“I saw you coming,” he said, “and I watched you. You whipped Jose, and now it is Jose’s turn to whip you.”
The trader hastily drew a pistol from his belt; but Jose’s stick knocked it from his hand before he could cock it. The next instant he was struggling in vain to release himself from the brawny arms of the negro.
“You had better be quiet,” said Jose. “If you make any noise, I will kill you. Go on!”
Having securely tied the hands of his victim, Jose flourished his stick over his head, and led him, holding the end of the leather thong, down into a thickly wooded ravine, where he fastened him to a tree. He then cut some tough switches, and addressed himself to his work.
Wormley begged piteously that his back might be spared, and then tried bribes and threats; but all without effect upon the obdurate negro, whose reply was always the same.
“You whipped Jose, and Jose means to whip you.”
And he did whip him. He plied his switches so effectually, that the trader squirmed and writhed, and cried and screamed, and called vainly for help. It was not until the negro had exhausted his switches, and had gone to procure a fresh supply that the victim had any respite. He anxiously looked around, hoping that somebody might have heard his appeals for help, and was delighted to see a man coming down the ravine toward him.
As it was dusk, he could not distinguish the features of the stranger until he came nearer, when he perceived that it was the white captive who had asked his aid in the village. At the same moment the negro returned with more switches.
Seeing the white man, Jose hesitated for a moment; but, as Old Blaze calmly seated himself on a log, and showed no disposition to interfere, he proceeded to administer another dose of the oil of hickory.
“Won’t you take this nigger off of me, mister?” entreated Wormley. “He has been torturing me more than half an hour and you see that he means to begin again.”