Sarah, who had heard the disturbance and wondered what it meant, met them at the door with a look of alarm.
"These men came to do us harm," Samson said to Sarah. "They are good fellows but they got an idea in their heads that we are bad folks. I hear that young Mr. Biggs set them up against us. Let's give them a bite to eat the first thing we do."
They took a look at the captives. Three of them were boys from eighteen to twenty years of age. The other was a lanky, bearded Tennessean some forty years old. One of the young lads had hurt his hand in the evening's frolic. Blood was dripping from it. The four sat silent and fearful and ashamed.
Sarah made tea and put it with meat and milk and doughnuts and bread and butter on the table for them. Samson washed and bandaged the boy's wound. The captives ate as if they were hungry while the minister went out to feed his dog. When the men had finished eating Samson offered them tobacco. The oldest man filled his pipe and lighted it with a coal. Not one of the captives had said a word until this tall Tennessean remarked after his pipe was going:
"Thankee, mister. You done been right good to us."
"Who told you to come here?" Samson demanded.
"'Twere a man from St. Louis. He done said you hated the South an' were holpin' niggers to run away."
"And he offered to pay you to come here and burn this house and run Traylor out of the county, didn't he?" Abe asked.
"He did—yes, suh—he suah did," answered the man—like a child in his ignorance and simplicity.
"I thought so," Abe rejoined. "You tackled a big job, my friend. Did you know that every one of you could be sent to prison for a term of years and I've a good mind to see that you go there. You men have got to begin right now to behave yourselves mighty proper or you'll begin to sup sorrow."