the Indies, who are devils incarnate, have not
brain enough to conspire. But in the actual event of a rising they would
be fiends unchained."

"A pleasant state of affairs!"

"Oh, it is not so serious! We who govern the Colony have to take all
possibilities, however unpleasant, into consideration. I myself do not
think the danger imminent, and many in the Council and among the
Burgesses, and well-nigh all outside will not allow that there is danger
at all. We passed more stringent servant laws last year, and we depend
upon them, and upon the great body of indented servants, who are, for
the most part, honest and amenable and know upon which side their bread
is buttered, to repress the unruly element."

"What will you do with the convicts you brought with you this morning?"

"Use them in the tobacco fields just now when all hands are needed to
weed and sucker the plants, and afterwards put them to hewing down the
forest. I told Woodson to bring them around to me this afternoon when
they had been decently clothed. I always give the scoundrels a piece of
my mind to begin with. It saves trouble."

"Do they give you much trouble?"

"Not on this plantation. Woodson and Haines are excellent overseers."

The planter refilled his pipe, struck a light with his flint and steel,
and leaning back amidst the fragrant clouds, allowed his eyelids to
droop and his mind to wander over a pleasant sunshiny tract of nothing
in particular.

Sir Charles tasted his sack, adjusted his ruffles, and resumed his
reading. But even the delectable adventures of the Presbyterian knight,
over whom all London was laughing, palled on such an afternoon, and the
young gentleman, after listlessly turning a page or two, laid the book
across his knee, and with closed eyes commenced the construction of an
air castle of his own.

He was roused by the sound of approaching footsteps upon the shell path
leading to the back of the house, and by the harsh voice of the
overseer.

"Here come your hopeful purchases, sir," he said lazily.

The overseer turned the corner of the house and came forward with the
three convicts at his heels. He doffed his hat to the two gentlemen,
then turned to his charges. "Fall into line, you dogs, and salute his
Honor!"

The first man, he of the long nose and the twitching lip, smiled
sweetly, and bent so low that his fell of greasy hair well-nigh swept
the steps; the second, with a brow like a thunder cloud, gave a viciou