“Well, he’d found out, then, how a fellow likes to be soused in the water, as the blundering blunderbus did me, darn him.”

“O, nebber bear no malice.  I ’scuse Basset ’cause he don’t know no better, and you must forgib him.”

“As to that, you needn’t fret your gizzard.  But how did you git home, Prime, with your broken leg?”

“Dat is a secret atween me and Basset; but I didn’t walk.”

“Then, I vow,” said Tom, bursting into a laugh, “he either trundled you along in a wheelbarrow, like a load o’ pumpkins, or else carried you on his back.”

“Nobody roll me in a wheelbarrow,” said the General, drawing himself up, and affecting to be offended.

“I would ha’ given all my old shirts to see a darkey riding Basset,” said Tom, whose merriment increased the more he dwelt on the idea.

“A colored pusson as light complexum as a white man in de dark,” exclaimed Primus, grinning.

“Well, old Prime, you’re the cleverest nigger I ever did see,” said Tom, slapping him on the back, and still laughing; “but take care you don’t feel too proud after your ride.  Put a nigger on horseback, and you know where he goes.  But what have you got there?” he inquired, seeing the General draw a paper out of his pocket.

“Dis paper fall out ob Missa Basset hat when de ghost strike him last night, and I pick him up.”

“Golly! if it ain’t the warrant.  Prime, you’re the ace o’ clubs.  I’m gladder of this than if I found a good dinner.”

“Well, what shall I do wid him?”

“Why, man, burn it up; it’s the constable’s sword and gun, and baggonit and cartridge-box; he can’t do nothing without it; why, without the warrant, he’s just like a cat without claws.  He daresn’t touch a man without a warrant.”

“If Missa Basset trow de paper away, I ’spose he don’t want him, and he ain’t good for noting, and nobody can find fault wid me for burning up a little piece ob waste paper, just to kindle de fire,” said Primus, throwing the warrant into the flames, where it was immediately consumed.

“There, we’ve drawn Basset’s eye-teeth now,” said Gladding.  “Holden’s as safe as you or me.  And, Prime,” he added, rising, and, as he took leave, making a peculiar gesture with the thumb of his right hand touching the end of his nose, and his fingers twinkling in the air, “you’re too old a fox to need teaching, but it will do no harm to say I advise you to keep as dark as your skin.”

Such was the conversation that, on the morning after the adventure of the island, took place at the cabin of Primus, and the reader will now perfectly understand (if, indeed, he has not before discovered it) the relation which the associates bore to the constable.  Yet, there was some difference in the feelings of the two:  Gladding felt only unmitigated contempt for Basset, while the good-nature of the negro (proverbial of the race) infused some pity into the sentiment.