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Updated: June 24, 2025
Slosson suggested none of those qualities of brain or heart that trenched upon the lighter amenities of life. He was black-haired and bull-necked, and there was about him a certain shagginess which a recent toilet performed at the horse trough had not served to mitigate. "Howdy?" he drawled. "Howdy?" responded Mr. Yancy. "Shall you stop here?" asked Murrell, sinking his voice. Yancy nodded.
As his eyes rested on Murrell, that gentleman raised the first three fingers of his right hand. The gesture was ever so little, yet it seemed to have a tonic effect on Mr. Slosson. What might have developed into a smile had he not immediately suppressed it, twisted his bearded lips as he made an answering movement. "Eph, come here, you!" Slosson raised his voice.
"Is the boy going to stay at Belle Plain?" inquired Murrell. "That notion hasn't struck her yet, for I heard her say at breakfast that she'd take him to Raleigh this afternoon." "That's the boy I traveled all the way to North Carolina to get for Fentress. I thought I had him once, but the little cuss gave me the slip." "Eh you don't say?" cried Ware.
Ware dropped his voice to a whisper. Those women were just the other side of the logs, he could hear them at their work. "Who's at Belle Plain now?" continued Murrell. "Bowen's wife and daughter have stayed," answered Ware, still in a whisper. "For how long, Tom? Do you know?"
He had about decided on a ring such as Captain Murrell was wearing, when he heard the shuffling of bare feet over the ground and a voice spoke out of the darkness. "When yo' get to feelin' like sleep, young boss, Mas'r Slosson he says I show yo' to yo' chamber." It was Slosson's boy Eph. "Did you-all happen to notice what they're doing in the tavern now?" asked Hannibal.
"How about this fellow?" asked the man, whose pistol still covered Ware. Hues glanced toward the planter and shook his head. "Where are you going to take me?" asked Murrell quickly. Again Hues laughed. "You'll find that out in plenty of time, and then your friends can pass the word around if they like; now you'll come with me!"
That same morning Tom Ware and Captain Murrell were seated in the small detached building at Belle Plain, known as the office, where the former spent most of his time when not in the saddle. Whatever the planter's vices, and he was reputed to possess a fair working knowledge of good and evil, no one had ever charged him with hypocrisy.
"I rode out to the Hill to say good-by to Hannibal and to you, but they said you were here and that the trial was today." Captain Murrell, with Crenshaw and the squire, came from the house, and Murrell's swarthy face lit up at sight of the girl. Yancy, sensible of the gulf that yawned between himself and what was known as "the quality," would have yielded his place, but Betty detained him.
Murrell and his confederates would steal horses and mules, or at least the common class, or division, known as the "strikers," would do so, although the members of the Grand Council would hardly stoop to so petty a crime. For them was reserved the murdering of travelers or settlers who were supposed to have money, and the larger operations of negro stealing.
Hannibal and Yancy watched them mount and ride away, then the boy said: "Uncle Bob, now them ladies have gone, won't you please show me them dints you made in the doorjamb?" Captain Murrell had established himself at Balaam's Cross Roads.
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