picion of inciting
to rebellion, was condemned to seven hundred blows with the
lash. At the end of the flogging, being still alive, he was shot, at
O'Donnell's order. He would confess nothing, because he had nothing to
confess. This boy had been brought up in a well-to-do Spanish family,
and was the play-mate, the friend, of the son of that family, rather
than his slave. The white boy begged for the life of his associate,
the family implored mercy, and asked for at least a trial, but the
governor-general would not listen to them, and after the shooting
the white boy became insane with shock and grief. Thus much of the
legend is declared to be fact.

It was the mother of the black boy who lived in this cabin outside of
the town. She had also been a slave until the Spanish family, giving
up its plantation, moved into the city, sold the younger and stronger
of their human properties, and set free the elderly and rheumatic,
taking with them only a couple of servants and the boy, who went with
his mother's consent, for she knew he would be cared for, and she
could see him often, the relation between slave and owner, being more
commonly affectionate than otherwise. At its best, slavery is morally
benumbing to the enslaved, destructive of the finer feelings, and
when the old woman learned of her son's death,--and such a death--she
did not go mad, as his playfellow had done. She lamented loudly, she
said many prayers, she accepted condolences with seeming gratitude,
but the tears had ceased to flow ere many weeks, and she was seen to
smile when her old mistress, whose affliction was indeed the heavier,
had called on her in her cabin, no doubt feeling as much in need of
her servant's sympathy as the servant felt of the creature comforts
she took to her.

Yet deep in Maumee Nina's nature a change had taken place. She did not
know it herself for many months. Her loss had not affected her conduct
or appearance greatly, yet her heart had hardened under it and she
began to look upon the world with a different eye. She cared less for
her friends, and went to church less often,--a suspicious circumstance,
for when a negro failed to go to mass, and kept away from confession,
it was surely because he had something mischievous to confess. The
rumor got about that Maumee Nina had become an Obeah woman,--a voodoo
worker, a witch. It is not unlikely that the accusation inspired her
to live down to it. Not only were witches held in respect