aptured. At length
poor Dan was caught and brought by the captors to Mr. Burmey's, where he
was tried principally by Burmey's two sons, Peter and John, and that night
was kept in irons in Burmey's cellar. The next day Dan was led into the
field in the presence of about three thousand of us. A staple was driven
into the stump of a tree, with a chain attached to it, and one of his
handcuffs was taken off and brought through the chain, and then fastened
on his hand again. A pile of pine wood was built around him. At eight
o'clock the wood was set on fire, and when the flames blazed round upon
the wretched man, he began to scream and struggle in a most awful manner.
Many of our women fainted, but not one of us was allowed to leave until
the body of poor Dan was consumed. The unearthly sounds that came from the
blazing pile, as poor Dan writhed in the agonies of death, it is beyond
the power of my pen to describe. After a while all was silent, except the
cracking of the pine wood as the fire gradually devoured it with the prize
that it contained. Poor Dan had ceased to struggle--he was at rest.

Mr. Burmey's two sons, Peter and John, were the ringleaders in this
execution, and the pair of them hardly ever saw a sober day from one month
to another; and at the execution of Dan, Peter was so drunk that he came
nigh sharing the same fate. It was not a year after the roasting of Dan
that the two brothers were thrashing wheat in the barn, which stood about
a quarter of a mile from the house, and being in March, and an uncommon
windy day, they had taken their demijohn full of brandy in order to keep
the cold out of their bones, as it was their belief that a dram or two had
that effect; so they were drinking and thrashing and drinking again until
they reeled over dead drunk upon the floor. That same night the barn took
fire over them. The first thing that excited the alarm of my master's
negroes on Tillotson's plantation was a black smoke issuing from the barn.
Suddenly there was a rush from all parts of the plantation, but it was all
to no purpose, for scarcely had we got half way before we saw the flames
bursting out on every side of the barn, still we continued to run as fast
as we could. When we arrived we found the barn door shut and fastened
inside. This Mr. Peter and Mr. John had done to keep out the wind which
was very high. When old Mr. Burmey arrived with his daughter-in-law,
Peter's wife, the first thing demanded was, where