So free from fear she was that Carolina laughed aloud, but the laugh froze on her lips, for, without turning her head, she could see, crouching down and creeping toward her, the huge form of a negro man, whose half-open mouth and half-closed eyes, as he stole noiselessly closer and closer, instantly told her of her dire peril.
The girl’s whole body became rigid with terror,--a terror so intense and so unspeakable that she realized how it was that women can go mad from the effect of it. In a moment, every warning, every hint, every word that she had heard on the subject flashed through her brain with lightning quickness. An intense silence reigned in the forest, broken only by Scintilla’s cropping a stray tuft of spring grass and the footsteps of the black creeping nearer to his white prey.
Carolina never thought of screaming. No white man was within a mile of her. Oh, for Moultrie,--Moultrie, who had saved her once before! A sick feeling came over her--things began to swim before her eyes--she swayed--and at the sight of her weakness the negro stood upright.
He was no longer a crawling horror. He was a man, and her God was at hand!
The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!" "God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes,--one blue and one black--where had she heard of such eyes--where had she seen this very man?
Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the man.
"’Polyte, do you know who you are? You are the son of my father’s nurse! Your mother was my father’s black mammy!"
The assurance, even the confidence, left the man’s manner. His shoulders drooped perceptibly. He took a backward step. Surely she did not know what he was or she would not speak to him except to scream for help.
"You don’t know how you frightened me, until I saw who you were. Then I knew that you would catch Scintilla for me. Mr. Moultrie has told me what a way you have with animals."