ing at
the top of his voice.

"Keep still, you little fule," said Beardsley, in an angry whisper.
"Nobody's going to hurt you."

"Aint, hey?" exclaimed a second man, who at that moment came upon the
scene. "I'll hurt him to-morrow, I bet you; I'll have him brung into the
field; and he has heard me talk often enough to know what them words
mean."

Just then Julius succeeded in freeing himself from Beardsley's grasp,
and it was well for him that he did so, for the man had almost smothered
him by holding his nose between his thumb and fore-finger at the same
time that he covered his mouth with the rest of his hand. The negro
gasped once or twice, and then sank to the ground like a piece of wet
rope.

"All right. Let him lay there till he gets ready to get up," said
Captain Beardsley. "Where's the men? Where's Shelby!"

"The men started on a run for the house the minute that black villain
yelled," replied Hanson; for he was the one who came to Beardsley's
assistance. "Shelby is round on the other side watching the back door,
and he sent me to see what the fursing was about. Now I'll go back and
tell him."

"And be sure that you and him keep out of sight when Marcy is brought
out," cautioned Beardsley. "You don't want to let him get a sight at ary
one of you, for there's no telling when he will have the power on his
own side."

The overseer hastened away, trusting more to the darkness than to the
bushes in the yard to conceal him from Mrs. Gray's view and Marcy's,
should either of them chance to look out at the window, and the captain
moved a few steps nearer to the carriage-way, so that he could look at
the house through the branches of an evergreen. When he first peeped out
the front windows were all dark; but presently lights began to appear
here and there, heavy steps and loud angry voices were heard in the
house, and finally the front door opened, and a man, carrying a lighted
lamp in his hand, came out and walked the whole length of it. Captain
Beardsley was surprised, and he felt uncomfortable, too. If the boy of
whom they were in search was in the house he ought to have been
discovered before this time; and if he had escaped, where could he have
gone unless it was to Plymouth or to the Union men who were hidden in
the swamp? If he had gone to either place Captain Beardsley knew it
meant the loss of more buildings to him and Colonel Shelby.

"And if he's went off it is bekase some traitor or 'nother in our