"What are you going to do with the horses, Phil?" asked Warren.
"Who shut the big doors, Mars'r Warren?" asked Phil, who appeared to be an upper servant of some kind.
"What are you going to do with the horses, Phil?" exclaimed the planter's son angrily.
"I thought the robbers had got into the stable, and I wanted to save the horses," replied the servant, breaking down at the tone of the master's son.
"You are lying, Phil! You would not have dared to come into the stable if you had supposed the robbers were here."
"We was gwine to run away on de hosses," added a very black fellow.
"Don't know who shut de big doors, Mars'r, if de robbers don't do it," said another, who was evidently a field-hand.
"I didn't think there was more'n one of them here," added Phil, as he held up a revolver with which he had armed himself after the departure of the planter. "I meant to kill him, and get away with the horses."
"Perhaps you would have done so."
"I do it for sure."