"'I do for a thieving villain,' I replied.
"'Do you know that your uncle had me tied and thrashed like a low black nigger?' he exclaimed, his teeth coming over his under lip.
"'And well deserved,' said I. Perhaps it was foolish, but I so detest the man that I could reply naught else.
"'I swore that I would be revenged on him and his,' snarled Cloud.
"'What are you going to do?' I inquired. I was wound about lengthwise with a long rope, and could move no more than my little finger.
"'I am going to hang you,' he replied. The two men that had been left behind approached us as if to interfere, but he repulsed them, and they hurried into the woods.
"I was frightened. The idea that he really intended to do it never entered my mind. But now I judge that he must be a maniac and nothing less.
"'You villain,' I said, 'you dare not lay hands on me!'"
Aunt Clarissa started. She remembered this was the expression that George had used in his delirium.
"Do you know what that, that"—George paused for an expression—"what he did?" he said at last, quite calmly. "He put a rope around my neck, and threw the end over the branch of a tree. Even then I did not suppose that he was trying to do anything but frighten me, but I shall never forget the horror with which I felt the rope tighten about my throat! As he was no heavier than I, he could not lift me entirely from the ground.—I could still almost stand upon my toes."