deemed him dead, as his face was buried in his arms. A moment Keith
hesitated; then he reached down and shook the sleeper, until he aroused
sufficiently to look up. It was the face of a coal-black negro. An instant
the fellow stared at the man towering over him, his thick lips parted, his
eyes full of sudden terror. Then he sat up, with hands held before him as
though warding off a blow.

"Fo' de Lawd's sake," he managed to articulate finally, "am dis sho' yo',
Massa Jack?"

Keith, to whom all colored people were much alike, laughed at the
expression on the negro's face.

"I reckon yer guessed the name, all right, boy. Were you the cook of the
Diamond L?"

"No, sah, I nebber cooked no di'onds. I'se ol' Neb, sah."

"What?"

"Yes, sah, I'se de boy dat libbed wid ol' Missus Caton durin' de wah. I
ain't seen yo', Massa Jack, sence de day we buried yo' daddy, ol' Massa
Keith. But I knowed yo' de berry minute I woke up. Sho', yo' 'members Neb,
sah?"

It came to Keith now in sudden rush of memory--the drizzling rain in the
little cemetery, the few neighbors standing about, a narrow fringe of
slaves back of them, the lowering of the coffin, and the hollow sound of
earth falling on the box; and Neb, his Aunt Caton's house servant, a black
imp of good humor, who begged so hard to be taken back with him to the