"You have come, have you, Henry?" said Harry.
But at this moment the other turned his face full to the torch-light, and Harry was struck with its ghastly expression.
"For God's sake, what's the matter, Henry? Where's Hark?"
"Dead!" said the other.
As one struck with a pistol-shot leaps in the air, Harry bounded, with a cry, from the ground.
"Dead?" he echoed.
"Yes, dead, at last! Dey's all last night a killing of him."
"I thought so! Oh, I was afraid of it!" said Harry. "Oh, Hark! Hark! Hark! God do so to me, and more also, if I forget this!"
The thrill of a present interest drew every one around the narrator, who proceeded to tell how "Hark having been too late on his return to the plantation, had incurred the suspicion of being in communication with Harry. How Hokum, Tom Gordon, and two of his drunken associates, had gathered together to examine him by scourging. How his shrieks the night before had chased sleep from every hut of the plantation. How he died, and gave no sign." When he was through, there was dead and awful silence.
Dred, who had been sitting, during most of these narrations, bowed, with his head between his knees, groaning within himself, like one who is wrestling with repressed feeling, now rose, and, solemnly laying his hand on the mound, said:—