She made no resistance. She did not scream, nor cry out. She knew it would be idle.
But there was a cry sent from the other side of the glen—a shriek so loud, wild, and unearthly, that it caused the mulatto to stop suddenly, and look in the direction whence it came.
Rushing out from among the crowd of negro captives, was one who might have been the oldest of them—a woman of near seventy years of age, and that weird aspect common among the old crones of a plantation. With hollow cheeks, and white wool thinly set over her temples, with long shrivelled arms outstretched beyond the scant rag of garment which the plunderers had permitted to remain upon her shoulders, she looked like some African Hecate, suddenly exorcised for the occasion.
Despite the forbidding aspect, hers was not an errand of destruction, but mercy.
“Let go hole of de young missa!” she cried, pressing forward to the spot. “You let go hole ob her, Bew Dick. You touch a hair ob her head! Ef you do, you a tief—a murderer. Yach! wuss dan dat. You be a murderin’ ob you own fresh an’ brud!”
“What do you mean, you old fool!” cried the mulatto, at the same time showing, by his looks, that her words had surprised him.
“Wha de ole fool mean? She mean wha she hab jess say. Dat ef you do harm to Missy Crara, you harm you own sissa!”
The mulatto started as if he had received a stab.
“My sister!” he exclaimed. “You’re gabbling, Nan. You’re old, and have lost your senses.”
“No, Bew Dick; Nan habent loss none o’ her senses, nor her ’membrance neider. She ’memba dan’lin you on her knee, when you wa’ bit piccaninny, not bigger dan a ’possum. She nuss Miss Crara ’bout de same time. She know who boaf come from. You boaf childen ob de same fadder—ob Mass Brackadder; an’ she you sissa. Ole Nan tell you so. She willin’ swar it.”