“Gentlemen of the Jury,” said Judge Pyke, “as you had agreed upon your verdict before the trial, it is not requisite that you should retire to consult.  Prisoner at the Bar, rise to receive sentence.”

I thought it judicious to fall upon my knees and request forgiveness; but my persecutors were blinded by what no doubt seemed to them a religious zeal.

“Git up!” said Major Licklickin; and I am ashamed, for his sake, to say that there was an application of boot accompanying this remark.

“Prisoner,” continued my Rhadamanthus, “you have had a fair trial, and you are found guilty on all the counts of the indictment.  First:  Of disloyalty to the South.  Second:  Of indifference to the Democratic candidate for the Presidency.  Third:  Of maligning the character of Southern patriots in a book intended, no doubt, for universal circulation through the Northern States.  Fourth:  Of holding correspondence with an agent of the Underground Railroad, who, as he himself avows, has recently run off a nigger to Toronto.—­Silence, Sir!  Choke him, Billy Sangaree, if he says a word!—­Fifth:  Of defaming a Southern lady, while at the same time you were endeavoring to win her most attractive property and person from those who should naturally acquire them.  Sixth:  Of Agrarianism, Abolitionism, Atheism, and Infidelity.  Prisoner at the Bar, your sentence is, that you be tarred and cottoned and leave the State.  If you are caught again, you will be hung by the neck, and Henry Ward Beecher have mercy on your soul!”

I was now marched along by my two sentries to a huge tree, not of the bandanna species.  Beneath it a sugar-kettle filled with ebullient tar was standing.

My persecutors, with tranquil brutality, proceeded to disrobe me.  As my nether garments were removed, Mellasys Plickaman succeeded in persuading Saccharissa to retire.  She, however, took her station at a window and peered through the blinds at the spectacle.  I do not envy her sensations.  All her bright visions of fashionable life were destroyed forever.  She would now fall into the society from which I had endeavored to lift her.  Poor thing! knowing, too, that I, and my friend Derby Deblore, perhaps the most elegant young man in America, regarded her as a Hottentot Venus.  Poor thing!  I have no doubt that she longed to rush out, fling herself at my feet, and pray me to forgive her and reconsider my verdict of dumpiness and vulgarity.

Meantime I had been reduced to my shirt and drawers,—­excuse the nudity of my style in stating this fact.  Mellasys Plickaman took a ladle-full of the viscous fluid and poured it over my head.

“Aminadab,” said he, “I baptize thee!”

I have experienced few sensations more unpleasant than this application.  The tar descended in warm and sluggish streams, trickling over my forehead, dropping from my eyelids, rolling over my cheeks, sealing my mouth, gluing my ears to my skull, identifying itself with my hair, pursuing the path indicated by my spine beneath my shirt,—­in short, enveloping me with a close-fitting armor of a glutinous and most unsavory material.