One morning, near the last of August—yet, stay! Such mornings dawn unheralded by any sign to warn us what the fated day shall bring forth ere its close. Such mornings dawn as other mornings do—the doomed men and women rise as other people do—as you or I arose this morning, upon the dread day that unpremeditated crime or sudden death shall fix their mortal doom forever.
That morning Mr. Waring arose, feeling rather unwell and irritable, which was no unusual circumstance of late, for he was chafing between two conflicting interests, one of which called him away, while the other bound him at home. He was very anxious, with his wife, to leave the neighborhood of the infected city; but, in the present condition of affairs he hesitated to trust the plantation and negroes to the care of the overseer.
Valentine arose with the same heavy heart that had marked his waking hours for many days, yet dressed himself and combed his raven black curls with the habitual regard to neatness and beauty that had become a second nature. And it was curious to see how this habit of neatness and elegance lasted through all the darkest hours of his life.
Phædra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness.
Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather, indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed.
No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or circumstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road leading to the town. It was his daily habit. It had been commenced in the hope of meeting some one from the city who might be able to give him news of Fannie and her little child. And though he never met with success, he still rambled thither every day, as well from force of habit as from the faint hope that he might yet hear of them. He strolled to the highway, met his usual ill-success, and, after lingering an hour or two, sauntered dejectedly toward home.
When he reached a lane that separated his master's plantation on the right from Mr. Hewitt's on the left, his attention was arrested by the sound of a low voice. He listened.
"Hish-sh! Walley, come here—here to the gap."
The voice proceeded from behind the hedge, formed by a thick growth of Spanish daggers, that completely covered the fence on the left of the lane. There was a small broken place in it, toward which Valentine sauntered indifferently. He saw on the other side the huge head of a gigantic negro, a jet-black, lumbering, awkward, good-natured monster enough, who belonged to Mr. Hewitt, and who sported the imposing cognomen of "governor."
"Well, Governor, is that you? What do you want with me?"