This calm, plain statement of fact so angered the boss that, calling Tom a cowardly thief, he yelled, "You take my money! I shoot you!"
It is placing rather a paltry valuation even on the life of a black fellow to threaten to shoot him for the sake of half a crown; but the death penalty has been exacted for far less, according to the boastful statements of self-glorifying white men. The boss was raging. He groped in the locker for his revolver, while Tom took a side glance at a tomahawk lying on the thwart.
Presenting the revolver, the boss yelled, "You rogue, Tom! You steal my money! I shoot you!" Tom changed his sulky demeanour for the pose and look that a camera has preserved, saying, "My word! you shoot one time, straight. Subpose you no shoot one time straight, look out."
The shot was never fired.
I asked Tom what he would have done suppose the revolver had been fired and he not killed.
"My word! Subpose that fella he no kill me one time, I finish him one time quick alonga tomahawk!"
In the course of the day the half-crown was found under the stern sheets, where the boss had been sitting.
To coolly face death under such circumstances is surely evidence of rare mental repose.
Once Tom had a jovial misunderstanding with his half-brother Willie, who cut a neat wedge out of the rim of Tom's ear with a razor. He had intended, of course, to gash Tom's throat, but Tom was on the alert. In revenge and defence Tom merely sat upon Willie, who is a frail, thin fellow, but the sitting down was literal and so deliberate and long-continued that Willie was all crumpled up and out of shape for a week after. Indeed, the "crick" in his back was chronic for a much longer period. Tom was half ashamed of this encounter, and while glorying in the scar with which Willie had decorated him, excused his own conduct in these terms:
"Willie fight alonga razor. He bin make mark alonga my ear. My word! Me savage then. B'mbi sit down alonga Willie. Willie close up finish. Me bin forget about that fella altogether. When Willie wake up he walk about all asame old man l-o-n-g time!"