ings are all lawful; it may be
your duty thus to rise, but it should not be your aim, it should not
alone be in your thoughts; you should have a far higher motive for
labouring hard, for employing your talents: that motive should be to
please God, to obey the laws and precepts of our Lord and Master. All
should be done from love to him. If you have not got that love for him,
pray for it, strive for it, look for guidance from above that you may
obtain it.

But, as I was saying, in those days I could not have comprehended what I
have now been speaking about. Finding my efforts to pray almost
unavailing, I did pray for deliverance, though I waited my fate in
sullen indifference, or rather, indeed, somewhat as if I was an
unconcerned spectator of what was taking place.

The chief lifted his arm on high as a sign that the execution was to
commence. The first person led forward was the planter whose house we
had attempted to defend. Oh! what scorn, and loathing, and defiance
there was depicted in his countenance! What triumph and hatred in that
of his executioners! Should such feelings find room in the bosom of a
dying Christian? I wot not. Again the fatal sign was given. The
firing-party discharged their muskets, and the planter fell a lifeless
corpse. I tried to turn my eyes away from the scene, but they were
rivetted on the spot.

CHAPTER SIX.

A TERRIBLE EXECUTION, AND A NARROW ESCAPE.

One after the other my white companions were led out for execution.
Every moment I expected that my turn would come. Very few showed any
great signs of fear, with the exception of the overseers, who had been
often and often the actual instruments of cruelty towards those who now
had them in their power. I am surprised that the ignorant savage blacks
did not torture them as they had themselves been tortured, before
putting an end to their existence. Perhaps they wished to set an
example of leniency to the civilised whites. They went about the
execution, however, with deliberation, sufficient to make it a very
terrible affair.

They shot the planter dressed as he was taken. When he had fallen,
numbers of the blacks rushed up, and having stripped him, they threw his
body, after inflicting numberless wounds on it, over the precipice. As
his clothes had been injured by the bullets, they proceeded to strip the
next person of his garments, with the exception of his trousers and
shoes, which they allowed him to retain-