nausea
which he could hardly conquer, he ordered Sam to drive on.

The coachman complied with alacrity, as though glad to escape from a
mighty dangerous place. He had known friendless coloured folks, who
had strayed down in that neighbourhood to be lost for a long time; and
he had heard of a spot, far back from the road, in a secluded part of
the plantation, where the graves of convicts who had died while in
Fetters's service were very numerous.

_Twenty-six_

During the next month the colonel made several attempts to see
Fetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. He
finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertained
that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, at
Carthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonel
had been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonel
went on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town toward
noon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find the
proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But the
buggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behind
the desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in to
dinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind the
trees across the square.

The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whose
walls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discoloured
by the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam,
which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hall
ran through the centre, on either side of which were the county
offices, while the court room with a judge's room and jury room,
occupied the upper floor.

The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usual
signs of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to trees
and posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, and
several old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes,
and fried fish, and cider.

The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly well
filled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance.
The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in the
box, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity with
reference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side or
on the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel could