"Nonsense!" the major sniffed. "What fool idea's got under your wool now? Been seeing Mad Anthony again, I'll bet a dollar."
Uncle Jefferson swallowed once or twice with seeming difficulty and turned the gravel with his toe. "Dat's so," he said gloomily. "Ah done see de old man de yuddah day 'bout et. Ant'ny, _he_ know! He see trouble er-comin' en trouble er-gwine. Dat same night de hoss-shoe drop off'n de stable do', en dis ve'y mawnin' er buhd done fly inter de house. Das' er mighty bad hoodoo, er mighty bad hoodoo!"
"Shucks!" said the major. "You're as loony as old Anthony, with your infernal signs. If your Mars' John's been out all day I reckon he'll turn up before long. I'll wait for him a while." He started in, but paused on the threshold. "Did you say--ah--that mint was all gone, Unc' Jefferson?"
Uncle Jefferson's lips relaxed in a wide grin. "Ah reck'n dah's er few stray sprigs lef', suh. Step in en mek yo'se'f et home. Ef Mars' John see yo', he be mought'ly hoped up. Ah gwineter mix yo' dat julep in two shakes!"
He disappeared around the corner of the porch and the major strode into the hall, threw his gray slouch hat on the table, and sat down.
It was quiet and peaceful, that ancient hall. He fell to thinking of the many times, of old, when he had sat there. The house was the same again, now. It had waked from a thirty-years' slumber to a renewed prime. Only he had lived on meanwhile and now was old! He sighed.
How gay the place had been the night of the ball, with the lights and roses and music! He remembered what the doctor had said about Valiant and Shirley--it had lain ever since in his mind, a painful speculation. The recollection roused another thought from which he shrank. He stirred uneasily. What on earth kept that old darky so long over that julep?
A slight noise made him turn his head. But nothing moved. Only a creak of the woodwork, he thought, and settled back again in his chair.
It was, in fact, a stealthy footfall he had heard. It came from the library, where a shabby figure crouched, listening, in the corner behind the tapestried screen--a man evilly clad, with a scarred cheek.
It had been with no good purpose that Greef King had dogged the major these last days. He hugged a hot hatred grown to white heat in six years of prison labor within bleak walls at the clicking shoe-machine, or with the chain-gang on blazing or frosty turnpikes. He had slunk behind him that afternoon, creeping up the drive under cover of the bushes, and while the other talked with Uncle Jefferson, had skirted the house and entered from the farther side, through an open French window. Now as he peered from behind the screen, a poker, snatched from the fireplace, was in his hand. His furtive gaze fell upon a morocco-covered case on a commode by his side. He lifted its lid and his eyes narrowed as he saw that it held a pistol. He set down the poker noiselessly and took the weapon. He tilted it--it was rusted, but there were loads in the chambers. He crouched lower, with a whispered curse: the major was coming into the library, but not alone--the old nigger was with him!