"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.
"Come! we must go back," said the latter, "the game's not up yet;"
and he again led the way to the tulip tree.
"Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, "come here! was the
skull nailed to the limb with the face outward, or with the face to
the limb?"
"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes good,
widout any trouble."
"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped the
beetle?" here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes.
"'Twas dis eye, massa--de lef eye--jis as you tell me," and here it
was his right eye that the negro indicated.
"That will do--we must try it again."
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I
saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked
the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position.
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