refused to let her go. But while doing so he admitted his belief
that she might be of pure white blood and of right entitled to freedom. He
confessed having gone back to John F. Mueller[28] soon after buying her and
proposing to set her free; but Mueller, he said, had replied that in such a
case the law required her to leave the country. Thereupon Belmonti had
demanded that the sale be rescinded, saying: "I have paid you my money for
her."

"But," said Mueller, "I did not sell her to you as a slave. She is as white
as you or I, and neither of us can hold her if she chooses to go away."

Such at least was Belmonti's confession, yet he was as far from consenting
to let his captive go after this confession was made as he had been
before. He seems actually to have kept her for a while; but at length she
went boldly to Schuber's house, became one of his household, and with his
advice and aid asserted her intention to establish her freedom by an
appeal to law. Belmonti replied with threats of public imprisonment, the
chain-gang, and the auctioneer's block.

Salome, or Sally, for that seems to be the nickname by which her kindred
remembered her, was never to be sold again; but not many months were to
pass before she was to find herself, on her own petition and bond of
$500, a prisoner, by the only choice the laws allowed her, in the famous
calaboose, not as a criminal, but as sequestered goods in a sort of
sheriff's warehouse. Says her petition: "Your petitioner has good reason
to believe that the said Belmonti intends to remove her out of the
jurisdiction of the court during the pendency of the suit"; wherefore not
_he_ but _she_ went to jail. Here she remained for six days and was then
allowed to go at large, but only upon _giving still another bond and
security_, and in a much larger sum than she had ever been sold for.

The original writ of sequestration lies before me as I write, indorsed as
follows:

No. 23,041.

Sally Miller ) Sequestration.
)
vs. ) Sigur, Caperton
)
Louis Belmonti. ) and Bonford.

Received 24th January, 1844, and on the 26th of the same
month sequestered the body of the plaintiff and committed her
to prison for safe keeping; but on the 1st February, 1844, she
was released from custody, having entered bond in the sum of
one thousand dollars with Francis Schuber as the security conditioned
according to la