Oh, yes; dat is a proper lesson for white debbils to
learn!"
"You will not do anything so horrible!" I murmured.
"Hobbible! Hain't my back hobbible? He laugh when he see ole whip
come whisk! whisk! on my po' back; well, den, I laugh when I see de
fire go creep, creep, and when I hear him holler. Oh, yes, it will
be a proper lesson, no mistake 'bout it."
And then the poor bound wretch, whose head was hanging forward as
though he were already in extremis, lifted his eyes and saw me.
"Bold! Humphrey Bold!" he shrieked in a harsh, gasping whisper.
"Save me! Save me from these monsters!"
I started forward, scarce believing my eyes. In the pinched,
haggard features of the man who was lashed to the tree I recognized
my old enemy, my whilom schoolfellow, Dick Cludde.
"Save me! Save me!" he cried again and again.
"For God's sake, loose him!" I cried, turning to the negro.
God knows Cludde had done me harm enough; but for the working of a
gracious Providence he had ruined my life; but all remembrance of
this fled from me as I beheld his pitiful plight and mortal terror,
and heard his altered voice screaming for mercy.
"I know him; he was once a friend of mine," I cried, and God
forgive me the lie. "Let him go; don't torture him any longer."
Noah laughed in my face.
"What for me let him go?" he said. "'Cos he is a white man? He is a
white debbil; he shall hab his lesson."
"But it is murder. You would not murder him?"
"And he murder me! De whip cut me twenty times, and if I die, what
den? Noah is only a black man: it is not murder to kill a black
man! Dey kill me: I lib for teach him lesson.
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