The faces of all—men, women, and children—wore an ominous and gloomy expression; and the attitudes in which they stood betokened terror and alarm. Murmurs I could hear—now and then ejaculations—and sobs that bespoke sympathy with some one who suffered. I saw scowling brows, as if knit by thoughts of vengeance. But these last were few—the more general expression was one of terror and submission.
It was not difficult to tell that the cry I had heard proceeded from the neighbourhood of the pump, and a glance unfolded the cause. Some poor slave was undergoing punishment!
A group of negroes hid the unfortunate from my view, but over their heads I could see the slave Gabriel, his body naked to the breech, mounted upon the platform and working the pump with all his might.
This Gabriel was a Bambarra negro, of huge size and strength, branded on both shoulders with the fleur-de-lis. He was a man of fierce aspect, and, as I had heard, of fierce and brutal habit—feared not only by the other negroes, but by the whites with whom he came in contact. It was not he that was undergoing punishment. On the contrary, he was the instrument of torture.
And torture it was—I knew the punishment well.
The trough or aqueduct had been removed; and the victim was placed at the bottom of the pump, directly under the spout. He was fast bound in a species of stocks; and in such a position that he could not move his head, which received the continuous jet in the very centre of the crown!
Torture? No doubt, you are incredulous? You fancy there can be no great torture in that. A simple shock—a shower-bath—nothing more!
You are right. For the first half-minute or so it is but a shock, a shower-bath, but then—
Believe me when I declare to you—that a stream of molten lead—an axe continually crashing through the skull—would not be more painful than the falling of this cold-water jet! It is torture beyond endurance—agony indescribable. Well may it be called the “devil’s douche.”
Again the agonised cry came from the pump, almost curdling my blood.