The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day, until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a loud voice shout: "Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blow your onery head off." He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternut homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and{248} fear. [Illustration: I'M GWINE TER KILL YE, RIGHT HERE 246] "You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity, "I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankee camp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and be an officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind." "Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't done nuffin' to be killed foh." "Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more oaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an example to the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers, if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live." The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his prayers. "What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster. "O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an's goin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently. "Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?" "'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's his nigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases." "I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I won't stand and see it done." "Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is pretty savage folks, and{249} don't like any meddlin' twixt them and their niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?" "Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon hotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'm around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do with that man?" "Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y're well off." "O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road. "All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm around," said the Deacon.