Because of these he overlooked the offence against his person and estate, and delivered Bras-Coupe to the law to suffer only the penalties of the crime he had committed against society by attempting to be a free man.
We repeat it for the credit of Palmyre, that she pleaded for Bras-Coupe.
But what it cost her to make that intercession, knowing that his death would leave her free, and that if he lived she must be his wife, let us not attempt to say.
In the midst of the ancient town, in a part which is now crumbling away, stood the Calaboza, with its humid vaults and grated cells, its iron cages and its whips; and there, soon enough, they strapped Bras-Coupe face downward and laid on the lash.

And yet not a sound came from the mutilated but unconquered African to annoy the ear of the sleeping city.
("And you suffered this thing to take place ?" asked Joseph Frowenfeld of Honore Grandissime.
"My-de'-seh!" exclaimed the Creole, "they lied to me--said they would not harm him!") He was brought at sunrise to the plantation.

The air was sweet with the smell of the weed-grown fields.

The long-horned oxen that drew him and the naked boy that drove the team stopped before his cabin.
"You cannot put that creature in there," said the thoughtful overseer.
"He would suffocate under a roof--he has been too long out-of-doors for that.

Put him on my cottage porch." There, at last, Palmyre burst into tears and sank down, while before her, on a soft bed of dry grass, rested the helpless form of the captive giant, a cloth thrown over his galled back, his ears shorn from his head, and the tendons behind his knees severed.