“Yerdar’ ter dis’bey me?” Mr. Buck bellowed.  “I’ll brain yer:  I’ll—­”

“I didn’t go ter do it, moster,” Alston said, reaching for the whip.  “I’ll whip her tell yer tells me ter stop.”

“He didn’t go ter do it, Mos’ Buck,” pleaded Little Lizay, frightened for Alston.  “He’ll whip me ef yer’ll give ’im the whip.—­I’s ready, Als’on.”

She crossed her arms over her bare bosom and shook her long hair forward:  then dropped her face low and stood with her back partly turned to Alston, who now had the whip.

“Fire away!” said the overseer.

Alston was not a refined gentleman, whose youth had been hedged from the coarse and degrading, whose good instincts had been cherished, whose faculties had been harmoniously trained.  He was not a hero:  he was not prepared to espouse to the death Little Lizay’s cause—­to risk everything for the shrinking, helpless woman and for his own manhood—­to die rather than strike her.  He was only a slave, used from his cradle to the low and cruel and brutalizing.  But he had the making of a man in him:  his nature was one that could never become utterly base.  But there was no help, no hope, for either of them in anything he could do.  He might knock Mr. Buck senseless, sure of the sympathy of every slave on the plantation.  There would be a brief triumph, but he and Little Lizay would have to pay for it:  bloodhounds, scourgings, chains, cruelty that never slept and could never be placated, were sure as fate.  Resistance was inevitable disaster.

Alston did not need to stand there undetermined while he went over this:  it was familiar ground.  Over and over again he had settled it:  it was madness for the slave to oppose himself to the dominant white man.

So, after his first unreasoning recoil, his mind was decided to adminster the flogging.  Would it not be a mercy to Little Lizay for him to do this rather than that other hand, energized by hate, revenge and cruelty?

He raised his arm, with his heart beating hot and his manhood shrinking:  he struck Little Lizay’s bare shoulders.  She had nerved herself, but the blow, after all, surprised her and made her start; and she had not quite recovered herself when the second blow fell, so that she winced again; but after that she stood like a statue.

“Harder!” cried Mr. Buck after the first few lashes.  “None yer tomfool’ry ’bout me.  She ain’t no baby.  Harder!  I tell yer.  Yer ain’t draw’d no blood nary time.  Ef yer don’t min’ me I’ll knock yer down.  Yer whips like yer wus ’feard yer’d hurt ‘er.  Yer ac’ like yer never whipped no nigger sence yer wus bawn.  Yer’s got ter tiptoe ter it, an’ fling yer arm back at a better lick ’an that.  Look yere:  ef yer don’t lick her harder I’ll make Big Sam lick yer till yer see sights.”