Deeper and deeper they penetrated into the dark waters. Now they entered the slime; now they stumbled on hidden roots; but deeper and deeper they waded until at last, turning the animal’s head with a jerk, and giving him a sharp stroke of the whip, she headed straight for the island. A moment the beast snorted and plunged; higher and higher the black still waters rose round the girl. They crept up her little limbs, swirled round her breasts and gleamed green and slimy along her shoulders. A wild terror gripped her. Maybe she was riding the devil’s horse, and these were the yawning gates of hell, black and sombre beneath the cold, dead radiance of the moon. She saw again the gnarled and black and claw-like fingers of Elspeth gripping and dragging her down.
A scream struggled in her breast, her fingers relaxed, and the big beast, stretching his cramped neck, rose in one mighty plunge and planted his feet on the sand of the island.
Bles, hurrying down in the morning with new tools and new determination, stopped and stared in blank amazement. Zora was perched in a tree singing softly and beneath a fat black mule was finishing his breakfast.
“Zora—” he gasped, “how—how did you do it?”
She only smiled and sang a happier measure, pausing only to whisper:
“Dreams—dreams—it’s all dreams here, I tells you.”
Bles frowned and stood irresolute. The song proceeded with less assurance, slower and lower, till it stopped, and the singer dropped to the ground, watching him with wide eyes. He looked down at her, slight, tired, scratched, but undaunted, striving blindly toward the light with stanch, unfaltering faith. A pity surged in his heart. He put his arm about her shoulders and murmured:
“You poor, brave child.”
And she shivered with joy.
All day Saturday and part of Sunday they worked feverishly. The trees crashed and the stumps groaned and crept up into the air, the brambles blazed and smoked; little frightened animals fled for shelter; and a wide black patch of rich loam broadened and broadened till it kissed, on every side but the sheltered east, the black waters of the lagoon. Late Sunday night the mule again swam the slimy lagoon, and disappeared toward the Cresswell fields. Then Bles sat down beside Zora, facing the fields, and gravely took her hand. She looked at him in quick, breathless fear.
“Zora,” he said, “sometimes you tell lies, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said slowly; “sometimes.”
“And, Zora, sometimes you steal—you stole the pin from Miss Taylor, and we stole Mr. Cresswell’s mule for two days.”
“Yes,” she said faintly, with a perplexed wrinkle in her brows, “I stole it.”
“Well, Zora, I don’t want you ever to tell another lie, or ever to take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”
She looked at him silently with the shadow of something like terror far back in the depths of her deep eyes.
“Always—tell—the truth?” she repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
Her fingers worked nervously.
“All the truth?” she asked.
He thought a while.
“No,” said he finally, “it is not necessary always to tell all the truth; but never tell anything that isn’t the truth.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Even if it hurts me?”
“Even if it hurts. God is good, He will not let it hurt much.”
“He’s a fair God, ain’t He?” she mused, scanning the evening sky.
“Yes—He’s fair, He wouldn’t take advantage of a little girl that did wrong, when she didn’t know it was wrong.”
Her face lightened and she held his hands in both hers, and said solemnly as though saying a prayer:
“I won’t lie any more, and I won’t steal—and—” she looked at him in startled wistfulness—he remembered it in after years; but he felt he had preached enough.
“And now for the seed!” he interrupted joyously. “And then—the Silver Fleece!”
That night, for the first time, Bles entered Zora’s home. It was a single low, black room, smoke-shadowed and dirty, with two dingy beds and a gaping fireplace. On one side of the fireplace sat the yellow woman, young, with traces of beauty, holding the white child in her arms; on the other, hugging the blaze, huddled a formless heap, wreathed in coils of tobacco smoke—Elspeth, Zora’s mother.
Zora said nothing, but glided in and stood in the shadows.
“Good evening,” said Bles cheerily. The woman with the baby alone responded.
“I came for the seed you promised us—the cottonseed.”
The hag wheeled and approached him swiftly, grasping his shoulders and twisting her face into his. She was a horrible thing—filthy of breath, dirty, with dribbling mouth and red eyes. Her few long black teeth hung loosely like tusks and the folds of fat on her chin curled down on her great neck. Bles shuddered and stepped back.
“Is you afeared, honey?” she whispered.
“No,” he said sturdily.
She chuckled drily. “Yes, you is—everybody’s ’feared of old Elspeth; but she won’t hurt you—you’s got the spell;” and wheeling again, she was back at the fire.
“But the seed?” he ventured.
She pointed impressively roofward. “The dark of the moon, boy, the dark of the moon—the first dark—at midnight.” Bles could not wring another word from her; nor did the ancient witch, by word or look, again give the slightest indication that she was aware of his presence.
With reluctant farewell, Bles turned home. For a space Zora watched him, and once she started after him, but came slowly back, and sat by the fireplace.
Out of the night came voices and laughter, and the sound of wheels and galloping horses. It was not the soft, rollicking laughter of black men, but the keener, more metallic sound of white men’s cries, and Bles Alwyn paused at the edge of the wood, looked back and hesitated, but decided after a moment to go home and to bed.
Zora, however, leapt to her feet and fled into the night, while the hag screamed after her and cursed. There was tramping of feet on the cabin floor, and loud voices and singing and cursing.
“Where’s Zora?” someone yelled, with an oath. “Damn it! where is she? I haven’t seen her for a year, you old
