"Why, he hab--dear, dear ma.s.sa, don't yer, don't yer hurt him--he hab come back!"

If a bombsh.e.l.l had fallen in the room, a greater sensation could not have been produced. Every individual arose from the table, and the Colonel, striding up and down the apartment, exclaimed:

"Is he mad? The everlasting fool! Why in h--has he come back?"

"Oh, don't ye hurt him ma.s.sa," said the black cook, wringing her hands.

"Sam hab been bad, bery bad, but he won't be so no more."

"Stop your noise, aunty," said the Colonel, but with no harshness in his tone. "I shall do what I think right."

"Send for him, David," said Madame P----; "let us hear what he has to say. He would not come back if he meant to be ugly."

"_Send_ for him, Alice!" replied my host. "He's prouder than Lucifer, and would send me word to come to _him_. I will go. Will you accompany me, Mr. K----? You'll hear what a runaway n.i.g.g.e.r thinks of slavery: Sam has the gift of speech, and uses it regardless of persons."

"Yes, sir, I'll go with pleasure."

It was about an hour after nightfall when we emerged from the door of the mansion and took our way to the negro quarters. The full moon had risen half way above the horizon, and the dark pines cast their shadows around the little collection of negro huts, which straggled about through the woods for the distance of a third of a mile. It was dark, but I could distinguish the figure of a man striding along at a rapid pace a few hundred yards in advance of us.

"Is'nt that Moye?" I asked the Colonel, directing his attention to the receding figure.

"I reckon so; that's his gait. He's had a lesson to-day that'll do him good."

"I don't like that man's looks," I replied, carelessly; "but I've heard of singed cats."

"He _is_ a sneaking d--l," said the Colonel; "but he's very valuable to me. I never had an overseer who got so much work out of the hands."

"Is he severe with them?"

"Well, I reckon he is; but a n.i.g.g.e.r is like a dog--you must flog him to make him like you."

"I judge your n.i.g.g.e.rs haven't been flogged into liking Moye."

"Why, have you heard any of them speak of him?"

"Yes; though, of course, I've made no effort to draw gossip from them. I had to hear."

"O yes; I know; there's no end to their gabble; n.i.g.g.e.rs will talk. But what have you heard?"

"That Moye is to blame in this affair of Sam, and that you don't know the whole story."

"What _is_ the whole story?" he asked, stopping short in the road; "tell me before I see Sam."

I then told him what Jim had recounted to me. He heard me through attentively, then laughingly exclaimed:

"Is that all! Lord bless you, he didn't seduce her. There's no seducing these women; with them it's a thing of course. It was Sam's d-- high blood that made the trouble. His father was the proudest man in Virginia, and Sam is as like him as a n.i.g.g.e.r can be like a white man."

"No matter what the blood is, it seems to me such an injury justifies revenge."

"Pshaw, my good fellow, you don't know these people. I'll stake my plantation against a gla.s.s of whiskey there's not a virtuous woman with a drop of black blood in her veins in all South Carolina. They prefer the white men; their husbands know it, and take it as a matter of course."

We had here reached the negro cabin. It was one of the more remote of the collection, and stood deep in the woods, an enormous pine growing up directly beside the doorway. In all respects it was like the other huts on the plantation. A bright fire lit up its interior, and through the crevices in the logs we saw, as we approached, a scene that made us pause involuntarily, when within a few rods of the house. The mulatto man, whose clothes were torn and smeared with swamp mud, stood near the fire. On a small pine table near him lay a large carving-knife, which glittered in the blaze, as if recently sharpened. His wife was seated on the side of the low bed at his back, weeping. She was two or three shades lighter than the man, and had the peculiar brown, kinky hair, straight, flat nose, and speckled, gray eyes which mark the metif.

Tottling on the floor at the feet of the man, and caressing his knees, was a child of perhaps two years.

As we neared the house, we heard the voice of the overseer issuing from the doorway on the other side of the pine-tree.

"Come out, ye black rascal."

"Come in, you wite hound, ef you dar," responded the negro, laying his hand on the carving-knife.

"Come out, I till ye; I sha'n't ax ye agin."

"I'll hab nuffin' to do wid you. G'way and send your ma.s.sa har," replied the mulatto man, turning his face away with a lordly, contemptuous gesture, that spoke him a true descendant of Pocahontas. This movement exposed his left side to the doorway, outside of which, hidden from us by the tree, stood the overseer.

"Come away, Moye," said the Colonel, advancing with me toward the door; "_I'll_ speak to him."

Before all of the words had escaped the Colonel's lips, a streak of fire flashed from where the overseer stood, and took the direction of the negro. One long, wild shriek--one quick, convulsive bound in the air--and Sam fell lifeless to the floor, the dark life-stream pouring from his side. The little child also fell with him, and its greasy, grayish shirt was dyed with its father's blood. Moye, at the distance of ten feet, had discharged the two barrels of a heavily-loaded shot-gun directly through the negro's heart.

"You incarnate son of h--," yelled the Colonel, as he sprang on the overseer, bore him to the ground, and wrenched the shot-gun from his hand. Clubbing the weapon, he raised it to brain him. The movement occupied but a second; the gun was descending, and in another instant Moye would have met Sam in eternity, had not a brawny arm caught the Colonel's, and, winding itself around his body, pinned his limbs to his side so that motion was impossible. The woman, half frantic with excitement, thrust open the door when her husband fell, and the light which came through it revealed the face of the new-comer. But his voice, which rang out on the night air as clear as a bugle, had there been no light, would have betrayed him. It was Scip. Spurning the prostrate overseer with his foot, he shouted:

"Run, you wite debble, run for your life!"

"Let me go, you black scoundrel," shrieked the Colonel, wild with rage.

"When he'm out ob reach, you'd kill him," replied the negro, as cool as if he was doing an ordinary thing.

"I'll kill you, you black--hound, if you don't let me go," again screamed the Colonel, struggling violently in the negro's grasp, and literally foaming at the mouth.

"I shan't lef you gwo, Cunnel, till you 'gree not to do dat."

The Colonel was a stout, athletic man, in the very prime of life, and his rage gave him more than his ordinary strength, but Scip held him as I might have held a child.

"Here, Jim," shouted the Colonel to his body-servant, who just then emerged from among the trees, "'rouse the plantation--shoot this d-- n.i.g.g.e.r."

"Dar aint one on 'em wud touch him, ma.s.sa. He'd send _me_ to de debble wid one fist."

"You ungrateful dog," groaned his master. "Mr. K----, will you stand by and see me handcuffed by a miserable slave?"

"The black means well, my friend; he has saved you from murder. Say he is safe, and I'll answer for his being away in an hour."

The Colonel made one more ineffectual attempt to free himself from the vice-like grip of the negro, then relaxing his efforts, and, gathering his broken breath, he said, "You're safe _now_, but if you're found within ten miles of my plantation by sunrise, by--you're a dead man."

The negro relinquished his hold, and, without saying a word, walked slowly away.

"Jim, you--rascal," said the Colonel to that courageous darky, who was skulking off, "raise every n.i.g.g.e.r on the plantation, catch Moye, or I'll flog you within an inch of your life."

"I'll do dat, Cunnel; I'll kotch de ole debble, ef he's dis side de hot place."

His words were echoed by about twenty other darkies, who, attracted by the noise of the fracas, had gathered within a safe distance of the cabin. They went off with Jim, to raise the other plantation hands, and inaugurate the hunt.