'I know too well,' I replied, 'he bought me as his servant, but not as his physician. I will not heal him without my fee; and my fee is that my sick cousin be attended to with humanity.'
'Take him away!' cried the master, beside himself with rage. 'Clap him in the stocks! Let him sit there all day long in the sun! He shall have nothing to eat or to drink! In the evening he shall be flogged! If it was the Duke of Monmouth himself, he should be tied up and flogged! Where the devil are the servants?'
A great hulking negro came running.
'You have now,' I told him quietly, 'permitted yourself to be inflamed with violent rage. The pain will therefore more rapidly increase. When it becomes intolerable, you will be glad to send for me.'
The negro dragged me away (but I made no resistance), and led me to the courtyard, where stood the stocks and a whipping-post. He pointed to the latter with a horrid grin, and then laid me fast in the former. Fortunately, he left me my hat, otherwise the hot sun would have made an end of me. I was, however, quite easy in my mind. I knew that this poor wretch, who already suffered so horribly, would before long feel in that jaw of his, as it were, a ball of fire. He would drink, in order to deaden the pain; but the wine would only make the agony more horrible. Then he would be forced to send for me.
This, in fact, was exactly what he did.
I sat in those abominable stocks for no more than an hour. Then Madam herself came to me, followed by the negro fellow who had locked my heels in those two holes.
'He is now much worse,' she said. 'He is now in pain that cannot be endured. Canst thou truly relieve his suffering?'
'Certainly I can. But on conditions. My cousin will die if he is neglected. Suffer me to minister to his needs. Give him what I want for him and I will cure your'—I did not know whether I might say 'your husband,' so I changed the words into—'my master. After that I will cheerfully endure again his accursed cruelty of the fields.'
She bade the negro unlock the bar.