finger to her lips and flitted on towards the row of cabins.

Before them stretched a long, narrow lane, sandy and barren, with a
pine-tree rising here and there. Rude cabins, windowless and with mud
chimneys, faced each other across the lane. Half way down was an open
space, or small square, in the centre of which stood a dead tree with a
board nailed across its trunk at about a man's height from the ground.
In either end of the board was cut a round hole big enough for a man's
hand to be squeezed through, and above hung a heavy stick with leathern
thongs tied to it, the whole forming a pillory and whipping-post, rude,
but satisfactory.

It was almost dark. The larger stars had come out, and the fireflies
began to sparkle restlessly. The wind sighed in the pines, and a strong
salt smell came from the sea. Overhead a whip-poor-will uttered its
mournful cry.

The long day's work, from sunrise to sunset, was over, and the
population of the quarter had drifted in from the fields of tobacco and
maize, the boats, the carpenter's shop, the forge, the mill, the
stables, and barns. Hard-earned rest was theirs, and they were prepared
to enjoy it. It was supper-time. In the square a great fire of
brush-wood had been kindled, and around it squatted a ring of negroes,
busy with bowls of loblolly and great chunks of corn bread. They
chattered like monkeys, and one who had finished his mess raised a chant
in which one note was a yell of triumph, the next a long-drawn
plaintive wail. The rich barbaric voice filled the night. A figure,
rising, tossed aside an empty bowl, and began to dance in the red
firelight.

The white men ate at their cabin doors, sitting upon logs of wood, or in
groups of three or four messed at tables made by stretching planks from
one tree-stump to another. It was meat-day; and they, too, made merry.
From the women's cabins also came shrill laughter. Snatches of song
arose, altercations that suddenly began and as suddenly ceased, a babel
of voices in many fashions of speech. Broad Yorkshire contended with the
thin nasal tones of the cockney; the man from the banks of the Tweed
thrust cautious sarcasms at the man from Galway. A mulatto, the color of
pale amber, spoke sonorous Spanish to an olive-hued piece of drift-wood
from Florida. An Indian indulged in a monologue in a tongue of a faraway
tribe of the Blue Mountains.

The glare from the fire and from flaring pine-knots played fitfully over
the motley thr