! they'll kill me!"

One glance satisfied me that his mind was wandering. The blow on the
head had shattered his reason, and made the strong man less than a
child.

"You wont be killed yet," said the Colonel. "You've a small account to
settle with me before you reckon with the devil."

At this moment the dark crowd in the doorway parted, and Jake entered,
his arm bound up and in a sling.

"Jake, come here," said the Colonel; "this man would have killed you.
What shall we do with him?"

"'Taint for a darky to say dat, massa," said the negro, evidently
unaccustomed to the rude administration of justice which the Colonel
was about to inaugurate; "he did wuss dan dat to Sam, massa--he orter
swing for shootin' him."

"That's _my_ affair; we'll settle your account first," replied the
Colonel.

The darky looked undecidedly at his master, and then at the overseer,
who, overcome by weakness, had sunk again to the floor. The little
humanity in him was evidently struggling with his hatred of Moye and his
desire for revenge, when the old nurse yelled out from among the crowd,
"Gib him fifty lashes, Massa Davy, and den you wash him down.[H] Be a
man, Jake, and say dat."

Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of
the octoroon caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as if by
magnetic power.

"Do you say that, boys;" said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes;
"shall he have fifty lashes?"

"Yas, massa, fifty lashes--gib de ole debble fifty lashes," shouted
about fifty voices.

"He shall have them," quietly said the master.

The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than
the cry of men, seemed to arouse Moye to a sense of his real position.
Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then, sinking on his
knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her dress, he
shrieked, "Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy, save me!"

Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she
mildly said, "Fifty lashes would kill him. _Jake_ does not say
that--your master leaves it to him, and _he_ will not whip a dying
man--will you, Jake?"

"No, ma'am--not--not ef you gwo agin it," replied the negro, with very
evident reluctance.

"But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when Sam war nearer dead than _he_ am," said
Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of
speech.

"Because he was brutal to Sam, should