On the night succeeding his spoilt coon-chase, he has slept sound enough, his mind being unburdened by the confession to Phoebe. Besides, he had then no certain knowledge that a murder had been committed, or of any one being even killed. He only knew there were shots, and angry words, resembling a fight between two men; one his young master; the other, as he supposed, Charles Clancy. True, the former, rushing past in such headlong pace, seemed to prove that the affair had a tragical termination.
But of this, he, Blue Bill, could only have conjecture; and, hoping the dénouement might not be so bad as at first deemed, neither was he so alarmed as to let it interfere with his night’s slumbers.
In the morning, when, as usual, hoe in hand, he goes abroad to his day’s work, no one would suspect him of being the depository of a secret so momentous. He was always noted as the gayest of the working gang—his laugh, the loudest, longest, and merriest, carried across the plantation fields; and on this particular day, it rings with its wonted cheerfulness.
Only during the earlier hours. When, at mid-day, a report reaches the place where the slaves are at work, that a man has been murdered—this, Charles Clancy—the coon-hunter, in common with the rest of the gang, throws down his hoe; all uniting in a cry of sympathetic sorrow. For all of them know young “Massr Clancy;” respecting, many of them loving him. He has been accustomed to meet them with pleasant looks, and accost them in kindly words.
The tidings produce a painful impression upon them; and from that moment, though their task has to be continued, there is no more cheerfulness in the cotton field. Even their conversation is hushed, or carried on in a subdued tone; the hoes being alone heard, as their steel blades clink against an occasional “donick.”
But while his fellow-labourers are silent through sorrow, Blue Bill is speechless from another and different cause. They only hear that young Massr Clancy has been killed—murdered, as the report says—while he knows how, when, where, and by whom. The knowledge gives him double uneasiness; for while sorrowing as much, perhaps more than any, for Charles Clancy’s death, he has fears for his own life, with good reasons for having them.
If by any sinister chance Massr Dick should get acquainted with the fact of his having been witness to that rapid retreat among the trees, he, Blue Bill, would be speedily put where his tongue could never give testimony.
In full consciousness of his danger, he determines not to commit himself by any voluntary avowal of what he has seen and heard; but to bury the secret in his own breast, as also insist on its being so interred within the bosom of his better half.
This day, Phoebe is not in the field along with the working gang; which causes him some anxiety. The coon-hunter can trust his wife’s affections, but is not so confident as to her prudence. She may say something in the “quarter” to compromise him. A word—the slightest hint of what has happened—may lead to his being questioned, and confessed; with torture, if the truth be suspected.
No wonder that during the rest of the day Blue Bill wears an air of abstraction, and hoes the tobacco plants with a careless hand, often chopping off the leaves. Fortunately for him, his fellow-workers are not in a mood to observe these vagaries, or make inquiry as to the cause.