200 POMPEY THE POACHER. 



known this discovery to any one. Well, you shall pay 

 for your garrulousness. Go, and send Pompey to me." 



The negro whom the overseer thus soundly rated did 

 not need a second order to take his departure, and, leaving 

 the overseer to his reflections, he ran towards the negroes' 

 huts which bordered the verdant lawn on the north of 

 the plantation. 



A few moments afterwards Pompey presented himself 

 before the overseer, and the latter, without listening to 

 the exclamations of Csesar's comrade, ordered him to 

 collect a sufficient quantity of pine-apples, and prepare a 

 pan, that he might, the same evening, get up a hunt by fire. 



" But," timidly objected Pompey, " when Mr. Ramson 

 returns to-morrow, if the stags have ceased to frequent 

 his field in the evening, he will accuse us of having hunted 

 them on our own account." 



" What does it matter to you 1 All that you have to 

 say is that you know nothing about it ; and it is only on 

 this condition that I will refrain from telling your master 

 that you have already killed you yourself alone four 

 deer, and afterwards sold them at Charleston. I know 

 your poaching tricks, as you see, and have you in my 

 power. Silence for silence ! " 



Pompey lowered his eyes when accused of poaching, 

 and without further expostulation promised to make 

 every preparation for the nocturnal hunt. 



An hour after sunset the overseer, preceded by a negro 

 carrying a sack of pine-apples and a frying-pan, quitted 

 his master's house, mounted on a horse covered with a 

 sheep-skin, and carrying a large saddle. He held, coiled 

 up in his hands, a rope terminating in a hook, intended to 

 drag along the game after it was killed. 



