She kissed my hand as she added good-by.  “Why, Sidney!” I laughed, “you mean good night, don’t you?”

She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her beautiful straightness, said:  “But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when dey say good night dat it ain’t good-by?” She fondled my hand between her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was gone.

When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney’s wont to bring.  I started from the pillow.  “Oh! what—­who—­wh’—­where’s Sidney?  Why—­how long has it been raining?”

“It began at break of day,” she replied, adding pensively, “thank God.”

“Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?”

“They were—­precisely when it came.  Rain never came straighter from heaven.”

“They?”—­I stared.

“Yes; Silas and Hester—­and Sidney—­and Mingo.  They must have started soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black shadows, for going.”

“For going where, auntie; going where?”

“Then the rain came in God’s own hour,” she continued, as if wholly to herself, “and washed out their trail.”

I sprang from the bed.  “Aunt ’Liza!”

“Yes, Maud, they’ve run away, and if only they may get away.  God be praised!”

Of course, I cried like an infant.  I threw myself upon her bosom.  “Oh, auntie, auntie, I’m afraid it’s my fault!  But when I tell you how far I was from meaning it——­”

“Don’t tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I’d like to be in your shoes.  And, I don’t care how right slavery is, I’ll never own a darky again!”

One day some two months after, at home again with father.  Just as I was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney—­ragged, wet, and bedraggled as a lost dog—­sprang into my arms.  When I had got her reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story.  Three of the four had come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it must be at some other time.  In the course of her tale I asked about the compass.

“Dat little trick?” she said fondly.  “Oh, yass’m, it wah de salvation o’ de Lawd ‘pon cloudy nights; but time an’ ag’in us had to sepa’ate, ‘llowin’ fo’ to rejine togetheh on de bank o’ de nex’ creek, an’ which, de Lawd a-he’pin’ of us, h-it al’ays come to pass; an’ so, afteh all, Miss Maud, de one thing what stan’ us de bes’ frien’ night ’pon night, next to Gawd hisse’f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye.”

VI

“Landry,” Chester said next day, bringing back the magazine barely half an hour after the book-shop had reopened, “that’s a true story!”

“Ah, something inside tells you?”