“First of all, I want some money for my services as constable; and second I want to talk about the political situation, and to tell you some things I have heard men say that is interested. Well, how I got to know this thing—” “What thing?” asked the lawyer. “Why, that Elly and Watta and Kanrasp and some score of other radicals, has got to be killed,” said Uncle Jesse, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. “Ha! ha! ha?” roared Elly, throwing himself back in his chair, till his head seemed in danger of getting wedged between the chair-back and a bookcase behind him. “Why, Roome, I thought you was a sensible man,” said he, when he had recovered his breath. “The days of the Ku-Klux Klan’s are over, and all done in this State. When we punished two hundred and fifty of the fifteen hundred ‘very respectable gentlemen,’ as they called each other, who were arrested in 1871-’2, the thing was killed out here, you see.” “No, I don’t see,” said Roome. “But do you suppose a man really means what he says when he talks like that now-a-days?” and the two threatened men laughed, and wriggled in great apparent merriment, and in true negro fashion, though really quaking with fear. “I certainly do believe it, Mr. Elly, and Mr. Watta, and I only hope the good Laud will show that I’ve been afeared for you for nothing. The parties was in earnest, and intended it, I’m shor’; and you know I’m not a old woman, nor a baby to be scart for nothing. “I’ve took the trouble to resk my life to tell yo’ to take care of you’n, and now I’ve done my part. I didn’t tell Watta right there to home, because I reckon as yo’ is a lawyer, Mr. Elly, I’d best tell you first, and see what is best to do for your protection. I taken trouble to do this. But Watta is here now, and I’m done,” said the old man in a grieved tone. “We are much obliged for your kind intentions, though you needn’t have been so much scared about us.” “Well, now, let me tell you,” and the farmer proceeded to narrate minutely the incidents and facts with which the reader is already acquainted, and others of similar import. “Give me names and I’ll put them through in the law, for threats,” said Elly. “I can’t do that,” said Jesse, folding his arms tightly. “Why not?” “Because I live in the woods, and my life wouldn’t be worth anything; and I a’n’t going to tell yo’, though you’ll believe me yet.” “I believe _you_ now, but I don’t believe you’re a white man.”