"
"That fellow, Whitecar, I'm reserving," said Clayton, "to punish when I
can use him to sustain an argument in favor of admitting negro testimony
in kidnapping cases.[16] Without that admission, these kidnappers cannot
be convicted: even Patty Cannon here may escape us, though she has
killed white men."
Sorden spoke up, he being of the party:
"A disease called leprosy has broke out in ole Derrick Molleston's
cabin; Sam Ogg has got it, too, and they say he fetched it up from the
breakwater. Nobody will go near them. Black Dave is dead; he said he
killed a man at Prencess Anne: the young wife of Levin Dennis, who
turns out to be a lady, stayed and prayed with him to the last, and he
went off humble and happy. But, my skin! another kidnapper has rented
Johnson's tavern a'ready."
"The railroad will clear all these evils out," exclaimed Randel. "I've
put it into poetry," and he began to recite:
"To dark Naswaddox forest fled
The murderer from the main,
And with the otter laid his head
Amid the swamp and cane:
'Here nothing can pursue my ear,
From travelled paths astray;
I shall forget, from year to year,
The world beyond the bay!'
"The hunted man one morning heard
A whistle near and strong,
And in the night a fiery light
The thickets flashed among:
The demon of the engine rushed
Along on blazing beams--
The hound the murderer had flushed,
The outlaw's path was Steam's!"
* * * * *
The cry of hate from the crowd around the whipping-post, as it awoke
Patty Cannon's last anger, also determined her last crime.
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