Originally there had been a
hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been sold on
the trip. The trader in charge of them rode a horse and carried
a whip with a short handle and a long heavy lash divided into
several knotted tails at the end. With this whip he cut the
shoulders of any that tottered from weariness and pain, and
straightened them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his
desire without that. None of these poor creatures looked up as
we rode along by; they showed no consciousness of our presence.
And they made no sound but one; that was the dull and awful clank
of their chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three
burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved in a cloud
of its own making.
All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. One has seen
the like of this coating upon furniture in unoccupied houses, and
has written his idle thought in it with his finger. I was reminded
of this when I noticed the faces of some of those women, young
mothers carrying babes that were near to death and freedom, how
a something in their hearts was written in the dust upon their
faces, plain to see, and lord, how plain to read! for it was the
track of tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl, and
it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it
was come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast that ought
not to know trouble yet, but only the gladness of the morning of
life; and no doubt--
She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the lash
and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder.
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