Chapter XIX: The Fear

Carolina had not been a week among her kinsmen before they began to warn her of the terror of the South. They definitely forbade her ever riding alone, except in broad daylight along the public highway, and even then some white man of her acquaintance generally made it his business to be called in whatever direction she happened to be going.

All this Carolina saw and felt and appreciated, but with the natural fearlessness of her character and the total want of comprehension which women seem to feel who have never come into contact with this universal dread of all Southern States, Carolina often forgot her warnings, and tempted opportunity by striking off the highway into the pine woods to inspect her turpentine camps.

Once Moultrie La Grange found her unaccompanied by any white man, talking to a burly negro in a camp, and when he had taken her away and they had gained the road where she could see distinctly, she found him white and shaking. Knowing his physical courage, this exhibition of fear startled her, and for a few weeks she was more cautious.

Then one afternoon she mounted Scintilla and rode into Enterprise for the mail. She received the letter from Kate which has just been quoted and read it as she rode along. It contained so much food for thought that Carolina forgot everything else, until, looking up, she found that she was just opposite the new terrapin crawl she was having prepared under Moultrie's direction. Without thinking, she struck into the woods and threaded her way among the giant pine-trees toward the coast.

It was virgin forest and on her own land, a tract she intended leasing to some orchard turpentine factors in Jacksonville. It was twilight in the forest, but Carolina rode forward fearlessly, glancing sharply at the trees for signs of their having been boxed by thieving negroes.

Suddenly she saw a boxed tree, and, springing down, she drew Scintilla's bridle over her arm and stooped to examine the suspected tree. As she was bending down, Scintilla jerked her head, and the bridle slipped from Carolina's arm. She sprang to her feet, but, with a nicker of delight, the handsome horse kicked up her heels and pranced away from her, looking for all the world like a child ready for a romp.

So free from fear she was that Carolina laughed aloud, but the laugh froze on her lips, for, without turning her head, she could see, crouching down and creeping toward her, the huge form of a negro man, whose half-open mouth and half-closed eyes, as he stole noiselessly closer and closer, instantly told her of her dire peril.

The girl's whole body became rigid with terror,--a terror so intense and so unspeakable that she realized how it was that women can go mad from the effect of it. In a moment, every warning, every hint, every word that she had heard on the subject flashed through her brain with lightning quickness. An intense silence reigned in the forest, broken only by Scintilla's cropping a stray tuft of spring grass and the footsteps of the black creeping nearer to his white prey.

Carolina never thought of screaming. No white man was within a mile of her. Oh, for Moultrie,--Moultrie, who had saved her once before! A sick feeling came over her--things began to swim before her eyes--she swayed--and at the sight of her weakness the negro stood upright.

He was no longer a crawling horror. He was a man, and her God was at hand!

The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!" "God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes,--one blue and one black--where had she heard of such eyes--where had she seen this very man?

"'Polyte!" she cried.

Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the man.

"'Polyte, do you know who you are? You are the son of my father's nurse! Your mother was my father's black mammy!"

The assurance, even the confidence, left the man's manner. His shoulders drooped perceptibly. He took a backward step. Surely she did not know what he was or she would not speak to him except to scream for help.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yas, missis."

"You don't know how you frightened me, until I saw who you were. Then I knew that you would catch Scintilla for me. Mr. Moultrie has told me what a way you have with animals."

In an instant the man was her servant, the son of her grandfather's slave. His fear of detection and punishment left him, and he was quick enough to know that her supposed ignorance of his intentions had saved him from a horrible death. He was a bad negro partly because he was so intelligent.

"I'll git her for you. Jes' watch me!"

He turned eagerly toward the horse and snapped his fingers. Scintilla raised her head and began to step gingerly toward the man. 'Polyte's power over animals may have been hypnotism, but to Carolina it was like magic to see Scintilla's bridle in 'Polyte's hand. The man proudly led the mare to her.

"Help me to mount," said Carolina, her shaking knees threatening every minute to give way beneath her. "No, hold your hand, and when I put my foot in it, you lift me. There!"

Once on her horse's back, Carolina felt her heart begin to beat with less noise. It seemed as if he could see how it pounded against her side.

"'Polyte," she said, "you are what people call a bad man. You have been bleeding my trees, and I don't know what all. Why don't you behave?"

The man kicked at a tuft of moss.

"Nobody won't hire me, Miss Calline. Ise done been in de chain-gang too often. Nobody won' trus' me!"

"Well, if I will trust you, for the sake of your dead mother, will you be good and faithful to me?"

The man's face lighted up. He took a step toward her.

"Will I? Miss Calline, on'y jes' try me! I kin do anyt'in'!"

"I believe you. Well, I'm going to try you. I want you to be my--well, my body-servant. To go everywhere I go and take care of me--so--I--won't--be--frightened--again. Will you?"

The man's eyes wavered in momentary terror. But he kept his head.

"On'y jes' try me!"

"I'm going to. But you must have a horse to ride. Look out for a good one, and one for me, too. You must get me, 'Polyte, the best saddle-horse in South Carolina!"

"Yas'm. I'll do my bes'. I kin git you a hawse."

"I'll pay you good wages, 'Polyte. But you mustn't drink. If a lady hires you, you can never get drunk, you know."

"I'll tek de pledge."

"Take any pledge that you can keep," said Carolina. She gathered up the reins and turned her horse. The man took a step nearer.

"Well, 'Polyte?"

"Miss Calline--"

"Well?"

"Nobody ain't ever trusted me befo'!"

"Well?"

"Not even my ole mammy. She voodooed me. She said I brought her bad luck, an' everybody tuk up de bad word agin me--"

"Well?"

"Even when I was a child, dey laid ever'thin' awn to me."

"I know."

"Well, you say ''Polyte, I trus' you. You tek care ob me.'"

"Yes, that is what I say."

"Well, Miss Calline, _you gwine be teken cah ob_!"

"I am sure of it. Good-bye, 'Polyte."

As she rode away, Carolina's shoulders drooped until she seemed fairly to shrink in her saddle.

"If he had touched me--oh, my God!--if he had touched me, I would have killed myself!"

She bowed her face in her hands, and the bitter tears streamed through her fingers.

She strove to think--to quiet herself--no one must know. Suddenly she heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind her. She dashed away her tears and straightened herself in her saddle. If any white man suspected the cause of her agitation, a human life--the life of some black man--would pay the forfeit. 'Polyte's life was in her keeping. She began to think of him as her property,--a human soul given into her power until it could be saved through her ministrations. God help him to have got away! God protect him! Black or white, he was God's child! The tear-stained face of a white woman,--a woman riding alone?

Scintilla had never felt a spur before in her life. Carolina knew it by her snort of fright and surprise. But she needed her best speed to draw away from the avenging white man on her track.

In her stall that night, Scintilla knew that there was a sharp-toothed animal which had bitten her twice in one short ride. She had tried to run away from it, but it was fastened to a woman's heel.