“Jes’ s’pose dat dar fire am de work ob de debbil.  He might be waitin’ dar spoutin’ out fire to kotch me.  Dat’s it.  I won’t go near dar all by myself.  I’ll jes’ go back.”

He turned, and ran a few steps the other way, and then halted again.

“Jes’ s’pose dat ain’t de debbil, but a real shure nuff fire.  Den missy’ll burn, an’ I’ll be to blame.  I jes’ ought to go an’ see, but what if it am de debbil?  Den he’ll hab me sure nuff, an’ dat’d be worser dan burnin’.”

The Davenports’ home was really on fire.  It was never discovered how the fire started.  The only plausible explanation was a defective flue in the kitchen stove, but it could never be proved.

The house was built of fat pine, and the fire spread with alarming rapidity.  First the kitchen burst into a mass of flames that leaped along the roof of the piazza to the main part of the building.  There had been no rain for some time, and the dry wood proved as combustible as if oil had been applied.  The sparks flew over all the house until it was one blaze of fire.  The servants were sleeping in their quarters, and did not discover the terrible danger of the inmates of the house.

Maggie and the children slept on, and it seemed as if there would be no awakening until it was too late, unless Gustus ran to the rescue.

The flames crackled as if trying to rouse the poor, innocent sleepers, but still they slept.  The fire rushed on and on as if anxious to wipe out the precious human lives before help arrived.  Even Duke slept, and the silly superstition of Gustus might prove the death of those he loved.

“White folks ain’t scared ob de debbil like us black people.  Dey nebber see tings de way we do.  Maybe de debbil only ’pears to us kose we’s black like he am.  If dar wuz only a white person wid me, dey wouldn’t be scared to go an’ see if it were a fire or de debbil.  I ought to find out which it am.  De fire might burn Missy Beth, and de debbil might carry her off if he don’t kotch me.  De debbil nebber goes ’way empty-handed.”

Gustus tarried, harrowed by his superstition, but with love trying to master fear.  Unless love conquered quickly, he would be too late to save her whom he worshiped.

“Missy Beth’s been powerful good to me,” he moralized to himself.  “She wouldn’t let me burn, nor she wouldn’t let de debbil carry me off.  She always tells me dar’s nuffin to fear only my own b’liefs, but if she was black like me she’d know bettah.  She’s white like an angel, an’ angels only see glory.  Yes, she’s an angel, an’ God will save her.  He won’t let de debbil hab her nor de fire scorch her.”

Trying to ease his conscience thus, he once more turned away from the fire as if the struggle were ended, but real love is never conquered.  It still tugged at the heart strings of Gustus.

“God’s far, far away.  It’s night, an’ maybe He sometimes snoozes like de rest ob us.  Den Missy Beth’s in danger, an’ unless I help her.  God won’t know anything ‘bout it.  I have it.  I’ll go an’ wake Massa Harvey.  He’ll know what to do.”