"On the earth, in the air, almost on the air."
"By that you mean you live in no particular place?" said the planter.
"Yes. There was a time when I was human, when I had human desires and human feeling, but all that is changed. My soul has been tortured until what little reason I ever possessed has fled. There are times, sir, when I am not a human being."
"You are crazy," said the planter, with an incredulous smile.
"Have you ever read of Wagner, the Wehr-wolf?"
"Yes, in my boyhood I have read of that remarkable personage," replied the planter.
"You remember that periodically, he became a wolf, a demon. Well, sir, I have passed through a similar experience. There are times when my human feelings, my human reason leave me." The mulatto's yellow face seemed to grow livid in the twilight.
The wind moaned wildly, and the clouds gathered in thick, rolling masses in the northwest.
"Have you any further business with me?" asked the planter uneasily.
"I am to tell you that I hold a key that will unlock one of the darkest secrets that has clouded your life, a secret that has ever been a puzzle and a torment to you. This dark war cloud will not roll off our land without sweeping many from the face of the earth, and I feel that I shall be among the number. I can not leave this earth without yielding up to you the key of this mystery."