“Listen to me, Tom.  I’ll take her away, and Belle Plain is yours—­land, stock and niggers!” said Murrell quietly.

Ware shifted and twisted in his seat.

“It can’t be done.  I can advise and urge:  but I can’t command.  She’s got her friends, those people back yonder in North Carolina, and if I made things uncomfortable for her here she’d go to them and I couldn’t stop her.  You don’t seem to get it through your head that she’s got no earthly use for you!”

Murrell favored him with a contemptuous glance.

“You’re like every one else!  Certain things you’ll do, and certain other things you won’t even try to do—­your conscience or your fear gets in your way.”

“Call it what you like.”

“I offer to take the girl off your hands; when I quit the country she shall go with me—­”

“And I’d be left here to explain what had become of her!” cried Ware, in a panic.

“You won’t have anything to explain.  She’ll have disappeared, that will be all you’ll know,” said Murrell quietly.

“She’ll never marry you.”

“Don’t you be too sure of that.  She may be glad enough to in the end.”

“Oh, you think you are a hell of a fellow with women!  Well, maybe you are with one sort—­but what do you know about her kind?” jeered the planter.

Murrell’s brow darkened.

“I’ll manage her,” he said briefly.

“You were of some account until this took hold of you,” complained Ware.

“What do you say?  One would hardly think I was offering to make you a present of the best plantation in west Tennessee!” said Murrell.

Ware seemed to suck in hope through his shut teeth.

“I don’t want to know anything about this, you are going to swamp yourself yet—­you’re fixing to get yourself strung up—­yes, by thunder, that’ll be your finish!”

“Do you want the land and the niggers?  I reckon you’ll have to take them whether you want them or not, for I’m going to have the girl.”

CHAPTER XVII

BOB YANCY FINDS HIMSELF

Mr. Yancy awoke from a long dreamless sleep; heavy-lidded, his eyes slid open.  For a moment he struggled with the odds and ends of memory, then he recalled the fight at the tavern, the sudden murderous attack, the fierce blows Slosson had dealt him, the knife thrust which had ended the struggle.  Therefore, the bandages that now swathed his head and shoulders; therefore, the need that he should be up and doing—­for where was Hannibal?

He sought to lift himself on his elbow, but the effort sent shafts of pain through him; his head seemed of vast size and endowed with a weight he could not support.  He sank back groaning, and closed his eyes.  After a little interval he opened them again and stared about him.  There was the breath of dawn in the air; he heard a rooster crow, and the contented grunting of a pig close at hand.  He was resting under a rude shelter of poles and bark.  Presently he became aware of a slow gliding movement, and the silvery ripple of water.  Clearly he was no longer at the tavern, and clearly some one had taken the trouble to bandage his hurts.