The people whom he had successively met and overthrown in his
course, picking themselves up and getting into the village, reported
that there was a furious madman broke loose, who attacked every one
he met.
And soon every man and boy in the village who could mount a horse
started in pursuit. Only race horses would have beaten the speed
with which Wool ran, urged on by fear. It was nine miles on the
turnpike road from Tip Top that the horsemen overtook and surrounded
Wool, who, seeing himself hopelessly environed, fell down upon the
ground and rolled and kicked, swearing that he would not be taken
alive to have his eyelids cut off!
It was not until after a desperate resistance that he was finally
taken, bound, put in a wagon and carried back to the village, where
he was recognized as Major Warfield's man and a messenger was
despatched for his master.
And not until he had been repeatedly assured that no harm should
befall him did Wool gain composure enough to say, amid tears of
cruel grief and fear:
"Oh, marsers! my young missus, Miss Black, done been captured and
bewitched and turned into somebody else, right afore my own two
looking eyes and gone off in dat coach! 'deed she is! and ole marse
kill me!'deed he will, gemmen! He went and ordered me not to take my
eyes offen her, and no more I didn't! But what good that do, when
she turned to somebody else, and went off right afore my two looking
eyes? But ole marse won't listen to reason.
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