by daylight, in a clar place like this yere, we'd reckon
he warn't fit ter 'tend a pen o' niggers."

The Judge whispered, "You're overdoing it. Hold in." Turner winced like
a struck hound, but, smothering his wrath, smilingly replied,--

"The place wasn't clear then. It was filled with straw and rubbish. The
Yankees covered the opening with it, and hid away among it when any one
was coming. I caught two of them down here one day, but they pulled the
wool over my eyes, and I let them off with a few days in a dungeon. But
that fellow Streight would outwit the Devil. He was the most unruly
customer I've had in the twenty months I've been here. I put him in
keep, time and again, but I never could cool him down."

"Whar' is the keeps?" I asked. "Ye's got lots o' them, ha'n't ye?"

"No,--only six. Step this way, and I'll show you."

"Talk better English," said the Judge, as we fell a few paces behind
Turner on our way to the front of the building. "There are some
schoolmasters in Georgia."

"Wal, thar' ha'n't,--not in the part I come from."

The dungeons were low, close, dismal apartments, about twelve feet
square, boarded off from the remainder of the cellar, and lighted only
by a narrow grating under the sidewalk. Their floors were incrusted with
filth, and their walls stained and damp with the rain, which, in wet
weather, had dripped down from the street.

"And how many does ye commonly lodge yere, when yer hotel's full?" I
asked.

"I have had twenty in each, but fifteen is about as many as they
comfortably hold."

"I reckon! And then the comfut moughtn't be much ter brag on."

The keeper soon invited us to walk into the adjoining basement. I was a
few steps in advance of him, taking a straight course to the entrance,
when a sentinel, pacing to and fro in the middle of the apartment,
levelled his musket so as to bar my way, saying, as he did so,--

"Ye carn't pass yere, Sir. Ye must gwo round by the wall."

This drew my attention to the spot, and I noticed that a space, about
fifteen feet square, in the centre of the room, and directly in front
of the sentinel, had been recently dug up with a spade. While in all
other places the ground was trodden to the hardness and color of
granite, this spot seemed to be soft, and had the reddish-yellow hue of
the "sacred soil." Another sentry was pacing to and fro on its other
side, so that the place was completely surrounded! Why were they
guarding it so closely? The re