He looked at me without saying a word. "Our visit will probably not be very welcome," I continued, "but I believe it will produce the desired effect. Will you go with me?"
"Certainly," he answered readily, "but I still think my plan the best, sir."
"Perhaps it is," I laughed, "but we will try mine first," and he went back to the field, agreeing to be at the house at eight o'clock.
I covered with my hand the tiny letters on the arm of the bench, and, looking out across the broad river, drifted into the land of dreams, where Dorothy and I wandered together along a primrose path, with none to interfere.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE GOVERNOR SHOWS HIS GRATITUDE
I ate my supper in solitary splendor in the old dining-room, with my grandfather's portrait looking down upon me, and Long found me an hour later sitting in the midst of a wreath of smoke just within the hallway out of the river mist.
"'T was as you said, Mr. Stewart," he remarked, as he joined me. "Fully a hundred of the niggers stole off to the woods to-night so soon as it was dark. They went down toward the old Black Snake swamp."
"Very well," I said, rising. "Wait till I get my hat, and I am with you."
"But you will go armed?" he asked anxiously.