As they
rode to the rear of the house a little dormer window, like a snail,
crawled low along the roof, and a light was shining from it.
"Devil Jim's business-office," nodded Sorden.
"What's his business?" asked Levin, freshly.
"Niggers. He keeps 'em up thar between the garret and the
roof--sometimes in the cellar."
"Does he want a business-office for that?"
"He's a contractor on the canawl, too, Jim is--raises race-horses, farms
it, gambles a little, but nigger-runnin' is his best game. My skin! Yer
comes Captain Van Dorn. I love him as I never loved A male."
"Van Dorn," spoke a voice from the house, "remember my family is
particular. Your men must go to the barn. Come in!"
"Spiced brandy at the barn!"--a quiet remark from somewhere--was
sufficient to lead the herd away, and, giving the order to "water and
fodder," Van Dorn passed into the kitchen, thence through a bedroom to
the chief room of the house, and up a small winding-stair to a scrap of
hallway or corridor hardly two feet wide.
The man who led pointed to a trap above one end of this hall, and
exclaimed, "Niggers there! family yonder!"--the last reference to a door
closing the little passage.
He then opened a wicket at the side of the hall, admitting Van Dorn to
an exceedingly small closet or garret room, barely large enough for the
men to sit, and lighted by a lamp in the little dormer window seen from
below.
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