A repeated rapping brought no response. At length he broke a window, and entered the house like a thief.
"Janet, Janet!" he called in alarm, "where are you? It is only
I,—Will!"
There was no reply. He ran from room to room, only to find them all empty. Again he called his wife's name, and was about rushing from the house, when a muffled voice came faintly to his ear,—
"Is dat you, Doctuh Miller?"
"Yes. Who are you, and where are my wife and child?"
He was looking around in perplexity, when the door of a low closet under the kitchen sink was opened from within, and a woolly head was cautiously protruded.
"Are you sho' dat's you, doctuh?"
"Yes, Sally; where are"—
"An' not some w'ite man come ter bu'n down de house an' kill all de niggers?"
"No, Sally, it's me all right. Where is my wife? Where is my child?"