“Good,” said the planter. “Your scalp, you woolly-headed curse, wouldn’t bring that in the market, or I’d have it off, and your hide with it. Lay the paper down. You read atrociously.” Antony laid the paper on the table, and without looking at his master, fixed his blurred eyes on the floor again. “You see,” continued the planter, “how runaways get served. You have been told both by Tassle and myself that even if you got North you’d be sent back. We’ve got a Fugitive Slave Law now for runaway niggers, and back they come. You go to Philadelphia. That good Ingraham—that good Judge Kane—that dear Judge Cadwallader—they send you back. You go to New York. Lord! There everybody sends you back! You go to Boston. That dear Ben Hallett grabs you. That good Sprague—that good Curtis—all these good people grab you, as they grabbed that nigger Sims, and back you come. Yet you try it, you foolish Antony. Your cursed brother got off from me nine years ago, and so you think you’ll try it too. Fine fellows both of you. He leaves Cayenne pepper in his tracks, which plays the devil with the hounds, and off he gets. But you’ve had to smart for him. All you’ve got since has been on his account. Now you’ll get something on your own. I’ll teach you to steal my horse and make off for the river with your forged pass and package. Do you see this?” Lifting his dizzy eyes to the level of his master’s hand, Antony saw that it held a heavy iron collar with a prong, on which he read in stamped letters, LAFITTE BROTHERS, NEW ORLEANS. “My brother had a nigger that wore this collar once,” said the smooth, cruel voice, “and now you’ll wear it. If you ever get away again, which I’ll take care you never will, people will know who you belong to, my fine boy. Kneel down here.” Antony felt the sullen hatred seethe up in his heart, and his brain reeled. “I won’t have that collar on me, Marster,” he huskily muttered. “You may kill me, Marster, but I won’t have that collar on me.” “You won’t, eh?” returned Mr. Lafitte, tranquilly. “Oh, well then, if you won’t, you won’t. By the way,” he pursued, carelessly taking the paper from the table, and fanning himself gently, “do you know how I knew you were going to run away? I’ll tell you. I was standing near the gin-house last night when you came there to steal Tassle’s old clothes, and I heard you say to yourself—‘Now for liberty or death.’ Ah, ha, Antony, you shouldn’t talk aloud! Tassle and I saw you go to the stable and take the mare, and then we saddled and headed you off, my nigger. That’s the way of it. Pick up that paper.”