The laws of the Christian State of Mississippi
inflict the punishment of death upon the slave who lifts his or her
hand against a white person. Pauline was accused of beating her
mistress,--tried, found guilty, and condemned to die! But it was
discovered on the trial that she was in a condition to become a mother,
and her execution was delayed until the birth of the child. She was
conveyed to the prison cell. There, for many weary months, uncheered by
the voice of kindness, alone, hopeless, desolate, she waited for the
advent of the new and quickening life within her, which was to be the
signal of her own miserable death. And the bells there called to mass
and prayer-meeting, and Methodists sang, and Baptists immersed, and
Presbyterians sprinkled, and young mothers smiled through tears upon
their new-born children,--and maidens and matrons of that great city
sat in their cool verandahs, and talked of love, and household joys,
and domestic happiness; while, all that dreary time, the poor slave
girl lay on the scanty straw of her dungeon, waiting--with what agony
the great and pitying God of the white and black only knows--for the
birth of the child of her adulterous master.
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