Pure Nigger cunnin', here me? Git up, Nell." It was near the midnight hour when the horse, panting for breath, paused at a lonely rickety old station. The men alighted. "Hit's jes' twenty minutes pas' eleven," said Bob Jones glancing at his watch. "Now that train's comin' long here in er few minutes. Jes' git er board an' treat de Cap'n right, an' he'll put yer through." "God bless you and all of yours," said the minister, gratefully. "My people in Wilmington and Boston must know of you and what you have done for me to-night." "Dat's all right, parson, keep de change. Ise jes' doin' my duty, that's all. We should feel each other's keer, an' bear each other's cross, says de good word. Dar's de train now!" The old freight train panted slowly up and stopped to look for freight. The Rev. Hiland Silkirk, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, got aboard, and the triumphant Jehu turned his horse and started homeward. "Well done, good and faithful servant, forasmuch as you have done good unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." CHAPTER XV. Captain Nicholas McDuffy. Before the introduction of the improved method of fire fighting in Southern cities--before the steam engine, the hook and ladder and water tower companies supplanted the old hand pump and bucket companies, the Negro was the chief fire fighter, and there was nothing that tended more to make fire fighting a pleasant pastime than those old volunteer organizations. For many years after the war Wilmington was supplied with water for the putting out of fires by means of cisterns which were built in the centre of streets. When the old bell in the market house tower sounded the alarm of fire, the volunteers left their work and hastened to headquarters to drag forth the old hand pump and make for the cistern nearest the scene of the fire, where, keeping time to the tune of some lively song, they pumped the fire out. There was peculiar sweetness in those old songs which made fire fighting a fascinating pastime in those old days. While a few men spannered the hose, directed the stream and did the work of rescuing and saving furniture, etc., the majority were required to man the pumps. Thirty or forty men in brilliant uniform lined up on either side of the huge engine, tugging away at the great horizontal handles, presented a spectacle which no one even in these days of advancement would despise. And the singing! "O Lindy, Lindy my dear honey, Lindy, gal, I'm boun' to go; O Lindy, Lindy my dear honey, O Lindy, gal, I'm boun' to go," etc. A few lines of another: "The cows in de ole field, don't yo' hear de bell? Let her go, let her go. The cows in de ole field, don't yo' hear de bell? Let her go, let her go," etc.