Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/190

188 and soon after, my master, the owner of the blood hound, and many others returned, bringing with them Hardy, whom the hound had followed ten or twelve miles through the swamps and thickets; had at last caught him, and would soon have killed him, had he not been compelled to relinquish his prey. When the party had all returned, a kind of court was held in the woods, where we then were, for the purpose of determining what punishment should be inflicted upon Hardy and David. All agreed at once, that an ex- ample of the most terrific character ought to be made of such atrocious villains, and that it would defeat the ends of justice to deliver these fellows up to the civil authority, to be hanged like common murderers. The next measure was to settle upon the kind of punish- ment to be inflicted upon them, and the manner of executing the sentence.

Hardy was, all this time, sitting on the ground covered with blood, and yet bleeding profusely, in hearing of his inexorable judges. The dog had man- gled both his arms and hands in a shocking manner; torn a large piece of flesh entirely away from one side of his breast, and sunk his fangs deep in the side of his neck. No other human creature that I have ever Been presented a more deplorable spectacle of mingled crime and cruelty.

It was now growing late, and the fate of these