In Chapter 34, Tom, injured and bleeding, lies alone in the gin-house, trying to pray. The strange woman from the field, Cassy, gives him water and dresses his wounds. She tells him he has been brave but that he must now give up; there is no God, she says, or if there is, He is set against them. The other slaves, she says, are not worth his suffering; they would turn against him in a minute. Tom says he has lost everything else, and he refuses to lose his soul. She tells Tom he will be tortured to death if he does not give up his resistance to Legree, and he replies that he will be dead then and beyond hurting. Then Cassy, thinking of Emmeline, tells Tom her own story.
In Chapter 35, Legree sits in his cluttered house, drinking punch and regretting having let Sambo talk him into punishing Tom, who now is unfit to work. Cassy hears him and sneers at him; she reminds him that he fears her, and with reason. The narrator tells us that Cassy has a sexual hold over Legree, but that he also fears her because he suspects she is insane, which in his superstitious mind amounts to possession. Cassy has taken Emmeline's side against him and has worked in the field for a day to prove to him that she doesn't fear his threat to send her there. Legree admits that he was foolish to have Tom whipped so severely but says he is determined to break Tom's spirit. Just then Sambo comes in with something he has found while flogging Tom; he says this is a charm Tom wears against feeling pain. Actually, it is the silver dollar given Tom by young George Shelby, together with the lock of Eva's hair. The lock of hair curls around Legree's finger and he screams in fear, throwing the thing into the fire. At this point Cassy goes out to tend Tom — the action of the previous chapter.
