The horsemen without made a great deal of clatter. If they were pursuing the fugitives they did not seem to think secrecy of movement very necessary. “Whose cabin is this?” demanded one of them.
“It did belong to old Sam Curtis, but he’s moved away, down to Alabama,” some one answered.
“Some darky may live in it now, eh?” said the first voice.
“Perhaps it’s empty, and these tarnation spies are in it,” was the rejoinder in a lower tone.
The men moved their horses closer to the house, which they quickly surrounded. No chance now for any one to escape; it seemed as if the three men in the cabin must inevitably be caught like rats in a trap. Yet they waited courageously, breathlessly. It was a tense moment. Another minute would decide their fate. Would they remain free men, or would they fall into the hands of their pursuers, with all the consequences that such a capture implied?
Already one of the Vigilants, evidently the leader, had dismounted. Approaching the door of the cabin, he gave it a push as if he expected it would open at once. But there was no yielding; Watson and Macgreggor were still leaning firmly against the other side.
The leader began to knock on the door with a revolver. “Here, here,” he shouted; “if there’s any one in this cabin, come out—or we’ll have you out!”
At first there was no response, save a bark from Waggie. The leader rattled savagely at the door. “Let’s break in,” he cried to his companions, “and see if the place has any one in it!”
The Vigilants were about to follow the example of their leader, and dismount when there came a wheedling voice—apparently the voice of a negress—from within the cabin.
“What you gemmen want dis time o’ night wid poor Aunty Dinah?”