"That's right," said the master.
"Here are fifty dollars," and he handed him a Confederate bill of that denomination (gold value at that time, $3.21).
Mr. Desmit did not feel entirely satisfied when Nimbus and his twenty fellow-servants went off upon the train to work for the Confederacy. However, he had done all he could except to warn the guards to be very careful, which he did not neglect to do.
Just forty days afterward a ragged, splashed and torn young ebony Samson lifted the flap of a Federal officer's tent upon one of the coast islands, stole silently in, and when he saw the officer's eyes fixed upon him. asked,
"Want ary boy, Mahs'r?"
The tone, as well as the form of speech, showed a new-comer. The officer knew that none of the colored men who had been upon the island any length of time would have ventured into his presence unannounced, or have made such an inquiry.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"Ober to der mainlan'," was the composed answer.
"How did you get here?"
"Come in a boat."