silence Neptune handed him a gourd of water. When Jake had gulped
this down, Neptune asked again, inexorably:

"Whut you been doin', Jake?"

Jake shifted from one foot to the other. He thrust his bullet head
forward. His hands, hanging at his sides, opened and closed, the
fingers twitching.

"Dem w'ite mens is atter--somebuddy--en dey say hit 's me," he
muttered hoarsely. His eyes rolled toward the door, which, not
having been barred after his entrance, swung slightly ajar.

"Whut dey atter somebuddy _for_?" Neptune demanded. Outside, in the
wet night, the screech-owl cried. The sweet wind danced on airy feet
in and out of the cypresses and the gums, kissed them, stole their
breath, and tossed it abroad odorously. Stars had come out to keep
the pale moon company, and a faint light glinted on wet grass and
bushes. Crickets and katydids and little green tree-frogs kept up a
harsh concert. And then, above all the minor, murmuring noises of
the night arose another sound, very faint and far off, but
unmistakable and unforgetable--the deep, long, bell note of a hound
upon the trail.

The three in the cabin stood like figures turned to stone in the
attitude of listening. Jake's teeth chattered audibly. He edged
toward the open door, but Neptune stepped in front of him, and
flung up an arresting hand.

"_Whut for_?" His voice was like a whip-lash.

"Somebuddy--done meddled wid a w'ite gal--een de cawn-field. En dey
'low--hit wuz me."

A gasp, as if his heart had been squeezed, came from Neptune. Of a
sudden he seemed to grow in height, to tower unhumanly tall above
the cringing wretch he confronted. His eyes narrowed into red points
that bored into the other's eyes, and plunged like daggers into his
heart and mind. Before that glance, like a vivisectionist's knife,
Jake wilted; he seemed to shrink, dwindle, collapse. And with a
growing, cold, awful horror, a suspicion so hideous that his mind
revolted from it, Peter Champneys stood staring from one black face
to the other.

"You--you--" Neptune gulped, strangling. A long, slow shudder, as of
one confronting unheard-of torture, went over his big frame. The
fringe of hair on his bald head rose, his beard bristled. Sparks
seemed to shoot from his eyes, burning with a terrible flame.

"Da' Nepshun--" Jake put out clawing, twitching hands. "Dey 's--dey
's--gwine to git me." His voice broke into a half-scream.

"Whut you do hit for?" This from Neptune, in a heart-shake