“You dirty liah,” taking out a watch; “I’ll give you jest five minutes t’ tell, an’ then—­” he menaced with the up-lifted whip.

In stubborn silence the girl waited the five minutes out.

“Jimmy!...  Jacklin!... throw her down an’ hold her, rump up, over that cot.”  They obeyed.  With a jerk the sheriff had her dress up and her bare buttocks in view.

“I’m a-goin’ to whup an’ whup till you confess, Martha.”

Crack!  Crack!  Crack! the whip descended, leaving red whelts each time.  The mulatto girl writhed, but did not cry quits.  Beads of perspiration glistened on the jailer’s face.  The girl shook off his lax grip on her arms ... the sheriff’s son was holding her legs.  We were crowded against the bars, angry and silent.  We admired the girl’s hopeless pluck.  We saw she was holding out just to, somehow, have vengeance on the jailer for her being held in unwilling concubinage by him, hoping he would catch it hard for having let the keys hang carelessly in open view, and so, stolen.

“Damn you, Jacklin,” shouted the sheriff, “I believe you’re a little soft on the gal ... come here ... you swing the whip an’ I’ll hold her arms.”

In mute agony Jacklin obeyed ... whipping the woman of whom he was fond.

“Harder, Jacklin, harder,” and the sheriff drew his gun on him to emphasise the command.

Under such impulsion, a shower of heavy blows fell.  The girl screamed.

“I’ll give up ...  Oh, good Lordy, I’ll give up.”

And she dug the keys out from under the mattress across which they had whipped her.

After they had gone she lay crying on her face for a long while.  When night came she still lay crying.  Nothing any of us could say would console her.  Not even the little white cotton thief had power to allay her hurt....

At last we began cursing and railing at her.  That made her stop, after a fashion.  But still she occasionally gave vent to a heart-deep, dry, racking sob.

* * * * *

Locked in there behind bars and forced to be impotent onlookers, the whipping we had witnessed made us as restless as wild animals.  That night, under the dim flare of our jail-made lamps, the boys gambled as usual, for their strips of paper,—­and as eagerly as if it were real currency.  I, for my part, drew away to the vacant cell at the far end of the cage to study and read and dream my dreams....

As I sat there I was soon possessed with a disagreeable feeling that a malignant, ill-wishing presence hovered near.  I shifted in my seat uneasily.  I looked up.  There stood, in the doorway, the lusty young farmer who was in for stealing the bales of cotton.  He wore an evil, combative leer on his face.  He was “spoiling” for a quarrel—­just for the mere sake of quarrelling—­that I could see.  But I dissembled.

“Well, Jack?” I asked gently.

“You’re a nice one,” he muttered, “you pale-faced Yankee son of a b——­ ... think you’re better ‘n the rest of us, don’t ye?... readin’ in yore books?”