"Long enough to have got to sleep twic't over, I should think. But they hain't done it. Hark! they're a movin' about, and talkin' too, I believe."
"Then you didn't mind my orders, and ought to be licked."
A volley of oaths followed, and he half rose from his chair and seized her by the arm.
"Are you mad, old man?" pulling him back into his seat; "we'll not have a ghost of a chance if you kick up a row now."
He yielded, though with an ill grace, and the woman, not in the least disconcerted by his brutal behavior, said in her ordinary tone, as she replenished his empty cup:
"'Twasn't no fault o' mine, Bill; I'd a drugged 'em, every one, if that nigger would a took his eyes off o' me for a single moment; but it did beat all, the way he watched me back and forad and all the time. I hadn't the least mite of a chance."
This explanation seemed to appease the man's wrath, and the meal was concluded without further disturbance.
A whispered consultation followed; then two of the younger ruffians went out and plunged into the forest in the direction from whence they had come.
At no very great distance they came out upon a little clearing where stood a tiny cabin, roughly but strongly built of unhewn logs, no window save an aperture scarce a foot square near the roof, and the one door, of solid oak planks, furnished with heavy bolts and bars upon the outside.