"Faithful friend!"
"You are sad, dear mistress, you are uneasy?" said the mulatto. The intense watchfulness of the slave's affection enabled him to detect every varying shade in Cora's manner. He saw that her mind was disturbed by some anxiety.
"I am anxious about Mr. Margrave, Toby," she replied; "he promised to rejoin us ere this."
"The English gentleman may have had some difficulty in engaging a boat, dear mistress. You have seen the poor cabin in which your mother passed the two last months of her life. It is near this spot she reposes."
The slave looked about him in the moonlight and presently paused at the foot of an enormous oak. Pushing aside the wild overgrowth which obscured it, he revealed a rough-hewn wood cross surmounting a humble mound of earth, which had been neatly turfed by the same faithful hand that had erected this simple monument.
Upon the cross this inscription had been carved in letters cut deep into the wood:
"FRANCILIA. July 7th, 1845."
Below this name and date were three words. Those words were:
"BLOOD FOR BLOOD."
"See, Miss Cora," said the mulatto, "this is a lonely spot, though so near to the plantation. Few ever come here, for yonder dell is said to be haunted by the spirit of an Indian who was cruelly murdered there a hundred years ago. No hand has disturbed this cross. It may be that no human eye has ever seen the inscription, but the all-seeing eye of Providence has looked upon these words for fifteen weary years."