Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/225

 islet, which being unknown to any one else, had ever since served them as a secure retreat. They soon picked up a recruit or two; and had afterwards been joined by their other companions..

Our guide, it seems, had been to a neighboring plantation to trade for corn; — a traffic, which our friends carried on with the slaves of several of the nearest plantations. After the business was concluded, the men with whom he had been dealing, had produced a bottle of whiskey of which our guide had drank so freely, that he had not gone far on his way home, before his legs failed him. He sunk down in the place where we had found him, and fell fast asleep.

Drinking whiskey away, from home, according to the prudent laws of this swamp-encircled commonwealth, was a high misdemeanor, punishable with thirty-nine lashes, which were forthwith inflicted upon our guide with a good deal of emphasis. He took it in good part though, as being the execution of a law to which he had himself assented, and which he knew was enacted as much for his own benefit, as for the benefit of those who had just now carried it into execution.

The life upon which we. now entered had at least, the charm of novelty. In the day time we eat, slept, told stories and recounted our escapes; or employed ourselves in dressing skins, making clothes, and curing provisions. But the night was our season of adventure and enterprise. As the autumn was coming on, we made frequent visits to the neighboring corn fields and potato patches, which we felt no scruples whatever in laying under severe contribution. This however was only for a month or two. Our regular and certain supply was in the herds of half wild cattle, which wander through the "piney woods" and feed upon the coarse grass which they furnish. We killed as many of these cattle as we needed, and their flesh cut into long strips, we dried in the sun. Thus cured, it is a palatable food; and we not only kept a stock on hand for our own consumption, but it furnished the principal article of a constant but cautious traffic which, as I have already mentioned, we carried on with the slaves of several neighboring plantations.