at ) & NORTH CAROLINIANA COLLECTION B.W.C.ROBERTS BENNIE BEN CREE Being the Story of his Adventure to Southward in the Year ’62 By Arthur Colton Doubleday & McClure Co. New York 1900 Dedicated Copyright, 1900, by TO DOUBLEDAY & MCCLURE COMPANY MY MOTHER CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Benson anp CrEE—THE COMMODORE Inn Fore anp AFT; AND A POIN! SraTED BY My UNCLE BENSON, II. Lacriaz Rerum—Tue THREE MEN IN THE PUBLIC, III. Down THE Coast—CAavARLY’s PLAN, Iv. I Tatk with CaLHOUN AND THE ‘“Oorarara?? Gozs East anD WEST, V. Tommy Topvp’s, VI. Tue Dismat Canal, VII. We Come To a River CALLED Eviza- BETH AND TO ANOTHER CALLED JamEs—CONCLUSION, BENNIE BEN CREE. BENNIE BEN CREE CHAPTER I. BENSON AND CREE—-THE COMMODORE INN, FORE AND STATED BY MY UN Ir anyone would understand how Ben Cree comes to be what he is for better or worse, he should know first the Commo- dore Inn and what it meant in those days to have the great wharves for a play- ground. And I cannot conceive t day how one can amuse oné self, or satisfied with any neat door-yard or in- land village street, unless one is born a girl with a starched pinafore, which I should think would be a pity. First, then, you should picture the 3 Bennie Ben Cree. Commodore Inn; its red bricks streaked with the rain and the beat of damp winds; its high veranda, with the paint coming off the white pillars, and the worn stone steps leading underneath. In front is the brick sidewalk, the cobbled street, the bit of open space with Harrier’s junk- shop on the right corner; and then the warehouses on either side, all leading down to the slip, Doty’s Slip, which is flanked by noble wharves, with huge piles leaning awry and very slippery. The warehouses are roomy and full of queer smells, as if the varied merchan- dize of fifty years had left something for its old friends, the warehouses, to re- member it by. The contents of these warehouses changed continually: cotton, tobacco, slabs of crude rubber, and multi- tudes of boxes whose contents might be learned sometimes by asking the wharf- master, if you did not mind his cuffing you on the ears. Next there would be 4 The Commodore Inn. the river and its hurrying tides, its choppy waves, the ferryboats, sailboats, rd } and tugs going to and fro: to right and left—seen well by climbing the ware- house roofs—are masts of many ships with innumerable amusing ropes, other wharves with the like slippery brown piles and dark places underneath where the water thieves hid and bored holes up through the planks into the molasses barrels. Mr. Hooley, the wharf police- man, told me of that, and there was much that was attractive in it. For there was a time, before my ideas be- came settled, when I thought of many different careers. ‘To be a wharf police- man seemed too ambitious a thought, too vain and far away; so that [ asked Mr. Hooley’s advice about water thieving, having respect for his opinion. “Naw, Bennie Ben,” he said, “’tis low. "Tis not for the son of yer father, an’ yer mother a lady as was ever bor-rn.” 2 Bennie Ben Cree. “Do you think I could be a wharf policeman, Mr. Hooley?” . An” =he said: looking mysterious, “who knows that? Don’t ye let young Dillon lick ye, an’ maybe—but ’tis a » long way fer ye to grow. But I was speaking of the river. The navy yard lay nearly opposite, and the Wallabout, as that water is called behind the Government Cob Dock. And that t busy river, with its tumult and ides, I love still no less, and love the thick smell of the wharves and ware- houses. My two grandfathers, Benson and Cree, were shipping merchants together, “Ben- son & Cree,” long ago, when you did not have to go beyond the Harlem for a bit of country. Indeed, my Grandmother Cree, I am told, had a great flower and vegetable garden, and there was an orchard behind the house, where in my time was but a little yard. The house was built 6 The Commodore Inn. for some colonial gentleman’s residence, and my grandfathers bought it when prosperity came to them. And there they lived together with their families, and there were my father and mother born, for they were cousins, and also Uncle Benson and the two others who went down off Barnegat: a great, warm- hearted house, red-walled and white- pillared. The firm in its best days owned five ships. And by an odd arrangement one of them was always sailed by a member of the firm. They had their turns, one abroad and one at home. ‘rom this came the rhyme, “Benson and Cree, One at home and one at sea”; my father used to sing it, when absent- | minded, to a queer haphazard tune. And I have heard Harrier, the junk-shop man, Sing it too. But my father, if he saw ‘ Bennie Ben Cree. me listening, would stop and seem ashamed, which I could not explain at first. My father was an only child, and my mother an only daughter, but there were once three Benson boys. I am not sure of my Grandfather Cree, nor of my two grandmothers, at what dates they died, but in the year 1838 three of the five ships were lost: one of them with Grand- father Benson (in what waters is un- known), one of them with two of his sons off Barnegat, and one of them left a tilted wreck in the mid-Atlantic. And that same year my father made his last voy- age, though still young in a way; for he came back with his knee crushed by the smack of a loose Spar in a heavy sea, and walked with a crutch forever after. When my time came, there was no firm of Benson & Cree. Our fortunes had not fallen altogether, but were moder- ate enough. Only three persons remained 8 The Commodore Inn. of the two families. Uncle Ben Benson was captain and part owner of the Sara- toga, a good ship, carrying steam and sail, and landing merchandize at Doty’s Slip. The house was now the Commodore Inn, kept by Tom Cree, my father. Ah, that was a brave man, loud-voiced, joy- ful! I believe I would break my knee and carry a crutch to the end of my d ys, to be so good a man, so simple and full of the pleasure of things. My mother was singularly quiet in her ways, but I think the success of the Commodore.came from my father’s popu- larity and my mother’s management, and it was her hand that was on the tiller. And now, speaking of the Commodore as if it were a ship, I come to what is properly the beginning of Very few of those Commodore—and they faring folk of the better class—ever saw my mother. She never appeared on the 9 Bennie Ben Cree. front porch with the pillars, where my father sat often and shouted heartily to any friend in sight; but she was always above, and often in her sewing-room that looked out on the little garden in the rear. I never knew her to come out of the front door, or to look from the windows on the slip; but whenever she went abroad it was through the back door and the little garden, gliding so quietly, so gently, that it seemed wonderful to me, who could not move, any more than could my father, without a thunderous racket. I can see her plainly, with her black shawl and sweet still face under an over- hanging bonnet, going out through the little garden. How early or in what way I learned it I am not sure, but it seems as if it had always been a settled thing that I must not speak to her of the slip, or the river, or the ships, or anything in view from the front porch; but things which could 10 The Commodore Inn. be seen from the windows of her sewing- room, the garden, the people in the other street, the carriages and ’busses, steeples and distant roofs, these I might talk about. When Uncle Benson came home, once a year perhaps, the difference be- tween the porch or inn parlour and the sewing-room was notable. For below the talk was all of the sea, winds, and islands, and full queer phrases of the shipping- my father loud and merry, and my uncle full of dry stories; my father’s huge beard rumpled on his chest with laughter; Uncle Benson, as always when ashore, clean shaven and very natty in his clothes. But when we went above to the sewing-room, my mother would make tea on the hob, while the two men played backgammon, and you would have thought, for all that was said of it, that there was no sea at all, flowing and wrapped about the world. It was all quiet talk of the house, the new minister 11 Bennie Ben Cree at the Broadway Church, and how it were well for Bennie to mind better his books. All this did not seem strange to me until it was explained, and then it seemed strange. For the things one is accus- tomed to when a little child appear only a part of common nature, whatever they are, and no more to be wondered at than tides and the flight of gulls. I had learned the story of that sudden, disastrous year, ’38, though not from my father. He was a man curiously with- out shrewdness to suspect what I might be thinking, and without that kind of courage—if I may say so with affection -which enables a man to approach at need a subject which is sad or sore to him inwardly. So that, while I had my own thoughts, the thing was not all ex- lained till I was a well-grown, clumsy 5 . lad. In this while it had come slowly upon 12 4 The Commodore Inn. me, until at last it was a great convic- tion, that I must be neither a water-thief, nor policeman, nor a doctor driving his carriage, nor a preacher in a carpeted pulpit, but a seaman and sometime a ship-captain like Uncle Benson, which idea became a hunger and thirst. But when I told my father of it, he looked at me queerly, and told me to mind my books. And I noticed that he would talk no more of sea matters when I was near, and would