"Guessed I heard a gun about an hour
ago," said the betting young gentleman.

"Lord bless you and me, judge," said
Cartwright, " if this child here ain't going
to die, I do believe, of a determination of
intelligence to the brain. The peculiar
acuteness of his youthful faculties, is
something quite astonishing."

"Well, I guess I wasn't born yesterday,"
responded the disconcerted subject of this
sarcastic compliment, "and when you were
as young as I am—-"

"I never was as young as you are, sir,"
said Cartwright.

"Well, never mind that. What did you
bag, old boy?"

"Nothing, young reverend."

"Never knew you miss before,
Cartwright."

"Well, I don't often miss, when the game
is as easy — as easy as I mostly find it
whenever I have the pleasure of a crack
with you, my young friend."

In this sprightly conversation Mr. Philip
Cartwright was still exercising his wit and
humour, when that "black blockhead," as
his master called him, entered the arbour,
looking as white as a black man can look,
and whispered something to him.

"Returned? impossible!" cried
Cartwright, springing up.

"What's the matter?" cried the two
other gentlemen; "Ackland back again?"

"No, but the mare's back again,
riderless, covered with foam, and the saddle
turned. The mare I lent him."

"Told you he'd come to grief with her.
Shouldn't wonder if she's broke his neck,"
exclaimed the betting young gentleman,
with joyful exultation.

"Tell Sam to saddle my horse instantly,"
cried Cartwright. "Not the one I had out
to-day, a fresh one."

"Why, where are you going,
Cartwright?" asked the judge, not very well
pleased at the prospect of interrupted
potations and a dull evening.

"To look for poor Ackland. And at
once."

"But it's a good twelve miles' ride."

"Can't help that, judge. If anything has
happened to my poor friend, if the mare has
thrown him, he may be in want of assistance.
I saw him safe through the plantation.
If anything has happened to him, it
cannot have been long after I left him, or the
mare would hardly have got home by now,
even at a gallop. Stay, I'd better take the
waggon, I think. If he's hurt we shall want
it. Who will come with me?"

"Not I," said the judge. "I'm too old.
But I tell you what, Cartwright, if you'll
order another bottle I'll sit up for you."

"I'll come," said the betting young
gentleman.

"Pooh," cried Cartwright, with ineffable
contempt. "You're no use. I must be
off." And off he went.

When he returned to Glenoak about
three o'clock in the morning, the judge
had kept his word, and was sitting up for
him, having nearly finished his second
bottle. Cartwright dropped into a chair
haggard and exhausted. He had been to
the Coach's point and back, but had
discovered nothing, except, indeed, that neither
horse nor rider had arrived that evening
from Glenoak at the inn at that town, and
that the Charleston coach had taken in no
passengers there.

"The whole thing is a mystery," he said.
"It fairly beats me."

"And beat you look," said the judge;
"you'd best take a cocktail and go to bed.
Found no trace of him on the road?"

"Nothing."

"Nor heard anything of him?"

"Nothing; absolutely nothing."

The next morning all the slaves on Mr.
Cartwright's estate were assembled and
interrogated about the missing gentleman.
Judge Griffin himself conducted the
inquiry, and very severely he did it. Of
course, they all contradicted each other
and themselves, and floundered about in a
fathomless slough of unintelligibility; for,
whatever natural intelligence they
possessed was extinguished by the terror of
the great judge, or lost in the labyrinths of
cross-examination. One old negro in
particular, "whose name was Uncle Ned,"
revealed such a profundity of stupidity,
that the judge said, "Cartwright, that
nigger of yours is the stupidest nigger in
all niggerdom."

"He is," said Cartwright, "and if the
black beast don't mind what he's about I'll
sell him—whip him first, and sell him
afterwards."

"He won't fetch much, I reckon," said
the judge.

"I'll skin him alive and make squash
pie of him, and eat him with pepper, and
salt, and vinegar," said Cartwright, showing
all the teeth in his handsome mouth,
and looking very much like a hungry ogre.
"I have my eye on him," he added, "and
he knows it."

Poor Uncle Ned did indeed appear to
have a very lively sense of the uncomfortable