y, and I have nothing
further to do with the matter," answered Deck.

The colonel decided not to ask any more questions, though the
lieutenant suspected he intended to dispose of the prisoners as he
thought best.

"Up-stairs, there!" shouted the planter. "The commander is here now."

"Ask him to come up here, and we will arrange things," returned the
ruffian with unblushing effrontery.

"The commander will do nothing of the sort," replied the colonel
indignantly. "Do you really believe that he would trust himself with
such cutthroats as you are?"

"We will agree not to hurt him, though he has used us very unfairly,"
said the spokesman. "He has tried to murder all of us!"

"You deserve to be hung; and it would be too merciful to shoot you!"
roared the colonel, his wrath getting the better of him.

"Do Union men hang their prisoners?" demanded the ruffian bitterly.

"Prisoners!" exclaimed the planter contemptuously. "You are such
prisoners as they shut up in the penitentiary, or hang in the public
square."

"Can I see the commander?" asked the spokesman, quite gently by this
time.

"I will see him if he comes down into the parlor," said Deck. "I shall
make prisoners of them; but I wish to stipulate that neither Sergeant
Fronklyn nor myself shall have anything to do with punishing them,
either by hanging or shooting after they have surrendered."

"The commander will see you down-stairs; but I will shoot any other
that attempts to put his foot on the first stair," shouted Colonel
Hickman.

"I will come down," replied the spokesman; and he came to the head of
the staircase with a gun in his hand.

"Halt!" cried the planter. "Leave all your arms up-stairs! Have you any
pistols about you?"

He passed his musket to one of the others, and did the same with a
couple of pistols when the colonel mentioned them. Having complied with
the order, he came down the stairs. He was directed to the parlor in
which the lieutenant was waiting for him.

"Are you the commander here?" he inquired.

"I am. May I ask what you are?" demanded Deck, without rising from the
armchair in which he was seated.

"I am called Captain Grundy."

"Not Mrs. Grundy?"

"Captain Grundy," replied the ruffian, with something of dignity in his
looks and manner.

"Have you a captain's commission?"

"Not yet."

"In what service are you?"

"In the service of the Confederate States of America."

"In what regiment?"

"In no regiment; in