send me away from the inn parlour to go up to the sewing-room. So, whenever I pressed him to say [ was to be a sailor, he would put it aside with a look on his face that puzzled me, for it was not only sadness, but fear. The sweat would come on his forehead and his hand shake. I think I was little comfort to anyone in those days, knock- ing about the streets and wharves, idle, sullen, and restless, wronging those in my thoughts who loved me most. 13 Bennie Ben Cree. That old song I took to humming to myself— *Bonson and Cree, One at home and one at sea,” till I had fairly got it changed, so that it ran— “Bennie Ben Cree, Come away to the sea,” and the lilt of the tune never failed to put a beating in my ears and a burning in my eyes, and fill my head with foolish fancies. I would sing it to Harrier in his shop, and Harrier would say, “Aye, aye, sonny! Them’s new words.” So it was come the year ’61; and late in the month of May the Saratoga lay in the slip being fitted out for government use to blockade Southern ports, and some- time, then or later, was towed across to the navy yard. She was sold to the ser- vice, with the option of repurchase if not destroyed, and Uncle Benson was enlisted 14 The Commodore Inn. to command her, and looked a fit proper man in his uniform, which excited me almost beyond endurance. Now Lam come to a scene in the little inn parlour behind the public room. It was my father’s office, and in a manner his room of state. You should see in mind a square room with pleasant cur- tains and a gay carpet on the floor, a round stove with no fire in it at this time; there are six or eight stout chairs of varied shape, about the number of my father’s cronies, who came evenings to pack themselves in, and make the air white with smoke and salty with old sea memories. In the corner is a snug desk, and about the walls models of “Benson & Cree’s ” five ships; portraits of the fam- ily, and a painting of an unlikely looking coast; on one side shelves with a few books, but mainly pink and white shells, ? ie and stuffed fishes. Uncle Benson and my father are sit- 15 3ennie Ben Cree. ting looking at me, who am standing awkwardly enough and shifting my feet about. Uncle Benson is saying, “ We’re going to put it to you, Ben,” and my father bursts in nervously: “That’s it, Ben. We’re going to put it to you, just how it is, don’t you see? % My uncle coughed, and beginning in fa) an oddly stiff and formal way told the story of the year 1838, for the most part what I knew already, as I told him, not meaning to be impolite. ’ “ Aye, Ben,” said he, quietly, “but ’m going on. You don’t know that your mother, for a year or more——” “Kighteen months,” said my father, leaning forward and speaking huskily. “Eighteen months. Well, well, a wonderful woman, your mother, but women take trouble different ways. Some take it hard.” I stared at them, bewildered enough, while they looked long at each other, 16 The Commodore Inn. seeming to take comfort from it. Uncle Benson, leaning forward, touched my father’s knee. “You and me, Tom, we most gave it up. And my father pulled his beard fiercely. “Gave what up?” I cried. “What was it?” “Aye,” said my father with a start, “we're going to put it to you, Ben.” “Why,” said Uncle Benson softly, “*twas a shock she had, ’twas a tough time, and you weren’t a man, Tom, to see what to do.” “No good at all,” said my father, shak- ing his head. Again they fell to looking at each other, and there seemed to be no ending of my impatience. “Oh,” said Uncle Benson at last, “but we’re not putting it to you, Ben.” “Aye,” said my father, “we’re going to put it to you.” 2 17 Bennie Ben Cree. And my uncle went on. “Eighteen months it was, and right you are. A moaning, trembling, walking the floor like one as has a bad dream and no let up. Wrong, wrong in her head, and by times very wild, Ben, and suffer- ing terrible with fancies; by times not knowing anyone, and always it was some one going down with the seas clapping over him. She said the sea was hungry and cruel, Ben, having her fancies, poor woman. She used to tell a-whispering, how she could hear the big seas mad and raging all about her, and at other times little waves on the beach, like a beast sipping and licking its lips. Fancies she had very odd. And when you were born it came back again, but only for a few weeks. And other whiles it has been as we see now, quite right. But she would so shrink and tremble at any speaking of the sea that we quit saying anything, as you know well, and I hope and trust 18 The Commodore Inn. she has had no pain from that, nor looked upon salt water, these twenty years. “So now it’s put to you, Ben, for you want to go out with me, and I’m think- ing for the matter of the war she’d be no more than other women perhaps, but for the rest it’s different. And now we’ve put it to you, we'll ask what you think.” I was fumbling with my jacket, strug- gling not to see how the case stood, which nevertheless seemed clear enough, and my eyes were hot with thinking of things greater and stranger than I had known be- fore. “I think as you do,” I said at last, as stiff and steady as I could make out. “ Aye,” said he, “and that’s all right. But I’ll tell you what I think. We've been saying, he and I, it might come all right in time, and if a Ben Benson Cree must be a landsman after all he should have the credit of seeing the thing for himself, and what was reasonable and right. That's how we put it. But now 19 Bennie Ben Cree. it’s been many years, and a man can’t tell but things may be quiet, and she might make no trouble at all. A man ean’t tell, now, can he?” “Why, no,” my father burst in ner- vously. “How can he? We put it to you, how can he?” “And it’s a job I don’t hanker for, but I’m going to do it for you, Ben, sort of hitch it in with conversation, sort of by the way.” “That’s it,” said my father. “You hitch it in sort of by the way.” My uncle stood up, buttoned his coat, and went softly from the room. My father sat quite silent, but his face was full of trouble and fear, like that of a child who is frightened at the wind or the dark, though in a bodily sense I sup- pose he was a man that never feared any- thing. He pawed his great beard with a shaking hand, a hand bigger than mine is now, Which is no small affair. 20 The Commodore Inn. So we waited for a time that no doubt seemed longer than it was; I do not know how long, or what Uncle Benson said by way of conversation. But at last there was a sudden cry and something fell, jarring the floor with a dull, soft sound. My father jumped forward. I shot past him and up the stairway, he strug- gling and thumping behind with his crutch. In the sewing-room Uncle Ben- son was lifting my mother to the sofa. She lay with her hands to her face, mur- muring, moaning, in a swift incessant way to make one shiver, with her pretty bright hair loose on her forehead. “Here!” cried my uncle, sharply. “Tell her it won’t be. Quick, boy!” I fell on my knees beside her crying: “T’ll never go, if you don’t like, never, never! ” The murmuring and moaning ceased gradually. She took both hands from 21 Bennie Ben Cree. her face and put them around my neck, and my father and Uncle Benson, bend- ing over her, gave a great sigh that was like a sob, both together; and looking up I saw my father gripping the other’s shoulder, as if to hold himself up. “Two fools, Tom, two fools,” said Uncle Benson grimly. Then my father did what I think was an odd thing, but keen; for he stumped over to the cupboard and brought out the backgammon board. And there they played backgammon it might be an hour, making their points vigorously with great racket, as if nothing else could in- terest them, my mother the while holding hard to my rough head. So the Saratoga sailed away in due time, and left me behind to make a poor pretense at books, but to get along better when the summer came, with helping in the business of the inn. 22 CHAPTER II. LACRIMH RERUM—-THE THREE MEN IN THE PUBLIC. Tr was in the latter part of September that I first observed the three strangers at the corner table in the public room, though they may have been there before. Afterwards, whenever passing through, I would look for them, and they were noticeable men; the eldest of the three an easy-looking gentleman with an air of commanding and greyish hair and beard ; the second, who always sat beside him against the wall, was odd and humorous again: in his manner and had a look of imper- turbable happiness, round faced, smooth- . ae eee ont nes shaven, with straight hair and rather long, thin thing amused him, a well-muscled, large- 28 lips sticking out when some- Bennie Ben Cree. framed man; the third stranger always sat opposite the others, with his back and square, slender shoulders to the rest of the room. And when all three men were there, the first two seemed to talk to the third loudly and genially; but sometimes these two came alone, and then they talked to each other and were more quiet. One afternoon I stood within the door that led from the long verandah to the hall and floor above, the door of the public close beside it; and my father was asleep in his chair far at the other end of the verandah. I heard the three strangers come to the door of the public, heard the third say good-by, not two yards from my ear, and go down the steps briskly. And in a moment the elder stranger spoke thus in a drawling way: “He’s close, Dan, he is. He takes a man’s confidence like it belonged to