I'll teach you to do it again."
He clutched the boy by the collar, and, seizing a horsewhip, brought it down with terrible force on the boy's shrinking form.
"Let me go! Don't beat me!" screamed Humpy, in mingled fear and rage.
"Not till I've cured you," retorted Smith. Twice more he struck the humpbacked boy with the whip, and then threw him on the floor.
"That's what you get for contradicting me," he said.
The boy rose slowly and painfully, and limped out of the room. His face was pale, but his heart was filled with a burning sense of humiliation and anger against the man who had assaulted him. It would have been well for Smith if he had controlled himself better, for the boy was not one of the forgiving kind, but harbored resentment with an Indian-like tenacity, and was resolved to be revenged.
He crawled upstairs to the small attic room in which he usually slept, and, entering, threw himself upon the bed, face downward, where he burst into a passion of grief, shame, and rage, which shook his crooked form convulsively. This lasted for fifteen minutes, when he became more quiet.
Then he got up slowly, and, going to a corner of the room, lifted up a board from which the nails appeared to have been drawn out, and drew from beneath a calico bag. This he opened, and exposed to view a miscellaneous collection of coins, which he took out and counted.
"Twenty dollars and nineteen cents!" he said to himself. "I've been more'n a year gettin' it. That boy offers me fifty dollars,—most three times as much,—if I'll get him the tin box and help him to escape. I said I wouldn't do it; but he hadn't struck me then. He hadn't called me a villanous humpback. Now he's got to pay for it. He'll wish he hadn't done it;" and the boy clenched his fist, and shook it vindictively. "Now, how'll I get the box?"
He sat on the bed thinking for some time, then, composing his countenance, he went downstairs. He resolved to assume his usual manner, in order not to excite Smith's suspicion.
Smith had by this time got over his rage, and was rather sorry he had struck the boy so brutally, for he knew very well that Humpy might prove a dangerous enemy. He glanced at Humpy's face when he came downstairs, but saw nothing unusual.
"Oh, he'll forget all about it," he thought to himself.
"Here's ten cents, Humpy," he said. "Maybe I struck you too hard. Go and buy yourself some candy."
"Thank you," said the boy, taking the money.
"I've another errand for you."
He told what it was.
"Go and come back as soon as possible."
Humpy went quietly, and returned in good season.
About five o'clock, Martin not yet having returned, Smith directed him to carry up our hero's supper. There was a little exultant sparkle in the boy's eye, as he took the plate of buttered bread, and started to go upstairs.
"So it's you, is it?" said Rufus, on the boy's entrance. "Where is Martin?"
"He aint come in yet. Do you want to see him?"
"No, I'm not particular about it."
Humpy stood looking earnestly at Rufus while he was eating the bread and butter. At length he said, "I've been thinkin' over what you said to me at dinner-time. Shall I get the fifty dollars certain sure if I do what you want?"
"Yes," said Rufus, eagerly. "Get me the tin box, and help me to escape, and the money shall be yours."
"Honor bright?"
"Honor bright."