"Then you mean I am drunk."
Both of his fists were clinched, and he was shaking one in the face of the planter, when the bay colt dashed in between them, Noah falling back before the menacing demonstration of Titus. Levi had dismounted at the end of the bridge, and seated himself in the arbor where he could still see the two men. When Titus shook his fist in the face of the planter, he leaped upon the colt as though he had been fifty pounds lighter, and galloped to the scene of the wordy contest.
"What do you want here?" demanded the visitor, with a very unnecessary expletive.
"What is it, Levi?" asked Noah.
"I didn't know but you might want me," replied the manager; but the demonstrative person was his employer's brother, and he refrained from using the strong language that came to his tongue's end.
"I don't want you for anything just now, Levi," replied the planter, sorry that there should have been a witness to the stormy interview with his brother; and he wondered if he had not been too plain-spoken, mild and dignified as he had been.
"What do you mean, you scoundrel, by stickin' your nose in where you're not wanted?" demanded Titus savagely, as he shook his fist, relieved from duty before the planter, in the direction of the overseer.
Levi wheeled his horse so that he crowded the angry man out of his place, and made him spring to keep out of the way of the fiery animal; but he made no reply to the abuse cast upon him. Noah nodded his head in the direction of the mansion, and the manager rode off, though it was evident to his employer that he was itching to lay hands on the turbulent visitor.
"I hate that villain!" gasped Titus.
"And he despises you as thoroughly as you hate him; so there is no love lost. But I think you had better conduct yourself a little more peaceably, Titus; for I do not like to have the people on the plantation see that there is any difficulty between us, for we are brothers, I wish you to remember. Perhaps we had better drop the subject where it is, for it is almost suppertime," said Noah with the most conciliatory tone and manner.
"Not jest yet," returned Titus warmly. "I said that valuation was a fraud, meant to cheat me out of my rightful due; and you told me I was drunk, which ain't no kind of an argument."
"I did not say that exactly; but if it was an argument for anything, it was that we should talk this matter over some time when you had not drunk anything."
"I drink something everyday; and I have a perfect right to do so."
"I don't dispute it."
"Dunk gave you all the niggers, and did not put them in the valuation. Wasn't that cheating me out of my share of the thirty thousand they would bring even in these shaky times?"
"I don't think it was. I repeat that the colonel had a perfect right, just as good a right as you have to drink whiskey, though I don't do so, to dispose of his property as he pleased," added Noah, looking down at the planks of the bridge, and remaining for a minute in deep thought.
"That ain't no argument!" blustered Titus. "The law gives a man's property to his brothers and sisters when he leaves no parents or children; and every honest and just man does the same thing."
"I did not mean to say anything to anybody about the servants on the place; but I feel obliged to speak to you about them so far as to tell the facts relating to them," said Noah when he had come to this conclusion.
"I cal'late you better speak out if you've got anything to say, or else pay me over fifteen thousand dollars for my share in the value of them niggers," replied Titus with a triumphant air, for he believed he had gained a point.
"When I was at Colonel Cosgrove's house on the day of our arrival, he handed me a letter, heavily sealed with red wax, from our deceased brother. This letter contained another. I have both of these letters in the safe in the library. Now, if you will go to the house with me, I will show you both of these letters," continued the planter, disregarding the tone and manner of his irate brother.
Titus was curious to know what the colonel had to say in defence of his conduct, and he assented to the visit to the library. Noah produced the two letters, handing the opened one to his brother, and showing the heavily sealed one to him but not permitting it to pass out of his hands. The malcontent read the opened one.
"Not to sell one of the niggers for five years!" he exclaimed when he had finished it. "That is another outrage! And you are not to open that other letter for the same time. Give it to me, Noah, and I will open it now!"
"It shall not be opened till the five years have expired," answered the planter firmly, as he returned both of the epistles to the safe and locked the door of it.
Titus was more violent than ever, for he had been defeated in his last and most promising stronghold, as he regarded it. He stormed like a madman, and kept it up for nearly an hour. He made so much noise that Mrs. Noah knocked at the door to learn what was the matter. At the same time she called them to supper; but Titus was so angry that he rushed out of the house, called for his team, and left with his wife at once.