him 24 The Three Men in the Public. natchully, but he don’t appear to have any opinion on it. Hey? “Folks are diff’ent, cap,” said the other blandly. “You don’ expect a te’apin to open hisself. He can’t ’ithout bustin’, an’ he may be a very good sort of te’apin an’ a warm-hearted te’apin. An’ another man comes along whoopin’, ‘How d’ye do! Here’s me. Who are you?’ like he couldn't help his candor, Ever hear o’ the snake in the gyarden o’ Eden, ” He was very co’dial, that snake. “Still,” said the first, “I shan’t open on him till the time comes. He can have his choice then.” “As how, cap?” “Not here. Off shore.” With that they went down the steps also. My father woke with the noise, and they nodded to him pleasantly. After a time Tony, the waiter in the public, came out and winked at me wonderfully. ae : ennie Ben Cree. “Those fellies is fittin’ a ship,” he said. “Say, she’s jus’ goin’ in der navvy yard. Say, I hear ’em tell she’s a keener.” My father only gazed down the slip with absent, pathetic eyes, thinking, as always, those September days, of what was slipping away from us in the white- curtained room above that looked out on the garden. When I think of the thing we call death in a general way, spelling it maybe with a capital, it never seems to mea going down at sea—and I have seen that —or any violent accident; but it seems like a white-curtained room with a little breeze blowing the curtain in, and out- side you hear the rattle and mutter of the city, as though it were making comments on the matter in a hoarse undertone. A broad white bed is near the wall, the doctor and nurse are sometimes in and out of the room, and on the pillows is a thin white face with the hair drawn 26 Lacrimz Rerum. neatly back. The lips are moving with a faint sound, and the eyes look out softly and peacefully, at me kneeling beside, and my father sitting with his chin on his crutch and his beard rumpled. There is a lost look in his eyes, wide and lonely ; like a man under whom a ship is going down at sunset, who sees the sun for the last time and the red clouds doing his burial service. My mother is speak- ing; her voice is not like any sound that seems natural to the earth, but thin, creeping, and slow, like the mists you see in the early morning that cling and whisper to slack sails. “You were always my big boy, Tom,” « she says, “like Ben, only bigger.” “Ben’s growing,” says my father, hoarsely. “You'll not remember it against me, Ben, for it was not I. And he shall go to sea, Tom, remember, like all the Bensons and Crees, all sailing folk and Od as Bennie Ben Cree. proud to be, proud to be all sailing folk. But I’m glad you’re not a woman, Ben, for the sea’s hard on women, very hard.” When I went to school in the brick schoolhouse on Willet Street I studied Latin in*a green-covered book of selec- tions, which for the most part I greatly disliked. There was a passage ending with these words, “sunt lacrime rerum ”; and what “lacrimz rerum” means I find less easy to say in common English than I did then, when we called it “the tears of things,” and appeared to satisfy the master with that. But now I suppose it might mean, there is a hidden sorrow in the middle of God’s universe that likely has been there always. However it may be, I suppose it quite beyond a plain man to describe his idea of the matter. But whenever I think of those words, “lacrime rerum,” they sound to me as if spoken in my mother’s voice, sighing, plaintive, and moving away from me; or as if she might 28 Lacrime Rerum. have meant the same thing in saying, “The sea’s hard on women, very hard.” The wind blew the curtain in so that it wavered in the room. “Lacrime re- rum. The sea’s hard on women,” a kind of sighing sound that moved far and far oO °o o away. It was now come to the November, and about certain morning I heard Tony ca name. At my coming he manner to make me think he knew all about something, only that he always winked to show his knowingness, whether he knew anything or not. He pointed vith his thumb to the door of the inn parlour, where I went in, and found my father sitting with the three strangers. Their names, as I came to hear them, were these: the eldest, Captain Cavarly; the odd-looking one, Mr. Dan Morgan ; and the third, Mr. Sabre Calhoun—a 9¢ Bennie Ben Cree. curious name, and he was tall and thin, and, like his name, not to be quickly forgotten. Indeed, he was a man I never understood, and, seeing that I came to have such chances of knowing him as do not commonly fall between men, there must have been something odd with him or with me. He had sandy hair, and grey eyes that seemed very lively and shrewd. “TI make you acquainted with these gentlemen,” said my father, “if the cap- tain don’t mind your hearing his yarn.” “Shuly,” said he, with a fine wave of his hand. “Glad to know you.” Mr. Calhoun nodded. “Why, why,” said Mr. Morgan, look- ing at my red cheeks. “You ain’t got any liver complaint. Well, sir, when I was so old I used to bust the seams 0’ my clo’es, an’ it hurt my feelins te’ible. I grew like a yellow punkin, ve’y simi- lar. ” 80 The Three Men in the Public. The captain went on with the story, which my coming had interrupted. “Well, sir, then I started for Wash- ] 7 12a } Lane’ ataryv ’ ington in a hurry, to see the Sec etary 0 the Navy, an ol’ gen’lman from hereabout ith a beard like a palm leaf fan, yes, sir; ® ° ca: whe? edtdeden ad an’ I said to him, ‘Su, this country 1s fairly leakin ‘ith pat’iotism Here’s parties, that don’t wi 3h their names known for private reasons—say they re Baltimore parties, but they want me to ‘ M4 7 tell you, ‘ Octarara in Balti- more docks, small and steady, steam ten knots, an’ here’s Cavarly an’ Dan Morgan 2 r as Wal ter’s knowin the coast bettern Webster: Primer consid’able. Let the Gove’nment commission her, an’ Cavarly an Dan’ll ; 4 } » ¥ tah raise the crew an’ run her for hig! mighty? An’ there you are, Sir. there he was, that ol’ gen’Iman “ith the palm leaf beard, calm as a fish in his me bustin’ ’ith glory. natchul element, an “ “Hold her steady, Bennie,” he said. ‘Seaman’s duty.” And there was nothing in the white sea-fog to betray; Calhoun’s back was as non-committal as the fog; the little black iron with its ghost inside it lay on the shelf in the binnacle silently too. But the ship, slipping along through the fog so quietly, with so much misun- 75 Bennie Ben Cree. derstanding aboard her, seemed to me something uncanny. I felt as if we were under a spell, and afterwards as if all the seamen looked at me oddly, wondering that so chubby-cheeked a boy should dare interfere with a ship’s compass; and, when Morgan would call me “a sinful oyster who would be the death of him,” I longed to tell him what a mixed man he was, with no cause to joke at all. Some- times Cavarly’s remorse at having to drop me at some distant port would give me a twist of conscience in return. On the third day—that would be the 28th—the fog turned toa soaking rain, and after that the wind rose in the north- west, which Cavarly tock for southwest. On the 1st of March we crossed a steamer going east—or north, as Cavarly thought. [t looked like a passenger steamer. He thought it could not be American in the waters where he supposed himself, and going in that direction, and so let it pass. o 76 Easi and West. The morning of the 2d broke with the gale still blowing but the rain had ceased. \ large, double-funnelled something was A large, coming down our wake, a dusky spot in the gray half-daylight far away, with two towers of black smoke over her. There was trouble on the Nameless when the stranger was made out by the growing light to be a cruiser, nearly larg enough to carry the Nemeless for a long boat, and with the starred and striped flag floating overhead. . ° } There is an odd thing about that flag, when you meet it on the high seas and the wind is blowing hard-—namely, that of all flags I know it is the most alive, when the wind blows, the most eager and keen, with the stripes flowing and darting like snakes, and the stars seeming to excitement. So ’g0 into battle, dance with the joy ot that there is none better t or come down the street when the fifes y ahead; but if you want some- are piping Bennie Ben Cree. thing to signify peace and quiet, you would be as well off with not such br is- tling stars and fewer stripes, for the stars will leap and the stripes show their energy wherever the wind blows. The Nameless did not alter her course, but 9 got up steam and plunged on with great thumping and thunder of engines. The cruiser seemed hardly to be gaining. I noticed Calhoun on the roof of the cabin looking forward, and wondered if we were near land. I think Calhoun must have somehow kept the bearings and known where we were, for the lookout cried “Land!” at near eleven o’clock. Cavarly took it for the Bermudas at first, but prob- ably knowing the Bermudas to have a high, rocky coast, he came forward and scanned the shore a long time through his glass silently. It seemed to be a low-lying, sandy shore, with little growth, ifany. Through a glass you could make hite out the great surf piling upon it, w 78 tast and West. and dangerous. I went on the roof of the cabin, and Calhoun told me softly those were the banks of the Carolinas, meaning that low belt, outlying along the coast, a breakwater of sand pressed up by the sea, with quiet waters commonly within. The ship turned to the quarter and headed south. By twelve another spot of black smoke rose on