"Oh, I hope they are not as bad as that. What do you think these Union men did with the overseer? They didn't—didn't——"
"Kill him as they ought to have done?" exclaimed Marcy, when his mother hesitated. "No, I don't think they did; and neither can I guess what they did with him. But Jack said, in effect, that after he was taken away he would not bother us again for a long while. Did Shelby ask after Jack and me?"
"He did; and I told him that you had gone off in the Fairy Belle. Mrs. Shelby hinted that Jack might be on his way to Newbern to join the navy, and I did not think it worth while to deny it. It seems Jack told young Allison that if you rode into Nashville alone some fine morning, Allison might know that Jack was aboard a gunboat. Of course Mrs. Shelby thought he meant a rebel gunboat."
"Don't you believe it," said Marcy earnestly. "She knew better than that and so did Allison. Did the hands seem to be very badly frightened over Hanson's disappearance?"
"There never was such a commotion on this plantation before," answered Mrs. Gray. "According to the coachman's story, Jack predicted that 'white things' would some night appear in the quarter and carry Hanson away with them; and although the abductors were not dressed in white, the fact that they came and did just what Jack said they would do was terrifying to the minds of the superstitious blacks. I wish Jack would not tell them such ridiculous tales."
"He'll not be likely to tell them any more for some days to come," replied Marcy. "But there was nothing ridiculous about his last story. It was business, and I think that villain Hanson found it so. Now, if you will come up to my room and stitch my Union flag into the quilt where it belongs, I will hand over your breastpin."
When this had been done, Marcy strolled out to the barn to tell Morris to saddle his horse, and to see what the old fellow thought of the situation. Just as he stepped off the gallery he heard a piercing shriek, and hastened around the corner of the house to find the boy Julius struggling in the grasp of the coachman, who flourished the carriage whip over his head.
"What are you about, there?" demanded Marcy.
"He going whop me kase I say Marse Jack in de navy," yelled Julius.
"Turn me loose, you fool niggah."
"No, I ain't going whop him for dat, but for lying," said Morris, releasing his captive with the greatest reluctance, and with difficulty restraining his desire to give him a cut around the legs as he ran away. "He say Marse Jack gone on a rebel boat, an' I know in reason dat ain't so."