ecover himself the
planter had dismounted and seized him by the arm.

So deeply had the prejudices of his condition been implanted in his
mind, that the thought of bestowing blows upon the sacred person of his
master did not occur to him. If he had dared to fight, as he had the
strength and the energy to fight, he might still have escaped. Colonel
Raybone was an awful presence to him, and he yielded up his purpose
without a struggle to carry it out.

The planter swore at him with a fury which chilled his blood, and
struck him several smart blows with his riding-whip as the foretaste of
what he was still to undergo.

"Now, back to the tree," said Colonel Raybone, as he mounted his horse
again.

Dandy had given up all hope now, and he marched to the whipping-post, as
the condemned criminal walks to the scaffold. He had advanced but a
short distance before he met the other spectators to his doom, and Long
Tom seized him by the wrist, and held him with an iron gripe till they
reached the dead oak.

"Tie him up quick, Tom," said Colonel Raybone. "It has been more work to
flog this young cub than a dozen full-grown niggers."

Long Tom fastened the straps around Dandy's wrists, and passed them
through a band around the tree, about ten feet from the ground. He then
pulled the victim up till his toes scarcely touched the earth.

"Now, lay them on well," said the planter, vindictively.

"How many, Massa Raybone?" asked Tom, as he unrolled the long lash of
his whip.

[Illustration: THE TRAGEDY AT THE DEAD OAK. Page 58.]

"Lay on till I say stop."

Dandy's flesh quivered, but his spirit shrunk more than his body from
the contamination of the slave-master's scourge. The lash fell across
his back--his back, as white as that of any who read this page. The
blood gushed from the wound which the cruel lash inflicted, but not a
word or a groan escaped from the pallid lips of the sufferer. A dozen
blows fell, and though the flesh was terribly mangled, the laceration of
the soul was deeper and more severe.

"Stop!" said Colonel Raybone.

Long Tom promptly obeyed the mandate. He evidently had no feeling about
the brutal job, and there was no sign of joy or sorrow in his
countenance from first to last. If he felt at all, his experience had
effectually schooled him in the difficult art of concealing his
emotions.

"Take him down," added the planter, who, as he gazed upon the torn and
excoriated flesh of the victim, seemed to