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That left the most formidable challenge, the Guendalos plantation, which belonged to Adele Allston’s son, Benjamin, whose service in the Confederate Army had kept him away from home during most of the war. With no whites present, the slaves had been reportedly “turbulent and excited.” As they neared the plantation, the two Allston women had only to look around them to confirm their worst fears. The former slaves lined the road on both sides, a mood of defiance clearly reflected in their “angry, sullen black faces.” What a contrast, Elizabeth thought, between their present demeanor and “the pleasant smile and courtesy or bow to which we were accustomed.” Instead of the usual warm welcome, only an “ominous silence” prevailed. As the carriage passed the blacks, they formed a line behind it and followed it into the plantation.

Stopping in front of the barn, the two women found themselves suddenly surrounded by several hundred blacks. The mistress stepped down from the carriage and asked to see Uncle Jacob, the former black driver who had been left in charge of Guendalos during the war. After he showed her the rice and corn barns, she complimented him on the condition of the stored crops. But when Adele Allston then demanded the keys, the driver refused to give them up unless ordered to do so by a Federal officer. After reading the written order which Mrs. Allston had procured, however, he finally relented and slowly drew the keys from his pocket. Before he could hand them over, a young black man who had been standing nearby shook his fist at the driver and warned him, “Ef yu gie up de key, blood’ll flow.” The crowd immediately shouted its agreement until it became “a deafening clamor.” The driver thought it best to pocket the keys, while the blacks, now “yelling, talking, gesticulating,” pressed closer around the two women, leaving them virtually no standing room. Finally, the mistress ordered her carriage driver to bring her son, Charles, to the place. At the same time, the blacks decided to send for the nearest Union officer. Before leaving, however, the black envoys admonished the crowd, “Don’t let no white man een dat gate,” and the remaining blacks responded, “No, no, we won’t let no white pusson een, we’ll chop um down wid hoe—we’ll chop um to pieces sho’.” Adding emphasis to their threat, some of them held up their sharp and gleaming rice-field hoes, while others brandished pitchforks, hickory sticks, and guns.

With no white person within five miles, the Allstons waited. While strolling about the plantation, they found themselves again surrounded by a shouting “mob of men, women, and children,” some of them dancing, some singing. To the two white women, the scene took on an eerie and unreal dimension.

They sang sometimes in unison, sometimes in parts, strange words which we did not understand, followed by a much-repeated chorus:

“I free, I free!

I free as a frog!

I free till I fool!

Glory Alleluia!”

They revolved around us, holding out their skirts and dancing—now with slow, swinging movements, now with rapid jig-motions, but always with weird chant and wild gestures.

The Allston carriage driver returned alone, unable to locate the mistress’s son. “It was a great relief to me,” Elizabeth recalled, “for though I have been often laughed at for the opinion, I hold that there is a certain kind of chivalry in the negroes—they wanted blood, they wanted to kill some one, but they couldn’t make up their minds to kill two defenseless ladies; but if Charley had been found and brought, I firmly believe it would have kindled the flame.” Now determined to wait for the Union Army officers, the two women tried to ignore the “blasphemous mutterings and threats” they heard around them as they paced the plantation grounds. Finally, word reached the plantation that the officers could not be located but that the driver and one other black (perhaps to look after him) had gone to Georgetown to seek assistance.

Exhausted by the long ordeal, the two Allston women slept that night in their nearby Plantersville home,