"Going by," repeated the widow. "O, shall I ever git over it! O, dear me, I'm all cut to pieces! A poor forlorn widder, and my only son—O, dear!"
"Her only son," cried Lysander in a loud voice, "couldn't get here in time to prevent the outrage. That's what she wants to say. I leave her in your care, Mrs. Stackridge. She was doing a neighborly thing for you when she came in to stop the pillaging, and I'm sure you'll do as much for her."
And the captain retired, his appetite for woman-whipping cloyed for the present.
"Where is Aunt Deb?" repeated Mrs. Stackridge. "Aunt Deb!" she called, "where are you? I want you this minute!"
"Here I is!" answered a voice from heaven, or at least from that direction.
It was the voice of the old negress, who had hid herself in the chambers, and now spoke through a stove-pipe hole from which she had observed all that was passing from the time when the widow entered with her empty basket.
XXXV.
THE MOONLIGHT EXPEDITION.
Toby had been released. Mrs. Stackridge had been whipped by proxy, and had kept her husband's secret. Gad, the spy, was still unaccountably absent. These three sources of information were, therefore, for the time, considered closed; and it was determined to have recourse to the fourth, namely, Carl.