e ahead, and found himself by the
fence of a log-hut where the gang had huddled down for its short sleep.
It was now light enough to travel, and the drivers were "geeing" up
their human cattle.

Sol rushed to his wife and baby. As the man and woman clasped each other
in frantic caress, the driver came up, and, kicking them, bade them with
an oath to have done.

"Whose nigger are you?" (to Sol.)

"I belong to Mossa Cutter. I's come to be taken along."

"Did he send you?"

"He did so, Sah. He tol' me partic'lar. I done run hard to catch up wid
you gemplemen, Mossa. Mossa Cutter he sell me to-day to be sol' in de
same lot wid Nancy."

The drivers went aside and talked for a while, then took him on with
them, and, for a wonder, did sell Sol and Nancy in the same lot. Nancy's
and the baby's price had one good use to Sol, for it kept Mossa Cutter
for a week too drunk to know of his loss or care for his recovery.

Sol was the coachman, Nancy the laundress, of a gentleman residing at
the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more
amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time
discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were
halcyon.

They had not counted on one of the drivers going back to Jacksonville,
meeting Mossa Cutter over his libations, and confidentially confessing
to him,--

"I tuk a likely boy o'yourn over to Tallahassee in that gang month afore
last."

Sol, if they had put a British gun in your hands _then_!

Mossa Cutter swooped down on them in the midst of their
happiness,--refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,--and
tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he
beat him almost to death,--after which, he sent him out on the wharves
to earn their common living.

A few nights after the return of Sol, Mossa Cutter came home with _mania
a potu_. His handsome quadroon body-servant was sitting up for him.
Mossa Cutter said to him,--

"You have the sideboard-keys,--bring me that decanter of brandy."

The boy replied,--

"Oh, don't, _dear_ Mossa! you surely kill you'self!"

Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger,"
drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the
abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a
verdict of accidental death.

That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket!

Not having any,