“I know one thing,” he said to himself, as he stumbled back in the sitting-room, and sat down; “I’ll let that fellow alone, after this!  What did I want of his cussed paper?  I b’lieve I am bewitched, sure enough!  I’ve been shivering and sweating, ever since!  Where did he get that hair?  It couldn’t have been that! I burnt that up, I know I did!  It would be a joke, if hair could rise from the dead!”

Ah, Legree! that golden tress was charmed; each hair had in it a spell of terror and remorse for thee, and was used by a mightier power to bind thy cruel hands from inflicting uttermost evil on the helpless!

“I say,” said Legree, stamping and whistling to the dogs, “wake up, some of you, and keep me company!” but the dogs only opened one eye at him, sleepily, and closed it again.

“I’ll have Sambo and Quimbo up here, to sing and dance one of their hell dances, and keep off these horrid notions,” said Legree; and, putting on his hat, he went on to the verandah, and blew a horn, with which he commonly summoned his two sable drivers.

Legree was often wont, when in a gracious humor, to get these two worthies into his sitting-room, and, after warming them up with whiskey, amuse himself by setting them to singing, dancing or fighting, as the humor took him.

It was between one and two o’clock at night, as Cassy was returning from her ministrations to poor Tom, that she heard the sound of wild shrieking, whooping, halloing, and singing, from the sitting-room, mingled with the barking of dogs, and other symptoms of general uproar.

She came up on the verandah steps, and looked in.  Legree and both the drivers, in a state of furious intoxication, were singing, whooping, upsetting chairs, and making all manner of ludicrous and horrid grimaces at each other.

She rested her small, slender hand on the window-blind, and looked fixedly at them;—­there was a world of anguish, scorn, and fierce bitterness, in her black eyes, as she did so.  “Would it be a sin to rid the world of such a wretch?” she said to herself.

She turned hurriedly away, and, passing round to a back door, glided up stairs, and tapped at Emmeline’s door.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Emmeline and Cassy

Cassy entered the room, and found Emmeline sitting, pale with fear, in the furthest corner of it.  As she came in, the girl started up nervously; but, on seeing who it was, rushed forward, and catching her arm, said, “O Cassy, is it you?  I’m so glad you’ve come!  I was afraid it was—.  O, you don’t know what a horrid noise there has been, down stairs, all this evening!”

“I ought to know,” said Cassy, dryly.  “I’ve heard it often enough.”

“O Cassy! do tell me,—­couldn’t we get away from this place?  I don’t care where,—­into the swamp among the snakes,—­anywhere! Couldn’t we get somewhere away from here?”