n, and said in a voice he tried to disguise:
"Lady, we'uns do not mean to harm you, but you must cum wid us."

Viola, though dreadfully frightened, straightened herself up in the
carriage, and replied: "What do you men mean by stopping a carriage on
the highway, and thus disturbing peaceable citizens? I call upon you
to go, let go the reins of my horses, and allow my servant to drive me
home."

"Dat is fur from our wish," said the desperado, "and if you won't walk
away quietly wif us, we'uns will have to tote you away."

With this the highwayman (who was no other than Sam Wiles) jumped into
the vehicle, and seizing the young woman around the waist, was dragging
her forcibly to the ground. Viola could make no successful resistance
in the grasp of this powerful man, but he met resistance where he
little expected it. The slave held the buggy whip in his hand, and
hastily reversing his hold on the whip, brought the butt end of it down
with much force on the miscreant's head. Wiles was half stunned by the
blow, but he would not release his hold on Viola, and cursed the black
with dreadful oaths.

But it was the work only of a second for the terrible dwarf, Zibe
Turner, to spring to the front of the carriage, and grabbing Mose in
his sinuous arms, he drew him to the earth, then struck him a terrific
blow on his head, and threw him to the ground. What the blow might not
have done (for a negro's skull is very thick) the fall accomplished;
for when he fell Mose's head struck the protruding root of a great oak
tree, and the blow was of sufficient violence to stun the black man.
Zibe Turner let the negro lie by the side of the road, and going to the
horses led them to a trunk of a tree and, taking the hitch strap, tied
it to a lower limb. The outlaws' purpose this time was not stealing
horses.

In the meantime Sam Wiles carried Viola, vainly struggling, about one
hundred feet up the road and turned to the right, where not far away a
two-seated wagon stood, with two horses hitched to it. Wiles lifted
Viola, now exhausted and half dead with fear, into the rear seat and
sat down beside her. Presently the monster dwarf appeared and, freeing
the horses, jumped on to the front seat. Turning the horses into the
road, he drove in an opposite direction to that which Viola had been
taking.

No words were spoken by any of the party and the horses pursued their
way through the darkening forest. After a time they were driven by the
dwa