the edge of the sea, and this was from the south. In half an hour it was made out to be another cruiser, smaller, and floating the striped flag. , Cavarly walked the deck, gripping his hands, and his face seemed to grow gray and lined with the pain of his thoughts. He ordered the men to be called aft, and spoke, standing by the cabin door. “I’m not sayin’ what that shore is. I don’ know, not me. We lost our bem ings. It looks to me mighty one ai But I’m sayin’ there’s no Yankee’s gom 79 Bennie Ben Cree. to capture my ship. Nameless she is, an’ Nameless she goes. I’m goin’ to beach her.” Someone cried, “ Beach her, cap’n. We’re in it.” After that, as it seemed to me, there was nothing but roar and tumult, with moments passing like seconds, till the cruise of the Nameless ended. I remem- ber a shell from one of the cruisers that skipped along the water beside us—like those flat stones we used to throw slant- ing into the East River—and burst with a crack and spatter of Spray just ahead. I remember how the surf towered and bubbled and roared at the ship’s bows, and how I was cast headlong on the deck when she grounded. They fired her too near the powder, and she blew up before the last had left, and one of the boats foundered in the surf. I remember how bitterly the men worked, drawing the other boats over the 80 East and West. sand hills, a quarter of a mile it might be, to the water within. The cruisers lay off shore, not daring to lower boats for the high seas and surf. But the strangest sight to me was the six drowned men, lying in the wash, and among them with his lips pursed out, as if amused and smiling up into the wild sky, that singu- lar man, Dan Morgan. For he looked as if he liked it well enough, lying dead in the wash of the sea, and thought it odd at any rate that Bennie Cree should have been the death of him. CHAPTER V. TOMMY TODD’s. THE island seemed to stretch endlessly north and south, and to ave rage half a mile in width; but there was a long slice of bay from the inner sound, nearly op- posite to where the ship lay rolling in the surf and burning sullenly. Cavarly went over the sand hills and saw it, and made out a forested shore across the water, and saw the sail of a fishing boat in the distance. They left Gerry and me to draw the bodies up the sand, and give them such poor graves as we could scoop with our hands. It was dark before the boats were brought to the inner beach. I heard Calhoun telling Cavarly there would be 82 Tommy Todd’s. 5 no landing from the cruisers till daybreak, and probably none at all. “What would they do it for? The ship’s burned.” “TI don’ calculate till I know where we are.” “Well—suppose it’s the Bahamas. They wouldn’t then.” “Bahamas! How come we to get to the Bahamas? No, they wouldn’t.” I think he knew it was the United States, and no Bahamas. We were wet, shivering, and exhausted. The night was dark, the wind cold and full of spray. Cavarly ordered us to scatter, and each find dry sand among the dunes, if he could, to cover himself with. What with the darkness and the shrieking wind, at twenty feet from your next neighbour you were quite alone, seeing and hearing nothing of him. Presently I was stumbling among sliding sand heaps; and after I had found a sheltered spot, I did 83 Bennie Ben Cree. not care where it was, but scraped off the wet top sand and, burying myself in the dry beneath, there lay shaking and gasp- ing with the chill till I fell asleep. The morning broke with the grey, driv- ing Clouds still over us. We got away, without looking to see whether the cruis- ers on the other side were waiting or not, every man with sand on his hair and clothes, a silent and pale-faced company. Few had slept for the wet and cold. I was in the boat with Cavarly, and saw him gazing at the distant shore and wrinkling his brow and pulling his beard. A thin, sallow man it was, named Henry, who pulled the bow oar and kept his head turned over his shoulder. Presently he got up and looked oS unshipped his oar, ahead. “Cap’n,” he said, “ beggin’ your pardon, that’s Redwood, North Ca’lina.” > “T reckon like enough,” growled Cav- arly. s+ Tommy Todd’s. “Happen I was bo’n over there,” said Henry. “Drove the mules to a mule windlass, what they haul seines with, on that same beach. That’s Tommy Todd’s boathouse, an’ he lives back o’ them pitch pines.” “Sit down,” said Cavarly, “an’ pull for Tommy Todd’s.” The men gave a faint cheer and shouted to the boat behind. But Cavarly looked no more cheerful than before. We drew to the shore, where an old weather-beaten boathouse stood, the mule windlass before it, two uprights with a monstrous spool between; and we strag- sled wearily up the beach, seeing in the distance a long, shambling house among the pitch pines, with smoke rising from ™ the chimney. ere Henry beat upon [ the door, opened it to a sound within, and we streamed into a low, smoky room where a man and a woman sat at break- fast. A fat negro woman was frying Bennie Ben Cree. bacon on a stove, and an old negro man sat bent over in a chair. Hiop! Jemima!” cried the man at the table. “Four, six, eight! Hol’ on! Too many.” Don’ you know me, Tommy Todd? I’m Pete Henry.” Maybe you be. Jemima! You're sociable, Pete Henry. Ten, Been gettin’ acquainted, ain’t you! teen, fifteen! Jemima!” twelve! Four- Cavarly introduced himself and made n r" J Mr. Todd more calm, for he seemed an excitable man and _ sarcastic. fe was square-set, but bony, and wore a thin. gray chin beard and a faded black coat with dangling tails. Mrs. Todd screeched when we first. be- gan to pour in, the fat negro woman jab- bered wildly and crowded herself back of the stove, and the old negro man cried out in astonishment, “An’ mah name’s Tuppentine!” But presently we were 86 Tommy Todd’s. seated about everywhere, and mainly on the floor, eating corn bread and bacon, which the fat cook fried for us, rolling her eyes as if it had come to her that we would ask for fried cook, when there was no more bacon. “Druv in by the Yankees! Jemima!” said Mr. Todd. I heard him telling Cavarly, if he went down to Redwood early the next morn- ing, there might be a steamer which would take him round through the Sound and up the Chowan River to a railroad at some place, and so from there to Rich- mond. After that the men lay all about the house, and slept. I went out of doors and found the sun shining. Cavarly, Gerry, and Still were standing near the door. They all turned and looked at me. Cavarly frowned suddenly, as if with a twinge of pain, and pulled his beard. I went down on the sand and by the 87 Bennie Ben Cree. boathouse found a warm, drowsy place in the sun and out of the breeze. Far across the water I could see the low yel- low lines of the Banks. I lay there an hour or more, contented as an OX, or any healthy animal that has been through sore labour and afterwards been given a stomachful and bit of sun to lie in. Only I was stiff and sore. And it was sad, looking across the water, to think of Dan Morgan in his scooped grave, with the sands and the sea about him. Calhoun came round the boathouse, and sat down near me. “They’re on to us,” he said. [ started and felt as jf struck with a stone. “What! ” “Calmly, Bennie Ben. Cavarly’s been talking with Still and keeping the corner of his eye on me till ’'m nervous. It’s pretty straight anyhow. He couldn’t help coming to it. You didn’t suppose 88 the old man was foolish comes to you about it, you'd at cra Een st in Lying isn’t your style. You're n oifted that way, : You couldn’t do it without looking as if ; 1 Cc es ) you’d burgled a bank. If he comes t i ; cS ne like a me, I don’t know. It looks to me lik meaning no offense. circus with a tight-rope dancing very 7, ] tter neat I don’t see how you could better it Calhoun smoothed his cheek thought- fully, and seemed to be balancing the nice chances. : = “Somebody’s coming down, Bennie Ben. Hear ’em? Cavarly saw me Thinks he’ll take us together. If they don’t say anything, we don’t say anything That’s our point. = } He slid down the sand about thirty feet, and Jay in the sun, with his hat over I did not know anything better probably his face. ] ‘ to do than to seem asleep, and 2 had my mouth shut tight and hands stiff, , Bennie Ben Cree. so that anyone could see through me if he chose to take the trouble. The footsteps came round the corner and stopped beside me, then moved down the sand. Inamoment I opened my eyes a crack. Cavarly was sitting on the sand near Calhoun, Gerry and Still standing behind him. Calhoun had just pushed his hat from his face. “Warm here,” he said. “Tm thinkin’,” said Cavarly, “we'll take that boat and go up to Richmond. But you an’ Ben Cree there, I was thinkin’ you're some dif’ent.” “Why,” said Calhoun, looking sur- prised, “don’t you want us to go with you?” “Oh, yes, yes! Notthat atall. Glad to have you. But it might happen you’d have some idea—Course I don’ know. But you ain’t really bound ‘ “Why,” continued Calhoun, “if you’re thinking of sending Ben to his people, 90 Tommy ‘Todd’s. you'd better take him with you as far as you go. Mavbe you could see him through to Baltimore.” “Hey! that’s so,” said Cavarly cheer- fully. “An’ wha’s your point?” “Mine! Well, you see my position. What would you advise, as a friend?” Cavarly hesitated and spoke stiffly, with embarrassment. “T don’ know as I’m up to that. Ap- pears most natural to go to Richmond.” “Justso. And what point would there be in not staying by you. We go to what you call