ying to my aunt's room, I wrote a
short note telling her of the trouble I had discovered and where Long and
I were going, so that, if we did not return, she would know what had
happened. Folding and sealing it, I wrote on the outside, "To be
delivered at once to Mrs. Stewart," left it on the table, knowing that no
one would enter the room till morning, and hurried back to rejoin Long.
We were off without further words, and were soon well on our way.

It was a clear, cool, summer night, with the breeze just stirring in the
trees and keeping up a faint, unceasing whispering among the leaves. The
moon had risen some hours before, and sailed upward through a cloudless
sky. Even under the trees it was not wholly dark, for the moon's light
filtered through here and there, making a quaint patchwork on the ground,
and filling the air with a peculiar iridescence which transformed the
ragged trunks of the sycamores into fantastic hobgoblins. All about us
rose the croaking of the frogs, dominating all the other noises of the
night, and uniting in one mighty chorus in the marshes along the river.
An owl was hooting from a distant tree, and the hum of innumerable
insects sounded on every side. Here and there a glittering, dew-spangled
cobweb stretched across our path, a barrier of silver, and required more
than ordinary resolution to be brushed aside. As we turned nearer to the
river, the ground grew softer and the underbrush more thick, and I knew
that we had reached the swamp.

Then, in a moment, it seemed to me that I could hear some faint,
monotonous singsong rising above all the rest. At first I thought it was
the croaking of a monster frog, but as we plodded on and the sound grew
more distinct, I knew it could not be that. At last, in sheer perplexity,
I stopped and motioned Long to listen.

"Do you hear it?" I asked. "Do you know what it is?"

"Yes, I have heard it for the last ten minutes, Mr. Stewart," he
answered quietly. "It is old Polete preaching to the niggers. I have
often heard their so-called witch men preach. It is always in a singsong
just like that."

As we drew nearer, I perceived that this was true, for I could catch the
tones of the speaker's voice, and in a few minutes could distinguish his
words. Some years before, when the river had been in flood, its current
had been thrown against this bank by a landslide on the other side, and
had washed away trees and underbrush for some distance. The underbrush
ha