At the place where they halted in their progress, I saw a huge grindstone, from behind which a little black urchin leaped up, and seizing the handle, commenced turning it with surprising velocity, looking into my face and laughing with that hearty glee so peculiar to the cachinations of his race. I knew the imp too well, for I had seen him in his tatters an hundred times, hopping the gutters in front of the Eagle Hotel. A horrible consciousness of my fate now flashed upon me. The prophesy of my aunt Deborah came into my mind, and I felt that it was to be fulfilled. I cast my eyes around me in despair, when they fell upon the figure of the old lady herself, standing upon the prow of the vessel. Her look was severe and reproachful. The finger of her right hand was uplifted, as if she would have said, "I have warned you in vain!"--while her left hand conveyed a pinch of snuff to her nostrils, which they received with an inspiration so keen that it hissed in my ears like hot iron. My glance at this figure was but momentary. Scarce had the imp commenced turning the instrument upon which I had now become aware that I was to be tortured, when the Titans in whose gripe I was held, forced my head downward, until my proboscis rested upon the revolving stone, and I felt its horrid inroads upon that sensitive member. The first excoriation was severe. I writhed and struggled to free myself, but the power which held me was indomitable. Gradually the urchin relaxed in the rapidity of his motions--the stone revolved slowly, and I saw that my torment was to be a lingering one.
In the midst of their task the inhuman wretches began to chaunt songs and incantations adapted to the horrid ceremony. I remember some snatches of the ballads they sung. Never shall I forget them, for the cruel mockery of their fiendish merriment was more galling than the pain I endured, or the awful reflection that I must pass the rest of my days the noseless object of pity and contempt. One of the stanzas ran thus:
De man who hold he nose too high Mus' be brought low: Put him on de grinstone And grind him off slow. Wheel about, and turn about, And wheel about slow; And every time he wheel about De nose must go.