The slave-driver lashed us desperately, for he saw ruin
before him, but his lashings only made matters worse, for they
drove us further from the road and from likelihood of succor.
So we had to stop at last and slump down in the snow where we
were. The storm continued until toward midnight, then ceased.
By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were
dead, and others past moving and threatened with death. Our
master was nearly beside himself. He stirred up the living, and
made us stand, jump, slap ourselves, to restore our circulation,
and he helped as well as he could with his whip.
Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon a
woman came running and crying; and seeing our group, she flung
herself into our midst and begged for protection. A mob of people
came tearing after her, some with torches, and they said she was a
witch who had caused several cows to die by a strange disease,
and practiced her arts by help of a devil in the form of a black
cat.
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