As I limped and stumbled home, wiping the tears from my eyes and the blood from my chafed face, I decided to keep the truth of my adventure to myself. An accident of some kind I must invent to explain my plight. I decided that the fallen pine would have to bear the blame for my cuts and bruises. I would say that I had been caught by the slashing outer branches as it fell.
Before I reached the gateway of “The Pines,” in fact, just as I was dragging myself up the steep slope from the swamp, a will-o'-the-wisp of light came dancing to meet me. The circle of its glow presently made visible the unmistakable flat feet of George, who, at sight of me, broke into a chant of relief and of reproach.
He set down his lamp before me and held up his hands.
“My lordamassy, Miss Gale, what fo' yo' put dis yere po' ole nigger in sech a wo'ld o' mis'ry? Here am Massa Dabney a-tarin' up de groun' all aroun' about hie an' a-callin' me names coz I done obey yo' instid o' him. An' he done gib me one dolleh, yessa, an' yo'-all done gib me two. I tole him de trufe. Yessa, I says, one dolleh done tuk me to Pine Cone an' two dollehs done bring me back.”
I pushed my hair from my tired forehead. “You mean I told you to drive home without me, George?”
George danced a nigger dance of despair—a sort of cake-walk, grotesque and laughable in the circle of lantern-light.
“Oh, lawsamassy, don' nobody 'member nothin' they done say to a po' ole niggerman like George? Yo' come out, miss, while I was a-harnessin' Gregory, an' yo' gib de dollehs an' yo' say, 'Be sho to drive away back to de house af teh Gregory got his new shoes without waitin' fer me.' Yo' say yo' like de walk. There, now! Yo'-all do commence to begin to recollec', don' yo'?”
“Yes, yes. I do, of course, George,” I agreed faintly—what use to disclaim this minor action of my double? “Give me your arm, there's a good fellow. I've been hurt.”
He was as tender as a “mammy,” all but carried me up to the house and handed me over to Paul Dabney, who was pacing the hall like a caged tiger, and who received me with a feverish eagerness, rather like the pounce of a watchful beast of prey. I told my story—or, rather, my fabrication—to him and Mrs. Brane and Mary. Paul did not join in the ejaculation of sympathy and affection; he tried to be stoically cynical even in the face of my quite apparent weakness and pain, but I thought his eyes and mouth corners rather betrayed his self-control, and he helped me carefully, with a sort of restrained passion, up to my room, where I refused poor Mary's offers of help and ministered to myself as best I could.
I was really in a pitiful condition; the beating had been delivered with the intention of laying me up, and I began to think that it would be successful. I don't mind admitting that I cried myself to sleep that night.