short
feeding. One of Flincher's, and one of Sturtivant's hands ran away,
while I was in Alabama: and after remaining in the woods awhile, and
despairing of being able to effect their escape, resolved to put an end
to their existence and their slavery together. Each twisted himself a
vine of the muscadine grape, and fastened one end around the limb of an
oak, and made a noose in the other. Jacob, Flincher's man, swung himself
off first, and expired after a long struggle. The other, horrified by
the contortions and agony of his comrade, dropped his noose, and was
retaken. When discovered, two or three days afterwards, the body of
Jacob was dreadfully torn and mangled, by the buzzards, those winged
hyenas and goules of the Southwest.

Among the slaves who were brought from Virginia, were two young and
bright mulatto women, who were always understood throughout the
plantation to have been the daughters of the elder Larrimore, by one of
his slaves. One was named Sarah and the other Hannah. Sarah, being in a
state of pregnancy, failed of executing her daily allotted task of
hoeing cotton. I was ordered to whip her, and on my remonstrating with
the overseer, and representing the condition of the woman, I was told
that my business was to obey orders, and that if I was told "to whip a
dead nigger I must do it." I accordingly gave her fifty lashes. This was
on Thursday evening. On Friday she also failed through weakness, and was
compelled to lie down in the field. That night the overseer himself
whipped her. On Saturday the wretched woman dragged herself once more to
the cotton field. In the burning sun, and in a situation which would
have called forth pity in the bosom of any one save a cotton-growing
overseer, she struggled to finish her task. She failed--nature could do
no more--and sick and despairing, she sought her cabin. There the
overseer met her and inflicted fifty more lashes upon her already
lacerated back.

The next morning was the Sabbath. It brought no joy to that suffering
woman. Instead of the tones of the church bell summoning to the house of
prayer, she heard the dreadful sound of the lash falling upon the backs
of her brethren and sisters in bondage. For the voice of prayer she
heard curses. For the songs of Zion obscene and hateful blasphemies. No
bible was there with its consolations for the sick of heart. Faint and
fevered, scarred and smarting from the effects of her cruel punishment,
she lay upon her p