uries. But, once there, he lay effectually
concealed from sight. Ordinary conjecture would scarcely have supposed
that any animal larger than a rabbit would have sought or found shelter
in such a region. The Tories immediately seized upon the negro and
demanded his master, at the peril of his life. Knowing and fearing the
courage and the arm of Snipes, they did not enter the dwelling, but
adopted the less valorous mode of setting it on fire, and, with pointed
muskets, surrounded it, in waiting for the moment when their victim
should emerge. He, within a few steps of them, heard their threats and
expectations, and beheld all their proceedings. The house was consumed,
and the intense heat of the fire subjected our partisan, in his place
of retreat, to such torture, as none but the most dogged hardihood could
have endured without complaint. The skin was peeled from his body in
many places, and the blisters were shown long after, to persons who are
still living.* But Snipes too well knew his enemies, and what he had
to expect at their hands, to make any confession. He bore patiently
the torture, which was terribly increased, when, finding themselves at
fault, the Tories brought forward the faithful negro who had thus far
saved his master, and determined to extort from him, in the halter, the
secret of his hiding-place. But the courage and fidelity of the negro
proved superior to the terrors of death. Thrice was he run up the tree,
and choked nearly to strangulation, but in vain. His capability to
endure proved superior to the will of the Tories to inflict, and he was
at length let down, half dead,--as, in truth, ignorant of the secret
which they desired to extort. What were the terrors of Snipes in all
this trial? What his feelings of equal gratitude and apprehension?
How noble was the fidelity of the slave--based upon what gentle and
affectionate relationship between himself and master--probably from
boyhood! Yet this is but one of a thousand such attachments, all equally
pure and elevated, and maintained through not dissimilar perils.

* See a biographical sketch of Tarlton Brown, of Barnwell,
S.C., a soldier in the revolutionary army. Charleston,
1844, p. 8.--

While Marion was operating against Forts Watson and Motte, Sumter, with
like success, had besieged the British posts at Orangeburg and Granby.
It was the loss of these posts, and the dread of the subsequent
concentration of the whole American forc