Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/325

 yet unsubdued, he looked round on his shouting tormentors with a smile of contemptuous defiance.

Unable to endure the horrid spectacle, I attempted to rush from among the crowd; but I found myself watched, and directly I was seized, and, by orders of the self-appointed master of ceremonies of this horrible scene, conveyed close to the burning pile, as one on whom the spectacle of such an execution might make a salutary impression.

Thomas recognized me, — at least I thought so, — from amid the flames, and he lifted up his arm, as if to bid me farewell.

O, the horrible agony of that moment! Had I myself been in the place of my friend, could I have suffered more? My heartstrings seemed to crack; the blood rushed in a torrent to my brain. Nature could not endure it. I dropped fainting and senseless to the ground.





When I recovered my senses, I found myself on a bed, with four or five black women about me, applying various restoratives; and, as I opened my eyes, they burst out with great shouts of delight.

I found afterwards that, during my fainting fit, my pockets, as well as my saddle-bags, had been thoroughly searched, in hopes of obtaining some proofs to corroborate the suspicions raised against me by the sympathy I had exhibited.

But the only papers found were some letters of credit and introduction addressed from Liverpool to mercantile houses of established character in Charleston and New Orleans, in which I was described as an English traveller, on a tour partly of business and partly of pleasure.

Upon the production and public reading of these letters, a great difference of opinion had sprung up