Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/199

 resolved to make him smart in his turn, for the lashes he had inflicted upon me. _ It is true, I was obliged to play the part of a spy and an informer; but such low means are the only resource which the condition of servitude allows. As soon as I got home, I hastened to the overseer, and with an abundance of hypocritical pretences and professions of zeal for my master's service, I communicated to him as a great secret, the fact that Mr Christie was in the habit of trading with the hands, and buying whatever they brought him, without asking any questions.

Mr Martin said that he was well aware of it; and he would give me fiye dollars, if I would help him to detect Christie in the fact.

We quickly struck up a bargain. The overseer furnished me with a quantity of cotton; and I set off, one moon-light night, to pay a visit to Mr Christie's shop.

He recognized me at once, and jested a good deal, about the whipping he had given me. He thought it an excellent joke; and it best answered my purpose to appear very much of the same opinion. I found him not at all disinclined to trade, provided I would exchange my cotton for his whiskey, at the nominal price of a dollar a quart. It was not long before I paid him a second visit. That time, Mr Martin and one of his friends were posted outside the shop, at a place where they could peep between the logs and see and overhear the whole transaction.

To buy rice, cotton, or in fact any thing else of a slave, unless he produces a written permit from his master to sell it, according to the Carolina statute-book, is one of the most enormous crimes a. man can commit. Mr Christie was indicted at the next court. He was found guilty on the express testimony of Mr Martin and his companion; and was fined a thousand dollars, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. The fine swept away what little property he had; and how his imprisonment ended I never heard. More than one of the jurymen who convicted him, were grievously suspected of the very same practices; but the dread of incurring fresh suspicion, or perhaps the jealous rivalry of trade, made those very fellows the most clamorous for his condemnation.