The negro drivers let forth a yell
and dropped their reins when the rest of our party sprang out from
the copse. The convoy halted and Uncle Moses in a very little time
made the drivers understand that they must either do what we bade
them or be trussed up and left in the woods. With night approaching
this latter alternative had too many terrors to make it acceptable,
and the men professed themselves willing to render utter obedience,
the more readily in that Vetch and his gang of desperadoes were
well hated by all the hands upon the estate.
One of them, who Uncle Moses told me, was a bad character, we bound
and placed with the overseers in one of the wagons, which we then
drew into the copse out of sight from the road.
Cludde and I deliberated for a moment whether we should mount the
overseers' horses and ride on with the wagons. But we decided not
to tempt fate. Before we reached the big house we should have to
pass that of the principal overseer of the estate, and though the
sky was already dusking, and it would be dark before we arrived,
there were many chances that we might be seen by the buccaneers or
others as we came within the bounds, and being in our officers'
habiliments we should be marked and the alarm given. So we resolved
to get into the first wagon, and cover ourselves with the sacking
it contained as soon as we came to the borders of the plantations.
Uncle Moses seated himself beside the driver of the first wagon,
Noah on the second, and the rest of our party got into this wagon
and likewise hid under sacking.
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