shone forth, a
simple square of topaz on a great black hill-side. Four dogs charged
the buggy with ferocity, and when it did not promptly retreat, they
circled courageously around the flanks, baying. A door opened near the
window in the hill-side, and a man came and stood on a beach of yellow
light.

"Yah! yah! You Roveh! You Susie! Come yah! Come yah this minit!"

Trescott called across the dark sea of grass, "Hello, Alek!"

"Hello!"

"Come down here and show me where to drive."

The man plunged from the beach into the surf, and Trescott could then
only trace his course by the fervid and polite ejaculations of a host
who was somewhere approaching. Presently Williams took the mare by the
head, and uttering cries of welcome and scolding the swarming dogs,
led the equipage towards the lights. When they halted at the door and
Trescott was climbing out, Williams cried, "Will she stand, docteh?"

"She'll stand all right, but you better hold her for a minute. Now,
Henry." The doctor turned and held both arms to the dark figure. It
crawled to him painfully like a man going down a ladder. Williams took
the mare away to be tied to a little tree, and when he returned he
found them awaiting him in the gloom beyond the rays from the door.

He burst out then like a siphon pressed by a nervous thumb. "Hennery!
Hennery, ma ol' frien'. Well, if I ain' glade. If I ain' glade!"

Trescott had taken the silent shape by the arm and led it forward into
the full revelation of the light. "Well, now, Alek, you can take Henry
and put him to bed, and in the morning I will--"

Near the end of this sentence old Williams had come front to front
with Johnson. He gasped for a second, and then yelled the yell of a
man stabbed in the heart.

For a fraction of a moment Trescott seemed to be looking for epithets.
Then he roared: "You old black chump! You old black--Shut up! Shut up!
Do you hear?"

Williams obeyed instantly in the matter of his screams, but he
continued in a lowered voice: "Ma Lode amassy! Who'd ever think? Ma
Lode amassy!"

Trescott spoke again in the manner of a commander of a battalion.
"Alek!"

The old negro again surrendered, but to himself he repeated in a
whisper, "Ma Lode!" He was aghast and trembling.

As these three points of widening shadows approached the golden
doorway a hale old negress appeared there, bowing. "Good-evenin',
docteh! Good-evenin'! Come in! come in!" She had evidently just
retired from a tem