If he caught her praying,
he said, he would "give her _hell_." Mary was a member of the Methodist
Church in Washington. There were several pious people in the company;
and at night, when the driver found them melancholy and disposed to
pray, he had a fiddle brought, and made them dance in their chains,
whipping them till they complied. Mary at length became so weak that
she really could travel on foot no further. Her feeble frame was
exhausted, and sank beneath accumulated sufferings. She was seized with
a burning fever; and the diabolical trader--not moved with pity, but
only fearing he should lose her--placed her for the remainder of the
way in a waggon. Arriving at Natchez, they were all offered for sale.
Mary, being still sick, begged she might be sold to a kind master.
Sometimes she made this request in the hearing of purchasers, but was
always insulted for it, and afterwards punished by her cruel master for
her presumption. On one occasion he tied her up by the hands so that
she could barely touch the floor with her toes. He kept her thus
suspended a whole day, whipping her at intervals. In any other country
this inhuman beast would have been tried for the greatest crime, short
of murder, that man can commit against woman, and transported for life.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133