ton in a dazed way looked in his hand, and then on the ground.
"Hi! whar' hit?" he muttered, getting down on his knees and searching in
the grass. "Dis heah place is evil-sperited."

The Major called to him to hurry up, but he was too intent on solving
the problem of the mysterious disappearance of the quarter.

"I ain' nuver like dis graveyard bein' right heah," he murmured. "Marse
Nat, don' you have no mo' to do wid dis thing."

The Major's patience was giving out. "George Washington, you rascal!" he
shouted, "do you think I can wait all night for you to pull up all the
grass in the garden? Take the quarter out of your pocket, sir!"

"'Tain' in my pocket, suh," quavered George Washington, feeling there
instinctively, however, when the coin slipped down his sleeve into
his hand again. This was too much for him. "Hi! befo' de king," he
exclaimed, "how it git in my pocket? Oh, Marster! de devil is 'bout
heah, sho'! Marse Nat, you fling it up, suh. I ain' nuttin but a po'
sinful nigger. Oh, Lordy!" And handing over the quarter tremulously,
George Washington flung himself flat on the ground and, as a sort of
religious incantation, began to chant in a wild, quavering tone the
funeral hymn:

"Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound."

The Major tossed up and posted the duellists, and with much solemnity
handed them the pistols, which both the two young men received quietly.
They were pale, but perfectly steady. The Major then asked them,
"Gentlemen, are you ready?" whilst at the omnious sound George
Washington's voice in tremulous falsetto, struck in,

"Ye-ee--so-ons off meenn co-ome view-ew the-ee groun',
Wher-ere you-ou m--uss' shor-ort-ly lie."

They announced themselves ready just as George Washington, looking
up from the ground, where he, like the "so-ons off meenn," was lying,
discovered that he was not more than thirty yards out of the line of
aim, and with a muttered "Lordy!" began to crawl away.

There was a confused murmur from the direction of the path which led to
the house, and the Major shouted, "Fire--one--two--three."

Both young men, facing each other and looking steadily in each other's
eyes, with simultaneous action fired their pistols into the air.

At the report a series of shrieks rang out from the shrubbery towards
the house, whilst George Washington gave a wild yell and began to kick
like a wounded bull, bellowing that he was "killed--killed."

The Major had just walked up to the d