Col. Seybert wuz ragin’, as we knew, at the thought that his trusty servant wuz goin’ to leave him. He wuz invaluable to him in so many ways. He had no other man in his employ so trustworthy; no one else who would take care of his business durin’ the frequent intervals when he wuz incapable of it; no one else who wuz so honest, so reliable, so intelligent; for Victor wuz one who would do his duty, and do a good day’s work, if he wuz workin’ for Nero or the Old Harry himself, though you wouldn’t ketch him a workin’ for this last-named personage—no, indeed. Col. Seybert raged over the idee of Victor’s leavin’ him; he had always ruled everything about him, bent everything to his wishes. And now “this black dog,” as he named Victor in his scornful wrath, had dared to defy him. And worse still, the very best and most intelligent of his hands, nearly all the younger ones, had been influenced by Victor’s purpose and teachin’s, and wuz makin’ preparations to leave this sin-cursed South, that had held only misery and humiliation for them, and join him in his colony in Africa. Col. Seybert knew, through his spy Burley, that they wuz secretly and quietly makin’ preparations to leave him and go to the New Republic—some of them to go with Victor and his party, some of them to go with the next party fitted out. [Illustration: HIRAM WIGGINS’S TWO DAUGHTERS.] Deep in his heart and loudly to his chosen friends did Col. Seybert curse Victor—his long-sufferin’ brother, as I would and did call him in my mind—I _would_. Why, good land! if Victor had been translated to the court of some mighty kingdom and been proclaimed king, wouldn’t Col. Seybert have claimed relationship with him pretty quick? Yes, cupidity and ambition would have propped him up on both sides, and he would have proclaimed the fact through his brother’s kingdom that he wuz brother to the king. Wall, if he wuz his brother under one set of circumstances, I say he wuz under any other. He wuz his half-brother; if every other evidence had failed to assure the relationship, the portrait of old Gen. Seybert down in the long drawin’ room of Seybert Court would have proclaimed the fact to a gainsaying world. He wuz a fur truer son to Gen. Seybert than Reginald wuz. For by all the ties of congenial tastes, mind, and spirit, he wuz the courtly old Southerner’s true son and heir. Reginald had always been and always would be true son and heir of Hiram Wiggins, the manufacturin’ tailor. Although as relationships go in this world, he wuz only his grandnephew. But he had laid claim, and wuz the only possessor of all his crafty, cruel, brutal, aggressive nature, his low habits and tastes, his insolent, half bold, half meachin’ manners. Hiram Wiggins’es own children wuz two old maid daughters, so meek they could hardly say their souls wuz their own.