“Do your work quietly to-night—Just a good scare—If you disturb”—he pointed to the roof of Westmoreland in the distance showing above the beech tops. “You know how foolish they are about old Bisco and his wife—”
“They'll never hear anything.” He walked off, saying to himself: “A nigger who is a traitor to his race ought to be shot, but for fear of a noise and disturbin' the ladies—I'll hang 'em both,—never fear.”
Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped off.
Uncle Bisco and his wife were rudely awakened. It was nearly midnight when the door of their old cabin was broken open by a dozen black, ignorant negroes, who seized and bound the old couple before they could cry out. Bisco was taken out into the yard under a tree, while his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's life, was tied to another tree.
“Bisco,” said the leader, “we cum heah to pay you back fur de blood you drawed frum our backs whilst you hilt de whip ob slabery an' oberseed fur white fo'ks. An' fur ebry lick you giv' us, we gwi' giv' you er dozen on your naked back, an' es fur dis ole witch,” said the brute, pointing to old Aunt Charity, “we got de plain docyments on her fur witchin' Br'er Moses' little gal—de same dat she mek hab fits, an' we gwi' hang her to a lim'.”
The old man drew himself up. In every respect—intelligence, physical and moral bravery—he was superior to the crowd around him. Raised with the best class of whites, he had absorbed many of their virtues, while in those around him were many who were but a few generations removed from the cowardice of darkest Africa.
“I nurver hit you a lick you didn't deserve, suh, I nurver had you whipped but once an' dat wus for stealin' a horg which you sed yo'se'f you stole. You ken do wid me es you please,” he went on, “you am menny an' kin do it, an' I am ole an' weak. But ef you hes got enny soul, spare de po' ole 'oman who ain't nurver dun nothin' but kindness all her life. De berry chile you say she witched hes hed 'leptis fits all its life an' Cheerity ain't dun nuffin' but take it medicine to kwore it. Don't hurt de po' ole 'oman,” he exclaimed.
“Let 'em do whut dey please wid me, Bisco,” she said: “Dey can't do nuffin' to dis po' ole body but sen' de tired soul on dat journey wher de buterful room is already fix fur it, es you read dis berry night. But spare de ole man, spare 'im fur de secun' blessin' which Gord dun promised us, an' which boun' ter cum bekase Gord can't lie. O Lord,” she said suddenly, “remember thy po' ole servants dis night.”
But her appeals were fruitless. Already the “witch council” of the blacks was being formed to decide their fate. And it was an uncanny scene that the moon looked down on that night, under the big trees on the banks of the Tennessee. They formed in a circle around the “Witch Finder,” an old negro whose head was as white as snow, and who was so ignorant he could scarcely speak even negro dialect.
Both his father and mother were imported from Africa, and the former was “Witch Finder” for his tribe there. The negroes said the African Witch Finder had imparted his secret only to his son, and that it had thus been handed down in one family for many generations.