The Colonel shortly rose, and bade me 'good night.' I continued reading till the clock struck eleven, when I laid the book aside and went to my room.
I slept, as I have said before, on the lower floor, and was obliged to pass by the door of the overseer's apartment as I went to mine. Wrapped in his blanket, and stretched at full length on the ground, Jim lay there, fast asleep. I passed on, thinking of the wisdom of placing a tired negro on guard over an acute and desperate Yankee.
I rose in the morning with the sun, and had partly donned my clothing, when I heard a loud uproar in the hall. Opening my door, I saw Jim pounding vehemently at the Colonel's room, and looking as pale as is possible with a person of his completion.
'What the d—-l is the matter?' asked his master, who now, partly dressed, stepped into the hall.
'Moye hab gone, sar; he'm gone and took Firefly (my host's five-thousand-dollar thorough-bred) wid him.'
For a moment the Colonel stood stupified; then, his face turning to a cold, clayey white, he seized the black by the throat, and hurled him to the floor. Planting his thick boot on the man's face, he seemed about to dash out his brains with its ironed heel, when, at that instant, the octoroon woman rushed, in her night-clothes, from his room, and with desperate energy pushed him aside, exclaiming: 'What would you do? remember WHO HE IS!'
The negro rose, and the Colonel, without a word, passed into his apartment. What followed will be the subject of another chapter.
PICAYUNE BUTLER.
'General Butler was a barber,'
So the Pelicans were raving;
Now you've got him in your harbor,
Tell us how you like his shaving?