, and stimulated by the
hope of saving his own life, at last began to yield. Peter raised
himself, leaned upon his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying
quietly, "Die like a man," and instantly lay down again. It was enough;
not another word was extorted.

One of the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack
Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack,--Gullah signifying Angola, the
place of his origin. A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in
his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this
side the Atlantic. For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense
influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had the
reputation of being invulnerable, and of teaching invulnerability as
an art, he was very good at beating up recruits for insurrection. Over
those of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made
them join in the revolt as one man. They met him monthly at a place
called Bulkley's Farm, selected because the black overseer on that
plantation was one of the initiated, and because the farm was accessible
by water, thus enabling them to elude the patrol. There they prepared
cartridges and pikes, and had primitive banquets, which assumed a
melodramatic character under the inspiriting guidance of Jack. If a fowl
was privately roasted, that mystic individual muttered incantations over
it, and then they all grasped at it, exclaiming, "Thus we pull Buckra
to pieces!" He gave them parched corn and ground-nuts to be eaten as
internal safeguards on the day before the outbreak, and a consecrated
_cullah_, or crab's claw, to be carried in the mouth by each, as an
amulet. These rather questionable means secured him a power which was
very unquestionable; the witnesses examined in his presence all showed
dread of his conjurations, and referred to him indirectly, with a kind
of awe, as "the little man who can't be shot."

When Gullah Jack was otherwise engaged, there seems to have been a sort
of deputy seer employed in the enterprise, a blind man named Philip. He
was a preacher, was said to have been born with a caul on his head, and
so claimed the gift of second-sight. Timid adherents were brought to his
house for ghostly counsel. "Why do you look so timorous?" he said to
William Garner, and then quoted Scripture, "Let not your hearts be
troubled." That a blind man should know how he _looked_ was beyond the
philosophy of the visitor, and this piece of rat