The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 58
CHAPTER LVIII.
Poor Eliza! Poor child indeed! Even at that distance, separated by the whole length of the city, Montgomery's heart felt the wild beating of hers, knew that it was her hour of need, and would allow us to detain him no longer. Rescue her he must and would.
Imagine, you who can, the terror and misery of that young girl, going trustingly to the house of her father's friend, and there meeting a man like Mr Grip Curtis, of whose faithlessness and brutality she had already had some experience in Boston, and being told by him — which statement Mr Gilmore confirmed — that she was a slave, Mr Gilmore's slave, sold to him by Mr Grip Curtis, to whom she had come by inheritance from his brother and her father!
"And, my dear," said Mr Gilmore, chucking her familiarly under the chin, with the leer of an old reprobate, as he was, "that you may fully comprehend the precise legal condition in which you stand, just hear what the law of Louisiana says upon the subject." Here he took down a book from a shelf. "This, my girl," he continued, "is the Code Noir, or Black Code, of this state, and thus it lays down the law: 'The condition of a slave being merely a passive one, his subordination to his master'? — it reads his, child, but it means her too — 'is not susceptible of any modification or restriction, in such a manner that he owes to his master, and to all his family, a respect without bounds, and an absolute obedience; and he is, consequently, to execute all the orders which he receives from him, his said master, or from them,
"The civil code," so this learned lawyer continued, "Lays it down much in the same way." Here he read from another and a larger book. A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, and acquire nothing but what must belong to his master" That, my girl, is the law of Louisiana, and under that law you are my slave. I hope you will see the necessity of conforming yourself to your condition and to my wishes. We must all submit," he added, with a snuffle, "to the decrees of Providence, and the law of the land."
Many young ladies in Eliza's situation would have screamed; many would have gone into hysterics; many would have fainted; some would have gone mad. She did neither. She merely expressed her fixed determination never, by any act or consent of hers, to give the smallest countenance to any body's pretension to make a slave of her.
Locked up for the night in an attic of the house, the next morning she persuaded a black girl, who brought her a crust of bread, to take charge of the note to Cassy, of which mention has been made. Mr Gilmore had directed that nothing should be given to her but bread and water, in hopes to bring down her spirit. Judging others by himself, the luxurious old villain had imagined that this putting her on short allowance would be the surest way of bringing her to terms. As there seemed but little prospect of human deliverance, fallen as she had into the hands of wolves in sheep's clothing, it only remained for her to invoke the God of the fatherless to guard and protect her. During her second night's solitary imprisonment, her dead father seemed to stand beside her, and, with the same kind smile so familiar to her memory, to say, with his finger pointing to the distance, "Fear not, daughter; a deliverer comes;" and, as her eyes followed in the direction of the finger, she seemed to see Montgomery emerging from the darkness, and rushing towards her with outstretched arms. In her effort to rise to meet him, she awoke, and found it but a dream. And yet, how much it consoled her! In the failure of realities, how much, indeed, of human happiness has to be found in hopes, wishes, and aspirations embodied into dreams and visions!
Hitherto she had seen nothing more of Mr Gilmore, nor of any body but the same black girl who once a day brought her bread and water, and who, though shy of any communication with her, as she seemed to be watched from the passage, yet managed to hand her a note from Cassy, conveyed by Colter's assistance, bidding her escape from the house if she could, telling her where to go, and assuring her that friends were watching for her in the neighborhood.
About the very hour, on the third evening of Eliza's imprisonment, that Montgomery — whom I followed, not willing to be separated from him or to trust him alone in so hazardous an enterprise — left our lodgings to seek her out, Mr Gilmore, having fortified his courage with wine, turned the key of the door, and entered her solitary chamber. She had heard his footstep on the stair, and had prepared to meet him, retreating into a corner behind a small table, which, with a chair and an old mattress on the floor, formed the entire furniture of her prison. As he came directly towards her, she bade him stand off, at the same time drawing and holding up a small stiletto, which Montgomery, in a playful mood, had hung around her neck by a gold chain, just as she was leaving New York, telling her that as she was to make the passage alone to New Orleans, she must have some weapon with which to defend herself; and, as it happened, she had worn it when she went by appointment to call on Mr Gilmore.
He laughed at the sight of the tiny dagger; but stopped, drew the only chair towards him, sat down upon it, and began to read her a lecture, one half law and the other half divinity, on the folly and wickedness of resistance to legal authority, and the necessity of submission to the divine ordinances. Thomas Littlebody, Esq., the distinguished Boston lawyer, or even the reverend Dr Dewey himself, could not have done it better.
He told her that resistance and opposition were as useless as they would be sinful and criminal; that it was in vain to hope assistance or relief from any quarter; that Cassy, no better off than herself, had been sold into slavery the day before; and that Montgomery, having arrived that very evening from New York, was by this time in the hands of Mr Agrippa Curtis, who, having punished him sufficiently for his insolence, intended to hire him out to work on a plantation up the Red River. She never need expect to see him more.
At these cruel words, the falsehood of which she had no means of knowing, poor Eliza turned deadly pale, alarmed more for her lover than herself, and the stiletto was just dropping from her hand, when Montgomery, pushing open the door, which stood ajar, himself entered the room.
On reaching the street, before Mr Gilmore's door, we had found the faithful Colter on the watch. He had obtained from the servants a knowledge of the room in which Eliza was imprisoned. The whole three of us, late as it was, on pretence of urgent business with Mr Gilmore, gained entrance into the house; and while Colter and myself waited by the door below to secure an egress, Montgomery, who knew the house, proceeded directly to the room where Eliza was. As he trod lightly, he had approached the door, and pushed it open without attracting the attention of Mr Gilmore, who sat with his back towards it, quite engrossed in watching the effects on poor Eliza of the falsehoods he was telling, and of the law and theology which he was endeavoring to impress upon her.
As she saw Montgomery, she uttered a slight scream; and as Mr Gilmore turned his head to see what might be the matter, he found himself seized by the throat. Montgomery pitched him head foremost into the corner where the mattress lay, and tumbling the chair and table upon him, caught Eliza by the hand, and in the twinkling of an eye had her down the stairs, and out 'at the door. We followed in the rear; the whole thing being done in the briefest, most quiet, and most orderly manner, and without the slightest noise or confusion.
In half an hour our whole rescued, happy family were united — Eliza, Montgomery, Cassy, and myself. But we were still in New Orleans; and neither in that city, nor elsewhere in the United States of America, that country meanly boasting to be free, but sunk beneath the dark flood of despotism, was there any olive tree rising above the waters, any rest to be found for the soles of our feet. 