a flogging at the hands of that brutal overseer, and all her womanliness shrunk from the degradation of being stripped and flogged in Alston’s presence, or even of having him know that she was to be cowhided.  She bethought her of making an appeal to the overseer.  She knew she had some power with him, for he had been enamored, in his brutish way, of her physical charms—­her neat figure, her glossy, waving hair, and the small, shapely hand and foot.

Just before the weighing had reached Alston’s basket and hers she stepped beside the overseer.  “Please, Mos’ Buck,” she said in a low tone, “ef I falls ‘hin’ myse’f, an’ don’t git up to them fus’ figgers, an’ has to git cowhided—­please, sah, don’t let the black folks an’ Als’on know ’bout it.”

Mr. Buck took a hint from this request.  He perceived that Lizay was interested in Alston, as he had already guessed from the jokes of the negroes, and that she was specially desirous to conceal her shame from the man to whom she had given her favor.  Mr. Buck resented it that Lizay should rebuff him and encourage Alston; so he hoped that for this once, at any rate, she would fall behind:  he had thought of a capital plan of revenging himself on her.

The next moment after her whispered appeal Lizay saw with intense interest Alston’s basket brought forward for weighing.  She glanced at him.  His eyes were wide open, staring with eagerness, his head advanced, his whole attitude one of absorbed anxiety.  By the position of the weight or pea on the steelyard she knew that it was put somewhere near the sixty notch.  Up flew the end of the yard, and up flew Lizay’s heart with it:  out went the pea some ten teeth, yet up again went the impatient steel.  Click! click! click! rattled the weight.  Out and out another ten notches, then another and another—­one hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three—­yet the yard still protested, still called for more.  Out one tooth farther, and the steel lay along the horizon.  Everybody listened.

“One hunderd an’ fou’,” Mr. Buck announced.  “Thar’ now, yer lazy dog!  I know’d yer wasn’t half wuckin’.  Now see ter it yer come ter taw arter this:  hunderd an’ fou’s yer notch.”

It was a moment of supreme relief to Alston.  He drew a long breath, and returned some smiles of congratulation from the negroes.  Then he sighed:  he felt hopeless of repeating the weight day after day.  He had hardly stopped to breathe from day-dawn till moon-rise:  he would not always have the friendly moonlight to help him.  But now Little Lizay’s basket was swinging.  He listened to hear its weight with interest, but how unlike this was to the absorbed anxiety which she had felt for him!

“Two hunderd an’ ’leven—­thutty-six poun’s behin’!” said Mr. Buck, smacking his lips as over some good thing.  Now he should have vent for his spite against the girl.  “Thutty-six lashes on yer bar’ back by yer sweet’art.”  Mr. Buck said this with a dreadful snicker in Little Lizay’s face.