Seeing how unconscious she was Aun’ Jinkey whispered enough in explanation to enable Mrs. Waldo to comprehend the girl’s condition.

“We must make her sleep,” said the lady decisively, and under her wise ministrations the stricken girl soon looked almost as if she were dead.  Having kindly reassured and dismissed Aun’ Jinkey, Mrs. Waldo watched Miss Lou as she would have kept vigil with one of her own daughters.

CHAPTER XXXIII

CONSPIRATORS

Perkins was very ill at ease that night, from a haunting suspicion that Chunk had returned.  “Pesky nigger’ll have a revolver, too, most likely, en be crazy ter use it!  Haint been ’mong them cussed Yanks fer nothin’!” There was therefore little disposition for a night hunt after one who knew every inch of the region besides being as stealthy and agile as a cat.  The blow from which his head still ached had a warning significance.  Coarse, ignorant and superstitious, he was an easy victim to the tormenting fears of his own bad conscience.  The graves by the run and the extemporized cemetery further away had even greater terrors for him than for Aun’ Jinkey.  Even his whiskey jug could not inspire sufficient courage to drive him at night far from his own door.  Though both hating and despising Whately, yet the absence of the young officer and his force was now deeply regretted, as they had lent a sense of security and maintained the old order of existing authority.  Now he was thrown chiefly on his own responsibility, for Mr. Baron was broken and enfeebled by what he had passed through.  Avarice spurned Perkins to carry through the crops in which he had an interest, while his hope of revenge on Chunk, Scoville and Miss Lou also tended to keep him at a post which he foresaw would be one of difficulty and danger.  He had no doubt that the Union officer and his freedman would return as soon as they could, and for the chance of wreaking his vengeance he was the more willing to remain in what he feared would be a spook-infested region.  “Onst squar with them, en crops realized,” he muttered, “I kin feel mo’ comft’ble in other parts.  To-morrer, ef Chunk en that scout’s in these diggin’s I’ll know hit.”

He was aware that the few dogs left on the plantation would make no trouble for one they knew as well as they did Chunk, but he could rely on the brute which he kept in his own quarters—­a bloodhound, savage to every one except his master.

“Grip will smell out the cussed nigger in the mawnin’ ef he’s been around,” he assured himself before beginning his nightly debauch.  “What’s mo’, Miss Baron ain’t so high en mighty now she knows I’m comin’ to be the rale boss on the place.  She didn’t even squeak w’en I gin my warnin’ ter night.”