“Which of you cussed wretches did this?” the Master thundered as his visage became mangled with fury.
“‘Twas Anne, master! She let it fall afore I got my hand on it!” Amanda quickly supplied.
“Master, it—” my protest was cut off by the resounding ‘thwack!” of his hand upon the side of my face.
“You damn yallow hussy! Does you think I buys such expensive chany-ware for you to break it up in this ‘ar way?!” he demanded.
“But I di—”
My attempt to vindicate myself was answered with a blow from his iron arm.
“No, you ‘bominable wench! I’ll have revenge out of your saffr’n hide!” he vowed.
He gave me a powerful blow that felled me to the floor. Then he placed his hoof-like foot upon my breast and barked to Amanda, “Here, Amanda, fetch me that cowhide!”
Realizing the implication of those words, my eyes widened with fright and I struggled to wheeze out pleas for mercy. His eyes gleamed with cruelty as he watched my struggle. Then he removed his foot from my breast and bellowed, “Here, quick, some of you darkies, bring me a rope and light!”
“Mercy, master mercy!” I cried when I could breathe again.
“Yes, I’ll tache you what mercy is. I’m goin’ to take you to the whippin’-post,” he declared with relish.
Though I had often been cruelly beaten, yet had I escaped the odium of the “post”. Now, for what I had not done, and for a thing that was at the worst, an accident, I was to bear the disgrace and the pain of a public whipping. This filled me with overwhelming terror and I fell on my knees before him.
“Oh, master, please pardon me. Spare me this time. I have got a half-dollar that my old Master Jonathan gave me when you bought me. I’ll give it to you to pay for the saucer, but please do not beat me,” I begged with my heart, soul, and strength.
With a wild, fiendish grin, he caught me by the hair and swung me round until I half-fainted with pain.
“No, you wretch, I’ll git my satisfaction out of yer body yit, and I’ll be bound. Afore this night’s work is done yer yallow hide will be well marked,” he promised.
A deadly, cold sensation crept over me, and a feeling as of crawling adders possessed my nerves. With all my soul pleading in my eyes, I looked at the Master; but one look at his fiendish face made my soul quail with an even newer horror.
Walsh appeared and I turned my gaze to him. A red, demonic glare lit up his eyes and the words of profane bravo were on his lips. From him I turned to Amanda, who had returned with a bunch of cord in her hand.
“Oh, Amanda, be kind and tell the truth. Maybe master will forgive you. You are an older servant, better known and valued in this family. Speak the truth and free me from the torture that awaits me,” I beseeched her.
“Well, you is crazy. You knows dat I never touched de sasser,” she denied with a hearty laugh.
The Master took the rope from Amanda and ordered me, “Now hold yer hands here.”
For one moment I hesitated. I could not summon the courage to offer my hands. It was the only resistance I had ever dared to make. A severe blow from Walsh’s riding whip reminded me that I was still a slave, and dared have no will save that of my master. This blow, which struck me on the back of my head, laid me half-lifeless upon the floor. Whilst I was in this condition, Walsh had one of the other slaves bind the rope tightly across my arms and drag me to the whipping post.
The motion of being pulled over the ground restored me to consciousness and I looked with a haggard eye to the starry heaven. I murmured a prayer and looked upon the whipping post which loomed before me like an ogre.
It was a four-sided post about eight feet in height. It had iron clasps on two opposing sides where the wrists and ankles were tightly secured.
“Now, Amanda,” said Walsh, “jerk off that gal’s rigging. I am anxious to put marks on her yellow skin.”
I knew that resistance was vain; so I submitted to have my clothes torn from my body.
Walsh dipped a huge strip of cow-hide in a barrel of brine near the post. He flourished the whip and proclaimed, “I guess this will sting.”
“Leave the thin slip on me, Amanda,” I ventured to ask, for I dreaded the exposure of my body more than the whipping.
“None of yer cussed impedence- strip off naked! What is a nigger’s hide more than a hog’s?” said Walsh.
Amanda tore the last article of clothing from my back.
I then submitted to having the iron cuffs around my hands and ankles; and there I stood, a revolting spectacle. With misery, I listened to the obscene and ribald jests from the Master and Walsh.
“Now, Walsh,” said the Master, “I want to give that gal the first lick, which will lay the flesh open to the bone.”
“Well, Mr. Nest, here is the whip,” Walsh handed the whip to the Master, “Now you can lay on.”
“No, confound your whip. I wants that cow-hide and here, let me dip it well into the brine. I want to give her a real good warmin’ – one that she’ll remember for a long time,” he said in a menacing tone.
The first lick from the Master laid my back open. I writhed, I wrestled; but blow after blow descended, each harder than the preceding one. I shrieked, I screamed, I prayed, I pleaded, but there was no mercy shown to me. When he was fully gratified, the Master turned to Walsh and said, “Now yer turn. You can beat her as much as you please. Jist leave a bit o’ life in her is all I cares for.”
“ Yes. I’ll not spile her for the market; but I does want to take a little o’ the damned pride out o’ her,” Walsh agreed.
By this time, all the slaves except Aunt Grace had been assembled around the post.
With a haggard eye, I looked at my fellow slaves - some looked at me with pity, some indifference. Some of the women fought back tears as they buried the children’s frightened faces in the folds of their skirts.
“Now boys, you will see what a true stroke I ken make; but darn my buttons if I don’t think Mr. Nest has drawn all her blood,” Walsh announced to his captive audience.
So saying , he drew the cow-hide back at arm’s length and spun around a few times. Then he took what he called ‘sure aim’. I closed my eyes in terror. More from the terrible pain, than the few horrified gasps did I know that Walsh had landed a blow that he liked to call ‘true blue’.
A cold, clammy sensation overtook me and my breath grew feeble, as the salt from the brine seemed to eat through my flesh and devour my very soul. The lulling song of the night gently sounded in my ears; and, as if gliding away on a moonbeam, I passed from all consciousness of pain. It was a sweet oblivion like that of a weary, fever-sick patient who hears that his hour of rest has come.
How long this stupor lasted, I am unable to say; but when I awoke, I was on a rough bed, and a beautiful face with kind, doe eyes hovered over me. I opened my eyes, closed them, languidly re-opened them, and then closed them again.
“Now chile, I thinks you is a leetle better,” said a voice I recognized as Aunt Grace.
“Does it still hurt terribly?” the doe-eyed angel asked.
However, I was too weak, too wandering in mind, to talk. I closed my eyes and slept again.