Doctor Blunt, the whole of the party from his house, and two or three mounted dragoons, who had joined them somewhere on the way, were bringing the prisoners, now increased to three by the presence of one of the wounded men, who had recovered sufficiently to walk into the county capital. First came two or three horsemen, and some more armed men brought up the rear; but between the two bodies of whites marched the poor black fellows who had been taken, very much as they had appeared when they attacked the house, except that their muskets had been cast away. The first of the negroes (for they marched in single file) was the man whom I had captured myself, with a gay scarf over his shoulders, and a handsome regimental sword by his side, which I had not thought it worth while to take away. He carried something in his hands, which I could not distinguish clearly till he came into the blaze of the torches; and then, to my disgust and horror, I saw that it was the bloody head of one of his late companions--the very head which had so strongly excited the scientific enthusiasm of the phrenologist, who had doubtless cut it off, before he quitted the scene of strife, to place the skull as a specimen in his collection. The party halted directly opposite the inn door, and several of the officers, who were gathered together there, advanced to take a look at the prisoners. One of them seemed to recognize the man with the head, but that attracted his professional eye but little. The scarf and the sword were "matter more attractive;" and, giving a light touch to the hilt of the latter, he said,-- "Why, Nelson, where did you get this?" The negro instantly raised the swarthy head in his hands in the full torchlight, and replied,-- "This here gentleman gave it me last night." A loud burst of laughter, very horrible to hear, broke from the whole party round at the idea of the man's calling a dead negro's head "this here gentleman;" and I must say, the captive negroes themselves, with the certainty of being hanged within a few days after, joined in the laugh as heartily as any of the rest. I could not do so; and pushing my way through the throng, I entered the inn. The passage was crowded to suffocation; the bar, which lay on the right hand, was surrounded by a mob, two-thirds of whom were drunk, and the rest hardly sober; and before I had taken ten steps through the mass, I had been invited to drink at least as many times by persons I had never seen in my life before. I remarked that they did not seem at all pleased when their invitation was declined; but I was in no very polite mood, even if I had been at any time inclined to get drunk for the pleasure of strangers; and I made my way straight for the foot of a staircase, round the bottom of which the crowd was reeling to and fro, not quite so densely packed together.