ster. Forgive me this time, and
I never will strike him again."

"I wanted you to strike, but not to get mad," added Archy.

"Forgive me this time, master," pleaded Dandy.

"Forgive you, you villain! I'll forgive you. I'll teach you to strike my
son! Tear off his shirt, Tom!"

Long Tom was a slave. He had groaned and bled beneath the lash himself;
but the trifling favors he had received had debauched his soul, and he
was a willing servant, ready, for a smile from his master, to perform
with barbarous fidelity the diabolical duties of his office. Seizing
Dandy by the arm, he pulled off his shirt, and led him to the tree.

The last ray of hope had expired in the soul of Dandy. His blood
rebelled at the thought of being whipped. He was not stirred by the
emotions which disturb a free child with a whipping in prospect. He
cringed not at the pain, he rebelled not at proper and wholesome
punishment. This whipping was the scourging of the slave; it was the
emblem of his servitude. The blows were the stripes which the master
inflicts upon his bondman. His soul was free, while his body was in
chains; and it was his soul rather than his body that was to be
scourged.

The thought was madness. His blood boiled with indignation, with horror,
and with loathing. The tide of despair surged in upon his spirit, and
overwhelmed him. He resolved not to be whipped, and, when Long Tom
turned away to adjust the strap, he sprang like an antelope through the
group of spectators, and ran with all the speed he could command towards
the river.

Perhaps it was a mistake on the part of Dandy, but it was the noblest
impulse of his nature which prompted him to resist the unjust sentence
that had been passed upon him. He ran, and desperation gave him the
wings of the wind; but he had miscalculated his chances, if he had
considered them at all, for the swift horse of the planter was tied to
a stake near the dead oak. He had been riding over the estate when Archy
returned from Green Point with the story of the blows which had been
inflicted upon him.

Colonel Raybone leaped upon his horse the instant he realized the
purpose of the culprit, and, before Dandy had accomplished half the
distance to the river, the planter overtook him. He rode the horse
directly upon him, and if the intelligent beast had not been kinder than
his rider, the story of poor Dandy might have ended here. As it was, he
was simply thrown down, and before he could rise and r