Carefully pulling the door to, he detached a wing from the carcass of the chicken, and devoured it. The drumstick and second joint were next depleted of every edible particle; and, in due time, the disintegrated skeleton of the fowl lay in a heap upon a pile of pamphlets, stripped as clean as the buzzards could have picked it. The three large slices of bread also disappeared, and Jack felt better. Nothing was needed but a cup of tea or coffee to complete the feast. Perhaps the negro exquisite in the easy-chair thought there were rats in the planter’s closet when he heard the chicken-bones crack; but, luckily for Jack, he was too indolent to investigate the cause of the strange noises. Our hero felt perfectly contented at this point of our narrative. I don’t think he would have cared a straw if the servant, or even the master, had opened the closet door when he had finished his supper; for there is something in a full stomach which inspires confidence. If it should ever be our lot to become a brigadier-general, we should never take our brigade into battle except upon a full stomach. Jack again pushed the door open a little, so that he could see into the library. Suddenly the sleek black rose from the easy-chair as though he had received a charge of electricity through his back-bone, and the planter with another gentleman entered the apartment. Of course, the colored gentleman retired. “Have a cigar, Litchfield,” said the planter. “Thank’e,” replied the guest; for such he appeared to be. “I always smoke when I get a chance.” “Eh, Mr. Litchfield?” thought Jack, when he heard that voice, and recognized it as belonging to Lunsley, the pilot. “So you change your name as well as your colors.” The gentlemen in the library talked about the Rebellion, and especially about the affair of the Middy: and Jack learned that the first-lieutenant and four of the men had been captured; that the others had escaped to the boat, and reached the steamer, which still lay at anchor off the earthwork. “Well, I suppose it’s about time for me to start,” said Litchfield, _alias_ Lunsley, after they had conversed about the event for half an hour. “But I don’t quite understand the cotton matter yet.” The planter then proceeded, after closing the hall-door, and declaring that no negro must hear a word about the business, to describe the place where a large steamer, loaded with cotton, was concealed in a bayou some miles above. He was afraid the Union gunboats would discover and appropriate the valuable cargo, or that the Confederate cotton-burners would destroy it. Between these two fires, he was terribly perplexed. He had chartered a steamer, and intended to run his cotton up the Red River, where it would be safe for the present. Lunsley agreed to pilot the boat up, and manage the enterprise. “But it must be done to-night. That Yankee gunboat will have it in the morning, if you don’t,” said the planter.