t was holy I _wouldn't_ be tamed,
let 'em do what they would, and a pretty miserable time of it this
stupid vow and my own obstinacy brought me. They used to amuse
themselves by seein' what they could do to rouse me; the overseers, as
they were riding by, would pull up and begin to abuse and scoff at me,
flicking at me with their whips all the time, and I dare say you know
pretty well how clever those same overseers are with their whips--
they'll hit a fly twenty feet off. And when they'd see my eyes begin to
sparkle, they'd just let out with the infernal whip, fetching me a
regular `stinger' across the shoulders, and gallop off, laughing. I can
tell you, they made a regular devil of me before all was done.

"Well, one morning there was a regular rumpus on the estate. Don
Christoval had sold some cattle the day before, and had been paid for
'em. The money was stowed carefully away by him when he turned in that
night, and next morning 'twas gone--somebody'd crept into the house
during the night, and had stole it. Well, as there was nobody about the
estate but the regular hands, it was clear enough that some of these
must have got hold of the cash, and the lying scoundrels had the
impudence to say that I was the thief. They came down, two of the
overseers did, and searched my hut fore and aft, from deck to keelson;
but, of course, they didn't find it, for the simple reason that I hadn't
took it. Hows'ever, they would insist that I knew where 'twas, and at
last they dragged me up to the house, and told the Don that I'd took it,
but that they couldn't find it because I'd hid it away somewhere.

"The Don happened to be just starting off for a ride, and was mounted on
a splendid black horse. He sat there in the saddle and listened to all
that the overseers had to say, and when they'd finished, he spurred his
horse at me, and swearing that he'd get the secret out of me, if he had
to cut my heart out to find it, raised his heavy riding-whip, and made a
slash at me.

"Well, cap'n, and Tom, old shipmate, you needn't be told that I had
already been made pretty savage by all this business, and when this
hawk-nosed Don Christoval struck out at me, why, it just roused all the
devil there was in me. I put up my hand--so--as if to ward off the
stroke, and as the whip came down, I caught it in my hand, wrenched it
out of the Don's grasp, and, as quick as lightning, returned the blow
with all my strength, lashing him fair acr