loud enough for him to hear it and give her one fierce glance
that quieted her.

"Who said I was a sailor, sir?"

"Captain Jackson."

"That's because you want a sailor," stammered the convict. "Mighty
little I ever knew about a ship till I got aboard this thing. Captain
would 'a' told you I was a carpenter or a preacher if he thought that
was what you wanted."

The man spoke gaspingly, and a dim sense of having known him began to
make its way into the mind of the planter. He was going to ask him
where he had taught school, but all at once a rush of memories crowded
his mind, and a strange suspicion came to him. He stood silent and
staring at the convict half a minute. Then he walked round him,
examining him from this side and that.

"Let me see your left hand, you villain!" he muttered, approaching the
man.

The convict had kept his left hand shoved down under his belt. He shook
now as with an ague, and made no motion.

"Out with it!" cried the planter.

Slowly the old man drew out his hand, showing that one joint of the
little finger was gone.

"You liar!" said the planter, at the same time pulling the bob-wig from
the convict's head, and flinging it on the deck. "Your name is not
James Palmer, but Jim Lewis, Captain Jim Lewis of the Red Rose--'Black
Jim,' as everybody called you behind your back!"

Here Poll broke out again with "Lawr!" while Sanford Browne paused,
fairly choked with emotion. Then he began again in a low voice:

"You thought I wouldn't know you. I've been watching out for you these
ten years, to send you to hell with my own hands! You robbed my poor
mother of her boy." The wretch cowered beneath the planter's gaze, and
essayed to deny his identity, but his voice died in his throat. Browne
at length turned on his heel, and strode rapidly toward the captain.

"I'll take him at the price you fixed," he called out as he advanced.

The captain wondered what gold mine Browne had discovered in Cappy to
make him so eager to accept the first price named. He for his part was
equally eager to be rid of a convict whom he regarded as rather a
dangerous man, so he said promptly, "He belongs to you," and shook
hands according to the custom in "closing a bargain."

A moment later Black Jim Lewis, having regained his wits, rushed up to
the captain entreating hoarsely not to be sold to Browne. "Now, don't
let him have me, Captain Jackson; for God's sake, don't, now! He's my
enemy. He'll beat me and st