“How long yo’ gwine away foh?”
“Perhaps forever, auntie!”
“Not foh good, Mar’s’r Edward? Not foh good?” He nodded and she broke into loud wailings. “Yo’s gwine and yo’ old mammy’ll see yo’ no moh––no moh! I knows why yo’s gwine, Mar’s’r Edward. I’s heard 405 yo’ talkin’ about her in yo’ sleep. But yo’ stay and yo’ mammy has a love-charm foh yo’; den she’s yo’s, foh suah.”
This offer, coming from one of her uncanny reputation, would have been accepted with implicit faith by most of the dwellers in that locality, superstitious to the last degree, but Mauville laughed carelessly.
“Pshaw, mammy! Do you think I would fly from a woman? Do I look as though I needed a charm?”
“No; she mus’ worship yo’!” cried the infatuated crone.
Then a change passed over her puckered face and she lifted her arms despairingly, rocking her body to and fro, while she mumbled unintelligible words which would have caused the negroes to draw away from her with awe, for the spell was on her. But the land baron only regarded her carelessly as she muttered something pertaining to spells and omens.
“Come, auntie,” he said impatiently at last, “you know I don’t believe in this tom-foolery.”
She turned to him vehemently. “Don’t go whar yo’ thinkin’ ob gwine, honey,” she implored. “Yo’ll nebber come back, foh suah––foh suah! I see yo’ lyin’ dar, honey, in de dark valley––whar de mists am risin’––and I hears a bugle soundin’––and de tramp of horses. Dey am all gone, honey––and de mists come back––but yo’ am dar––lying dar––de mountains around yo’––yo’ am dar fo’ebber and ebber and––” Here she broke into wild sobbing and moaning, tossing her white hair with her trembling withered arms, 406 a moving picture of an inspired dusky sibyl. Mauville shrugged his shoulders.
“We’re losing time, mammy,” he exclaimed. “Stop this nonsense and go pack a few things for me. I have some letters to write.”