This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled,
we turned in profound silence towards home.
We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when, with a
loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by the collar.
The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest
extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees.
"You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from
between his clenched teeth --"you infernal black villain! --speak, I
tell you! --answer me this instant, without prevarication! which
--which is your left eye?"
"Oh, my golly, Massa Will! ain't dis here my lef' eye for
sartain?" roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his
right organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate
pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master's attempt at a
gouge.
"I thought so! --I knew it! --hurrah!" vociferated Legrand,
letting the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and
caracols, much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his
knees, looked, mutely, from his master to myself, and then from myself
to his master.
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