Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/196

194 the flesh from the hones was heard, and the panting breath of the agonized sufferer, quivering under the Leaks of his tormentors, as they consumed his vitals, floated audibly upon the evening breeze.

The murdered lady was also seen walking by moonlight, near the spot where she had been dragged from her horse, wrapped in a blood-stained mantle, overhung with gory and dishevelled locks.

The little island in the swamp was said to present spectacles too horrid for human eyes to look upon, and sounds were heard to issue from it which no human ear could bear. Terrific and ghastly fires were seen to burst up, at midnight, amongst the evergreens that clad this lonely spot, emitting scents too suffocating and sickly to be endured; whilst demoniac yells, shouts of despair and groans of agony, mingled their echos in the solitude of the woods.

Whilst I remained in this neighborhood, no colored person ever traveled this road alone after night-fall; and many white men would have ridden ten miles round the country to avoid the passage of the ridge road, after dark. Generations must pass away before the tradition of this place will be forgotten; and many a year will open and close, before the last face will be pale, or the last heart beat, as the twilight traveler skirts the borders of the Murderer's Swamp.

We had allowances of meat distributed to all the