A year before, during one of the spasmodic outbreaks of indignation which had become so frequent, the authorities had occasion to suspect Tom Deering’s father of some act against the government.
A party of dragoons were sent to his plantation to secure evidence against him; the leader of this party was a young and arrogant lieutenant, noted for his cruelty even to his own men. The colossal size of Cole at once attracted the officer’s attention when the slaves were summoned to testify against their master.
“We’ll have this fellow out,” cried he, pointing to Cole. “He’s the one that will tell us what we want to hear. He knows; I can see it in his face.”
In vain Cole protested his ignorance of anything his master had done.
“You know, you black hound,” thundered the dragoon. “Tie him up, men; we’ll make him talk fast enough.”
Cole was bound to a cottonwood-tree in front of his master’s door; he continued to protest that he knew nothing, but in vain. The elder Deering and Tom were detained by a sergeant and a file of men inside the house and consequently had no knowledge of what was going forward without.
They heard the angry voice of the young lieutenant raised now and then in a shower of horrible oaths, apparently urging his men to the commission of something which they were reluctant to do. At length a dreadful scream sounded—a sharp, agonizing cry that caused the planter and his son to turn pale and stare at one another with eyes filled with horror. Then the sergeant and his file were hurriedly called from the house; as they were mounting in the yard, Tom and his father rushed out; Cole hung limp against the ropes that bound him to the tree, covered with blood. As the hoofs of the dragoons’ chargers grew faint down the road, it was discovered what had occurred. Wild with rage at what he considered Cole’s defiance the brutal officer had had the slave’s jaws pried open, and had cut his tongue with the point of his sabre.
The great strength of the giant negro and his superb condition carried him through the effects of this barbarous act; in a remarkably short time he had recovered; but he was deprived of speech forever; it was only in gestures such as that which he had made against Fort Johnson that he could convey the longing that filled him, to come to hand-grips with those who had treated him so inhumanly.
They had reached the wharf and were running in alongside; Cole loosed the halyard and lowered the sail. While he was furling it, he stopped suddenly, and by his gestures, which Tom could read very plainly, he called the attention of his companion to a strange stillness on the river.
Tom gazed up and down the stream for a moment and his eyes snapped.