Twice she spoke, and in two different languages (as I recognized, though able to make nothing of either), and then, halting before me, she tried for the third time in English.

“Boy”—­she looked at me inquiringly—­“what you do here—­will you tell?”

“I come from the ship, ma’am,” said I, finding my tongue.

“The sheep?  He bring a sheep?  But why?—­and why he bring you?”

I stared at her, not understanding.  “Ma’am,” said I, pointing over my shoulder, “we came here in a ship—­a schooner; and she is lying in the creek yonder.  I landed and climbed up through the woods.  On my way I found this.”

I held out the paper boat.  She caught it out of my hand with a sharp cry.  But the black woman, at the same instant, turned on her and began to scold her volubly.  The words were unintelligible to me, but her tone, full of angry remonstrance, could not be mistaken.

“I am not sorry,” said the white woman, speaking in English, with a glance at me.  “No, I do not care for his orders.  It was by this that you came to me?” she asked, turning to me again, and pointing mincingly at the paper.

“I found it in the stream,” I replied; “almost a mile below this.”

“Yes, yes; you found it in the stream.  And you opened it, and read the writing?”

I shook my head.  “The writing, ma’am, was blotted—­I could read nothing.”

“Not even my little song?” She peered into the paper, threw up her head and piped a note or two, for all the world as a bird chirrups, lifting his bill, after taking a drink.  “La-la-la—­you did not understand, hey?  But, nevertheless, you came, and of your own will. He did not bring you?”

I shook my head again, having no clue to her meaning.

“So best,” she said, changing her tone of a sudden to one of extreme gravity.  “For if he found you here—­here of all places—­he would kill you.  Yes”—­she nodded impressively “for sure we would kill you.  He kill all these.”

She waved a hand, indicating the grave-mounds.  Her voice, at these dreadful words, ran up to an almost more dreadful airiness; and still she continued nodding, but now with a sort of simpering pride.  “All these,” she repeated, waving her hand again towards the mounds.

“Did you see him kill them?” I asked, wondering whom “he” might be, and scarcely knowing what I said.

“Some,” she answered, with a final nod and a glance of extreme childish cunning.  “But why you not talking, Rosa?” she demanded, turning on the negress.  “You speak English; it is no use to pretend.”

The black woman stared at me for a moment from under her loose-hanging lids.

“You go ’way,” she said slowly.  “You get no good in these parts.”

“Very well, ma’am,” said I, steadying my voice, “and the sooner the better, if you will kindly tell me the shortest cut back to the creek.”

“And,” the woman went on, not seeming to heed the interruption, “you tell the same to your friends, that they get no good in these parts.  But, of us—­and of this”—­she pointed to the sodden paper which she had snatched from her mistress’s hands—­“you will say nothing.  It might bring mischief.”