“I don’t care what you do with him,” was the boy’s mental reply. “So long as I get safely away from here, you and the nigger can settle the business between you in any way you see fit. That is a matter in which I am not interested.” But aloud he said: “O, we’ll get rid of him somehow. We’ll think about that when the time comes. Now, we’ll give old Jordan one more chance to earn his freedom, and if he doesn’t see fit to improve it, it is no fault of ours. He will have to go to the potato-hole and be tied up there.”
Godfrey was not at all pleased with this arrangement, and he wondered why he had been foolish enough to suggest it. As much as he wanted to be rich, he would never have dared, had he been left to himself, to resort to such desperate measures as these to gain his object. The thought of it was enough to make him tremble. He wished he had never seen Clarence, or had anything to do with him. The boy was so determined to go through with what he had begun, and seemed to be so utterly reckless of consequences, that Godfrey was really afraid of him.
“Say, Mr. Clarence,” said he, suddenly, “I ’most done forgot it, but it’s the gospel truth, an’ I hope I may be shot if it hain’t, that that tater-hole of mine has done fell in, an’ ain’t no more account fur tyin’ up niggers in. ’Sides, I hain’t got no ropes of no kind.”
“All right, Godfrey,” said Clarence, who saw very plainly what his companion was trying to get at. “We will find out about that when we get there. But let me tell you one thing: If you think you are going to back out and leave me in the lurch, you are very much mistaken. If you will stick to me and do as I say, we shall both of us come out all right; but if you desert me, there’ll be a breeze raised here in this neighborhood that will make you think that war times have come back, sure enough. Now, Jordan,” he added, addressing the negro, “will you tell me where that barrel is?”
“No, sar!—no, sar!” said the old man, shaking his head most decidedly. “Nobody gets dat bar’l an’ what’s into it ’ceptin’ ole Jordan!”
“All right. Come with us, and we will see if we can find means to make you think differently.”
Clarence seized the old negro by one arm, as he spoke, Godfrey at a sign from him took hold of the other, and together they led him across the field until they reached the road, down which they conducted him toward Godfrey’s cabin. But little was said during the walk. The negro, who was evidently becoming alarmed, would have talked fast enough, but when his captors allowed him to use his tongue, he pitched his voice in so high a key that Clarence, alarmed lest he should arouse somebody, sternly ordered him to hold his peace. The old negro changed his tactics now, and most solemnly declared that he didn’t know anything about any barrel; that his name was not Jordan; and that he had gone into the field simply for the purpose of stealing some potatoes for his breakfast. But Clarence only laughed at this, and assured him that he was not taking the right course to gain his liberty. Potatoes didn’t grow three feet under ground, he said, and neither did prowlers, as a general thing, dig them with a shovel. They could do better work with their hands. If he would go back there and show them where the barrel was hidden, they would dig for it, and the moment they found it they would give him something for pocket-money, and release him. This the old negro protested he could not do, and Clarence assured him that he should do it before he saw daylight again.
Half an hour’s walk brought them within sight of the cabin, and there Godfrey left Clarence and the prisoner while he went forward to make sure that none of his family were stirring, and to secure a plough-line that hung up under the shed beside the corn-crib, that being the article with which he had decided to confine old Jordan. He returned in a few minutes, and once more taking hold of the negro’s arm, he and Clarence assisted him over two or three fences, through a thick brier-patch which covered the site of his former comfortable dwelling, and finally halted in front of the potato-hole. It was simply an out-door cellar, the peak of the roof rising to the height of one’s shoulder, and the eaves resting on the ground. The cellar was quite deep enough to permit a tall man to stand upright in it, as Clarence found when he descended the stairs that led into it. It had successfully resisted the ravages of time, and with the exception of the steps, which were in a very dilapidated state, was as sound as it was on the day it was built. The roof was four feet thick, and Godfrey assured his companion that the prisoner might shout for help as long and as loudly as he pleased, but he could not make himself heard as far as the cabin, unless he possessed lungs with as much power as a steam-whistle.
Clarence now renewed his efforts to induce the negro to tell where the barrel with the eighty thousand dollars in it was hidden; but the latter declared that he did not know; and Clarence, losing all patience, assisted Godfrey in tying him fast to one of the stanchions that supported the roof. When this was done he felt his way out of the cellar—it was as dark as Egypt in there—and Godfrey closed and latched the door behind him. They both breathed easier when the work was over.
“Well, Godfrey,” said Clarence, “your potato-hole seems to be in pretty good condition yet; and you did manage to find something to tie the old nigger with after all, didn’t you? Now remember that it will not be safe for us to go near him during the daytime; some one might see us. We must give this cellar a wide berth for twenty-four hours. If the old fellow goes that length of time without anything to eat or drink, perhaps he will begin to think that we are in earnest.”