At the last words, he exclaimed:
"Samson knocked Joe Johnson down? Den de debbil has got him, and means
to pay him back!"
"What's that?" cried Jimmy Phoebus.
The sweat stood on the big slave's forehead, as if his imagination was
terribly possessed, but before he could explain Mrs. Custis interrupted:
"I think it was said that old Patty Cannon corrupted Jake Purnell, who
cut his throat at Snow Hill five years ago. He was a free negro who
engaged slaves to steal other slaves and bring them to him, and he
delivered them up to the white kidnappers for money; and nobody could
account for his prosperity till a negro who had been beaten to death was
found in the Pocomoke River, and three slaves who had been seen in his
company were arrested for the murder. They confessed that they had
stolen the dead negro and he had escaped from them, and was so beaten
with clubs, to make him tractable, that when they gave him to Purnell
his life was all gone. Then he was thrown in the river, but his body
came up after sinking, and the confession of the wretched tools
explained to the slave-owners where all their missing negroes had gone.
They marched and surrounded Purnell's hut, and he was discovered
burrowed beneath it. They brought the dogs, and fire to drive him out,
and as he came out he cut his throat with desperate slashes from ear to
ear."
During this narrative the man Dave had listened with rising nervous
excitement, rolling his eyes as if in strong inward torment, till the
concluding words inspired such terror in him that he dropped the reins,
threw back his head, and shouted, with large beads of sweat all round
his brow:
"Mercy! mercy! Have mercy! Save me, oh, my Lord!"
"He's got a fit, I reckon," cried Jimmy Phoebus, promptly grasping the
reins as the horses started at the cry, and with his leg pinning Dave to
the carriage-seat.
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