The cousins looked at each other, and each grew paler as he read the other’s thought. Vance spoke first. “Go on, Peek,” he said. “Tell us what you know.”
“The old man, you see,” said Peek, “has been trying for some time to do without slave labor. He has employed a good many Germans on his lands. The slaveholders haven’t liked this. At the beginning of the Rebellion he went with old Houston and others against secession; but when Houston caved in, Onslow remained firm and plucky. He kept quiet, however, and did nothing that the Secesh authorities could find fault with. But what they wanted was an excuse for murdering him and seizing his lands. They employed three scoundrels, a broken-down lawyer, a planter, and a horse-jockey, to visit him under the pretence that they were good Union and antislavery men, trying to escape the conscription. The old man fell into the trap. Thinking he was among friends, he freely declared, that ‘he meant to keep true to the old flag; that only one of his family had turned traitor; the rest (thank God!) including the women, were thoroughly loyal; that secession would prove a failure, and end (thank God always!) in the breaking up of slavery.’ At the same time he told them he should make no resistance, either open or clandestine, to the laws of the State. The scoundrels tried to implicate him in some secret plot, but failed. They had drawn out of him enough, however, for their purposes. They left him, and straightway denounced him as an Abolitionist. A gang of cutthroats, set on by the Rebel leaders, came to hang him. Well knowing he could expect no mercy, the old man barricaded his doors, armed his household, and prepared to resist. The women loaded the guns while the men fired. Several of the assailants were wounded. The rest grew furious, and at last made an entrance by a back door, rushed in, and overpowered William Onslow, the son, who had received a ball in his neck. They dragged him out and hung him to a tree. The daughter they tried to pinion and lash to the floor, but she fought so desperately that a ruffian, whose hair she had torn out by the roots, shot her dead. The mother, in a frantic attempt to save the daughter, received a blow on the head from which she died. The old man, exhausted and fatally wounded, was disarmed, and placed under guard in the room from which he had been firing. It was not till the women and the son were dead that I arrived on the spot. I claimed to be a Secesh nigger, and the passes Mr. Vance had given me confirmed my story. The Rebels regarded me as a friend and helper. I lurked round the room where the old man was confined, and at last, through whiskey, I persuaded his guard to lie down and go to sleep. I then made myself known to the sufferer. I helped him write a letter to his surviving son. Here it is, stained as you see by the writer’s blood. You can read it, Mr. Vance. It contains no secrets. Hardly had I concealed it in my pocket, when some of the Rebels came in, seized the old man, helpless and dying as he was, and, dragging him out, hung him on a tree by the side of his son.”
Peek ended his narrative, and Vance, taking the proffered letter, slowly drew it from the envelope and unfolded it. There dropped out four strands of hair: one white, one iron-gray, one a fine and thick flaxen, and one a rich brown-black.
“I cut off those strands of hair, thinking that Captain Onslow might prize them,” said Peek.
“You did well,” remarked Vance. “And since you have authority to permit it, I will read this letter.”
He then read aloud as follows:—
“Stricken down by a death-wound, I write this. When it
reaches you, my son, you will be the last survivor of your
family. The faithful negro who bears this letter will tell you
all. You may rely on what he says. This crafty, this Satanic