it—Redwood, to-morrow? Early ? ” “Six o’clock.” “All right.” [ sat up as the three men passed, but they hardly looked at me, and said noth- ing. Calhoun kept his hat over his face till their footsteps died away, then turned around. “Captain didn’t argue that well,” he 91 Bennie Ben Cree. remarked. “He ought to be dead sure, and he isn’t.” “Well,” I said, “he might feel sure of it when we got to Richmond, and then he’d arrest us, wouldn’t he?” “ ’ Richmond! We’re not going to Rich- mond. We’re going to light out of here to-night, ” I thought Calhoun was difficult to follow in his plans, and waited for more. ”» “Why, see here, Bennie Ben!” he said indignantly. “Here’s the old man going round looking like a suppressed wildcat and thinking I’m not on to him! That’s absurd. It don’t give me any credit. He ought to be sure we fiddled with his compass, and he ought to know I’m on to him. Must be he’s busted with his ship. Why, he’s a clever man, Bennie, but look how he’s doing! Course, if a fellow is going to do another fellow, he has to make up his mind.” 92 Tommy Todd’s. “But where are we going! Follow the pole star. You ‘y door to-night, Bennie ficure it out like z plus y. Calhoun sett! his hat over his face and seemed to give himself genuinely to nothing more till we shouting, “Hiop! Din- afternoon he fell to wan- aimlessly. I did not dare follow him, so that 1 was more than half 1 tickling curiosity, and glad ame, and I had no longer to carry about in daylight a secret that ; emenervous. If Calhoun had heard , on the point of telling Cavarly that I Tne Lt him again another time, he } ce a hoped bo see would not have thought himself so infal- lible a plotter. Mrs. Todd had learned from the men how I first fell among them—a thin a 1%. sore, he woman and not very talkative She 93 Bennie Ben Cree brought me another blanket, where I lay by the pantry door, and said: ) “Now, don’t ye mind, don’t ye mind ; which set me to swallo wing lumps in my throat suddenly. It had not occurred to me those many days to be homesick and it was a poor time to begin. She Haake my hair with dry, bony fingers, and I remembered having seen a atieiie black and white dré uwing over the mante Ipiece in the next room, of a medium-sized boy inashort jacket. It could not have been a good drawing, for he looked very flat- tened out. Isat up quic kly to stop the homesickness, and asked - “Is he your son, in the drawing?” “ He’s dead,” she answered gruffly, and then in a moment repeated quite softly - “Don’t ye mind, don’t ye mind.” ; By and by the great kitchen, or living Toom, was full of men, snoring and wheez- ing in the dark. Before the lamp was put out I saw Calhoun ina rocking-chair, 94 Tommy Todd’s. with his feet under the stove. I lay and looked at the two windows still, moonlight which glimmered with the dim outdoors, and that waiting seemed to be something endless and ghostly I did not hear Calhoun till he lay beside ior did I hear him open the pantry But me, 1 door, so softly and slowly he moved. we went through the door, and closed it. The moonlight shone in the pantry window. I remember taking things from a tin pan and putting them in my pock- ets. They were a sort of sweet, crusty biscuit. Calhoun put a piece of silver where were no more biscuits, and we slid through the window, and crept along in the shadow of the house. “Hiop!” said someone close by and crack of a window “Hol’ on The window went softly, through the next the pantry. We stopped short. up slowly, and Mr. Todd leaned out in his shirt. 95 Bennie Ben Cree. “Where you goin’ th’ “Going to cut and run, ; said Calhoun aespondently, ‘ ‘if you don’t object. If you do, we yield the point. You needn’t make a row.” Wha’ for you goin’?” ‘Captain’s down on us.” “Jemima! But I bet ms you chaps is Yanks, both of ye. : : Tell ye how I guess | ees Mrs. Todd appeared as a white outline further back in the room, and thing. “Hey?” said Mr. iia “Let ’em alone,” she whispered angrily “Hey? Wha’ for? . “You let ’em alone.” “Well,” said he » grumbling and hesitat- i) aaa : Ww " 1g, “I don’ know as there’s anythin’ in Hol’ on now” She pulled him back and closed the window softly, and said some- it for me. SO we came away from the house of Tommy Todd. 96 Vough my window 2” Tommy Todd’s. It was cold, with a thin slip of moon shivering over the sea. Westruck to the ‘ear of the house, through a great pine wood, where the trunks had been et for turpentine, and looked like rows of tombstones filing to right and left; and at the end of a mile we fell upon a fair travelled highway, leading a little west- ward of the pole star. For that night it was nothing but put- ting one foot before another, hour after hour, at first eagerly, and at the end only with the dull intent to keep it up till sunrise. At sunrise we passed over a black creek, through a bit of cypress swamp, and into a great pine wood on either side of the road. And here we left the road for a secret, sunny spot to sleep in, finding it well enough, for the wood was full of open spaces, and bot- tomed over with ridges and hollows of sand. We were too leg-weary to talk, and 97 Bennie Ben Cree. only munched biscuits, blinking and drowsing. And, when I woke again, the sun was far around and one of my ears full of sand. Now Calhoun and I fell to talking—or he talked and I grunted mostly, with the pains in me; and it came upon me that we were in no small boy’s trouble, and that, if we ever got out, I might ask peo- ple to call me aman and very likely they would. “Somebody’s after us hard just now, I take it,” said Calhoun, “unless they’re all gone steamboating. It would be a good thing to get north of the Potomac, Ben- nie Ben, and the longer we’re in Virginia the hotter it will be. For see here, now! Suppose the whole Confederacy gets to frothing at the mouth, and cavorting round like a crazy elephant, and shouting, “Who did up Cavarly? Ben Cree. Who messed his compass? Ben Cree. Where’s Ben Cree? In Virginia.’ 98 And suppose Tommy Todd’s. the Confederacy comes stamping all over Virginia after you, neglecting the -~ shameful. What! Maybe they’d ask for me, too? Why, then we get out of this. That’s our point.” I was so stiff with the night’s tramp, and lame, so tied about and shot through with queer pains, coming from exposure, that I walked but a few steps, and fell down, and could not rise for the knots in my leg-muscles. “ I’m dead lame, Calhoun,” I said with a sob. “There’s an awful pain going through me. I can’t tramp again.” He came back and lifted me, putting his arm under my shoulder and saying, “Why, you're a good man, Bennie, but we pushed hard last night,” and so helped me slowly through the wood. It is oftentimes, in cities and among comfortable folk, that one hears talk of friendship; but I notice that, in the . . een fe . . + 19 C Ola famous examples of this thing in 99 Bennie Ben Cree. times, it always lay between men who saw trouble together, and maybe the open sky at night, and knew what it was to be two alone among enemies. For the man that you have been hungry with, and weary, and frightened, and comforted is never like other men to you again. And, though I suppose men may have friend- ship for each other for pleasant compan- ionship, and that may be one kind; still, when they have walked together in nar- row ways of fortune there comes to be another bond which is quite different. So much we were thinking of this new trouble and what would come of it, that we hardly looked before us on coming to the road till someone shouted quite near; and there were a mule team, resting in the shadow, a loaded waggon, and at either end Tommy Todd and the old, bent negro, ‘Turpentine CHAPTER VI. THE DISMAL CANAL. THE waggon was loaded with barrels and bags, and plainly Mr. Todd was tak- roe ing produce to some market. The great a ° lean mules hung their heads and flopping ears near the ground. “Hiop!” said Mr. Todd. “Here you be! An’ the cap’n pie blank mad like I a teeter end hornet! Well, sirs, Pm prised Hee Calhoun went up calmly, as if he had naturally supposed Mr. Todd would be resting his mules about there. I remem- ber that Calhoun once said tome: “Ifa man expects corm for dinner and finds it’s tumips, what It de- pends on the man, eat turnips.” And in t 101 Bennie Ben Cree. of speech, he did, taking events easily, as they came to him. “Going my way!” said Calhoun, “I declare! And heré’s Bennie Cree with cramps in his legs and crimps in his chest, just waiting for you.” “Why, get aboard,” cried Mr. Todd. “Get aboard.” And presently we were riding comfort- ably, Calhoun beside Mr. Todd, and I on a bag behind that had something lumpy inside it. “Mad, was he?” said Calhoun. “So as to miss his boat?” “Not he. No, sir. But he went off rarin’ an’ tearin’ like he’d caught the Old Boy. He cer’nly did. He ac’ rippanacious. He say you two, Yanks fool him both ends, an’ he’d plough up Vaginia an’ sow grass seed but he’d get you. He did so.” “Offered a reward,did he? Say, about a hundred apiece. Course, he isn’t fool- ish. More, was it?” 102 The Dismal Canal. ” “ Jemima! How—— Mr. Todd looked startled and suspi- cious. “Left some of his men, too? Course he did. And if they catch us you don’t get the reward. That’s what’s in it for you.” “Hiop! No, that’s so.” “And where are you bound for now, Mr. Todd?” “Canal,” said Mr. Todd, seeming a little subdued. “Going to ship market stuff to Nor- folk?” “You’re a clean guesser,” grumbled Mr. Todd. “Cleanest I ever see. I was goin’ to take it there