the cave, bringing some partridges which he had caught in traps.

"It's allus 'Cudjo! Cudjo do dis! Cudjo do dat!' What ye want o' Cudjo?"

Pomp paid no heed to the ill-natured response, but said calmly, addressing Penn,--

"I have told you my reasons for escaping out of slavery: now I will show you Cudjo's."

The back of the deformed was stripped bare. Penn uttered a groan of horror at the sight.

"Dem's what ye call lickins!" said Cudjo, with a hideous grin over his shoulder. "Dat ar am de oberseer's work."

"Good Heaven!" said Penn, sick at the sight of the scars. "I can't endure it! Take him away!"

"Don't be 'fraid!" said Cudjo. "Feel of 'em, sar!" And taking Penn's hand, he seemed to experience a vindictive joy in pa.s.sing it over his lash-furrowed flesh. "Not much skin dar, hey? Rough streaks along dar, hey? Needn't pull your hand away dat fas.h.i.+on, and shet yer eyes, and look so white! It's all ober now. What if you'd seen dat back when 'twas fust cut up? or de mornin' arter? Shouldn't blame ye, if 't had made ye sick den!"

"But what had you done to merit such cruelty?" exclaimed Penn, relieved when the back was covered.

"What me done? De oberseer didn't hap'm to like me; dat's what me done.

But he did hap'm to like my gal; dat's more what me done! So he cut me up wid his own hand,--said me sa.s.sy, and wouldn't work. Coombs, him's a good man 'nuff,--neber found no fault 'long wid him; but debil take dat ar Silas Ropes!"

"Silas Ropes!"

"Him was Coombs's oberseer dem times," said Cudjo. "Him gi' me de lickins; him got my gal--me owe him for dat!" And, with a ferocious grimace, clinching his hands together as if he felt his enemy's throat, he gave a yell of rage which resounded through the cavern.

"Go about your work, Cudjo," said Pomp. "What do you think of that back, sir?"

"It is the most powerful anti-slavery doc.u.ment I ever saw!" said Penn.

"He is a native African," said Pomp. "He was brought to this country a young barbarian; and he has barely got civilized--hardly got Christianized yet! I will make him tell you more of his history some day. Then you will no longer wonder that his lessons in Christian love have not made a saint of him! Now you must rest, while I help him get dinner."

The manner of cooking practised in the cave was exceedingly primitive.

The partridges broiled over the fire, the potatoes roasted in the ashes, and the corn-cake baked in a kettle, the meal was prepared. The artificial chamber was Cudjo's pantry. One of the giant's stools, having a broad, flat surface, served as a table. On this were placed two or three pewter plates, and as many odd cups and saucers. Cudjo had an old coffee-pot, in which he made strong black coffee. He could afford, however, neither sugar nor milk.

Penn's wants were first attended to. He picked the bones of a partridge lying in bed, and thought he had never tasted sweeter meat.

"With how few things men can live, and be comfortable! and what simple fare suffices for a healthy appet.i.te!" he said to himself, watching Pomp and Cudjo at their dinner. Pomp did not even drink coffee, but quenched his thirst with cold water dipped from a pool in the cave.

XVI.

_IN THE CAVE AND ON THE MOUNTAIN._

That afternoon, as Penn was alone, the mystery of his removal from Mr.

Villars's house was suddenly revealed to him.

"I remember it very distinctly now," he said to Pomp, who presently came in and sat by his bed. "Ropes and his crew had been to the house for me.

Sick and delirious as I was, I knew the danger to my friends, and it seemed to me that I _must_ leave the house. So I watched my opportunity, and when Toby left me for a minute, I darted through his room over the kitchen, climbed down from the window to the roof of the shed, and from there descended by an apple tree to the ground. This is the dream I have been trying to recall. It is all clear to me now. But I do not remember any thing more. The delirium must have given me preternatural strength, if I walked all the distance to the spot where you found me."