‘What Sam is it?’ asked the Colonel.

‘Big Sam, the driver,’ said Jim.

‘Why was he whipped?’

‘He told me you were his master, and insisted on whipping Moye,’ replied the lady.

‘Did he dare to do that?  Give him a hundred, Jim, not one less,’ roared the Colonel.

‘Yas, massa,’ said Jim.

The lady looked significantly at the negro and shook her head, but said nothing, and he left.

’Come, Alice, it is nearly time for meeting, and I want to stop and see Sandy on the way.’

‘I reckon I won’t go,’ said Madam P——.

‘You stay to take care of Moye, I suppose,’ said the Colonel, with a slight sneer.

‘Yes,’ replied the lady; ’he is badly hurt, and in danger of inflammation.’

’Well, suit yourself.  Sir.  K——­, come, we’ll go—­you’ll meet some of the natives.’

The lady retired to the house, and the Colonel and I were soon ready.  The driver brought the horses to the door, and as we were about to enter the carriage, I noticed Jim taking his accustomed seat on the box.

‘Who’s looking after Sam?’ asked the Colonel.

‘Nobody, Cunnul; de ma’am leff him gwo.’

‘How dare you disobey me?  Didn’t I tell you to give him a hundred?’

‘Yas, massa, but de ma’am tole me notter.’

‘Well, another time you mind what I say—­do you hear?’ said his master.

‘Yas, massa,’ said the negro, with a broad grin, ‘I allers do dat.’

’You never do it, you d——­ nigger; I ought to have flogged you long ago.’

Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and we entered the carriage.  I afterwards learned from him that he had never been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master’s.  They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.

As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, ’Well, you see that the best people have to flog their niggers sometimes.’

’Yes, I should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least.  I think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P——­ had not had him flogged.’

’But she generally goes against it.  I don’t remember of her having it done in ten years before.  And yet, though I’ve the worst gang of niggers in the district, they obey her like so many children.’

‘Why is that?’

’Well, there’s a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little things for their comfort; that attaches them to her.  She is an extraordinary woman.’

‘Whose negroes are those, Colonel?’ I asked, as, after a while, we passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside.  Some were tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.