Zina: the Slave Girl; or, Which the Traitor? A Drama in Four Acts

SCENE 1.—_Streets of Mobile._ D’ARNEAUX discovered looking over some papers R. Enter ZINA L, carrying a heavy carpet-bag. D’A. recognizes her.

D’ARNEAUX. Ah! your master and myself seem to be of one mind today. I did not see you on the train. When do you return?

ZINA. When master has drank enough and played his money away.

D’A. Zina, you have been weeping. Some more abuse?

ZINA. Oh, please don’t ask me anything, master.

D’A. Zina, do you like your master?

ZINA. Please don’t ask me to say.

D’A. Now, my little one, do you think you would be happier if you should come to live at our cottage?

ZINA. Oh, I should be so glad, Master D’Arneaux; but I can not think of that, it is so impossible!

D’A. My mother seems so happy when you come over to sing to her.

ZINA. I pity her so much; she is so helpless and lonely since Nelly died.

D’A. Zina, you could be a daughter to my mother.

ZINA. She seems to stop mourning for Nelly when I sing to her, and her face lights up with the old smile as it used to do, when I used to come over to learn to read and sing.

D’A. If I should buy you off your master, how would you like it?

ZINA. Oh, please, Master D’Arneaux, don’t give me a hope like that! When disappointment comes it makes me feel so bad.

D’A. Now, why would you be glad to come with us?

ZINA. You have been so kind to me. Oh, if you will buy me, I will work so hard for you!

D’A. Are you not happy in your old home?

ZINA (looking about). Please don’t tell master! but I get so tired—My life is so hopeless, and the driver beats me so hard—

D’A. Why do they do that? I always see you at work.

ZINA. Because I hid in the swamp when he was trying to sell me to some brutal traders from the coast. Oh, please buy me, Master D’Arneaux! I will work for you day and night and eat the poor food after the other hands.

D’A. But you have seemed to be so much attached to your master, I had hardly dared to broach the matter of adding your pretty face and good heart to the family of my mother.

ZINA. Oh, please do not say what I tell you! they would whip me so. I force myself to appear happy and contented, to please master. He is so cross when he finds me crying. Oh, he drinks so much! You will not tell him what I have said? (Falls on her knees, sobbing.) I am so fearful of a worse fate than that.

D’A. Have they dared to insult you while you are but a child?

ZINA. Oh, please buy me, Master D’Arneaux, I am so miserable now.

D’A. Zina, your honor is more sacred than your life, and you have the right to defend it to the death, even against your master (handing stiletto). Take this knife and kill the miscreant who would insult you.

ZINA (kissing and hugging it to her bosom). Oh, I am so helpless alone with them.

D’A. Zina, you were not born to be a slave. God has not put the stamp of that race in your angel face. Your brain is sharper than your master’s. Think! at fourteen you read as well as the best at the plantation. In music you are a prodigy.

ZINA. Oh, Master D’Arneaux, you are always so kind to me. Heaven is good to your help when it gives so good a master.

D’A. It is Heaven, too, that gives you so much of sympathy and goddness.

ZINA. I have thought I was so bad, Master D’Arneaux.

D’A. Why did you think that, my little one?

ZINA. The driver says, only the wicked are unhappy. Oh, it is so hard for me to be good.

D’A. You make a very grave mistake, Zina. The best people that have lived have been full of tears.

ZINA. I feel so much better when I can cry.

D’A. So did you cry when our Nelly died, yet you had done no wrong.

ZINA (hesitatingly). She was such a sister to me, when I was only a miserable slave. She learned me to sing and your mother learned me to read—

D’A. And you have repaid my poor, helpless old mother with so many beautiful songs—

ZINA. How else can I pay her for all that makes sunshine for my miserable life?

D’A. Zina, you are a noble girl. Too good and pure for labor among the coarse field hands. Heaven never made you for this. Your brain and voice came from Him who gives such gifts for a nobler purpose. To scatter happiness as He scatters beautiful wild flowers in the uninviting nooks of the earth.