what I said.

"Some," she answered, with a final nod and a glance of extreme
childish cunning. "But why you not talking, Rosa?" she demanded,
turning on the negress. "You speak English; it is no use to
pretend."

The black woman stared at me for a moment from under her
loose-hanging lids.

"You go 'way," she said slowly. "You get no good in these parts."

"Very well, ma'am," said I, steadying my voice, "and the sooner the
better, if you will kindly tell me the shortest cut back to the
creek."

"_And_," the woman went on, not seeming to heed the interruption,
"you tell the same to your friends, that they get no good in these
parts. But, of us--and of this"--she pointed to the sodden paper
which she had snatched from her mistress's hands--"you will say
nothing. It might bring mischief."

"Mischief?" I echoed.

"Mischief--upon _her_."

"But this is nonsense you talk, Rosa!" broke in the little lady.
"At the most, what have I written?--a little song from Gluck, the
divine Gluck! Just a little song of Eurydice calling to Orfeo.
Ah! you should have heard me sing it--in the days before my voice
left me; in the opera, boy, and the King himself splitting his gloves
to applaud us! Eh, but you are young, very young. I should not
wonder to hear you were born after I left the stage. And you are
pretty, but not old enough to be Orfeo yet. I must wait--I must
wait, though I wait till I doubt if I am not changed to Proserpine
with her cracked voice. Boy, if I kissed you--"

She advanced a step, but the negress caught her by the wrist
violently, at the same moment waving me off. I felt faint and giddy,
as though some exhalation from the graveyard--not wholly repellent,
but sickly, overpowering, like the scent of a hothouse lily--had been
suddenly wafted under my nostrils. I fell back a pace as the negress
motioned me away. Her hand pointed across the stream, and across the
meadow, to the gap in the ridge.

"Fast as you can run," she panted; "and never come this way again."

The strong scent yet hung around me and seemed to bind me like a
spell, pressing on my arms and logs. I plunged knee-deep into the
stream. The cool touch of the water brought me to my senses.
I splashed across, waded up the bank, and set off running towards the
gap.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MAN IN BLACK.

Before ever I gained the gap I was panting, and as I panted the blood
ran into my mouth from a deep scratch across the eyebr