CHAPTER XXXVII.
AN EXPLANATION OF THAT CRY I HEARD IN THE NIGHT, WITH OTHER PERTINENT MATTER.
The next morning when we were mounted, and only waiting the order to start on our way, our ears were assailed by the piteous cry of a woman, which recalled to my mind the weeping I had heard in the night; but now the wailing was close at hand, coming from the midst of the huts where the tower stood. The next moment there sounded the sharp crack of a whip, followed by a scream of pain. At this the pretty color went out of Lady Biddy's cheek, and she called to Lewis de Pino, who stood talking with one of the hunters (and both as unconcerned as if they had been stone deaf), to know whence that cry came; but ere he could come smiling to her side to reply, the whole matter was explained by the appearance of five young Indian women bearing among them a long pole, to which they were attached by leather collars round their throats. The foremost of them was stanching her tears with her hands under the threat of the arquebusier conducting them, who had a short-stocked whip with a long lash in his hand, with which he tapped her shoulder menacingly as he spoke. These poor souls had never a bit of clothes on but a clout about their loins, and she who was trying to check her weeping had a long wheal across her neck, that stood out purple from her copper skin where the whip had fallen.
Lady Biddy was greatly shocked at the spectacle of this barbarity; nor could she smile on Lewis de Pino that day as she had the day before, which I was glad to observe; albeit he did all he could to set this matter in a fair light when we stopped at noon to dinner. He told her that slaves were one of the commodities he dealt in, and that if he did not occupy himself in this traffic another would, and maybe to their disadvantage, assuring her they were better treated at his hands than by their own kinsmen, who, of their own free will, brought their wives and daughters down to the station to sell them for knives, axes, beads, and the like; justifying himself by the opinion of some very pious writers that all things being created for the use of man, Providence did furnish the savage heathens to be servants of Christians for the cultivation of spices, sugars, and other things necessary to their comfort.
"But," says Lady Biddy, "if their case is better as slaves than as free women, why does that poor soul weep?"
"Why," says he, "my man was forced to use his whip because she strove to hang herself by the neck to the pole the others carried; and you must agree that in every country those are deservingly punished who attempt to end a life given them to be a blessing to their fellow-creatures."
"Nay," says Lady Biddy, "that is no answer to my question. She wept ere she tried to end her miserable life, for a certainty, and I would know why she wept."
Lewis de Pino, making inquiries on this, learnt that the young woman had but recently been wedded, and that her husband losing his life in battle, she had been sold by her father, who could not be burthened with her.
"So you see, madam," says he, when he had imparted this, "we treat them no worse than they would be treated if we did not exist. Nevertheless, 'tis a trade I would gladly abandon, for the sight of their suffering—which I can not ignore—unmans me for my business, so that I often pay more for these slaves than they are worth, merely to secure them from the ill-treatment they would receive were they returned upon the hands of those who would be rid of them. Nay, the sight of that poor creature's tears so moves me that I will, if it please you, order her collar to be unbolted and give her freedom."