“On his way to Old Virginia,” said he, with a malicious laugh.

“But,” said I.  “Master George told me that he should come back and take me with him to Virginia.”

“Well, boy,” said the overseer, “I’ll now tell ye what master George, as you call him, told me.  You are to stay here and act as driver of the field hands.  That was the order.  So you may as well submit to it at once.”

I stood silent and horror-struck.  Could it be that the man whom I had served faithfully from our mutual boyhood, whose slightest wish had been my law, to serve whom I would have laid down my life, while I had confidence in his integrity—­could it be that he had so cruelly and wickedly deceived me?  I looked at the overseer.  He stood laughing at me in my agony.

“Master George gave you no such orders,” I exclaimed, maddened by the overseer’s look and manner.

The overseer looked at me with a fiendish grin.  “None of your insolence,” said he, with a dreadful oath.  “I never saw a Virginia nigger that I couldn’t manage, proud as they are.  Your master has left you in my hands, and you must obey my orders.  If you don’t, why I shall have to make you ‘hug the widow there,’” pointing to a tree, to which I afterwards found the slaves were tied when they were whipped.

That night was one of sleepless agony.  Virginia—­the hills and the streams of my birth-place; the kind and hospitable home; the gentle-hearted sisters, sweetening with their sympathy the sorrows of the slave—­my wife—­my children—­all that had thus far made up my happiness, rose in contrast with my present condition.  Deeply as he has wronged me, may my master himself never endure such a night of misery!

At daybreak, Huckstep told me to dress myself, and attend to his directions.  I rose, subdued and wretched, and at his orders handed the horn to the headmen of the gang, who summoned the hands to the field.  They were employed in clearing land for cultivation, cutting trees and burning.  I was with them through the day, and at night returned once more to my lodgings to be laughed at by the overseer.  He told me that I should do well, he did not doubt, by and by, but that a Virginia driver generally had to be whipped a few times himself before he could be taught to do justice to the slaves under his charge.  They were not equal to those raised in North Carolina, for keeping the lazy hell-hounds, as he called the slaves, at work.

And this was my condition!—­a driver set over more than one hundred and sixty of my kindred and friends, wish orders to apply the whip unsparingly to every one, whether man or woman, who faltered in the task, or was careless in the execution of it, myself subject at any moment to feel the accursed lash upon my own back, if feelings of humanity should perchance overcome the selfishness of misery, and induce me to spare and pity.