"Now, I'll get back out of sight, where I belong," muttered Tom, rising cautiously. "I hope, though, I can find a place where I can see the look on that darkey's face when he tries his magneto and waits for the bing! from out yonder. Oh, Sambo, you simply can't have any idea of how I've been wishing it on you tonight!" As the bushes grew thickly hereabouts, and there were many hollows in the surface of the earth, Reade had little trouble in finding what he believed to be a satisfactory hiding place. It enabled him to hide his head within fifteen feet of the handle of the magneto. A soft, southerly wind blew in from the Gulf. As long as he could Reade fought drowsiness. Again and again he opened his eyes with a start. "I mustn't do this," Tom told himself angrily. "No gentleman will go to sleep at the switch---when it's his train that is coming!" Yet still he found himself nodding. Had he deemed it safe Tom would have sprung up and walked about briskly. But this, he knew, was to invite being discovered by the returning negro. So, at last, despite himself, Tom fell asleep. How much time had passed he never knew. At last, however, he awoke with a start. Reproachfully he rubbed his eyes. "Not a bit too soon!" he muttered, as his ears caught sound of an approaching step, and his eyes showed him the hulking form of the massive foe. "Here comes my black man!" CHAPTER XIV THE BLACK MAN'S TURN Closer to the earth Tom tried to burrow. As to a plan, Tom Reade had none now, save to watch, and, if possible, to learn something that he did not already know. Soft-footed, despite his great bulk, the negro approached with an air of little concern. Plainly, the wretch did not much fear discovery---still less interference. Humming an old plantation melody the negro reached his concealed magneto, then stood up for a brief moment, staring seaward in the direction from which he had just come. His garments dripped water; his whole appearance was bedraggled, yet there was something utterly shaggy, majestic, in this huge specimen of the human race. "Ah done reckon dem gemmen gwine lose some mo' of deir wall to-night," chuckled the negro softly. "Go as far as you like, Mr. Sambo Ebony!" grinned Tom Reade, under his breath. "I've wished something else on you this time." Carelessly the negro bent over his magneto, seized the handle and gave a push. Then he straightened up, listening. Only the soft sighing of the southern wind came to his ears. "Yo' shuah done gotta use a mo' greasy elbow dan dat, chile," chuckled this imp of Satan aloud, though in a soft voice that seemed out of all proportion to his bulk. Then he gave a half dozen indolent though steady strokes to the handle of the magneto. "Whah am dat 'splosion?" he asked himself in wonderment. "Am mah eardrum done gone busted? Moke, yo' am plumb lazy this night!"