Viola putting aside any punctilious feelings she had, partook of the homely meal with what grace and relish she could command, and thanking them all for their kindness, bade them good-by. Viola visited a number of other families in the afternoon, and toward the evening of the long summer day instructed her servant to turn the horses toward home. They were not far from the cabin of the monster dwarf, Zibe Turner. A strange feeling of fear and apprehension sprang up within her. Was it caused by her nearness to the home of this wicked man, or by a premonition of danger? They were passing through one of the densest parts of the great forest. The sun was yet some distance above the horizon, but his slanting rays could throw only a dim light through that mass of wood and foliage. Suddenly two men sprang from behind high bushes by the roadside. They had black cloth masks over their faces. Holes were cut in the masks through which the bandits could see. One man was tall and broad. The other was short and thickset. The shorter man leaped to the horses' heads and, seizing the reins, stopped their progress. The other stepped to the side of the phaeton, and said in a voice he tried to disguise: "Lady, we'uns do not mean to harm you, but you must cum wid us." Viola, though dreadfully frightened, straightened herself up in the carriage, and replied: "What do you men mean by stopping a carriage on the highway, and thus disturbing peaceable citizens? I call upon you to go, let go the reins of my horses, and allow my servant to drive me home." "Dat is fur from our wish," said the desperado, "and if you won't walk away quietly wif us, we'uns will have to tote you away." With this the highwayman (who was no other than Sam Wiles) jumped into the vehicle, and seizing the young woman around the waist, was dragging her forcibly to the ground. Viola could make no successful resistance in the grasp of this powerful man, but he met resistance where he little expected it. The slave held the buggy whip in his hand, and hastily reversing his hold on the whip, brought the butt end of it down with much force on the miscreant's head. Wiles was half stunned by the blow, but he would not release his hold on Viola, and cursed the black with dreadful oaths. But it was the work only of a second for the terrible dwarf, Zibe Turner, to spring to the front of the carriage, and grabbing Mose in his sinuous arms, he drew him to the earth, then struck him a terrific blow on his head, and threw him to the ground. What the blow might not have done (for a negro's skull is very thick) the fall accomplished; for when he fell Mose's head struck the protruding root of a great oak tree, and the blow was of sufficient violence to stun the black man. Zibe Turner let the negro lie by the side of the road, and going to the horses led them to a trunk of a tree and, taking the hitch strap, tied it to a lower limb. The outlaws' purpose this time was not stealing horses.