"Shall I take him, Doctor Gibbons?" asked a fine-looking, easy-mannered man, of the magistrate.
"Yes, Mr. Clayton."
"Do you know the nature of an oath? What is it?"
"I'll be fried like a slapper on the devil's griddle ef I don't tell right," whined Cy James, zealously.
"No you won't; at least, not first. If you don't tell me the truth I'll have your two ears cut off on the pillory, and no slapper shall enter that hungry stomach of yours for a month. Goy!"
He looked at Cy James as if he had a mind to bite his nose off as a mere beginning.
"Now, Hollyday Hicks, you and Billy Hooper and the other constables take away this box, which smells too loud here, as soon as the witness has sworn to it. When did you last see this box, James?"
"About ten year ago, sir, when I had been bound to Patty Cannon four year, I reckon, I see Patty an' Joe Johnson an' Ebenezer, his brother, all toting this chist to the field an' a-buryin' of it."[8]
"What did you see them put in that chest?"
"A dead man—a nigger-trader. I can't tell whether his name was Bell or Miller; she killed two men nigh that time, an' I was so little that I've got 'em mixed."