myself.” “T gee. Norfolk’s blockaded. You're going to take a boat load by the Swamp Canal. Use your own mules, maybe. Good idea.” “Jemima!” said Mr. Todd, “you're a clean guesser.” The old negro sat on a barrel, looking 108 Bennie Ben Cree &. down at me, so bent over that his solemn. wrinkled face, with its fringe of dusty grey beard, was near his knees. He gave a soft chuckle and motioned to the two men in front. “Marse Tommy, he gettin’ he min’ wukkin’. Oomm! He studyin’! Don’ git no fish ’way f’om him. No-o-o!” He began to hug his knees with pleas- ure at thinking how clever Mr. Todd was about to be; and so we were believing very earnestly, both of us, each in the greater brilliancy of his own hero. “Dey’s oodles an’ oodles 0’ folks meck out dey play kiyi wi’ Marse Tommy, an’ hit tu’n out quar. I don’ know, but hit peahs to me dey’s pow’ful misfo’tu- nate.” Turpentine shook his head and chuckled again. “Well,” said Calhoun, “ you're after that reward naturally.” “Oh!” said Mr. Todd, “ ’tain’t likely 104 The Dismal Canal. I'd get it, no, other folks bein’ smarte’n ”» me. “But suppose, being in trouble and see- ing no other way out, we thought we might as well go to Norfolk with you and take our chances. Course, we’d try to slip you there. That would be our point. And your point would be to see we didn’t.” “Jemima!” said Mr. Todd sarcasti- “Ain’t you fixin’ things pretty could get clear of you any better than we could Cavarly’s men. Likely we'd slip up either way. We take our chances. Sut how’s your point?) Why, if Cavarly’s men catch sight of us, they grab us. Course, they want the reward. Give and take’s the rule. We give you a chance at the reward, and take a chance to cut loose, sort of exchanging commodities. Now, that’s square.” 105 Bennie Ben Cree. ’ “My, my!” said Mr. Todd with bland admiration, “ain’t it the beatenest thing, the way you go on makin’ plans! § me a heap o’ trouble. Ain’t got a jack. knife to trade for a mule, have ye? Jemima!” “Well, what do you say?” “Me! I don’ say nothin’,” aves “Tha’s it!” said Turpentine softly. “He don’ say nothin’. Oomm! s 7» wukkin’. He min’ We went on now jogging steadily, rather to the west than north, and the sand ridges, that had lain along creek and creek, disappeared from the was a continuous swampy country, a wall of reeds and matted briars on either side of the road, and great, gloomy trees standing ap hanging. between landscape. It art, with mosses In breaks of the reeds there would be black pools, and creeks like ditches for the stillne ss of the water, se. cret, furtive, w ith twisted knees of cy- 106 Canal. my at ; 7 P the hanks ; press root StICKIng Ol bne Danks, and | the turt] half-sunken logs, from which the turtles ryy [he wind made plumped off solid y. he moss dripped, t he very air was wet. lways a hissing in the reeds The nd sometimes made of uncertain logs Bo” a nit nt Hean- holes road was bad, full of deep holes, which the mules tiptoed over in an expe- } rienced manner. I learned to roll about = pn ey > swung oO with the waggon. ‘Turpentine swung on his barrel like a weathervane, and seemed often to be going off into the reeds. Tt It grew dark, and the stars came out. o : } The trogs were gul 5 ping about us. Tur- pentine crawled down from his barrel grumbling, and pulled out a blanket from hetinge the seat; and I was glad to take a corer of it and be friendly, though neither of us made conversation, being fretful with the cold and damp So we went on many hours, all for the most part silently, and at last— but how late I do not know—drew up beside a 107 Bennie Ben Cree. house. Two or three other buildines were near, standing blackly in the night. There was a huge negro with a lantern, and a white man, lean and tall, who said, “Howdy, Tommy.” And after that J lay down somewhere on a corn-husk mattress, fever and aches for company, not thinking where we might be, or know- ing till morning that we were come to the great canal. I sat up in the dim morning, and looked about. It wasa small, low room. (Cal- houn lay on a mattress against the d Oor. It struck me with wonder and some shame, how careful he was, how watchful of little things. Yet for this matter, it [r. Todd had wished to make us prisoners there, he would have had no need to surprise us in the night. seemed to me, if \ Presently there were noises outside, and, when Calhoun woke, we rose and opened the door, which led into a kind of 108 tchen where a young woman In a neat apron was cooking. Outdoors we found Turpentine and the black giant I had seen the night before unloading the wag- von into a canal boat, somewhat small, perhaps forty feet long. For the broad canal ran close to the house, with a wet, slippery tow path beside it. Mr. Todd was down in the hold of the boat, which seemed well laden, and, as I judged, for the most part, with garden stuff, fish in barrels, and vegetables in bags. But the middle of it was free for living in. I made out, by peering in, a pile of corn husks and straw for sleeping, and a stove with the pipe wired along, to take the smoke to where it could float up freely through the scuttle. The scuttle door was lifted back on hinges, and a padlock hung from it. A ladder ran down inside. | fast, where the woman with the apron sat at the head of the table, and Calhoun talked with the lean man 109 Bennie Ben Cree. and Mr. Todd, we went back to the boat and found one of the mules at the tow rope, and the other aboard, tied forward Mr. Todd took the helm. Turpentine started the tow mule, shouting pe nike. ‘Gong now! You hyah me! J 4 : ; rm you toot. ine young woman waved her 1: Siln F a. +] . apron from the door. But this seemed ee #hh¢ } ke 2 surprising, that the big negro, Gamp did es id n ( ‘ x} ¥ 1 > 177 ye e did not go ashore but sat with his feet 44] > scuttle, and his bulk of ‘- ‘ : shoulders slouched forward. He seemed ready to go to sle ep in the sun. Calhoun looked at him a moment then oR . > L at Mr. Todd, and : alterwards went fore where he leaned against the rail whistling to himself. é Gamp showed that Mr. Todd had y been working his mind. Calhoun 1 I had no purpose to escape while in the Swamp, where we would be lost for- ever likely in its jungles and black gulfs / 1 . a 4 a nA But Mr. Todd might think us desperate 110 The Dismal Canal. to that extent, and cause us to be tied up below by the monstrous black man, big enough to throttle an ox, and silent, and savage-eyed. For though I was stout for my age, and Calhoun a sinewy, enduring man, and both of us ready to fight, yet we could clearly do nothing with Gamp. Old Turpentine might count for little, but Mr. Todd seemed stronger, heavier than either of us. I went forward to Calhoun, and he was not cheerful, though it seemed to be not the prospect which troubled him so much, but that he suspected himself of a mis- take. “That man, Todd, Bennie,” he said, “I figured him wrong. I didn’t put him high enough. He’s cornered me.” “Why doesn’t he make sure of us now? “ “Maybe he’d rather keep things agree- able while he can. That’s good sense. Why, he’s figuring right. He’s a better man than Cavarly. Why, look here! 111 Bennie Ben Cree. We can’t light out intothisswamp. The nigger’d corral us in ten minutes.” Calhoun fell again into gloomy silence, staring at the wild, tangled, and hopeless jungle that slipped slowly past us. Old Turpentine was plodding ahead behind his mule, and even the hump of his stolid shoulders was discouraging. “Folks meck out dey play Yvi wi? Marse Tommy. Peahs to me dey pow’- ful misfo’tunate.” [had grown almost to think Calhoun infallible with his courage and wits. It went hard with us both to have him beaten by that farmer and seine-fisher, with two negroes. It was Calhoun’s pride—a weakness, if one chooses, at least what gave him most delight—to look at life and ev sry experience as a kind of game, which he played to win, measuring himself with other men. “T’ve pulled you into it, Bennie,” he J ; » he said slowly. “I shouldn’t have done it, 112 The Dismal Canal. Cavarly’d have seen you out, if I’d let you alone to begin with.” “That’s not square,” I said half angrily. “Why?” “Don’t we go together? Anyhow I want my share. Why, Calhoun, I say— I don’t like that talk. Isay, you're all right with me, and I won’t have it.” Calhoun looked at me curiously and sald: “Shake, Bennie.” We shook hands secretly below the rail. But nothing of importance came that day. We crawled through the same black water, past the same wet, tangled growth and towering dark trees, with sometimes a shift of mules, and some- times Turpentine at the helm and big Gamp on the tow path Calhoun and I went below before dark, with the hope of quieting Mr. Todd’s mind, supposing him to be uneasy; and later, when the boat was fastened and the 113 Bennie Ben Cree. mule brought aboard, we all ate together, though saying little. Big Gamp took down the ladder and slept with his head on it. More threatening still it was that Mr. Todd lay with a shot gun across his knees, an odd-looking weapon, with a great lump of a hammer. So that I lay long awake, watching the dim red glim- mer of the lantern, and listening to the hoarse breathing of the great negro. But my “crimps and cramps” were mainly gone. ‘ The night passed quietly, and so too the following morning. Mr. Todd car- ried his shot gun about, and said nothing. By afternoon we were out of the wilder- ness of swamp, for there were open fields in sight, and we passed under a bridge, and saw small shanties, and little picka- ninnies fishing and playing about the tow path. And though the mouths of cannon were hot that day a few miles to the north, it was peaceful on the old canal 114 ae alge! ri The Dismal Canal. boat, or appeared so. The water rippled the tow rope sagged, and we lay about in the sun and were silent. In this way the time of action came the jump upon us, out of the quiet and waiting The sun was just set; the canal boat hac stopped ; the tow mule was nibbling grass by the path. Mr. Todd stepped forward, gun in hand, and Gamp behind him: “T reckon we'll go below.’ And Calhoun said, referring to Gamp and the gun: ‘It appears to be about as you say.” Below Turpentine had taken the top off the little stove and was frying some- thing on the coals. Gamp shuffled into a corner, and came out with his fists full of rope, of the size of lanyards or clothes- line, and his fists looked like quarters of beef or the ends of battering rams. “Now, I’m puttin’ it to ye,” said Mr. 115 Bennie Ben Cree. Todd, “ain’t I treated ye reasonable? But a man’s got to be precautious, ain’t | he? Jemima! Such slippery chaps as you’s not goin’ to follow me into Norfolk same as trained pups.” » “Your argument,” said Calhoun, stand- ing up straight and slim, “is fine, sir t “= > 6 > fine.” My, my!” said Mr. Todd soothingly. aa. _ 7 ? , in” : An : see you an mes goln to agree, Business, jus’ business. Gamp!” Gamp shuffled up to Calhoun, and Mr. Todd turned tome. But now, so swift an impulse came over me to fight, to run, ci 4 1 . nl ¢ a : to leap into the midst of things, that it seemed like a flash and burst, an explo- : age ae ‘ ' sion within me; and I crouched, dodged eu Pe ee: eee : * Mr. Todd, and ran blind-headlong into old Turpentine. We fell together against o o " ’ the stove, sending it flying along the floor, with a crash of pipe and scatter of coals and burning wood all over the corn husks and straw. I jumped for the 116 The Dismal Canal. ladder. The straw and husks blazed up behind me. Mr. Todd dropped his gun and ran into the midst of the flame and smoke, stamping and shouting. From the top of the ladder I saw big Gamp dragging Calhoun by the collar, as if he weighed no more than an old coat, dragging him over the gun on the floor. Calhoun’s hand touched the gun, and gripped it. How he twisted his feet under him I could not guess. It was something too limber and swift to follow. It seemed one movement to stand up, to swing the old gun two-handed with a crash on big Gamp’s head, who dropped in a heap. The gun snapped, the butt spun across the floor, and Calhoun came up the ladder with the barrel. I caught but a glimpse from the deck into the smoky red pit below, saw Mr. Todd stamping, saw big Gamp rising, with horrible, glaring eyes and dripping mouth, heard him roar like a bull from Bennie Ben Cree. the bottom of his throat. Turpentine sat up on the floor, rubbing his scalp: “ An’ mah name’s Tuppentine.” Then Calhoun slammed down the scuttle and slipped the padlock. We jumped for the shore and ran. There were woods beyond the tow path but a short distance, and no house was in sight. “They’ll burn!” TI cried, as we reached the woods. “Burn!” said Calhoun. “The nigger’ ]] smash the scuttle with his finger. Rus es I looked over my shoulder, and half saw the great black head and shoulders heave up through the splintered scuttle. We ran on through the open woods, circling towards the north. It was grow- ing dusky, and, when we came to the open fields, it was dark enough for lights to be burning in a distant cluster of cabins. Then we found a railroad track running east and west. 118 The Dismal Canal. “They'll hunt us this way!” I said gasping, and Calhoun: “The other side the canal!” We ran westward along the track to a trestle-bridge over the canal, on which we crawled hands and knees, seeing stars reflected in the dark water, and beyond came at last upon a road that seemed to lead as we wished, under the pole star, northward, where should lie the blockad- ing ships. CHAPTER VII. WE COME TO A RIVER CALLED ELIZABETH, AND TO ANOTHER CALLED JAMES— CONCLUSION. WE left the railroad behind us and took that northern highway. It was still early in. the night when we passed a big plantation. There was a white house back from the road, with pillars and lighted windows. We had slipped aside, hearing the sound of a galloping horse. It came up swiftly from the south, a white horse or light grey, and the rider turned him in at the wide gate into the shadows of the driveway. Then the front door went open: there were women’s voices, and the cries of laughter of chil- dren; the man ran up the steps, and the light from the hall shone on his grey 120 A River Called James. uniform and braided hat; the door closed, and we plodded on in the dark. Beyond were cabins scattered in the fields, and presently a wood, and a little peak-roofed building close by the road, lighted and noisy with singing; and we slipped aside again, avoiding the light. It was a negro service. We could see the crowded black heads through the windows, and even hear the words of the hymn, following a queer, plaintive tune. The preacher on the platform shouted and swung his arms: “Oh, don’ you heah the trumpet blow? Lulah! Lulah! Don’ you heah the trumpet blow? All the mountains fall.” “Notheh!” cried the preacher. “Thank God foh’ notheh! Don’ drap ’im!” ‘Someone meet me in the dark— Lulah! Lulah! Someone meet me in the dark, Lif’ me when I fall.’ 121 Bennie Ben Cree. And we plodded on “in the dark.” The wood gave way to open flat fields, and glimmering sky, where the Dipper hung, with its pointers signaling the pole star. “Looks like we’re most out of it, Ben- nie,” said Calhoun; “but you can’t tell. I’m not figuring so much as I was.” “Why not?” “Well, it’s this way. Why, look at it! I figured the ‘thing out, but it was you that flopped the ship around, and nothing in it but trouble for you. You had no use for it. And what made the old lady pull Tommy Todd off us? Not me. I didn’t count on her at all. Then I figured us into the hold of Tommy Todd’s canal boat in a bad way, and it was you bumped heads with Turpentine and fired Tommy Todd’s bedding, sort of off-hand-how-d’ye- do; and I’d been figuring all day, like z plus y. Shucks! Flipacent. Hear those niggers singing?” 122 A River Called “What did it mean, ‘Meet m« dark, Lift me when I fall,’ “Don’t know. Means you might quit figuring. It’s too dark, this world, toc dark.” I said, “That other man get home,” and Calhoun was silent. seemed to be low in hi It was a half-hour later that we heard again the galloping of a horse behind us. It came up and passed » we hid; it was the white horse or light grey; but if the rider had seen us and wished to see more, he misjudged his distance badly He stopped far beyond, rode through the 3 to the fence and looked over; to and fro, peering about him, I suppose, for the light was not enough to be sure. But we heard the trampling of his horse too clearly, and he came as near as fifty feet; finally he turned into the road and went northward at a gallop. Vv 1 «l 1 all all along € Saw no one any more, an 123 Bennie Ben Cree. the way the cabins and dwelling-houses were dark. It might have been three o’clock when we came upon a broad river or inlet, which the road followed closely from there on, circling around to the east along a bushy and swampy shore. Houses were frequent, piers running into the river, rowboats drawn among the reeds, sailboats anchored, piles of oyster shells, and the smell of the oyster trade every- where. Calhoun thought the river should be the west branch of the Elizabeth Riv- er, and that Portsmouth and Norfolk should lie to the east a few miles. At last the opposite shore was quite lost, 2 1 I for we were come to the open tideway of the Elizabeth River, and there, some- where across the water and through the dimness, lay the James and the northern ships. The morning was breaking now, with a thick mist on the river. Between the road and shore was a broad space of reeds 124 A River Called James. and thick tangled undergrowth. A path led through it from the pier where the boats lay, and across the road to a large house, rather new and flimsy-looking, with long piazzas, and a sign, which I have heard read at that time, “Smith’s Hotel,” but we did not go near enough to read it. We went down the path to the boats, and thought out which to take when the time came, and found the place where the oars were thrust among the reeds, for a poor attempt to hide them, if that were meant. One of the boats was covered on the bottom with oysters in their knotted shells. We were glad enough of that, and carried maybe half a bushel into the thicket, and fell to breakfasting on them, feeling more cheerful, though raw oysters in a damp thicket of a misty moming are no luxury. I woke from a sleep, that I thought had been short and surely was uncomfort- 125 Bennie Ben Cree. able, to hear a voice shouting from the path to someone down by the pier. “Hey, landlo’d!” it said. “Can I put up a bill on your post?” and I thought it was familiar, but could not place it. Calhoun was motioning me to lie still. The steps of several men crunched the sand on the beach, and the speaker went to meet them. ie “landlo’d” seemed to be deaf, and spoke very loudly him- self. “Wha’d yousay? What you got there?” They probably stood in a group at the end of the path, and the first speaker read his “bill” aloud, the others perhaps read- ing too, for I caught only