Then as the rifle bullets of the pursuing mob splashed against the rock at her feet she poised like a bird prepared for flight, leaped far out from the precipice, curved like an arrow in its course, and plunged head foremost into the rolling flood of the ocean beneath.
The picture vanished and the negroes found themselves looking with popping eyeballs at a bare, white screen!
“Dar now!” Hitch Diamond bellowed in a mighty voice. “Whut do Gawd A’mighty think about dat?”
“Lawdymussy!” Figger Bush squawked. “Dat little gal dived so fur she’ll stick head down in de mud in de bottom of dat puddle like a cypress stump!”
“Dat white man shore got his’n,” Vinegar remarked. “’Tain’t no way fer a white man to do—hangin’ aroun’ nigger cabins like dat!”
The electric light flashed up, and Mr. Rouke, stepped to the front.
“Now, folks,” he began, “you understand what a moving picture play is. There is no talking. The people act. I have a fine act for all of you to take part in, and I want you to meet me at the Shoofly church this afternoon at one o’clock. That’s all now!”
The negroes filed out in silence and scattered to different parts of the town.
Rouke and Pellet went to the hotel for lunch, and at the time appointed walked out to the church.
There was not a negro on the place. They waited for three hours and not one appeared, not even Vinegar Atts.