The sight that met his eyes froze him with horror. Philip’s lifeless body lay upon the ground, while Harry, with scared white face, bent over it.
For a brief space the old man stood as if petrified, then muttered: “Jerry ain’t gwine know nothin’ bout dis here. When ole Mars say, ‘Jerry, what you seen in de Vine Ridge Swash?’ Jerry, he gwine say, ‘Nothin’, Marster, fo’ de Lord. I seen nothin’ ’t all!’ An’ I ain’t gwine tell no lie, nuther, ’cause I ain’t gwine look!”
Thus thinking, he cautiously drew back, and, with ashen face and limbs that through trembling almost failed to support him, he stealthily crept away until out of earshot; then took to his heels and fled. When, however, he was forced to pause for breath, he considered if he had done well to desert his young master, and turned reluctantly to retrace his steps, when, as he did so, the air was suddenly rent with ear-piercing shrieks for half a second, and Jerry’s heart quailed.
“It’s boun’ to be de debil,” he whispered. Then, a light seeming to break upon him, he exclaimed: “Bless God! ’t ain’t nothin’ but de ole Chieftain a-blowin’.”
The Chieftain, a small freight steamer, had recently taken the place of the old flat-bottomed scows, and, as the steam whistle was still a novelty, it is not surprising that Ung Jerry, in his terror, should for the moment have mistaken it for some unearthly sound.
After many irresolute pauses, the old man at length reached the scene of the disaster, and with shaking hands thrust aside the bushes. Except for the small birds silently flitting to their roosts, the place was utterly deserted. The level sunbeams glinted through the gray moss, gilded the tree trunks, and glowed crimson upon the brown leaves; the solitary peace of nature seemed unbroken; only the pool of blood at Ung Jerry’s feet told him that what he had witnessed had not been a vision.
After a moment’s survey he was turning away, when his eyes fell upon the two guns: here, at least, was something tangible, and the old man proceeded to secrete them in the fallen leaves. Squatted upon the ground, he was too busily engaged to note the sound of approaching footsteps, and started violently when a rough voice accosted him. He mustered courage, however, to quaver:—
“Dat you, Mars Jones?”
“Me? of course it’s me! Who did you reckon it was?”
“I dunno, Mars Jones.”