"Because poor Sambo was lame, massa. Very few gentlemen will buy lame niggers."
"Lame or not, we found you a treasure, Sambo, and between us we soon contrived to cure your lame leg, and made you as sound as the best of us."
"Yes," cried the negro, grinning from ear to ear, "you did, massa, you did. Kind good massa, Sambo never forget."
"Well, Smith, after eight good months' labor in this district we find ourselves—"
"About as well off as when we came here," answered the other; "we contrived to find a little gold dust during our first month's work, and that has enabled us to pay for the supplies we've had from the nearest village, and to keep up the war all the time; but beyond that we've had no luck whatever."
"None; therefore my proposal is that we leave this place to-morrow at daybreak, and try a fresh district."
The eyes of the man who called himself Smith sparkled at this proposition, but the negro interposed with an exclamation of terror:
"You'll nebber go to-morrow, massa," he cried; "'scuse poor nigger what ought to mind his own business, but surely massa will nebber go to-morrow?"
"And why not to-morrow?" asked Brown.
"Because to-morrow Friday; massa, Friday bery unlucky day."