the entire circle of
four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged the limit, and went to
the further depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared. The
gold-seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at length clambered from the pit,
with the bitterest disappointment imprinted upon every feature, and
proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put on his coat, which he had
thrown off at the beginning of his labor. In the meantime I made no
remark. Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to gather up his
tools. This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in
profound silence toward home.

We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when, with a
loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by the collar.
The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest extent,
let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees.

"You scoundrel!" said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from between
his clinched teeth--"you infernal black villain!--speak, I tell
you!--answer me this instant, without prevarication!--which--which is
your left eye?"

"Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef eye for attain?" roared
the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right organ of vision,
and holding it there with a desperate pertinacity, as if in immediate
dread of his master's attempt at a gouge.

"I thought so!--I knew it! hurrah!" vociferated Legrand, letting the
negro go and executing a series of curvets and caracols, much to the
astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his knees, looked, mutely,
from his master to myself, and then from myself to his master.

"Come! we must go back," said the latter, "the game's not up yet;" and
he again led the way to the tulip-tree.

"Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, "come here! was the skull
nailed to the limb with the face outward, or with the face to the limb?"

"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes good,
widout any trouble."

"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped the
beetle?" here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes.

"'Twas dis eye, massa--de lef eye--jis as you tell me," and here it was
his right eye that the negro indicated.

"That will do--we must try it again."

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw,
certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked the spot
where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the westward of
its form