"That's my name. What is your business with me?" returned the planter, sharply. "I want to see you," replied the mulatto, coolly, taking, unbidden, a seat on the bench beneath the tree. "To see me? Well, what for?" "To talk with you," was the reply. "What is it?" demanded the planter. "Have you a bad master, and do you want me to buy you?" "No, sir, I am not for sale," replied the mulatto, his face glowing with a baleful light. "I am no slave, I am free, and free by my own exertions." "Well, what is it you have to say to me?" "Something, I think, you will be glad to hear." The planter began to lose patience. "If you have any thing to say to me, say it at once." "Well, to begin with, you have two sons, one in the Confederate and one in the Union army." "What of them?" "They are well." "Thank you, thank you for the news," cried the planter, rising and grasping the old man's hand. "When did you see them last?" "You are willing to talk to me now," said the mulatto, with a smile. "Where did you see my boys last?" repeated Mr. Tompkins, eagerly, unheeding the interruption. "Only a few days ago." "Where?" "In their camps. They both are moving back this way." "How came you to see them both? Is one of them a prisoner?" "No." "You can not have been in both armies?" "I have been." "How did that happen?" "How I go is a secret known only to myself, but I go wherever desire or duty call me, and armies, guards, and prisons, locked and bolted doors, are no impediment to me. I saw your sons, and they are well." It had grown almost dark, yet the planter could see the eyes of his strange visitor gleam weirdly. "Who are you?" he asked, the little superstition he had in his nature aroused. "They call me Yellow Steve." "Where do you live?" "On the earth, in the air, almost on the air." "By that you mean you live in no particular place?" said the planter. "Yes. There was a time when I was human, when I had human desires and human feeling, but all that is changed. My soul has been tortured until what little reason I ever possessed has fled. There are times, sir, when I am not a human being." "You are crazy," said the planter, with an incredulous smile. "Have you ever read of Wagner, the Wehr-wolf?" "Yes, in my boyhood I have read of that remarkable personage," replied the planter. "You remember that periodically, he became a wolf, a demon. Well, sir, I have passed through a similar experience. There are times when my human feelings, my human reason leave me." The mulatto's yellow face seemed to grow livid in the twilight. The wind moaned wildly, and the clouds gathered in thick, rolling masses in the northwest. "Have you any further business with me?" asked the planter uneasily.