cot." They obeyed. With a jerk the sheriff had her dress up and her bare
buttocks in view.

"I'm a-goin' to whup an' whup till you confess, Martha."

Crack! Crack! Crack! the whip descended, leaving red whelts each time.
The mulatto girl writhed, but did not cry quits. Beads of perspiration
glistened on the jailer's face. The girl shook off his lax grip on her
arms ... the sheriff's son was holding her legs. We were crowded against
the bars, angry and silent. We admired the girl's hopeless pluck. We saw
she was holding out just to, somehow, have vengeance on the jailer for
her being held in unwilling concubinage by him, hoping he would catch it
hard for having let the keys hang carelessly in open view, and so,
stolen.

"Damn you, Jacklin," shouted the sheriff, "I believe you're a little
soft on the gal ... come here ... you swing the whip an' I'll hold her
arms."

In mute agony Jacklin obeyed ... whipping the woman of whom he was fond.

"Harder, Jacklin, harder," and the sheriff drew his gun on him to
emphasise the command.

Under such impulsion, a shower of heavy blows fell. The girl screamed.

"I'll give up ... Oh, good Lordy, I'll give up."

And she dug the keys out from under the mattress across which they had
whipped her.

After they had gone she lay crying on her face for a long while. When
night came she still lay crying. Nothing any of us could say would
console her. Not even the little white cotton thief had power to allay
her hurt....

At last we began cursing and railing at her. That made her stop, after a
fashion. But still she occasionally gave vent to a heart-deep, dry,
racking sob.

* * * * *

Locked in there behind bars and forced to be impotent onlookers, the
whipping we had witnessed made us as restless as wild animals. That
night, under the dim flare of our jail-made lamps, the boys gambled as
usual, for their strips of paper,--and as eagerly as if it were real
currency. I, for my part, drew away to the vacant cell at the far end of
the cage to study and read and dream my dreams....

As I sat there I was soon possessed with a disagreeable feeling that a
malignant, ill-wishing presence hovered near. I shifted in my seat
uneasily. I looked up. There stood, in the doorway, the lusty young
farmer who was in for stealing the bales of cotton. He wore an evil,
combative leer on his face. He was "spoiling" for a quarrel--just for
the mere sake of quarrelling--