ark! a voice louder than common! It is a cry!

Of cheerful import? No--on the contrary, it sounds like the utterance
of some one in pain. It is a cry of agony! The murmur of other voices,
too, heard at short intervals, carries to my ear that deep portentous
sound which accompanies some unnatural occurrence.

Again I hear the cry of agony--deeper and louder than before! It comes
from the direction of the negro quarter. What is causing it?

I gave the spur to my horse, and galloped in the direction of the
cabins.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DEVIL'S DOUCHE.

In a few seconds I entered the wide avenue between the cabins, and
drawing bridle, sat glancing around me.

My patriarchal dreams vanished at the sight that met my eyes. Before me
was a scene of tyranny, of torture--a scene from the tragedy of
slave-life!

At the upper end of the quarter, and on one side of the overseer's
house, was an enclosure. It was the enclosure of the sugar-mill--a
large building which stood a little further back. Inside the fence was
a tall pump, rising full ten feet in height, with the spout near its
top. The purpose of this pump was to yield a stream of water, which was
conducted to the sugar-house by means of a slender trough, that served
as an aqueduct.

A platform was raised a few feet above the ground, so as to enable the
person working the pump to reach its handle.

To this spot my attention was directed by seeing that the negroes of the
quarter were grouped around it, while the women and children, clinging
along the fence, had their eyes bent in the same direction.

The faces of all--men, women, and children--wore an ominous and gloomy
expression; and the attitudes in which they stood betokened terror and
alarm. Murmurs I could hear--now and then ejaculations--and sobs that
bespoke sympathy with some one who suffered. I saw scowling brows, as
if knit by thoughts of vengeance. But these last were few--the more
general expression was one of terror and submission.

It was not difficult to tell that the cry I had heard proceeded from the
neighbourhood of the pump, and a glance unfolded the cause. Some poor
slave was undergoing punishment!

A group of negroes hid the unfortunate from my view, but over their
heads I could see the slave Gabriel, his body naked to the breech,
mounted upon the platform and working the pump with all his might.

This Gabriel was a Bambarra negro, of huge size and strength, branded