"Oh, tank you, master, tank you," said Zed, taking my hand and shaking it quite friendly; "quite well, tank you; how you been all dis time?"
"As well as might be," I replied; "but I have a good many questions to ask you. First, however, tell me where we had better direct our steps to now?"
"Oh, Dr. Blunt's," answered the good man; "and de niggers all good and true. We shall be quite safe there. But what you want to know, master?"
"First," I said, "how you got out of that dreadful situation in which we left you at poor Mr. Stringer's." The man laughed; for people of his complexion are true disciples of Democritus, laughing at everything, however serious.
"Oh, I got out very well in the end, master," he said, "though I did think at one time I should have been killed. When first they came to the door, I made a noise in the room to make them think Miss Bessy was still there, for fear they should take it into their noddles to run round to the back staircase and cut you off. But when they began to hammer on the door with their hatchets, I went to the other door and listened, and hearing you open the outer door of the pantry-hall, I said to myself, 'They are safe!' Then I halloed out quite loud, 'She's not here, she's got away, up to some of the rooms at the top. I've come round the back way, but she's gone.' Then I told them to stop their hammering, and I would open the door for them. But they went on and crushed it in; and then those vagabonds, Hark and Will--they are the worst niggers of them all--got me by the throat, and asked me how I came in there? So I told them I came the back way; and then they vowed I had helped her away, and Hark lifted up his hatchet to split my skull. He would have found it a pretty hard one; for once de horse threw me down a bank thirty feet, and I fell on the top of my head among the stones. That did not break it, and I think it would have taken two or three good knocks to get inside. But just as Master Hark was going to try, Nat Turner came up, with a gun in his hand, and he caught the other gentleman's arm, and said, 'Let the man alone. The first man who sheds a drop of our own blood, I'll shoot him dead. Do you think if we get to killing each other, we shall ever get the better of the whites?' Then Hark said, 'That in that case, I must come along with them, and shed some white blood too;' and then I couldn't go back. But I told them I couldn't keep up with them all along of my game leg, which makes me hobble so; and then they said they would put me on a horse."
"And how did you get away in the end?" demanded I.
"Why, I thought at first they had trapped me," answered Zed; "but very soon they heard something stirring upstairs, and they all rushed up together to kill that long Yankee man, who preached to them at the meeting. Lord, how he did pray for his life, to be sure! And what a screech he gave when the first of them struck him! But while they were murdering the poor creature, I sneaked downstairs and opened the door between the two halls, for I had got the key with me, and locked it on the other side, and went away out behind the stables. I wouldn't go to the stables, master, for they were sure to go there themselves after the horses; but I got under a thick laurel-bush, and curled myself up, just like Mr. Stringer's large black, dog used to do in the porch----he! he! he! There I lay snug, and I heard them come to the stables and take out the horses, and turn over the hay and straw to see that there was nobody hidden there; and I heard Hark and Will laughing quite loud, and talking about the Yankee minister. One said, 'He has preached his last preaching;' and t'other said, 'He has screamed his last screaming too; and as he sees we have gone the way he taught us, he ought to be content.' And then they laughed again quite loud." My blood ran cold at the horrible levity which Zed depicted; but I could not help believing, from all I had seen myself, that his picture was a very true one; for there is a sanguinary mirth, as well as a sanguinary fierceness. Nothing like real earnestness of purpose and steadfast determination seemed to exist in any of the revolted negroes, excepting Nat Turner. In all the rest, everything was impulse--the impulse to slay, the impulse to laugh, the impulse to hack their victim with unnecessary wounds. Poor creatures! in their state of ignorance, and almost brutality, they seemed a combination of the child and the wild beast; with the levity and thoughtlessness of the one, and the strength of the other.
"I do believe," I said, after musing for a moment or two, "that this man, Nat Turner, is of a better disposition than the rest, and might, had his mind been well directed, have become a good and beneficent person." Zed shook his head, and responded,--
"Don't think so, master; he is dam cunning, that's all."
"Why he saved your life, Zed," I answered; "and at first he showed no inclination to injure me."