"Oh, yes, sir; I have been treated with such ingratitude. It would break any gentleman's heart to hear my tale. Who is your friend, sir?"

"Samson, wake up, old bruiser!" cried Phoebus, shaking the sleeper soundly; "you didn't give in to one or two, by smoke!"

"Is it you, Jimmy?" the old negro finally said, with a sheepish expression; "why, neighbor, I'm glad to see you, but I'm sorry, too. A black man dey don't want to kill yer, caze dey kin sell him, but a white man like you dey don't want to keep, and dey dassn't let him go."

"A white man here?" exclaimed the superior-looking person; "what can they mean?"

"I'm ironed so heavy, Jimmy," continued Samson, "dat I can't set up much. My han's is tied togedder wid cord, my feet's in an iron clevis, and a ball's chained to de clevis."

"Give me your hands," exclaimed Jimmy; "I'll settle them cords, by smoke!"

In a minute he had severed the cords at the wrist, and the intelligent yellow man pleaded that a similar favor be done for him, to which the sailor acceded ungrudgingly.

"Jimmy," said Samson, "if it's ever known in Prencess Anne - as I 'spect it never will be, fur we're in bad hands, neighbor - dar'll be a laugh instid of a cry, fur ole boxin' Samson, dat was kidnapped an' fetched to jail by a woman!"

"You licked by a woman, Samson?"

"Yes, Jimmy, a woman all by herseff frowed me down, tied my hands an' feet, an' brought me to dis garret. I hain't seen nobody but her an' dese yer people, sence I was tuk."

"Ha!" exclaimed the dejected mulatto, "that's a favorite feat of Patty Cannon. She is the only woman ever seen at a threshing-floor who can stand in a half-bushel measure and lift five bushels of grain at once upon her shoulders, weighing three hundred pounds."

"I ain't half dat," Samson smiled, quietly, "an' she handled me, shore enough. You remember, Jimmy, when I leff you by ole Spring Hill church, to go an' git a woman on a little wagon to show me de way to Laurel?"

"Why, it was only yisterday, Samson!"

"Dat was de woman, Jimmy. She was a chunky, heavy-sot woman, right purty to look at, an' maybe fifty year ole. She was de nicest woman mos' ever I see. She made me git off my mule an' ride in de wagon by her, an' take a drink of her own applejack - she said she 'stilled it on her farm. She said she knowed Judge Custis, an' asked me questions about Prencess Anne, an' wanted me to work fur her some way. We was goin froo a pore, pine country, a heap wuss dan Hardship, whar Marster Milburn come outen, an' hadn't seen nobody on de road till we come to a run she said was named de Tussocky branch, whar she got out of de wagon to water her hoss. At dat place she come up to me an' says, 'Samson, I'll wrastle you!' 'Go long,' says I, 'I kin't wrastle no woman like you.' 'You got to,' she says, swearin' like a man, an' takin' holt of me jess like a man wrastles. I felt ashamed, an' didn't know what to do, and, befo' I could wink, Jimmy, dat woman had give me de trip an' shoved me wid a blow like de kick of an ox, and was a-top of my back wid a knee like iron pinnin' of me down."