"Oh, Marse Jack," exclaimed the frightened boy. "Suah hope to die I nevah——"
"Don't interrupt me," commanded Jack, with a still more savage frown. "I'll show you in a minute that I have it in my power to find out just what you have done while I have been gone, from the time you stole——"
"Marse Jack, I nevah took dat breastpin; suah hope to die if I did," began Julius.
"Hal-lo!" thought Jack. "I've got on to something when I least expected it. That's what comes of knowing how to handle a darkey. I didn't even know that mother had lost a breastpin."
"I haven't asked you whether you stole it or not," he said, aloud. "There is no need that I should ask you any questions, for I have a way of finding out everything I want to know. If you have been an honest, truthful boy during the last two years, sit down in that chair; but I warn you that if you are deceiving me, it will drop to pieces with you and let you down on the floor. Sit down!"
"Oh, Marse Jack," cried the darkey, backing away from the chair. "Don't
I done tol' you dat I didn't took it?"
"Do you stick to that story?" demanded Jack.
"Yes, sar. I stick to it till I plum dead."
"All right. I hope you are telling me the truth, and I'll very soon find out whether you are or not. The Yankees are coming right through this country some day, and I don't want to give you up to them, as I am afraid I shall have to do. You have heard Aunt Mandy tell her pickaninnies what awful fellows the Yankees are, have you not? Why, Julius, it scares me to think of them. If a live Yankee was in this room this minute,—don't get behind me, for I wouldn't try to help you if one should walk in and carry you off,—if one came in and sat down in that chair that will fall to pieces if you touch it, and you should take off his hat and his right boot, you would find that he had horns and a cloven hoof—a hoof like an ox instead of a foot like yours."
"Look a hyar, Marse Jack," exclaimed Julius, clinging to the sailor with one trembling hand while he pointed toward the wash-stand with the other. "Wha—wha' you doing da'? Wha' dat white stuff for?"