Madam Trevor started and looked around. Deborah put a tremulous finger to her lips, and shook her head. The doctor instantly understood, and let her go to the shelf in a corner, where, her back being to the others, she poured half the contents of her bottle into a tin cup. With this, slowly and resolutely, she approached the bed. Chloe stepped suddenly in her way:
"What yo' got?" she asked, in no friendly tone.
"Medicine for Sambo," was the steady reply.
"Of your own making, Deborah?" came Madam Trevor's sharp voice.
"Yes, yes. You are wasting precious time. Chloe—let me pass."
"No, Miss Deb'. You ain' goin' give Sambo nuf'n from still-house."
"Dr. Carroll!" There was a desperate appeal in her tone, and the man came instantly to her aid.
"Listen, Chloe! Unless your child in some way gets the help that I cannot give, he must die. He is poisoned, as I supposed, fatally. Miss Deborah believes that she can save his life. You cannot let him die without the attempt."
The colored woman paid no attention to the words, and still menacingly barred the way. A new idea was taking possession of her: that Deborah had poisoned the boy. Carroll, who was watching her narrowly, saw the sudden squaring of her shoulders, darted quickly in front of her and seized her about the body just as she had been about to fling herself upon the girl. Deborah, keyed to the highest pitch, watched her opportunity, slipped like a cat around to the bedside, raised Sambo's head upon her arm, and, to Madam Trevor's terror, pressed her fingers on the child's throat, and forced him to swallow the contents of the cup. At once he was seized with a violent coughing fit. Deborah lifted him upright at once, pressed her hands upon his temples and the back of his neck, and kept him from that retching which would have been fatal to her experiment.
Meantime Carroll had forced Chloe, screaming and struggling, from the cabin, and, after calling Thompson to keep order in the group outside, he closed and barred the door. Madam Trevor then rose from her place.