"Samson," said Jimmy Phœbus, as soon as Hulda disappeared, "git ready to be a first-class liar; I want you to take up Patty Cannon's offer."
"An' leave you yer alone, Jimmy? I can't do it."
"Don't be a fool, Samson. Ironed here, we can't help nobody. Make your way to Seaford and Georgetown, and go round the Cypress Swamp to Prencess Anne. Alarm the pungy captains; fur Johnson'll try to run us by sail, I reckon, down the bay to Norfolk. I've got a file that cymlin-headed feller give me, an' I reckon I'll git out of my irons about the time you git to Judge Custis's. There! ole Patty's coming."
"Go, Samson," spoke the Delaware colored man. "I'm younger than you, and I'll fight as heartily under Mr. Phœbus's orders."
Aunt Hominy's voice came in blank monologue out of the background:
"He tuk dat debbil's hat, chillen, an' measured us in wid little Vessy."
That evening there was a long, free conference between Samson and Patty Cannon, in her kitchen, next to the bar, where Hulda heard laughing and invitations to drink, and all the sounds of perfect equality, the negro's piquant sayings and bonhommie seeming to disarm and please the designing woman, whose familiarity was at once her influence and her weakness, and she lavished her sociable nature on blacks and whites. Samson was so fearless and observing that he betrayed no interest in escaping, and came slowly into the range of her temperament; but, as Hulda peeped, towards midnight, into the kitchen, she saw old Samson kindly patting juba, while Patty was executing a drunken dance.
As the latter dropped upon a pallet bed she had there, and fell into a doze, the colored man quietly raised the latch and walked off the tavern porch.