“Whut dey atter somebuddy for?” Neptune demanded.  Outside, in the wet night, the screech-owl cried.  The sweet wind danced on airy feet in and out of the cypresses and the gums, kissed them, stole their breath, and tossed it abroad odorously.  Stars had come out to keep the pale moon company, and a faint light glinted on wet grass and bushes.  Crickets and katydids and little green tree-frogs kept up a harsh concert.  And then, above all the minor, murmuring noises of the night arose another sound, very faint and far off, but unmistakable and unforgetable—­the deep, long, bell note of a hound upon the trail.

The three in the cabin stood like figures turned to stone in the attitude of listening.  Jake’s teeth chattered audibly.  He edged toward the open door, but Neptune stepped in front of him, and flung up an arresting hand.

“Whut for?” His voice was like a whip-lash.

“Somebuddy—­done meddled wid a w’ite gal—­een de cawn-field.  En dey ’low—­hit wuz me.”

A gasp, as if his heart had been squeezed, came from Neptune.  Of a sudden he seemed to grow in height, to tower unhumanly tall above the cringing wretch he confronted.  His eyes narrowed into red points that bored into the other’s eyes, and plunged like daggers into his heart and mind.  Before that glance, like a vivisectionist’s knife, Jake wilted; he seemed to shrink, dwindle, collapse.  And with a growing, cold, awful horror, a suspicion so hideous that his mind revolted from it, Peter Champneys stood staring from one black face to the other.

“You—­you—­” Neptune gulped, strangling.  A long, slow shudder, as of one confronting unheard-of torture, went over his big frame.  The fringe of hair on his bald head rose, his beard bristled.  Sparks seemed to shoot from his eyes, burning with a terrible flame.

“Da’ Nepshun—­” Jake put out clawing, twitching hands.  “Dey ’s—­dey ’s—­gwine to git me.”  His voice broke into a half-scream.

“Whut you do hit for?” This from Neptune, in a heart-shaken, anguished, rattling whisper.  He asked no further questions.  He had no doubt.  Jake’s rolling eyes had told him the unspeakable truth.

“I ‘clah to Gawd, Da’ Nepshun, I wuz n’t meanin’ no hahm—­I never had no idea—­She came down de cawn-field paff—­wid de cow followin’ ’er—­en—­en—­I don’t know whut mek me meddle wid dat gal.  Seems lak hit wuz de debbil, ‘stead o’ me.”

“Is de gal done daid?”

“Yas, suh, she done daid.”  Jake rocked himself to and fro, muttering her name.

Peter Champneys looked at the torn shirt-sleeve with the red stain upon it.  The room shook and wavered, wind was in his ears.  And the red of that girl’s blood got into his eyes, and he saw things through a scarlet mist.  The most horrible rage he had ever experienced shook him like a mortal sickness.  Oh, God! oh, God! oh, God!  That girl!

In the momentary silence that fell upon that tragic room, a sound shivered.  Long, slow, bell-like.  Nearer.  It galvanized Jake into terror-stricken action.  He started for the door.