Having thus directed the stranger, the prophet’s wife entered a gap that led into a field, and proceeded on her way homewards, having, ere she parted, glanced at her with a meaning which rendered it extremely difficult to say whether the singular language addressed to her had left behind it any such impression as the speaker wished to produce.  Their glances met and dwelt on each other for a short time:  the strange woman pointed solemnly towards the sky, and the prophet’s wife smiled carelessly; but yet, by a very keen eye, it might have been noticed that, under this natural or affected indifference, there lurked a blank or rather an unquiet expression, such as might intimate that something within her had been moved by the observations of her strange companion.

CHAPTER X. —­ The Black Prophet makes a Disclosure.

The latter proceeded on her way home, having marked the miserable hovel of Condy Dalton.  At present our readers will accompany us once more to the cabin of Donnel Dhu, the prophet.

His wife, as the reader knows, had been startled into something like remorse, by the incidents which had occurred within the last two days, and especially by the double discovery of the dead body and the Tobacco box.  Sarah, her step-daughter, was now grown, and she very reasonably concluded, her residence in the same house with this fiery and violent young female was next to an impossibility.—­The woman herself was naturally coarse and ignorant; but still there was mixed, up in her character a kind of apathetic or indolent feeling of rectitude or vague humanity, which rendered her liable to occasional visitations of compunction for whatever she did that was wrong.  The strongest principle in her, however, was one which is frequently to be found among her class—­I mean such a lingering impression of religious feeling as is not sufficiently strong to prevent the commission of crime, but yet is capable by its influence to keep the conscience restless and uneasy under its convictions.  Whether to class this feeling with weakness or with virtue, is indeed difficult; but to whichsoever of them it may belong, of one thing we are certain, that many a mind, rude and hardened by guilt, is weak or virtuous only on this single point.  Persons so constituted are always remarkable for feelings of strong superstition, and are easily influenced by the occurrence of slight incidents, to which they are certain to attribute a peculiar significance, especially when connected with anything that may occasion them uneasiness for the time, or which may happen to occupy their thoughts, or affect their own welfare or interests.

The reader need not be surprised, therefore, on learning that this woman, with all her apathy of character on the general matters of life, was accessible to the feeling or principle we have just described, nor that the conversation she had just had with the strange woman, both disturbed and alarmed her.