Viola visited a number of other families in the afternoon, and toward the evening of the long summer day instructed her servant to turn the horses toward home. They were not far from the cabin of the monster dwarf, Zibe Turner. A strange feeling of fear and apprehension sprang up within her. Was it caused by her nearness to the home of this wicked man, or by a premonition of danger?
They were passing through one of the densest parts of the great forest. The sun was yet some distance above the horizon, but his slanting rays could throw only a dim light through that mass of wood and foliage.
Suddenly two men sprang from behind high bushes by the roadside. They had black cloth masks over their faces. Holes were cut in the masks through which the bandits could see. One man was tall and broad. The other was short and thickset. The shorter man leaped to the horses' heads and, seizing the reins, stopped their progress. The other stepped to the side of the phaeton, and said in a voice he tried to disguise: "Lady, we'uns do not mean to harm you, but you must cum wid us."
Viola, though dreadfully frightened, straightened herself up in the carriage, and replied: "What do you men mean by stopping a carriage on the highway, and thus disturbing peaceable citizens? I call upon you to go, let go the reins of my horses, and allow my servant to drive me home."
"Dat is fur from our wish," said the desperado, "and if you won't walk away quietly wif us, we'uns will have to tote you away."
With this the highwayman (who was no other than Sam Wiles) jumped into the vehicle, and seizing the young woman around the waist, was dragging her forcibly to the ground. Viola could make no successful resistance in the grasp of this powerful man, but he met resistance where he little expected it. The slave held the buggy whip in his hand, and hastily reversing his hold on the whip, brought the butt end of it down with much force on the miscreant's head. Wiles was half stunned by the blow, but he would not release his hold on Viola, and cursed the black with dreadful oaths.
But it was the work only of a second for the terrible dwarf, Zibe Turner, to spring to the front of the carriage, and grabbing Mose in his sinuous arms, he drew him to the earth, then struck him a terrific blow on his head, and threw him to the ground. What the blow might not have done (for a negro's skull is very thick) the fall accomplished; for when he fell Mose's head struck the protruding root of a great oak tree, and the blow was of sufficient violence to stun the black man. Zibe Turner let the negro lie by the side of the road, and going to the horses led them to a trunk of a tree and, taking the hitch strap, tied it to a lower limb. The outlaws' purpose this time was not stealing horses.
In the meantime Sam Wiles carried Viola, vainly struggling, about one hundred feet up the road and turned to the right, where not far away a two-seated wagon stood, with two horses hitched to it. Wiles lifted Viola, now exhausted and half dead with fear, into the rear seat and sat down beside her. Presently the monster dwarf appeared and, freeing the horses, jumped on to the front seat. Turning the horses into the road, he drove in an opposite direction to that which Viola had been taking.
No words were spoken by any of the party and the horses pursued their way through the darkening forest. After a time they were driven by the dwarf into the enclosure before his mother's cabin. She was at the door, evidently expecting them. The devil which was in her caused her to cry out in hideous glee: "An' so you'uns cotched her did you'uns? Good. Now we'uns'll see what de Jedge'll do. Will he put gentl'men ob de hills in de jug ag'in? De debil blast 'im and all his kind." Looking at Viola, who now had braced herself for any approaching ordeal, remembering that she was Judge LeMonde's daughter, the hag said: "Now, my purty lady, we'uns'll see who'll wear fine clothes, an' eat de best tings, an' go round de kentry convartin' de people. We'uns count dat you'll get a taste of how we'uns live. Don't hurt yer digestion ner spile yet purty looks longin' ter see yer pa an' ma an' dat cussed preacher."
The monster dwarf here broke in, speaking in his deep voice: "Ma, dat's nuff now. Tell sis to git ready in a hurry, for we'uns have a long drive before us."