certain words: ‘Reward—forty years—slim, lively—boy —well grown—Redwood, South Ca’lina” ; and then it came upon me that he was reading a placard and description of Cal- houn and me, and that himself was no other than Gerry, the steersman. That was unpleasant, but I wished he would 126 A River Called James. read the description more clearly and read it all. “Well, now,” said the landlord, “ tha’s a circumstance, ain’t it?” He seemed to be appealing to the oth- ers about him, for there was a murmur which amounted to agreement that it was a circumstance. “Why, I’m reckonin’ you're near the right track. Eh? Why, Major Sandfo’d—You know him?” NT No.” “Eh? Where'd you come from ? Major Sandfo’d, Sandfo’d Plantation. He rode th’ough here las ‘night; said your men came up by the canal an’ got loose below his place somewhere an’ mos’ bu’nt up the canal boat. Eh? He said he thought he saw someone on the road, but mought a’ been wrong, ’cause he met his niggers comin’ f’om their meetin’, an’ they tol’ him nobody had passed. Nig- gers mought lie. Eh? But he didn’ find em, if he saw em. But they came oO” as Bennie Ben Cree. by the canal. Major said so. Don’ you know him?” They all went up the path together making various comments, but the last [heard of Gerry’s voice was when he said: “Fetches us inside ten miles, don’ it? > - Might a took the fork to Po’tsmouth. But you better watch your boats, landlo’d.” Someone else said: “Hot work down the river,” meaning the cannonading. The cannonading kept up its beat and thrill all through the afternoon. It was the 8th of March. We did not know anything peculiar about the 8th of March There was an iron-sided thing careering around the James River the while, and eating up tall ships, and feeling much too comfortable over it. We were thinking about Gerry, and the landlord, and the boats. Towards dusk someone came stamping and puffing in the bushes, and we made 128 A River Called James. out that he was come to hide the oars back among the brakes and leaves. We argued it must be the landlord, who seemed to be fat and short of wind, as well as deaf. We waited again a long time. Cal- houn rose once and peered about, but lay down again and said there was still a light at the hotel. At last everything was dark and silent, so far as we could make out. We crept along till we found the oars, thrust here and there among the brakes, and took four of them, and so out into the starlight on the beach. I stepped into a boat, and Calhoun shoved the prow. But we had surely made a noise—some unnoticed clatter of oars—for the feet of men were coming now, thumping and stamping down the path Calhoun shoved and leaped in, and we shot out over the shallow. But one of the men ran across the strip of beach into the 129 Bennie Ben Cree. water and caught the prow; and Calhoun thrust with his oar handle, so that he fell over and made a splash; and we got the oars in and rowed away. They were the landlord and two other men. The two others fell to shouting in the landlord’s ear, “Oars! oars!” and all three ran into the bushes. We had gotten away so far that the shore was too dim to see, but I thought they had given up. Calhoun listened and heard their oar- locks. So we fell to, and pulled till my ears sang and my arms felt wooden, north by west, down the river, which was there broad like a bay; and we kept this pace some two miles, and were near the island they call Craney Island, where were Con- federate batteries. They were good watermen. They out- rowed us fairly, drew nearer and nearer till I could see that there were two in the stern with an oar apiece, and the third man pulling two oars. 180 f A River Called James. said Calhoun. “They’ve got no guns, “They'd have drawn on us.’ I sat 1 only gasped and grunted for an- swer. Calhoun stopped rowing. “Will you fight, Bennie?” There was almost a laugh in his voice as if he were happy, like a little boy thinking of a fine new game. And somehow I was glad too, and cried, “Yes!” feeling I would rather fight the Confederate batteries than pull through another half-hour so desperately. “Tur out in the river then. Let’s have room.” And so, when they caught us, we were near the middle of the river and far away from either shore. “Hoi!” said the one in the prow “Ye would, would ye He leaned over to catch the stern of our boat. I stood up and swung my oar behind. “Go easy, sonny,” said one of those in 13] Bennie Ben Cree. the stern. “You're wo’th money, wo’th money. Look out there!” I brought the oar down with a fiat slap on the first man’s head, who pitched into the water, hitting our boat with his shoulder. And Calhoun pulled hard and sudden, so that I fell forward across my oar, and scrambled up very bewildered. The other boat had swung around with the shove of the man who went over, for he came up away from it. Either he could not swim or had lost his head with the blow, for he cried out and sank again; and one from the stern, but not the landlord, dove in, while the landlord howled words at us that had no sense except to express anger, which they did very well. We pulled away. I seemed to make out from the sounds that they were lift- ing the half-drowned man aboard, but we saw; no more of them. Someone on Craney Island fired his gun off. It 490 Low A River Called James. sounded very sharp and near. There was a light-boat ahead, marking the channel, and someone there who shouted ; but we turned aside, and went far over to the right till we touched the reeds along the eastern shore, and so came out into the James. ‘here followed a silent, dogged, weary space of time—of rowing and resting, and rowing again—dark wate: slapping the boat sides, and the same thing on and on. The moon rose late, and when there should have been dawn, came a mist in- stead, which was worse than the night, for now we might row past the ships and not see them, whereas in the dark we should have seen the lights. We came suddenly close to a tall ship: the watch heard us first, and called “Ahoy!” a voice dropping down from overhead in the white mist. “Ts this the Saratoga ?” 133 Bennie Ben Cree. A lantern came down on a rope and , stopped over us, and heads were thrust out over the rail. They seemed to be satisfied we were not dangerous; I think we did not look so, only two men ina small rowboat, with faces white and weary, who spoke in thin voices. I thought my voice sounded queer and dreary. “Ts this the Saratoga ?” “Who are you?” ‘Escaped from the south.” “Vou don’t say!” The heads con- sulted. “Ts this the Saratoga ?” “What? The Saratoga lies two hun- dred yards astern of us.” “Captain Benson?” “What? Aye, Cap’n Benson.” Lanterns traveled and gathered to the stern of the ship to watch us move away. They looked like a cluster of dim stars in the mist. 134 A River Called James. “Ahoy!” the voice cried after us, and we stopped rowing. “Are you Ben Cree?” + Coe “Well, Ill be dished!” And here is evidently where this story ends, since it is not a biography; for a story should know its own right begin- ning and end, just as a biography should not maunder over neighboring generations. The rest is only coming aboard the Sara- toga—where I had a dim, weary notion of familiar faces, and went to sleep ina bunk, and woke to see Uncle Benson standing over me, very prim and natty. “Well, Bennie!” he said, “it seems to me you’ve been out pretty late nights.” And I had slept near a dozen hours, while the VT Monitor and the Merrimac were rubbing the muzzles of their cannon together, in plain sight from the Sara- toga’s deck, making a mess of naval war- fare. 135 Bennie Ben Cree. Calhoun afterwards went off and en- listed, and fell in some Western fighting. Cavarly I have seen since, indeed not so long ago, and shaken hands with quite friendly, and Ben Cree has worn a cap- tain’s title these years and has wondered whether he ever deserved it. For while a man is in the thick of his life he speculates little; he fights, he stays quiet, he runs, as seems best to his sense and suited to his feelings or the way he has been trained; he has few opinions on the subject, and those only fitting each event. Everything about him seems at that time but a stage, where he plays his part hastily and quite absorbed. But afterwards he would like to think he has played his part well, and he hardly knows. Sometimes there is a bit of handclapping here and there, but the Author and Master of the play says nothing till it is all over and the curtain has fallen. 136 A River Called James. “Some folks,” Calhoun used to say, “want to know everything before they’ve done anything. Why, Bennie, you don’t know two and two make four till you’ve put ‘em together. Why? Because they don’t make four till you’ve put ’em to- gether.” “But you know they will make four,” I would answer for the argument. “Well,” he would say, “I’ve known a two and two that was as good as a dozen. And I’ve known another two and two that was worse than nothing.” That was an odd man whom I never understood. 3ut_ I think if I were to choose one man to go with into the wilderness, it would be Calhoun and no other: and I suppose that is one kind of friendship, as the old poets declare. For the matter of knowing and doing, it is good arithmetic for a man to know how to put two and two together so as to make whatever he 137 Bennie Ben Cree. needs. That is Ben Cree’s saying, the sense of which he learned from one Sabre Calhoun, when they lay out nights on sand or in undergrowth and watched the pole star hopefully.