A little incident that soon befell me will show the reader how completely my feelings were identified with my condition, and how deeply the lessons of that unlucky pamphlet had sunk into my spirit. My little playmate, master Tommy, who was not above six years old, being of an irascible temper, sometimes quarrelled with me; on which occasions, as I mentioned before, he used to beat me; a liberty I rather encouraged than otherwise, since I gained by it—though my master strictly forbade the youth to take it. Now, as soon as my head began to fill with the direful and magnificent conceptions of a malecontent and conspirator, I waxed weary of child's play and master Tommy, who, falling into a passion with me for that reason, proceeded, on a certain occasion, to pommel my ribs with a fist about equal in weight to the paw of a gadfly. I was incensed, I may say enraged, at the poor child, and repaid the violence by shaking him almost to death. Indeed, I felt for a while as if I could have killed him; and I know not whether I might not have done it (for the devil had on the sudden got into my spirit), had not his father discovered what I was doing, and run to his assistance.
I then pretended that I had shaken him in sport, and thus escaped a drubbing, of which I was at first in danger. The threat of this, however, sank deeply into my mind, and I ever after felt a deep hatred of both father and son. This may well be called a blind malice, for neither had given me any real cause for it.
[CHAPTER XI.]
THE HATCHING OF A CONSPIRACY.
In the meanwhile the devil was doing his work among the others, and disaffection grew into wrath and fury, that were not so perfectly concealed but that my master, or rather his eldest son, who was of a more observant disposition, began to suspect that mischief was brewing; and in a short time it was reported among us that our master had marked some of us as being dangerous, and was resolved to sell us to a Mississippi trader who was then in the county. This was reported by a spy, a house-servant, who professed to have overheard the conversation, and who reported, besides, that our master and his son were furbishing up their fire-arms, and laying in terrible supply of balls and powder.
Now whether this account was true or not I never knew, and I suppose I never shall until I am in my grave. It was enough, however, to drive us to a phrensy, those in particular who had been indicated as the intended victims of the Mississippi trader; and the more especially, as those men had wives and children, from whom they were told they were to be parted. One of these was the blacksmith of the estate, who, being a resolute and fierce-tempered fellow, instantly began to convert all the old horseshoes and iron hoops about his shop into a kind of blades or spear-heads, which we fastened upon poles, and hid away in secret places. There were among us three or four men who had muskets, with which they used to shoot wild fowl on the river, there being great abundance at this season. These weapons were also put into requisition; besides which we stored away butcher-knives and bludgeons, old scythe-blades and sickles beaten straight, until we could boast quite an armory. And here I may observe, that the faster these weapons increased upon our hands, the more deadly became our resolutions, the more fierce and malignant our desires; until, having at last what we thought a sufficiency for our purpose, we gave a loose to our passions, and determined upon a plan of proceedings that may well be called infernal.
I believe that when we began to collect these offensive weapons we had but vague ideas of mischief, thinking rather of defending ourselves from some meditated outrage on the part of our master, than of beginning an assault upon him ourselves. But now, the armory being complete, and several cunning fellows, who had been spying out among the surrounding plantations, bringing us word that the gangs (so they sometimes call the whole number of hands on a farm) of most of them were ready to strike with us for freedom; another having brought us word that a great outbreaking had already taken place south of James river, which, however, was not true; a third reminding us that we were more numerous than our masters; and a fourth bidding us remember that the negroes had once, as the little book told us, been the masters of all the white men in the world, and might be again; I say, these things being represented to us, as we were handling our arms and thinking what execution we could do with them, we shook hands together, and kissing the little pamphlet (for which we had conceived a high regard), as we had seen white men kiss the book in courts of law, we swore we would exterminate all the white men in Virginia, beginning with our master and his family.