who should still
continue to imbrue their hands in blood. The council retorted by
ordering a massacre. He that would not take the oath should be executed,
though unarmed, and the recusants were shot on the roads, or as they
labored in the field, or stood at prayer. To fly was admission of guilt;
to excite suspicion was sentence of death; to own the covenant was
treason.

Sometimes the lot of an indented slave was a happy one. Hundreds and
thousands of fugitives flying from persecution came to the New World,
while thousands of others were sent as convicts.

Virginia received her share of the latter.

One bright spring morning a ship from England entered the James River
with a number of these indented slaves to be sold to the planters.
Notice had been given of the intended sale and many planters came to
look at the poor wretches huddled together like so many beasts in an old
shed, and guarded by soldiers. Mr. Thomas Hull, a planter of
considerable means, and a man noted for his iron will, was among those
who came to make purchases.

"Well, Thomas, have you looked over the lot?" asked another planter.

"No, Bradley, have you?"

"Yes, though I am shortened in money, and unable to purchase to-day."

"Well, Bradley, what have you seen among them?"

"There are many fine, lusty fellows; but I was most interested and
grieved in one."

"Why?"

"He is a man who has known refinement and ease, is perchance thirty-five
and has with him a child."

"A child?"

"Yes, a maid not to exceed ten years, but very beautiful with her golden
hair and soft blue eyes."

"Is the child a slave?"

"No."

"Then wherefore is it here?" asked Hull.

"His is truly a pathetic story as I have heard it. It seems he was a
widower with his child wandering about the country, when he fell in with
some of the Duke of Monmouth's people and enlisted. He was captured at
Sedgemore, and condemned by Jeffries. The child was left to wander at
will; but by some means she accompanied her father, managed to smuggle
herself on shipboard, and was not discovered until the vessel was well
out to sea. Then the captain, who was a humane man, permitted them to
remain together to the end of the voyage. She is with her father now,
and a prettier little maid I never saw."

"By the mass! I will go and see her," cried Hull. "If she be all you
say, I will buy them both."

"But she is not for sale."

"Wherefore not?"

"She was not adjudged by the court."