“Ye’d best get ready ter start right away, Mars Ralph,” he said. “He’s wake at las’, an’ der’s de debbil to pay, a-cussin’ an’ roarin’ an’ wantin’ opium; an’ he wants to know whar ye bin an’ what ye mean, an’ ses de hosses mus’ be at de do’ in ten minits. Oh, de cunnel he’s in de wustest kin’ o’ humour, dar’s no doin’ nuffin right fer him.”
“Tell him to go to h——” burst forth the lad, flying into a rage and looking so wickedly passionate in a boyish way that Sheba was frightened again. “Tell him I won’t go until I’m ready; I’ve been dragged round till I’m sick of it, and——”
In the midst of his tempest he checked himself, turned about and walked suddenly into the house, the negro following him in evident trepidation.
His departure was so sudden that Sheba fancied he would return and say something more to her. Angry as he looked, she wished very much that he would, and so stood waiting wistfully.
But she was doomed to disappointment. In a few minutes the negro brought to the front three horses, and almost immediately there appeared at the door a tall, handsome man, who made his way to the finest horse and mounted it with a dashing vault into the saddle.
He had a dark aquiline face like the boy’s, and wore a great sweeping mustache which hid his mouth. The boy followed, looking wonderfully like him, as he sprang into his own saddle with the same dare-devil vault.
No one spoke a word, and he did not even look at Sheba, though she watched him with admiring and longing eyes. As soon as they were fairly in their seats the horses, which were fine creatures, needing neither whip nor spur, sprang forward with a light, easy movement, and so cantered down the street towards the high road which stretched itself over a low hill about a quarter of a mile away.
Sheba laid her cheek against the wooden pillar and looked after them with a return of the sense of loneliness she had felt before.
“He went away,” she whispered, “nobody knows where—nobody knows where.”
She felt Tom’s hand laid on her shoulder as she said the words, and turned her face upward with a consciousness of relief, knowing she would not be lonely any longer.