went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that.  I was itching in eleven different places now.  I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.  Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we went creeping away on our hands and knees.  When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.  But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more.  I didn't want him to try.  I said Jim might wake up and come.  But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him.  I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.  Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.  And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.  Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.  Niggers