ere overtaken
by a snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making
for. Almost instantly we were shut up as in a fog, the driving
snow was so thick. You couldn't see a thing, and we were soon
lost. The slave-driver lashed us desperately, for he saw ruin
before him, but his lashings only made matters worse, for they
drove us further from the road and from likelihood of succor.
So we had to stop at last and slump down in the snow where we
were. The storm continued until toward midnight, then ceased.
By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were
dead, and others past moving and threatened with death. Our
master was nearly beside himself. He stirred up the living, and
made us stand, jump, slap ourselves, to restore our circulation,
and he helped as well as he could with his whip.

Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon a
woman came running and crying; and seeing our group, she flung
herself into our midst and begged for protection. A mob of people
came tearing after her, some with torches, and they said she was a
witch who had caused several cows to die by a strange disease,
and practiced her arts by help of a devil in the form of a black
cat. This poor woman had been stoned until she hardly looked
human, she was so battered and bloody. The mob wanted to burn her.

Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? When we closed
around this poor creature to shelter her, he saw his chance. He
said, burn her here, or they shouldn't have her at all. Imagine
that! They were willing. They fastened her to a post; they
brought wood and piled it about her; they applied the torch while
she shrieked and pleaded and strained her two young daughters
to her breast; and our brute, with a heart solely for business,
lashed us into position about the stake and warmed us into life
and commercial value by the same fire which took away the innocent
life of that poor harmless mother. That was the sort of master we
had. I took _his_ number. That snow-storm cost him nine of his
flock; and he was more brutal to us than ever, after that, for
many days together, he was so enraged over his loss.

We had adventures all along. One day we ran into a procession.
And such a procession! All the riffraff of the kingdom seemed
to be comprehended in it; and all drunk at that. In the van was
a cart with a coffin in it, and on the coffin sat a comely young
girl of about eighteen suckling