The shock, however, stunned both of them, and when Phoebus recollected
himself he was tied hand and foot and lying on the garret floor again,
and over him stood Joe Johnson, flourishing a cowhide.
The bandages had again been torn from Phoebus's face, and he was
bleeding at the flesh-wound in his cheek, and breathless from his
conflict. A woman had dashed a vessel of water into his face, and this
had revived him.
The other man, called "captain," had, meantime, by the aid of this
woman--the same Phoebus had seen down-stairs--subdued and tied the
black insurgents, and both of them were flourishing their whips over the
backs and heads of the prisoners, big and little, so that the garret was
no slight reflection of the place of eternal torment, as the shadows of
the monsters, under the weak light, whipped and danced against the beams
and shingles, and shrieks and shouts of "Mercy!" blended in hideous
dissonance.
The woman now turned her lamp on the sailor's rough, swarthy, injured
countenance, and looked him over out of her dark, bold eyes:
"Joe, this is a nigger, by God!"
Johnson and the captain also examined him carefully, and, uttering an
oath, the former kicked the prostrate man with his heavy boot.
"I popped this bloke last night," he said, "and thought the scold's cure
had him. He's a sea-crab playin' the setter fur niggers. He sang beef to
me in Princess Anne.
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