He was silent for a moment. We could hear the Free Traveller asleep and rumbling in his throat.
“Where might you chaps come from?” asked the Prophet, suddenly. “Not that it's my business. Maybe there might be a town over there? Hey? Yes.”
He grumbled in his beard a few moments more, and then lay down to sleep. We drew together and whispered. The three men slept, and the woman said nothing.
It is seen that sometimes your most battered and world-worn of men is the simplest in his way of looking at things. Or else it was because the Prophet was a talker by nature, and Bobby and Cass such poor company, that he fell into speech with us on such equal terms. I have set down but little of what he said, only enough for the story of the Company, and as I happen to recollect it.
It should have been something earlier than nine o'clock when the Prophet lay down to sleep, and half an hour later when we first noticed that the woman, Cass, was sitting up. She had her back to us and was looking toward the lights of Hamilton. There was no moon and the stars only shone here and there between clouds that hurried across the sky, making preparations for the storm that came in the morning. The fire burned low, but there was no need of it for warmth. The outlines of the hills could be seen. The swamp, the pond, and most of the clearing were dark together.
Presently she looked cautiously around, first at the three sleepers, and then at us. She crept nearer slowly and crouched beside the dull fire, throwing back her shawl. Her hair was black and straggled about her face, and her eyes were black too, and glittering. The glow of the embers, striking upward, made their sockets cavernous, but the eyes stood out in the midst of the caverns. One knows well enough that tragedies walk about and exchange agreeable phrases with each other. Your tragedy is yours, and mine is mine, and in the meanwhile see to it that we look sedate, and discuss anything, provided it is of no importance to either. One does not choose to be an inscribed monument to the fame of one's private affair. But Cassie had lost that instinct of reserve, and her desolation looked out of her eyes with dreadful candor. The lines of her face, the droop of her figure and even little motions of the hand, signified but one thought. I suppose all ideas possible to the world had become as one to her, so that three boys cowering away from her seemed only a natural enough part of the same subject. It was all one; namely, a baby painted brown, who died queerly in a side tent in Hamilton Fair Grounds.
We stared at her breathlessly.
“You tell 'em I'm going,” she whispered.
“Where?” asked Chub.
“They ain't no right to—to—Who are you?”