tally murdered. Race prejudice is the devil unchained."

"Well, den, suh," said Josh, "where does we stan' now? W'at is we gwine
ter do? I wouldn' min' fightin', fer my time ain't come yit,--I feels
dat in my bones. W'at we gwine ter do, dat's w'at I wanter know."

"What does old Mr. Delamere have to say about the matter?" asked Miller
suddenly. "Why haven't we thought of him before? Has he been seen?"

"No," replied Watson gloomily, "and for a good reason,--he is not in
town. I came by the house just now, and learned that he went out to his
country place yesterday afternoon, to remain a week. Sandy was to have
followed him out there this morning,--it's a pity he didn't go
yesterday. The old gentleman has probably heard nothing about the
matter."

"How about young Delamere?"

"He went away early this morning, down the river, to fish. He'll
probably not hear of it before night, and he's only a boy anyway, and
could very likely do nothing," said Watson.

Miller looked at his watch.

"Belleview is ten miles away," he said. "It is now eleven o'clock. I can
drive out there in an hour and a half at the farthest. I'll go and see
Mr. Delamere,--he can do more than any living man, if he is able to do
anything at all. There's never been a lynching here, and one good white
man, if he choose, may stem the flood long enough to give justice a
chance. Keep track of the white people while I'm gone, Watson; and you,
Josh, learn what the colored folks are saying, and do nothing rash until
I return. In the meantime, do all that you can to find out who did
commit this most atrocious murder."

XXIII

BELLEVIEW

Miller did not reach his destination without interruption. At one point
a considerable stretch of the road was under repair, which made it
necessary for him to travel slowly. His horse cast a shoe, and
threatened to go lame; but in the course of time he arrived at the
entrance gate of Belleview, entering which he struck into a private
road, bordered by massive oaks, whose multitudinous branches, hung with
long streamers of trailing moss, formed for much of the way a thick
canopy above his head. It took him only a few minutes to traverse the
quarter of a mile that lay between the entrance gate and the house
itself.

This old colonial plantation, rich in legendary lore and replete with
historic distinction, had been in the Delamere family for nearly two
hundred years. Along the bank of the river which skirted its