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 effort over one crazy nigger; that I had sent the officer in to look for the white man."

"Do you feel any anxiety about Leyden?"

"Not I. He has the faculty of taking care of himself developed to a most tremendous degree." Manning's quick eye caught a glimpse of a black figure beneath them. It slipped into the fig trees. There was a moon, old, yellow, for the most of the time shrouded by cloud masses.

"Who are you there? What are you doing?" Manning's raw voice cleft the soft air like a knife.

"Hit's me, Marse Manning, sah,—David." It was one of the house servants, wandering out through the morbid curiosity which has such a potent hold upon the race.

"Go to your quarters! If I sight any of you negroes out of doors I shall put a bullet into you—do you hear?"

The man fled like a black cat. Silence fell.

"Listen!" said Manning suddenly.

A foot crunched the gravel directly beneath the lattice of the veranda. Leyden's voice said softly in French.

"I have been waiting for you to send that fellow about his business, Moultrie. Is the way clear?"

"One minute," said Manning in the same tongue. He stepped inside the door and extinguished the lamp. "Come on," he said briefly.

Two dark figures silently ascended the steps and swiftly entered the shuttered room. Giles bolted the door behind them.

"Aristide!" whispered Giles, his voice trembling with emotion. 298