Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of the octoroon caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as if by magnetic power.
"Do you say that, boys;" said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes; "shall he have fifty lashes?"
"Yas, massa, fifty lashes—gib de ole debble fifty lashes," shouted about fifty voices.
"He shall have them," quietly said the master.
The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than the cry of men, seemed to arouse Moye to a sense of his real position. Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then, sinking on his knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her dress, he shrieked, "Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy, save me!"
Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she mildly said, "Fifty lashes would kill him. Jake does not say that—your master leaves it to him, and he will not whip a dying man—will you, Jake?"
"No, ma'am—not—not ef you gwo agin it," replied the negro, with very evident reluctance.
"But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when Sam war nearer dead than he am," said Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of speech.
"Because he was brutal to Sam, should you be brutal to him? Can you expect me to tend you when you are sick, if you beat a dying man? Does Pompey say you should do such things?"