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"You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity,
"I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankee
camp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz
jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and be
an officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop
yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind."

"Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't done
nuffin' to be killed foh."

"Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more
oaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an example
to the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers,
if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live."

The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his
prayers.

"What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.

"O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an's
goin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.

"Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?"

"'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's his
nigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases."

"I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I
won't stand and see it done."

"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is
pretty savage folks, and{249} don't like any meddlin' twixt them and
their niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?"

"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon
hotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'm
around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do with
that man?"

"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at
the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth
shet if ye know when y're well off."

"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running
toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was
standing in the road.

"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm
around," said the Deacon.

"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet,"
said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them slinkin'
nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners of
our property?"

He followed this with a