dian corn, prepared for me at night, in an
ante-room where the two servant-men slept. It was a luxury that I had
not enjoyed for a long while. For several days I remained very quiet,
and apparently very contented. My mistress gave me no hard work,
chiefly sending me on messages or taking me out with her. She made the
distinction between me and the convicts that I always took my meals with
her and they did not. In short, I was treated as a friend and visitor
more than anything else, and had I not been so anxious about going to
England, I certainly had no reason to complain except of my detention,
and this, it was evident, it was not in her power to prevent, as, until
the sloop went away with the tobacco, she had no means of sending me
away. One day, however, as I was walking past the tobacco-shed, I heard
my name mentioned by the two convicts, and stopping I heard James say:

"Depend upon it, that's what she's after, Jeykell; and he is to be our
master, whether he likes it or not."

"Well, I shouldn't wonder," replied the other; "she does make pure love
to him, that's certain."

"Very true; everything's fierce with her--even love--and so he'll find
it if he don't fancy her."

"Yes, indeed:--well, I'd rather serve another ten years than she should
fall in love with me."

"And if I had my choice, whether to be her husband or to swing, I should
take the cord in preference."

"Well, I pity him from my heart; for he is a good youth and a
fair-spoken and a handsome, too; and I'm sure that he has no idea of his
unfortunate situation."

"No idea, indeed," said I to myself, as I walked away. "Merciful
Heaven! Is it possible!" And when I thought over her conduct, and what
had passed between us, I perceived not only that the convicts were right
in their supposition, but that I had, by wishing to make myself
agreeable to her, even assisted in bringing affairs to this crisis.

That very day she had said to me: "I was very young when I married, only
fourteen, and I lived with my husband nine years. He is dead more than
a year now."

When she said that, which she did at dinner, while she was clawing the
flesh off a wild turkey, there was something so ridiculous in that
feminine confession, coming from such a masculine mouth, that I felt
very much inclined to laugh, but I replied:

"You are a young widow, and ought to think of another husband."

Again, when she said, "If ever I marry again, it shall not be a man w