ommy's arm, and drawing him nearer the light.

"Yes, he was coming along with me, to show me"--

"Stop!--you know you are going to lie already. Better lock 'em both up
for the night, and let them be sent up in the morning," said another.

"Then you won't let me speak for myself--"

"Hush, sir!" interrupted the officer; "you can tell your story in the
morning! but take care you are not a vagrant. If it's proved that
you were with that nigger at the improper hour, you'll get your back
scarred. Come, you have owned it, and I must lock you up."

Without attempting to wash the blood off the negro, or dress his wounds,
they unlocked the handcuffs, and loosened the chain from his neck,
handling him with less feeling than they would a dumb brute. Relieved of
his chains, they ordered him to get up.

The poor creature looked up imploringly, as if to beg them to spare his
life, for he was too weak to speak. He held up his hands, drenched with
blood, while beneath his head was a pool of gore that had streamed from
his mounds. "None of your infernal humbuggery-you could run fast enough.
Just get up, and be spry about it, or I'll help you with the cowhide,"
said the officer, calling to one of the guardmen to bring it to him. He
now made an effort, and had got upon his knees, when the guardman that
seemed foremost in his brutality fetched him a kick with his heavy boots
in the side, that again felled him to the ground with a deep groan.

"Oh-tut! that will not do. You mus'n't kill the nigger; his master will
come for him in the morning," said the officer, stooping down and taking
hold of his arm with his left hand, while holding a cowhide in his
right. "Come, my boy, you must get up and go into the lock-up," he
continued.

"Massa! oh, good massa, do-don't! I's most dead now, wha'for ye no
lef me whare a be?" said he in a whining manner; and making a second
attempt, fell back upon the floor, at which two of them seized him by
the shoulders, and dragging him into a long, dark, cell-like room, threw
him violently upon the floor. Then returning to the room, the officer
took Tommy by the arm, and marching him into the same room, shut the
door to smother his cries. The little fellow was so frightened, that he
burst into an excitement of tears. The room was dark, and as gloomy as
a cavern. He could neither lie down, sleep, nor console himself. He
thought of Manuel, only to envy his lot, and would gladly have shared
his imprisonment,