Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/320

 able to go alone to old negroes with heads perfectly white, making their way, staff in hand; and of almost every variety of equipment, from the well-dressed and well-mounted planters to little negro boys, perfectly naked, riding on sticks by way of horses, and shouting and screaming like so many witch urchins.

Great time it was at the village of Eglinton, to which three or four other parties of the grand hunt had lately returned, not unsuccessful. As we approached the jail, — a little wretched brick building, containing a single room of ten or twelve feet square, with one little grated window, whence proceeded a steam and stench perceptible at a considerable distance, — we found it crammed completely full of recaptured negroes, some of them severely wounded, tumbled [sic]pellmell into this Black Hole, which contained also two white women, committed on some charge of theft; the slaves to be detained until their masters should come forward and pay the promised reward for their capture, together with certain fees and charges which the law allows in such cases.

By way of refreshment after their fatigues, and in commemoration of their prowess, these successful men hunters had indulged in pretty copious draughts of peach brandy and whiskey; and the dead body of the overseer, conveyed to the tavern and laid out upon the table, soon wrought up those who gazed at it into a state of furious indignation.

As it was absolutely impossible to thrust any more prisoners into the jail, the two taken by the company to which I had attached myself, after being fettered and handcuffed, had been fastened by heavy chains to the iron bars of the prison window grating.

It was only by the greatest efforts that I mastered my emotions, as, making my way among the crowd of blacks and whites that gathered around him, I approached the one supposed to be Wild Tom. I bent upon him a scrutinizing eye. He was greatly altered; yet I did not fail to recognize the features,