CHAPTER XII.
_My sad condition before Whitfield .-- My terrible punishment .-- Incidents of a former attempt to escape--Jack at a farm house .-- Six pigs and a turkey .-- Our surprise and arrest._ The reader may perhaps imagine what must have been my feelings when I found myself surrounded on the island with my little family, at midnight, by a gang of savage wolves.

This was one of those trying emergencies in my life when there was apparently but one step between us and the grave.

But I had no cords wrapped about my limbs to prevent my struggling against the impending danger to which I was then exposed.

I was not denied the consolation of resisting in self defence, as was now the case.

There was no Deacon standing before me, with a loaded rifle, swearing that I should submit to the torturing lash, or be shot down like a dumb beast.
I felt that my chance was by far better among the howling wolves in the Red river swamp, than before Deacon Whitfield, on the cotton plantation.