And he saw, with increasing anguish, that Milly, notwithstanding her penitence and tearful declaration that she would be faithful to Governor forever and forever, could not prevent the daily calls of the overseer at her cabin, and dared not disobey his commands, when he summoned her to work in his house.
Governor was still and ever kept at work upon the most distant parts of the plantation, and the overseer still and ever appropriated as much as he possibly could of Milly's time and services. There was no help for them.
Major Hewitt, in many respects a kind master, had, for his peace, long closed his ears to complaints of the slaves against their overseer, and Governor knew full well that his master would hear not one word against Mr. Moriarty.
Why lengthen a sad story? All the women of the plantation knew that, sooner or later, Milly would have no right to look down from her pride of integrity upon them. Yet it was some time—more than a year—before she was numbered among the frail ones.
And then, as guilt is so much more circumspect than innocence, poor Governor was deceived into a fool's paradise of confiding love, and led to believe that the overseer had entirely abandoned the persecution of Milly.
This blind confidence lasted until one day, when one of those sudden little breaks of water, so small that its surface might be covered with two hands, yet, withal, the herald of that terror of the Gulf planters, a devastating "crevasse," appeared in the midst of a valuable field, and it became necessary to arrest its progress at once.
A party of negroes was dispatched to the spot, and Governor was sent with them. In the course of a few hours, the crevasse had made dangerous progress, and they had to work until very late at night. But it was early when the overseer left them.
It was between eleven and twelve o'clock when a young negro from the quarters came down to the works, and, taking Governor aside, whispered something in his ear.
Down went the man's shovel, and away he sprang, and—all on fire with rage and jealousy—a man no longer, but an unreasoning brute—ran and leaped, bounding over everything that came in his way, and taking a bee-line to his cabin, the door of which he burst open.
A moment and the overseer lay dead, slain by the hand of the injured husband.