ncoop on which she had been leaning, came
towards her, stuttering and stammering in a manner so excited as to be
unintelligible.

"What's dat you say? For Gods sake, ooman, say what yere got to say,
an' be done wid it!" said Mammy, too frightened to be patient. Jim
then drew near to her and, glancing cautiously towards the not very
distant piazza, upon which his mistress happened at the moment to be
standing, he whispered, "Dey's done ketched him."

"K-k-ketched who?" stammered Mammy fiercely.

"Mas' Sedley, dat's who," Jim answered doggedly.

"How you know? I don't b'lieve a word on it."

"Anyhow, dey's done done it."

"Ho' come you know so much 'bout it?"

"'Cause I seen 'em when dey done it."

"Y-y-you have de face to stan' da an' tell me dat you seen 'em
a-troublin' dat chile an' you not lif' a han' to help him?"

"How I gwine help him? G'long, you don't know what you talkin' 'bout."

"Whar'bouts did dey come across him?" Mammy inquired.

"Right down yonder at de mill," Jim answered, nodding his head in the
direction.

"Good Lord," exclaimed Mammy, "dey must 'a' ketched him directly after
he went away!"

This conversation was carried on in such low murmurings that even a
listener at a short distance could not have distinguished what was
said; the three were very intent, but did not omit occasional cautious
glances in the direction of the house.

"Dat's so," Jim replied; "an' den dey shet him up in de mill house,
and den I never seed no mo', 'cause I was skeered an' runned away."

Then, after an uneasy pause, he added, "I come 'long dat-a-way soon
dis mornin'," and here he murmured so low into Mammy's ear that Dinah,
though she stretched her neck, could not catch the word, which turned
Mammy's brown face to ashen gray. She stood for a minute like one
turned to stone, then staggered to her own doorstep. Sitting down, she
buried her head in her apron, and so sat motionless for half an hour,
while Jim and Dinah continued their guarded murmurings by the hencoop.
At the end of half an hour she rose, took a bunch of keys from her
pocket, went into her house and, closing the door behind her, unlocked
her chest. Drawing from it a little workbox, which had, in years gone
by, been one of Caroline's cherished Christmas gifts, she opened it.
From beneath her Sunday pocket handkerchief, and a few other articles
of special value, she produced another and smaller box which she
opened, and, taking from it a gold c