Cudjo's Cave

by J. T. Trowbridge

The twenty lashes for lying had been administered on the negro's bare back. Then Lysander put the question: Was he prepared to tell all he knew about the fugitives and the cave?

"O, pardon, sar! pardon, sar!" the old man implored; "I can't tell nuffin', dat am de troof!"

"Work away, boys," said Lysander.

Was it supposed that the good old practice of applying torture to enforce confession had long since been done away with? A great mistake, my friend. Driven from that ancient stronghold of conservatism, the Spanish Inquisition, it found refuge in this modern stronghold of conservatism, American Slavery. Here the records of its deeds are written on many a back.

But Toby was not a slave. No matter for that. For in the school of slavery, this is the lesson that soon or late is learned: Not simply that there are two castes, freeman and slave; two races, white and black; but that there are two great classes, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the lord and the laborer, one born to rule, and the other to be ruled. All, who are not masters, are, or ought to be, slaves: black or white, it makes no difference; and the slave has no rights. This is the first principle of human slavery. This every slave society tends directly to develop. It may be kept carefully out of sight, but there it lurks, in the hardened hearts of men, like water within rocks. It is forever gushing up in little springs of despotism. Once it burst forth in a vast convulsive flood, and that was the Rebellion.

Although Lysander had never owned a slave, he had all his life breathed the atmosphere of the institution, and imbibed its spirit. He hated labor. He was ambitious. But he was poor. Like a flying fish, he had forced himself out of the lower element of society, to which he naturally belonged, and had long desperately endeavored to soar. The struggle it had cost him to attain his present position rendered him all the more violent in his hatred of the inferior class, and all the more eager to enjoy the privileges of the aristocracy. Do not blame this man too much. The injustice, the cruelty, the atrocious selfishness he displays, do not belong so much to the individual as to the institution. The milk of this wolf makes the child it nourishes wolfish.

Torture to the extent of ten lashes was applied; then once more the question was put. Gashed, bleeding, strung up by his thumbs to the crossbeam; every blow of the extemporized whips extorting from him a howl of agony; no rescue at hand; Lysander looking on with a merciless smile; the brothers doing their assigned work with merciless nonchalance; well might poor Toby cry out, in the wild insanity of pain,—

"Yes, sar! I'll tell, I'll tell, sar!"

"Very good," said Lysander. "Let him breathe a minute, boys."

But in that minute Toby gathered up his soul again, dismissed the traitor, Cowardice, and took counsel of his fidelity. Betray his good old master to these ruffians? Break his promise to Virginia, his oath to Cudjo and Pomp? No, he couldn't do that. He thought of Penn, who would certainly be hung if captured; and hung through his treachery!