Question

What did waller do when he got caught up with the slaves who were trying to escape in Nightjohn?

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In the novel Nightjohn, Sarny talks about a girl called Alice trying to escape after she'd been beaten. Sarny says she had reached the river when Waller set his dogs on her. They ripped off the front part of her body, but she didn't die. Waller took her back to the quarters as an example of what would happen if anyone else tried to escape.
Nobody needed a reminder, because it was not the first time something like this had happened. Another time, a slave called Jim escaped. Jim had a head start and ran through the night, but Waller and his dogs still caught up with him. Jim climbed a tree, but as Sarny says, "problem was, the tree wasn't higher than he could reach." The dogs could still jump up and attack his him and did until there was no flesh left on the back of his legs.
A third time, a man called Pawley stayed too long at his lover's house, and Waller set the dogs on him. Waller pulled the dogs back before they had killed Pawley and then castrated him. Pawley bled to death.
Sarny explains how Waller feeds the dogs "blood things" to make them hunger for meat. He'll then take them to the fields and let them attack anyone working too slowly. Sarny says he pulls them off before they do any major damage, but not before they have tasted blood.

Nightjohn

What did waller do when he got caught up with the slaves who were trying to escape in Nightjohn?

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