“I'se hyer, Marse Dan, I'se hyer,” groaned the negro in his ear.
“But the others? Where are the others?” asked Dan, coming to himself. “Hold me, Big Abel, I'm an utter fool. O Congo! Is that Congo?”
A negro, coming with his hoe from the corn field, ran over the desolated lawn, and began shouting hoarsely to the hands behind him:—
“Hi! Hit's Marse Dan, hit's Marse Dan come back agin!” he yelled, and at the cry there flocked round him a little troop of faithful servants, weeping, shouting, holding out eager arms.
“Hi! hit's Marse Dan!” they shrieked in chorus. “Hit's Marse Dan en Brer Abel! Brer Abel en Marse Dan is done come agin!”
Dan wept with them—tears of weakness, of anguish, of faint hope amid the dark. As their hands closed over his, he grasped them as if his eyes had gone suddenly blind.
“Where are the others? Congo, for God's sake, tell me where are the others?”
“We all's hyer, Marse Dan. We all's hyer,” they protested, sobbing. “En Ole Marster en Ole Miss dey's in de house er de overseer—dey's right over dar behine de orchard whar you use ter projick wid de ploughs, en Brer Cupid and Sis Rhody dey's a-gittin' dem dey supper.”
“Then let me go,” cried Dan. “Let me go!” and he started at a run past the gray ruins and the standing kitchen, past the flower garden and the big woodpile, to the orchard and the small frame house of Harris the overseer.
Big Abel kept at his heels, panting, grunting, calling upon his master to halt and upon Congo to hurry after.