Audrey

The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dying

flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, he

looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master by

the sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Marse Duke," he whispered. "An'

the wolves may get the horses."

With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true,

Juba," he said. "It's all over here,--we were too late. And it's not a

pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back to

the hilltop."

Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip of

corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started up

before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward made

after it and caught it.

"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?"

The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the

sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his

face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising her

in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her face

and chafed the small, cold hands.

"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it?

Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me."

Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to

sleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head upon

his breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole in

the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and they

killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and to

make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her and

Molly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,--maybe I went to

sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fire

and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from under

the bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in the

cabin, and came away."

She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her dark

hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I sat

beside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you and

the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that you

were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn."

Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watched

her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then,

satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to go

before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an hour

agone.