“You women can’t understand how a man feels when his love changes to hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn upon one another you never let go.  Aunt Hannah, I loved her better than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me, until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a villain of me.  When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I would be revenged.  There is tiger blood in me, and when I am thoroughly stirred up I never cool.  It is a long, long time since I lost her trail—­soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I will follow it till I hunt her down.  I never received your letters, or I would have hurried back.  Where is Minnie now?”

“That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe.  The letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to her.  I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too smart for me.”

“Why don’t you pump the child?”

“Haven’t I?  And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped.  She is closer than sealing wax, and shrewder than a serpent.  If you pumped her till the stars fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor coaxed.”

“Where is the paper?”

“Safely buried here, among the dead.”

“What folly!  Don’t you know the dampness will destroy it?  Pshaw! you have ruined everything.”

“See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine.  The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin box.”

“When can I see it?  Suppose you get it now?”

“In daylight?  You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no matter what comes.  I would take it up to-night, but there is going to be an awful storm.  Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down yonder, under that dark line crossing the south?  There will be wild work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins it won’t be child’s play.  Even the marble slabs on the graves are hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had burnt through all but a thin crust.  I never was afraid of the devil until my sin brought me close to him.  I want to finish this business, and before day to-morrow I will come over here and dig up my box.  There will be dim moonlight by three o’clock, and if it should be cloudy, I can shut my eyes and find the place.  I tell you, Peleg, I am sick and tired of this dirty work; and sometimes I think I am no better than a hyena prowling among dead men’s bones.  Come around to the cowshed in the morning, about seven o’clock,