“By the pipers,—­what! and is’t here ye are?  The same that was with himself beyant!  Come here, you spalpeen you.  Wasn’t ye the same what runn’d whin we bees spaken to that nigger?” said the same guardman, taking hold of Tommy’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.

“Ot-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, to be relieved from such a horrible situation.  Morning was to bring, perhaps, worse terrors.  He thought of the happy scenes of his rustic home in Dunakade, and his poor parents, but nothing could relieve the anguish