"Here's the clearing, and never a blade of grass is changed since I left it last! O Bull! Here we are! See, men, see! Yonder on the old grave is the house all wattled like a nigger hut! O Bull! Where are you? But it's fine inside, men, I'll warrant you. He was laying to build it good. He said he'd fix it up like a duke's mansion. O Bull! I say, Bull!"
There indeed was the house, on a low mound, which showed the marks of sacrilegious pick and shovel. The posts on which it stood were driven straight down into the hillock. But in reply to O'Hara's loud hail no answer came from that silent, apparently deserted dwelling.
O'Hara turned and, as if apologizing, said in a lower voice, but still loud enough for us to hear, "Sure, now, and he must be out somewhere."
Then he waited for us, and we gathered in a little group and looked at the wattled hut as if in apprehension, although of course there was no reason on earth why we should have been apprehensive.
"Well, gentlemen," said Arnold, very quietly, "why not go in?"
Not a man stirred.
O'Hara faced about with moodily clouded eyes. "Well, then," he gasped, "he would build it on the king's grave."
I am sure that my face, for one, told O'Hara that he only mystified me.
"Sure, and he was like others I've seen. More than once I warned him, but he didn't believe in nigger gods. He didn't believe in nigger gods, and he built the house on the king's grave! On the king's grave, mind you! He was that set and reckless."