That night, for the first time, Bles entered Zora's home. It was a single low, black room, smoke-shadowed and dirty, with two dingy beds and a gaping fire-place. On one side of the fire-place sat the yellow woman, young, with traces of beauty, holding the white child in her arms; on the other, hugging the blaze, huddled a formless heap, wreathed in coils of tobacco smoke--Elspeth, Zora's mother.
Zora said nothing, but glided in and stood in the shadows.
"Good-evening," said Bles cheerily. The woman with the baby alone responded.
"I came for the seed you promised us--the cotton-seed."
The hag wheeled and approached him swiftly, grasping his shoulders and twisting her face into his. She was a horrible thing--filthy of breath, dirty, with dribbling mouth and red eyes. Her few long black teeth hung loosely like tusks and the folds of fat on her chin curled down on her great neck. Bles shuddered and stepped back.
"Is you afeared, honey?" she whispered.
"No," he said sturdily.
She chuckled drily. "Yes, you is--everybody's 'feared of old Elspeth; but she won't hurt you--you's got the spell;" and wheeling again, she was back at the fire.
"But the seed?" he ventured.
She pointed impressively roofward. "The dark of the moon, boy, the dark of the moon--the first dark--at midnight." Bles could not wring another word from her; nor did the ancient witch, by word or look, again give the slightest indication that she was aware of his presence.
With reluctant farewell, Bles turned home. For a space Zora watched him, and once she started after him, but came slowly back, and sat by the fire-place.
Out of the night came voices and laughter, and the sound of wheels and galloping horses. It was not the soft, rollicking laughter of black men, but the keener, more metallic sound of white men's cries, and Bles Alwyn paused at the edge of the wood, looked back and hesitated, but decided after a moment to go home and to bed.
Zora, however, leapt to her feet and fled into the night, while the hag screamed after her and cursed. There was tramping of feet on the cabin floor, and loud voices and singing and cursing.
"Where's Zora?" some one yelled, with an oath. "Damn it! where is she? I haven't seen her for a year, you old devil."
The hag whimpered and snarled. Far down in the field of the Fleece, Zora lay curled beneath a tall dark tree asleep. All night there was coming and going in the cabin; the talk and laughter grew loud and boisterous, and the red fire glared in the night.