Having done this, he pulled the rope from Charlton’s arms, and threw it on the floor, then returned his knife to the sheath, and picked up his cap.
But as he started for the door, Colonel Hyde drew his revolver, stood in his way, and said: “Now, nigger, no more damn nonsense! Did yer think Delancy Hyde was such a simple cuss as to trust yer? Officers, seize this nigger.”
Iverson[Iverson] stepped forward to obey, but Blake, with the assured gesture of one whose superiority has been felt and admitted, motioned him aside, and said to Hyde, “I’ll take your revolver.”
The Colonel, either thrown off his guard by Blake’s cool air of authority, or supposing he wanted the weapon for the purpose of overawing the negro, gave it up. Blake then walked to the door, threw it open, and said: “Peculiar Institution, I fulfil my part of the contract. Now go and fulfil yours; and see you don’t come the lawyer over me by breaking your word.”
Before Colonel Delancy Hyde could recover from the amazement and wrath into which he was put by this act, Peculiar had disappeared from the room, and Blake, closing the door after him, had locked it, and taken out the key and thrust it in his pocket.
“May I be shot,” exclaimed the Colonel, “but this is the damdest mean Yankee swindle I ever had put on me yit,—damned if it ain’t! Here I’ve been to a hunderd dollars expense to git back that ar nigger, and now I’m tricked out of my property by the very man I hired to help me git it. This is Yankee all through,—damned if it ain’t!”
Charlton, still pale and trembling from his recent shock, had yet strength to put in these words: “I must say, Mr. Blake, your conduct has been unprofessional and unhandsome. There isn’t another officer in the whole corps that would have committed such a blunder. I shall report you to your superiors.”
Blake shook his finger at him, and replied, “Open your lips again, you beggarly hound, and I’ll slap your face.”
Charlton collapsed into silence. Blake took a chair and said, “Amuse yourselves five minutes, gentlemen, and then I’ll open the door.”
“A hell of a feller fur an officer!” muttered the Colonel. “To let the nigger slide in that ar way, afore I’d ever a chance to take from him his money and watch, which in course owt to go to payin’ my expenses. Cuss me if I—”