It is better to abandon the rhetorical and imaginative now; it is too easy to forget which is who, and get the Indian and the steamboat mixed.
What Org saw as he peeped around the door was Mustard Prophet, his nervous black hand resting upon the dressing-table. Slowly Org raised himself to his feet and took a big breath and jumped.
There was a loud whoop, which Org imagined was the equivalent to a blood-curdling yell!
It curdled Mustard Prophet, all right!
The negro was absolutely petrified! He stood like a statue carved of ebony, apparently nothing alive about him except the eyes, which got bigger and burned with fires of terror. Fright sometimes paralyzes temporarily; nothing moves, even the mind stands still. The victim helpless, disaster swoops down like an eagle upon its prey.
Orren was disappointed.
“Why didn’t you jump when I hollered?” he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone. “I’m playing Indian.”
Orren was completely blind to the negro’s pitiful fright. It was fully a minute before Mustard could utter a word. The vital forces had ceased, and they started slowly as when a street-car grips the vital force of the cable and gets going.
“Dat yell wus so disturbin’ dat I felt—er—sorter disturbed, Marse Org,” he sighed weakly, walking toward the hall and resting his hand upon the door-jamb. “I wus plum’ putrified wid bein’ so skeart!”
“You don’t act like it,” Org snorted. “The next time I yell like that, you jump!”