His pleasant face was darkened with a glare of utter savagery.

"Black man can teach jest as good as white. Come 'long o' me,
massa; I show massa somet'ing."

Wondering, I followed him past the huts, through the copse, into a
little clearing, when I saw a white man stripped to the shirt and
tightly bound to a tree.

"Dat is him!" cried Noah excitedly. "Dat is de white debbil what
say gib me mo'. I teach him lesson: he nebber want no mo'."

His tone already sent a shiver through me, but as he went on to
explain the nature of the lesson he intended, I shuddered with
horror.

"Dis berry night we burn him up!" he cried. "Massa Bold see? We tie
him up to de bough of de tree, and we light a lill fire, jest a
lill one, and first it warm his feet, and den it get bigger, and
creep up and up, and bimeby it come to his head, and den he burn
all up. Oh, yes; dat is a proper lesson for white debbils to
learn!"

"You will not do anything so horrible!" I murmured.

"Hobbible! Hain't my back hobbible? He laugh when he see ole whip
come whisk! whisk! on my po' back; well, den, I laugh when I see de
fire go creep, creep, and when I hear him holler. Oh, yes, it will
be a proper lesson, no mistake 'bout it."

And then the poor bound wretch, whose head was hanging forward as
though he were already in extremis, lifted his eyes and saw me.

"Bold! Humphrey Bold!" he shrieked in a harsh, gasping whisper.
"Save me! Save me from these monsters!"

I started forward, scarce believing my eyes. In the pinched,
haggard features of the man who was lashed to the tree I recognized
my old enemy, my whilom schoolfellow, Dick Cludde.

"Save me! Save me!" he cried again and again.

"For God's sake, loose him!" I cried, turning to the negro.

God knows Cludde had done me harm enough; but for the working of a
gracious Providence he had ruined my life; but all remembrance of
this fled from me as I beheld his pitiful plight and mortal terror,
and heard his altered voice screaming for mercy.

"I know him; he was once a friend of mine," I cried, and God
forgive me the lie. "Let him go; don't torture him any longer."

Noah laughed in my face.

"What for me let him go?" he said. "'Cos he is a white man? He is a
white debbil; he shall hab his lesson."

"But it is murder. You would not murder him?"

"And he murder me! De whip cut me twenty times, and if I die, what
den? Noah is only a black man: it is not murder to kill a black
man! Dey kil