eflected. About it ferns, some of a great height, grew
thickly. Neptune began to dig in the black earth. Sometimes he
struck a cypress root, against which the spade rang with a hollow
sound. It was slow enough work, but the hole in the swamp earth grew
with every spade-thrust, like a blind mouth opening wider and wider.
Peter held the lantern. The trees stood there like witnesses.

Presently Neptune straightened his shoulders, moved back to the
barrow, and edged it to the hole. Swiftly and deftly he tipped it,
and the shapeless bundle slid into the open mouth awaiting it. It
was curiously still just then in the River Swamp.

When they emerged into the open, the sun was rising over a clean,
fresh world. The dark tops of the trees were gilded by the first
rays. Every bush was hung with diamonds, the young grass rippled
like a child's hair, and birds were everywhere, voicing the glory of
the morning.

The old negro dropped his wheelbarrow, and lifted a supplicating
face and a pair of gnarled hands to the morning sky. His lips moved.
One saw that he prayed, trustingly, with a childlike simplicity.

Peter Champneys watched him speculatively. He tried to reason the
thing out, and the heart in his boyish breast ached with a new pain.
Thoughts big, new, insistent, knocked at the door of his intellect
and refused to be denied admittance.

He thought it better to take the sheriff's advice and stay with
Neptune for a few days, but nobody troubled the good old man. The
verdict of the whole county was in his favor. He went his harmless,
fearless, laborious way unmolested. That autumn he died, and the
cabin by the River Swamp was taken over by nature, who gave it to
her winds and rains to play with. Her leaves drifted upon its floor,
her birds built under its shallow eaves.

Nobody would live there any more. The negroes said the place was
haunted: on wild nights one might hear there the sound of a shot,
the baying of a hound; and see Jake running for the swamp.

CHAPTER V

THE PURPLE HEIGHTS

Emma Campbell had one of her contrary fits, and when Emma was
contrary, the best thing to do was to keep out of her way. Her
"palate was down," her temper was up; she'd had trouble with the
Young Sons and Daughters of Zion, in her church, and hot words with
a deacon who said that when he passed the cup Emma Campbell lapped
up nearly all the communion wine, which was something no lady ought
to do. And Cassius had taken unto hi