"Shelter--food," answered the negro. "Fire, if you like! It matters little." As he spoke, I perceived by the dim light that the intruder was the leader of the sanguinary band who had crushed out so many a happy hearth, and made so many a household desolate.
"Keep back for a moment," he said, turning to some one without. Then, confronting me again, he added, "I am starving, and so are those with me. God's storms are raging through the forest. Will you give me some food? Will you allow me and mine to take shelter here till the deluge has passed over? On my life, no harm shall happen to you; if not, fire, and you will find you have killed the only one who could protect you."
"Will you swear by the God whom you adore, and who you fancy has guided you," I asked, "that neither you nor your companions will offer any violence, and that you will quit the hut the moment the storm is ended--nay, that you will not move forward from that side of the cabin while you are here?"
"I swear!" he answered. "But you, too, must promise that you will not betray me." I thought for an instant; but the consideration of Bessy's safety prevailed over every other, and I promised.
"Who is in the other room?" he asked, seeing a light gleaming through a chink in the door.
"Only one other person," I answered, "who is under my command. You are quite secure if you keep your oath. If you do not, I have three lives, at least, at my disposal."
"I have sworn by the Almighty," said the man, in a tone almost of indignation. Then, turning to the door again, he exclaimed, "Come in!" Two other negroes instantly appeared from behind him, and as all three were armed, the odds against me, in case of strife, were somewhat serious. I had trusted, however, to my own conception of the man's character, for, although every sort of abuse had been piled upon him by all ranks and classes in the county town, and though certainly his deeds, during the last days, had been of the most remorseless and brutal nature, yet I had come to a conclusion which nothing could shake, that superstitious fanaticism was at the bottom of all his actions--good and evil. Nor had I any cause to change my opinion from his conduct towards me. He pledged himself by the Being whom he madly believed to be his prompter and guide in all his wickedness; and I rightly believed he would keep his word. He himself and both his companions looked gaunt, exhausted, and famished; and I am convinced that had I refused them the boon of food and shelter which they required in their desperate condition, they would not only have taken it, but the lives of all within the hut.
"There, in that basket, is the only food I have to give you," I said. "Take it and share it amongst you. We have not been well supplied ourselves; but you want it more than we do." One of the men was starting forward to seize the basket; but Nat Turner put him sternly back, saying,--
"I have promised that you should not go a step forward from that side of the cabin. By your permission, sir, I will take the food, for we do want it indeed."
"Leave us some, leave us some," cried a voice behind me; and, turning round, I beheld old Jenny, who, though she had slept through the thunder, had woke up, it would seem, at the sound of human voices.