a spade; the other two assisted George to carry the
body to the wagon.

George neither spoke to nor looked at Legree, who did not countermand
his orders, but stood, whistling, with an air of forced unconcern. He
sulkily followed them to where the wagon stood at the door.

George spread his cloak in the wagon, and had the body carefully
disposed of in it,--moving the seat, so as to give it room. Then he
turned, fixed his eyes on Legree, and said, with forced composure,

"I have not, as yet, said to you what I think of this most atrocious
affair;--this is not the time and place. But, sir, this innocent blood
shall have justice. I will proclaim this murder. I will go to the very
first magistrate, and expose you."

"Do!" said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. "I'd like to see
you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses?--how you going to prove
it?--Come, now!"

George saw, at once, the force of this defiance. There was not a white
person on the place; and, in all southern courts, the testimony of
colored blood is nothing. He felt, at that moment, as if he could have
rent the heavens with his heart's indignant cry for justice; but in
vain.

"After all, what a fuss, for a dead nigger!" said Legree.

The word was as a spark to a powder magazine. Prudence was never a
cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy. George turned, and, with one
indignant blow, knocked Legree flat upon his face; and, as he stood
over him, blazing with wrath and defiance, he would have formed no bad
personification of his great namesake triumphing over the dragon.

Some men, however, are decidedly bettered by being knocked down. If a
man lays them fairly flat in the dust, they seem immediately to
conceive a respect for him; and Legree was one of this sort. As he
rose, therefore, and brushed the dust from his clothes, he eyed the
slowly-retreating wagon with some evident consideration; nor did he open
his mouth till it was out of sight.

Beyond the boundaries of the plantation, George had noticed a dry, sandy
knoll, shaded by a few trees; there they made the grave.

"Shall we take off the cloak, Mas'r?" said the negroes, when the grave
was ready.

"No, no,--bury it with him! It's all I can give you, now, poor Tom, and
you shall have it."

They laid him in; and the men shovelled away, silently. They banked it
up, and laid green turf over it.

"You may go, boys," said George, slipping a quarter into the hand of
each. They lingered abo