he would commit murder, for she could not live in this way. But he
only swore at me the more. At this Mrs. Lay came out in a rage, and
said she would see whether any one could come in and interfere with
the punishment of any of her slaves, and ordered another slave to cut
across both of her feet with a pocket-knife, through the skin, so that
blood was left in her tracks. I turned away, for I thought they would
murder the poor girl before my eyes; and I cried myself sick and
couldn't sleep, for I thought she must die before morning. The cotton-
field was opposite my window, and after breakfast I watched to see the
hands go to their work; and, sure enough, there was poor Alice
hobbling out into the cotton-field. They had been at work but a little
while when a heavy blow from the whip-handle on the back of her head
brought her to the ground. 'O, my God!' I cried, to see that overseer
hit her like that because she couldn't keep up her row. I prayed God
that Alice might die at once and be out of her misery; and, sure
enough, they brought her out of that field dead! I was glad of it.
Poor girl! she could suffer no more under their hands."

"And did not her death call forth some action from the law?" I asked.

"Nothing of the kind was ever noticed on our plantation. I tell you it
was a perfect hell on earth down here; you don't know anything about
it; and yet, if these things are told, they'll deny it, and call them
black abolition lies, when it's God's truth, and they know it. There
was Uncle Jack, poor fellow! He ran away, and they brought him in with
the bounds, after he'd been gone a week, and they made him strip and
lie down on his face, and fastened his hands and feet to iron rings.
Then a man sat on each side of him to do the whipping, alternating in
their strokes from his feet to his head, then back to his feet, and so
back and forth until they'd given him one hundred lashes. I passed by