A bitter smile was his answer. "Is that sort of sheriff the foundation that you lay?" said Calvin Blount, panting, as at length he threw his six-shooter upon the bed. "Let me tell you, then, the law is never going to stand. That's no law for the Delta."
Eddring sunk his face between his hands. "Cal," he said, "we've got to begin. This country is being ruined, and perhaps it is partly our own fault. Now, I am guilty as you. are; but I say, we have got to give ourselves up to the law."
"Give myself up? Why, of course I will. I was going up directly, soon as I got well, to talk it over with the judge, and arrange for a trial. All this has got to be squared up legally, of course. But that's a heap different from sending a nigger sheriff down here to arrest Cal Blount in his own house. Why, I'm one of the oldest citizens in these here bottoms. I've carried my end of the log for fifty years, with black and white. Why, if I should go in with that fellow, where'd be my reputation? I'd have a heap of show of living down here after that, wouldn't I? Why, my neighbors'd kill me, and do me a kindness at that."
"But we must begin," said Eddring, insistently, once more. "There must be some law. We'll go in and surrender. I'll take your case."
"You mean you'll be my lawyer at the trial?"
"Yes, I'll defend you. But as for you and me, we're for the state, after all. We've got to prosecute this entire system which prevails down here to-day. We're growing more and more lawless all over the South, all over America. Now, we don't want that. We don't believe in it. Then what can we do? How can we get to the bottom of this thing? Cal, I reckon you and I are brave enough to begin."
Even as they were speaking, they heard a knock at the door, and Miss Lady once more stood looking in hesitatingly upon these stern-faced men. Upon her own face there was horror, terror.
"I don't know what to do!" she cried, her hands at her temples. "I don't know where to go. You tell me this is my home, and I have nowhere else to go, but this is a terrible place. Why, I have just heard about what happened—about Delphine and those others. Why, sir,"—this to Eddring,—"you knew it all the time. You saw. You knew!"
"Yes," said Eddring, "that is why I would not let you walk down that little path on the island. I didn't want you to know—we didn't want you ever to know."
"Yes, Miss Lady," affirmed Blount, "we knew. We didn't want you to know."