It was a bodyguard without which he never moved in his plantations since a slave had made an attack upon him and all but strangled him a couple of years ago.
"After him, you black swine!" he roared at them.

But as they started he checked them.

"Wait! Get to heel, damn you!" It occurred to him that to catch and deal with the fellow there was not the need to go after him, and perhaps spend the day hunting him in that cursed wood.

There was Pitt here ready to his hand, and Pitt should tell him the identity of his bashful friend, and also the subject of that close and secret talk he had disturbed.

Pitt might, of course, be reluctant.