called for a basin and bled me in my left arm, and then sent me over home
by two of his men. Next day my neck was dreadfully swollen, and my throat
was so sore that it was with difficulty that I could swallow meat for more
than a week. At the end of a fortnight, master having learnt all the
particulars respecting my sickness, called me to account, and gave me
seventy-eight lashes, and this was the end of my crazy love and courtship
with Mary.

Shortly after this, Mary was one Sunday down in her master's barn, where
she had been sent by her mistress to look for new nests where a number of
the hens were supposed to have been laying, as the eggs had not been found
elsewhere. While in the barn, Mary was surprised by William Tillotson, her
master's son, who ordered her to take her bed among the hay and submit to
his lustful passion. This she strenuously refused to do, telling him of
the punishment she had already suffered from her former mistress for a
similar act of conduct, and reminding him at the same time of his wife,
whose vengeance she would have to dread; but William was not to be put
off, nor his base passion to go unsatisfied, by any excuse that Mary could
make, so he at once resorted to force. Mary screamed at the top of her
voice. Now the negro Dan was just in the act of passing the barn at the
time, when he heard Mary's voice he rushed into the barn, and demanded in
a loud voice what was the matter? when, to his horror, he beheld William
upon the barn floor, and Mary struggling but in vain to rise. William,
instead of desisting from his brutal purpose, with a dreadful oath ordered
Dan to clear out; but the sight of the outrage on her whom, I now firmly
believe he loved better than his own soul, made poor Dan completely forget
himself--and made him forget too, in that fatal moment what he afterwards
wished he had remembered. Dan seized a pitchfork and plunged it into young
Tillotson's back; the prongs went in between his shoulders, and one of
them had penetrated the left lung. Young Tillotson expired almost
immediately, and Dan seeing what he had done, ran off at once to the woods
and swamps, and was seen no more for about two months. Mrs. Tillotson, who
had heard Mary scream, was on the balcony, and called out to Dan to know
the cause, Dan made no reply but took to his heels. Mrs. Tillotson alarmed
at this, and suspecting at once that something was wrong, hastened to the
barn, followed by William's wife who happen