They had not counted on one of the drivers going back to Jacksonville, meeting Mossa Cutter over his libations, and confidentially confessing to him,—
"I tuk a likely boy o'yourn over to Tallahassee in that gang month afore last."
Sol, if they had put a British gun in your hands then!
Mossa Cutter swooped down on them in the midst of their happiness,—refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,—and tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he beat him almost to death,—after which, he sent him out on the wharves to earn their common living.
A few nights after the return of Sol, Mossa Cutter came home with mania a potu. His handsome quadroon body-servant was sitting up for him. Mossa Cutter said to him,—
"You have the sideboard-keys,—bring me that decanter of brandy."
The boy replied,—
"Oh, don't, dear Mossa! you surely kill you'self!"
Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger," drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a verdict of accidental death.
That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket!