Everything decided and settled, he hastily takes leave of Jupiter, and starts off along the trail, Brasfort leading.
Both are soon far away.
On the wide waste the mulatto stands alone, looking after—half reproachfully for being left behind—regretting his master’s rashness—painfully apprehensive he may never see him more.
Chapter Eighty Two.
A man nearly mad.
“Am I still drunk? Am I dreaming?”
So Richard Darke interrogates himself, retreating from the strangest apparition human eyes ever saw. A head without any body, not lying as after careless decapitation, but as though still upon shoulders, the eyes glancing and rolling, the lips moving, speaking—the whole thing alive! The head, too, of one he supposes himself to have assassinated, and for which he is a felon and fugitive. No wonder he doubts the evidence of his senses, and at first deems it fancy—an illusion from dream or drink. But a suspicion also sweeps through his soul, which, more painfully impressing, causes him to add still another interrogatory:
“Am I mad?”