nothing that excites your indignation?" she cried. "Could you
not have throttled him?"

"A flash in the pan," said he, coolly. "However, it might have been
worse. It has blown a breeze through my _sombrero_,"--taking off the
hat, which the ball had partly twisted around. "It was meant for
Marlboro', Miss Changarnier. I am in his place to-night, you see. You
have misled the rascals. Listen!" he murmured, in a lower tone, beside
her. "There is a freemasonry among these black devils,--doubtless the
tide-bell signals some secret meeting. They are all about us. Here! you
are the last person to be seen. Take this, and hurry on while I wait;
you can walk fast. Go!"

And the handle of a knife, a great broad blade, produced from some
hidden sheath, was between her fingers.

But Eloise did not stir.

"Go!" he repeated, in the same smothered murmur.

"Place you in such danger? Leave you so?" said Eloise. "Never!"

"Do as I bid you!" he replied, in a tone as full of cold, unsuppressed
bitterness as a north wind, motioning her away, and moving back.

The moon behind him, as he stepped, was floating up from the horizon, a
great bubble of glory, whitening the tops of the whole dark landscape,
throwing out in glittering points, like frosted silver-work, the rimy,
dewy tracery of budding boughs, studding each twig with gems, and
pouring light into the high hollow heaven, like vast draughts shed
crystal-clear from some shining drinking-horn. When, then, Mr. St.
George mounted the stump by the way-side and stood there erect,
weaponless and with folded arms, the moonlight upslanted full on face
and form, and made him as distinctly and rigidly visible to all the low
land on either side the road as if he had been some statue set up for a
mile-stone. A little time he remained so. A night-hawk slowly wheeled
from a distant grove, and came dreamily sailing high above his head.
There was an instant's flare that revealed a group of dusky faces in the
swamp below, a report, and the night-hawk plunged downwards and fell at
his feet.

"Mas'r Sin George," cried a voice, grim with murder ten minutes since,
"we lebe you our card. Good night!"

Mr. St. George stood there a moment and watched the group till it faded
off from sight in the shadows of that distant cypress-grove, and then
stepped down and found Eloise with clasped hands exactly where he had
left her.

"Why didn't you obey?" he said,--but this time with what a different
voice! "