his matted hair, breathes violently, contorts his face haggardly, as if suffering acutely.  Harry waits till the spasm has subsided, then calls an attendant to watch the patient while he goes to the well.  This done he proceeds into the kitchen to enquire for a vessel.  Having entered that department as the clock strikes two, he finds Ellen busily engaged preparing food for Mr. M’Fadden’s property, which is yet fast secured in the pen.  Feeling himself a little more at liberty to move about unrestrained, he procures a vessel, fills it at the well, carries it to his master’s bed-side, sees him comfortably cared for, and returns to the kitchen, where he will assist Ellen in her mission of goodness.

The little pen is situated a few yards from the tavern, on the edge of a clump of tall pines.

Ellen has got ready the corn and bacon, and with Harry she proceeds to the pen, where the property are still enjoying that inestimable boon,—­a deep sleep.

“Always sleeping,” he says, waking them one by one at the announcement of corn and bacon.  “Start up and get something good my girl has prepared for you.”  He shakes them, while Ellen holds the lantern.  There is something piercing in the summons-meats are strong arguments with the slave-they start from their slumbers, seize upon the food, and swallow it with great relish.  Harry and Ellen stand smiling over the gusto with which they swallow their coarse meal.

“You must be good boys to-night.  Old master’s sick; flat down on e’ back, and ’spects he’s going to die, he does.”  Harry shakes his head as he tells it to the astonished merchandise.  “Had a great time at the crossing to-day; killed two or three certain, and almost put master on the plank.”

“’Twarn’t no matter, nohow:  nobody lose nofin if old Boss do die:  nigger on e’ plantation don’ put e’ hat in mournin’,” mutters the negro woman, with an air of hatred.  She has eaten her share of the meal, shrugs her shoulders, and again stretches her valuable body on the ground.

“Uncle Sparton know’d old Boss warn’t gwine t’ be whar de debil couldn’t cotch ’em, so long as ’e tink.  If dat old mas’r debil, what white man talk ‘bout so much, don’ gib ’em big roasting win ’e git ‘e dah, better hab no place wid fireins fo’ such folks,” speaks up old Uncle Sparton, one of the negroes, whose face shines like a black-balled boot.

“Neber mind dat, Uncle Sparton; ’taint what ye say ’bout he.  Ven mas’r debil cotch old Boss ’e don’t cotch no fool.  Mas’r debil down yander find old Boss too tuf fo’ he business; he jus’ like old hoss what neber die,” rejoins another.

In a word, M’Fadden had told his negroes what a great democrat he was-how he loved freedom and a free country-until their ideas of freedom became strangely mystified; and they ventured to assert that he would not find so free a country when the devil became his keeper.  “Mas’r tink ’e carry ‘e plantation t’ t’oder world wid him, reckon,” Uncle Sparton grumblingly concludes, joining the motley conclave of property about to resume its repose.