"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 [Pg 56]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 [Pg