Then one afternoon she mounted Scintilla and rode into Enterprise for the mail. She received the letter from Kate which has just been quoted and read it as she rode along. It contained so much food for thought that Carolina forgot everything else, until, looking up, she found that she was just opposite the new terrapin crawl she was having prepared under Moultrie's direction. Without thinking, she struck into the woods and threaded her way among the giant pine-trees toward the coast.
It was virgin forest and on her own land, a tract she intended leasing to some orchard turpentine factors in Jacksonville. It was twilight in the forest, but Carolina rode forward fearlessly, glancing sharply at the trees for signs of their having been boxed by thieving negroes.
Suddenly she saw a boxed tree, and, springing down, she drew Scintilla's bridle over her arm and stooped to examine the suspected tree. As she was bending down, Scintilla jerked her head, and the bridle slipped from Carolina's arm. She sprang to her feet, but, with a nicker of delight, the handsome horse kicked up her heels and pranced away from her, looking for all the world like a child ready for a romp.
So free from fear she was that Carolina laughed aloud, but the laugh froze on her lips, for, without turning her head, she could see, crouching down and creeping toward her, the huge form of a negro man, whose half-open mouth and half-closed eyes, as he stole noiselessly closer and closer, instantly told her of her dire peril.
The girl's whole body became rigid with terror,--a terror so intense and so unspeakable that she realized how it was that women can go mad from the effect of it. In a moment, every warning, every hint, every word that she had heard on the subject flashed through her brain with lightning quickness. An intense silence reigned in the forest, broken only by Scintilla's cropping a stray tuft of spring grass and the footsteps of the black creeping nearer to his white prey.
Carolina never thought of screaming. No white man was within a mile of her. Oh, for Moultrie,--Moultrie, who had saved her once before! A sick feeling came over her--things began to swim before her eyes--she swayed--and at the sight of her weakness the negro stood upright.
He was no longer a crawling horror. He was a man, and her God was at hand!
The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!" "God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes,--one blue and one black--where had she heard of such eyes--where had she seen this very man?
"'Polyte!" she cried.
Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the man.