Mrs. Dawsey was then remanded to jail to await a new
trial, at the next sitting of the court.
Shortly after the trial, Mulock suddenly disappeared. Hearing of it, and
suspecting he had been spirited away by Dawsey, Joseph Preston went to
Trenton, and, procuring a judge's order for Mulock's arrest as an
absconding witness, caused a thorough search to be made for him in Jones
and the adjoining counties. He himself visited Chalk Level, in Harnett
County, and there found him, living again with his white wife. That lady
had previously won and lost a second spouse, but, it appeared, was then
in such straits for another husband, that she was willing to take up
with her own cast-off household furniture. Whether a new marriage
ceremony was performed, or not, I never learned; but I have been
reliably informed that Mulock complained bitterly of his wife for having
defrauded him of twenty-five of the fifty dollars she had agreed to pay
as consideration for his again sharing her 'bed and board.'
Mulock admitted having received four hundred dollars from Dawsey for
absenting himself, and gave, as an excuse for accepting the bribe, his
conviction that Mrs. Dawsey could not be found guilty on his testimony.
After his arrest he was confined in the same jail with the 'retired'
schoolmistress.
The second trial was approaching; but, late on the night preceding the
sitting of the court, the jailer's house--which adjoined and
communicated with the prison--was forcibly entered by four armed men
disguised as negroes.
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