Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/191

Rh men was to be decided before the company separated to go to their several homes. One proposed to burn them, another to flay them alive, and a third to 6tarve them to death, and many other modes of slowly and tormentingly extinguishing life were named; but that which was finally adopted was, of all others, the most horrible. The wretches were unanimously sentenced to be stripped naked, and bound down securely upon their backs, on the naked earth, in sight of each other; to have their mouths closely covered with bandages, to prevent them from making a noise to frighten away the birds, and in this manner to be left to be devoured alive by the carrion crows and buzzards, which swarm in every part of South Carolina.

The sentence was instantly carried into effect, so far as its execution depended on us. Hardy and his companion were divested of their clothes, stretched upon their backs on the ground; their mouths bandaged with handkerchiefs — their limbs extended — and these, together with their necks, being crossed by numerous poles, were kept close to the earth by forked sticks driven into the ground, so as to prevent the possibility of moving any part of their persons; and in this manner these wicked men were left to be torn in pieces by birds of prey. The buzzards and carrion crows, always attack dead bodies by pulling out and consuming the eyes first. They then tear open the bowels, and feed upon the intestines.