'_Send_ for him, Alice!' replied my host. 'He's prouder than Lucifer, and would send me word to come to _him_. I will go. Will you accompany me, Mr. K----? You'll hear what a runaway nigger thinks of slavery: Sam has the gift of speech, and uses it regardless of persons.' 'Yes, sir, I'll go with pleasure.' Supper being over, we went. It was about an hour after nightfall when we emerged from the door of the mansion and took our way to the negro quarters. The full moon had risen half way above the horizon, and the dark pines cast their shadows around the little collection of negro huts, which straggled about through the woods for the distance of a third of a mile. It was dark, but I could distinguish the figure of a man striding along at a rapid pace a few hundred yards in advance of us. 'Isn't that Moye?' I asked the Colonel, directing his attention to the receding figure. 'I reckon so; that's his gait. He's had a lesson to-day that'll do him good.' 'I don't like that man's looks,' I replied, carelessly; 'but I've heard of singed cats.' 'He _is_ a sneaking d----l,' said the Colonel; 'but he's very valuable to me. I never had an overseer who got so much work out of the hands.' 'Is he cruel to them?' 'Yes, I reckon he is; but a nigger is like a dog,--you must flog him to make him like you.' 'I judge your niggers haven't been flogged into liking Moye,' I replied. 'Why, have you heard any of them speak of him?' 'Yes; though, of course, I've made no effort to draw gossip from them. I had to hear.' 'O yes; I know; there's no end to their gabble; niggers will talk. But what have you heard?' 'That Moye is to blame in this affair of Sam, and that you don't know the whole story.' 'What _is_ the whole story?' asked the Colonel, stopping short in the road; 'tell me before I see Sam.' I then told him what Jim had recounted to me. He heard me through attentively, then laughingly exclaimed,-- 'Is that all! Lord bless you; he didn't seduce her. There's no seducing these women; with them it's a thing of course. It was Sam's d---- high blood that made the trouble. His father was the proudest man in Virginia, and Sam is as like him as a nigger can be like a white man.' 'No matter what the blood is, it seems to me such an injury justifies revenge.' 'Pshaw, my good fellow, you don't know these people. I'll stake my plantation against a glass of whisky there's not a virtuous woman with a drop of black blood in her veins in all South Carolina. They prefer the white men; their husbands know it, and take it as a matter of course.'