Night brings peace and sleep."
The voices slowly died away in the distance, echoing mournfully through the woodland glades, as the negroes passed out of hearing.
Mortimer Percy still listened—eagerly, breathlessly—for that other awful sound which would announce the commencement of the combat.
"Nothing yet!" he exclaimed; "If I turn the corner of yon group of trees I run the chance of being struck by a random bullet; but come the worse, I must risk it; I can endure this suspense no longer."
He sprang through the forest growth in the same direction as that taken by Gilbert Margrave.
He had not disappeared above three minutes when from the opposite side of the wood two figures slowly approached, casting long shadows on the moonlit grass.
The first was a man, the second a woman. It was the mulatto slave, Toby, who came hither to lead the Octoroon to her mother's grave.
"That song which you heard just now, Miss Cora, has been sung many a night above your cradle to lull you to sleep."
"My mother sang it?" exclaimed Cora.
"She did, she did! The sound of that song, my lady, will bring tears to Toby's eyes until the hour when they close in death."