arve me to death. I'm one of your own kind;
I'm a sea captain, and it's a shame for you, a sea captain too, to sell
me to a man that hates me and only wants to make me miserable. I'm
ruinated anyhow, and you ought to take some pity on me."

This plea for a freemasonry among sea captains had influence with the
captain of the Nancy Jane. But he said, "W'y, Jim Lewis, I've sold to
you the best master in the province of Maryland. You don't know when
you're well off. Mr. Browne feeds his people well, and he never beats
'em bad, like the rest."

"I tell you, he'll flay me alive, that man will! You'd better shoot me
dead and put me out of misery."

While the wretch was making this appeal, Browne was silently engaged
in emptying the priming of his flintlock fowling piece, picking open
the tube, and then filling the pan with fresh powder from the horn at
his side. When he had closed the pan, he struck the stock of the gun
one or two blows to shake the powder well down into place, that the gun
might not miss fire. Then turning to the captain, he said, "A bargain
is a bargain."

Then to the convict he said: "Black Jim Lewis, you belong to me. Get
into that boat, or it'll be worse for you," and he slowly raised the
snaphance with his thumb on the hammer.

Lewis had aged visibly in ten minutes. With trembling steps he walked
to the ship's side, and clambered over the bulwarks into the dugout.
The boy followed, and then the master took his seat in the stern, with
his flintlock fowling piece within reach.

"My dead body'll float down here past the Nancy Jane," said Jim Lewis
to the captain; "and I'll ha'nt your ship forever--see if I don't!" He
half rose and waved his hand threateningly as he said this in a hoarse,
sepulchral voice.

"Mr. Browne," interposed the captain of the Nancy Jane, as the lifted
canoe paddles were ready to dip into the water, "don't be too hard on
the old captain. You see how old and shaken he is. You'll show
moderation, now, won't you?"

"I'll care for him," answered Browne unbendingly. "Away with the canoe!
Good-by, captain. My tobacco will be ready for you."

And Poll, the convict, as she leaned over the rail and watched the
fast-receding canoe pitching up and down on the seas, said, "Lawr!"

SCENE III.

The time is the late afternoon of the same day, and the place is again
Sanford Browne's plantation.

Judith Browne, having exhausted her experiments on the frock, the
bonnet, and the hoop p