a couple of years ago.

"After him, you black swine!" he roared at them. But as they
started he checked them. "Wait! Get to heel, damn you!"

It occurred to him that to catch and deal with the fellow there was
not the need to go after him, and perhaps spend the day hunting him
in that cursed wood. There was Pitt here ready to his hand, and
Pitt should tell him the identity of his bashful friend, and also
the subject of that close and secret talk he had disturbed. Pitt
might, of course, be reluctant. So much the worse for Pitt. The
ingenious Colonel Bishop knew a dozen ways - some of them quite
diverting - of conquering stubbornness in these convict dogs.

He turned now upon the slave a countenance that was inflamed by heat
internal and external, and a pair of heady eyes that were alight
with cruel intelligence. He stepped forward swinging his light
bamboo cane.

"Who was that runagate?" he asked with terrible suavity. Leaning
over on his spade, Jeremy Pitt hung his head a little, and shifted
uncomfortably on his bare feet. Vainly he groped for an answer in
a mind that could do nothing but curse the idiocy of Mr. James
Nuttall.

The planter's bamboo cane fell on the lad's naked shoulders with
stinging force.

"Answer me, you dog! What's his name?"