"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to herself, "and washed out their trail."
I sprang from the bed. "Aunt 'Liza!"
"Yes, Maud, they've run away, and if only they may get away. God be praised!"
Of course, I cried like an infant. I threw myself upon her bosom. "Oh, auntie, auntie, I'm afraid it's my fault! But when I tell you how far I was from meaning it----"
"Don't tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I'd like to be in your shoes. And, I don't care how right slavery is, I'll never own a darky again!"
One day some two months after, at home again with father. Just as I was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney--ragged, wet, and bedraggled as a lost dog--sprang into my arms. When I had got her reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story. Three of the four had come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it must be at some other time. In the course of her tale I asked about the compass.
"Dat little trick?" she said fondly. "Oh, yass'm, it wah de salvation o' de Lawd 'pon cloudy nights; but time an' ag'in us had to sepa'ate, 'llowin' fo' to rejine togetheh on de bank o' de nex' creek, an' which, de Lawd a-he'pin' of us, h-it al'ays come to pass; an' so, afteh all, Miss Maud, de one thing what stan' us de bes' frien' night 'pon night, next to Gawd hisse'f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye."
VI
"Landry," Chester said next day, bringing back the magazine barely half an hour after the book-shop had reopened, "that's a true story!"