“But,” said Mueller, “I did not sell her to you as a slave.  She is as white as you or I, and neither of us can hold her if she chooses to go away.”

Such at least was Belmonti’s confession, yet he was as far from consenting to let his captive go after this confession was made as he had been before.  He seems actually to have kept her for a while; but at length she went boldly to Schuber’s house, became one of his household, and with his advice and aid asserted her intention to establish her freedom by an appeal to law.  Belmonti replied with threats of public imprisonment, the chain-gang, and the auctioneer’s block.

Salome, or Sally, for that seems to be the nickname by which her kindred remembered her, was never to be sold again; but not many months were to pass before she was to find herself, on her own petition and bond of $500, a prisoner, by the only choice the laws allowed her, in the famous calaboose, not as a criminal, but as sequestered goods in a sort of sheriff’s warehouse.  Says her petition:  “Your petitioner has good reason to believe that the said Belmonti intends to remove her out of the jurisdiction of the court during the pendency of the suit”; wherefore not he but she went to jail.  Here she remained for six days and was then allowed to go at large, but only upon giving still another bond and security, and in a much larger sum than she had ever been sold for.

The original writ of sequestration lies before me as I write, indorsed as follows: 

No. 23,041.

Sally Miller ) Sequestration.
)
vs. ) Sigur, Caperton
)
Louis Belmonti. ) and Bonford.

Received 24th January, 1844, and on the 26th of the same month sequestered the body of the plaintiff and committed her to prison for safe keeping; but on the 1st February, 1844, she was released from custody, having entered bond in the sum of one thousand dollars with Francis Schuber as the security conditioned according to law, and which bond is herewith returned this 3d February, 1844.

  B.F.  LEWIS, d’y sh’ff.

Inside is the bond with the signatures, Frantz Schuber in German script, and above in English,

[Illustration:  THE COURT PAPERS.]

[Illustration:  handwritten text]

Also the writ, ending in words of strange and solemn irony:  “In the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-four and in the sixty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States.”

We need not follow the history at the slow gait of court proceedings.  At Belmonti’s petition John F. Miller was called in warranty; that is, made the responsible party in Belmonti’s stead.  There were “prayers” and rules, writs and answers, as the cause slowly gathered shape for final contest.  Here are papers of date February 24 and 29—­it was leap year—­and April 1, 2, 8, and 27.  On the 7th of May Frank Schuber asked leave, and on the 14th was allowed, to substitute another bondsman in his place in order that he himself might qualify as a witness; and on the 23d of May the case came to trial.