the pitchy
pine-knots. Inside the tents also, the lights are extinguished--all
except one. This, the rude skin sheiling which shelters the mestizo and
mulatto. The two half-bloods, of different strain, are yet awake, and
sitting up. They are also drinking, hobnobbing with one another.

Fernand has supplied the liquor freely and without stint. Pretending to
fraternise with the new confederate, he has filled the latter's glass at
least a half-score of times, doing the same with his own. Both have
emptied them with like rapidity, and yet neither seems at all overcome.
Each thinks the other the hardest case at a drinking bout he has ever
come across; wondering he is not dead drunk, though knowing why he is
himself sober. The Spanish moss plucked from the adjacent trees, and
littering the tent floor, could tell--if it had the power of speech.

Jupiter has had many a whiskey spree in the woods of Mississippi, but
never has he encountered a _convive_ who could stand so much of it, and
still keep his tongue and seat. What can it mean? Is the mestizo's
stomach made of steel?

While perplexed, and despairing of being able to get Fernand
intoxicated, an explanation suggests itself. His fellow tippler may be
shamming, as himself?

Pretending to look out of the tent, he twists his eyes away so far,
that, from the front, little else than their whites can be seen. But
enough of the retina is uncovered to receive an impression from behind;
this showing the mestizo tilting his cup, and spilling its contents
among the moss!

He now knows he is being watched, as well as guarded. And of his
vigilant sentinel there seems but one way to disembarrass himself.

As the thought of it flits across his brain, his eyes flash with a
feverish light, such as when one intends attacking by stealth, and with
the determination to kill. For he must either kill the man by his side,
or give up what is to himself worth more than such a life--his own
liberty.

It may be his beloved master yet lives, and there is a chance to succour
him. If dead, he will find his body, and give it burial. He remembers
the promise that morning mutually declared between them--to stand and
fall together--he will keep his part of it. If Clancy has fallen,
others will go down too; in the end, if need be, himself. But not till
he has taken, or tried to take, a terrible and bloody vengeance. To
this he has bound himself, by an oath sworn in the secret recess