Beadle's Half Dime Library, Vol. III, No. 78 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘ ‘against the threats of authority. Ve . aa In such « rivalry the end is easily told. The honest love of Blue Dick was doomed to a harsh disappointment; for Sylvia, the quadroon, had viride her heart less to the dictates of natural passi than to the combined influence of sanity and power. It was a tale oft told in t.:0sa days of the so-styled patriarchal institu- tation—happily now at an end. Maddened by the discovery of his sweetbeart’s defection, the young mulatto could not restrain kimself from recrimination. A collision had oecurred. between..hinm.and his..master’s. son. vere had been words and threatened blows, quickly succeeded by the scene we are de- scribing. : Mr. Snively was not the man to hold out long His place was »0 precious to be risked by an act of idle chiv- What to him was the punishment of a wlave—a coremony at which he was accustomed Lo assist almost every day of his life? Besides, *e had no particular liking for Blue Dick, who \zas regarded by him as a ‘sassy fellow.” As- raved against blame from Squire Blackadder, be was only too ready to cause execution of the erder. He proceeded to do sv. The scene was transpirmg in an open court- yard to the rear of the ‘* big house,” adjoining also to the stables. On one side stood the pump, «tall obelisk of oak, with its massive arm of ivon, and spout five feet above the level of the vravement. Underneath traversed a trough, the haliawed trunk of a tree, designed for the water- . a ‘A 1° Tr ee a | “ * ing of the horses.. In the hot summer sun of the Mississippi val- lov if should have been a sight to give gladness tothe eye. Not so with the slaves on Squire Miackadder’s plantation. To them it was more sargestive of sadness and fear; and they were nccustomed to regard it with the same feelings as one who looks upon a gallows, or a guil- lotiine. More than half their number had, one time or another, satunder that spout till its chilly jet seamed like a sharp spear piercing their wool- covered crania. The punishment of the pump was too frequent on ijquire Blackadder’s plantation to need min- ‘© directions as to the mode of administering it. Mr. Snively had only to repeat the order re- ceived, to some half-dozen stalwart slaves, who stood around ready to execute it. The more ready, that Blue Dick was now to be the victim; for, even with these, the mulatto youth was far from being a favorite. Full of conceit on ac- count of his clearer skin, he had always shown himself too proud to associate with them, and was thus deprived of their sympathies. It was his first punishment, too; for, although he had often before offended in a different way, Squire Blackadder had refrained from chastis- icy; him. it was thought strange by all, though none kaow the reasons; and this immunity of which ke had been accustomed to boast, rendered his now threatened punishment a thing for his fel- low slaves to rejoice at. They who were ordered to administer it, went a! out their work witha will. At a sign from the overseer, Blue Dick was seized by two of the field hands, and dragged up to the pump. With cerds procured from the adjacent stable, he was Iadhed ¢ to the trough in wick a position that his e-ewn came directly under the spout, eighteen i*ches below it. By stays stretching right and left, his head was so confined that he could not turn it an inch one way or the other. To have attempted moving it, would have been to tight- en the noose, by which the rope was rove around his neck. “Now, give him his shower-bath!” vocifer- ated young Blackadder to the huge negro who stad | by the handle of the pump. The man, a savage-looking monster, who had himself more than once been submitted toa sim- ilar ducking, obeyed the order with a gleeful grin. The iron lever, rattling harsh upon its pivot, moved rapidly up and down; the trans- fisent jet shot forth from the spout, and fell p'zshing upon the skull beneath. te. The bystanders laughed, and to the victim it would yet have been only pleasant play; but among those who were jeering him was Sylvia the quadroon! All were abroad—both the deni- nens of the negro quarter, and the domestics of ‘tthe house—spectators of his suffering and his shame. iven Clara Blackadder, the sister of his ty- rout torturer—a young lady of about twenty summers, with all the seeming graces of an an- gel—stood on the back porch pec poe the scene with as much indifference as if, from the box of a theater, she had been looking upon e’yme mere spectacle of the stage. ' Beadle’s Half-Dime Library. If she felt interest in it, it arose from no sym- pathy with the sufferer. On the face of her brother was an expression of interest vivid and pronounced. His features bespoke joy—the joy of a malignant soul in- dulging in revenge. It was a sad picture, that presented by these two young men—the one exulting in despotic power, the other suffering torture through its exercise. It was but the old and oft-repeated tableau of master and slave. And yet they were strangely alike, both in form and feature. tracted from his skin, and the curl combed out of his hair, Blue Dick might have passed for a brother of Blount Blackadder. He would have been a little better looking, and certainly show- ing a countenance of less sinister cast. *erhaps not at that moment; for as the agony of physical pain became added to the mental anguish he was enduring, his features assumed an expression truly diabolical. Even the jet of water, spreading like a vail over them, did not hide from the spectators the fiend-like glance with which he regarded his oppressor. Through the diaphanous sheet they could see white lips tightly compressed against whiter teeth, that grinned defiance and vengeance, as his eyes rested on Sylvia. He uttered no groan; neither did he sue for mercy ; though the torture he was enduring caused him to writhe within the ropes, at the risk of their throttling him. There were few present who did not know that he was suffering extremo ry and many of them from self-experience. nd it was only when one of these, stirred by vivid memories, ventured to murmur some slight words of ex- postulation, that the punishment was suspended. ‘*He’s had enough, I reckon?’ said Snively, turning interrogatively toward the young plant- er. ‘‘No, darn him! not half anough,” was the reply; ‘‘you haven’t given him the double. But never mind! It'll do for the present. Next time he offends in like manner, he shall be pumped upon till his thick skull splits like a cedar rail!” Saying this, Blount Blackadder turned care- lessly on his heel, and went off to join his sister in the porch—leaving the overseer to release the sufferer at his discretion. The iron handle discontinued its harsh grat- ing; the cruel spout ceased to pour, and Blue Dick, disengaged from his garote, was carried fainting to the stable. But he was never again subjected to the pun- ishment of the pump. The young planter did not have a chance tocarry out his threat. Three days after Blue Dick disappeared from the plan- tation. And on the morning of that day, al- most simultaneous with his disappearance, was found the body of the quadroon girl Sylvia, at the bottom of the peach-orchard, her head split open to the chin! It had been done with the blade of a wood-ax. There was no mystery about the matter—no speculation as to the author of the deed. The antecedent circumstances pointed directly to Blue Dick; and he was at once sought for. Sought for but not found. As soonas the hue- and-cry had gone abroad, the surrounding set- tlers, planters as well as poor whites, sprung to their arms and into their saddles. The blood- mastiffs were put upon Blue Dick’s track; but spite their keen scent for such game, and the energetic urging of their owners, they never set fang in the flesh of the mulatto murderer. CHAPTER II. THE BLACKADDERS. In the time preceding the extinction of slav- ery, there was no part of the United States whee its chain was so galling as in that region lying along the Mississippi, known as the ** Coast.” More cially was this true of the State of Mississippi itself. In the older terri- tories, east of the Alleghany range, the ‘‘insti- tution” was tempered with a touch of the atriarchal; and the same might be said of entucky and Tennessee. Even in parts of Louisiana the mild, indolent habits of the Creole had a softening influence on the condition of the slave. But it was different on the great cotton and tobacco plantations of the Mississippi, as also portions of the Lousiana coast; many of whose owners were only half the year residents, and where the management of the negro was in- trusted to the overseer—an irresponsible, and, in many cases, severe taskmaster. And among the owners themselves was a large number— the majority in fact—not born upon the soil; but colonists from all countries, who had gone thither, often with broken fortunes, and not un- | frequently characters as well. With the ocherous tint ex- ; a almost daily. —$_—_—_____— ES — ES a on By these men the slave was only looked upon as so much live-stock; and if was not a question either of his happiness or welfare, but the work to be got out of him. It would be a mistake to say that Mississip- ian planters were all of this class; as it would also erroneous to suppose that Southern mas- ters in general were ‘ap humane than other men. There is no denying them a certain gene- rosity of character; and many among them were philanthropists of the first class. It was the institution itself that cursed them; and brought up under its influence, they thought and acted wrongly; but not worse, 1 fear, than you or I would have done had we been living under the same lights. Unfortunately, humane men were exceptions among planters of the lower Mississippi; and so bad was the reputation of this section of the South, that to have threatened a Virginia negro —or even one of Kentucky or Tennessee—with sale or expulsion thither, was suflicient at any time to make him contented with his task. The word “coast” was the begey of negro boyhood, and the terror of his manhood. Planter Blackadder, originally from the State of Delaware, was among the men who had con- tributed to this evil reputation. He had mi- grated to pe at an early period of his life, making a purchase of some cheap land on a tract ceded by the Choctaws. A poor man at the period of his migration, he had never risen toa high rank among the planter aristocracy of the State. But just for this reason did he avail himself of what appeared, to a mind like his, the real privilege of the order—a despotic bearing toward the sable-skinned helots whose evil star had guided them into his hands. In the case of many of them, their own evil char- acter had something to do in conducting them thither; for planter Blackadder was accustomed to buy his negroes cheap, and his ‘‘ stock” was regarded as one of the worst, in the section of country in which his plantation was ‘‘ located.” Despite their bad repute, however, there was work in them; and no man knew better than Squire Blackadder how to take it ouv. If their sense of duty was not sufficient to keep them to their tasks, there was a lash to hinder them from lagging; held ever ready in the hands of a man who had no*disposition to spare it. This was Snively, the overseer, who, like the squire him- self, hailed from Delaware State. Upon the Blackadder plantation was punish- ment enough, and of every kind known to the skin of the negro. At times there was even mutilation—of the milder type—extending be- neath his skin. If Pomp or Scip tried to escape work by shamming a toothache, the tooth was instantly extracted, though not the slightest sign of decay might be detected in the “ ivory!” Inder such rigid discipline, the Blackadder Jlantation should have thrived, and its owner ecome a wealthy man. No doubt he would have done so, but for an outlet on the other side, that, dissipating the profits, kept him com- paratively poor. The * repo pore ” was the squire’s own and only son, Blount, who had grown up what is termed a wild fellow. He was not only wild, but wicked; and what, perhaps, grieved his father far more, he had of late years become ruinously expensive. He kept low company preferring the ‘‘ white trash ”; fought cocks, and played ‘‘ poker” with them in the woods; and in a patronizing way, attended all the “candy pullings ” and “‘ blanket trampings,” for ten miles aroun The squire could not be otherwise than in- dulgent to a youth of such tastes, who was his only son and heir. In boyhood’s days he had done the same himself. For this reason his purse-strings, held tight against all others, were loosened to his hopeful son, Blount, even to aiding him in his evil courses. He was less generous to his daughter Clara, a girl gifted with great beauty, as also endowed with many of those moral graces so becoming to woman. True, it was she who had stood in the porch while Blue Dick was undergoing the punishment of the pump. And itis true, also, that she ex- hibited but slight sympathy with the sufferer. Still was there something to palliate this appar- ent hardness of heart: she was not fully aware of the terrible pain that was being inflicted ; and it was her father’s fault, not hers, that she was accustomed to witness such scenes weekly, : Under other tutelage, Clara Blackadder might have grown up a young lady, good as she was graceful; and under other cir- cumstances been happier than she was on the day she was seen to such disadvantage. That, at this time, a ch ud overshadowed her fate, was evident from that overshadowing her EGomicbooks (E ‘ (Elo)