ele, and the
creature whined and crouched to his specter. Men are poor, sightless
creatures; animals see spirits where we are blind as bats."

"Are these your proofs? Why do people suffer you to say such things?"

"Because in their hearts they believe me. Murders tell tales;
secretly, in the night, crossing the moss, when men are not thinking,
they breathe suspicion; they speak after being long dumb. Fifty
years is not the date of their bond. They haunt the place of their
tragedy, and men dream of the deed. So it is. The report sticks
to Liot, and more will come of it yet. Oh, that he were in your
shoes to-day! I would find the strength to slay him, if I died
and went to hell for it."

"Woman, why dost thou damn thyself while yet there is a hope of
mercy?"

"Mercy! What have you to do with mercy? One thing rejoices me: it
will not be long ere I meet that blessed thrall that cursed all
the generations of the Borsons. He and I will strike hands in that
quarrel; and it shall go ill with you and your children till the
last Borson be cursed off the face of the earth."

"I will flee unto the Omnipotent. He will keep even my shadow from
the evil ones that follow after. Now I will go, for I see there is
no hope of good-will between us two."

"And it is my advice that you go away from Shetland."

"That I will _not_ do. There are my cousins Nanna and Vala here; and
it is freely said that you have done them much ill. I will stay here
and do them all the good I can."

"Then you will have Nicol Sinclair to settle with. That is the best
of my wish. Nicol Sinclair is my third cousin, and I have given
him five hundred pounds because he hates the Borsons and is ready
to cross their happiness in all things possible. Pack, now, from my
presence! I have no more to say to you. I am no kin to you, and I
have taken good care to prevent the law making you kin. My will is
made. All that I have not given to Nicol Sinclair goes to make free
the slaves in Africa. Freedom! freedom! freedom!" she shrieked.
"Nothing is cruel but slavery."

It was the old Norse passion for liberty, strong and vital when every
other love was ashes. It was a passion also to which David instantly
responded. The slumbering sentiment awoke like a giant in his heart,
and he comprehended it by a racial instinct as passionate as her own.

"You have done well," he said. "Hunger and cold, pain and poverty,
are nothing if one has freedom. It is a grand thing to set