"Oh, marse cap'en!" he pleaded, "lemme see him, if you please, sir, once more before he dies!"
"Be very quiet, then," said the captain, "and it will do no harm for you to go in."
The black boy went in with footfalls noiseless as the captain's own. Lulu and her mother were there, one on each side of the bed, watching the sleeper with anxious eyes. They looked up at the strange face of the boy as he paused and gazed at the still, white face on the pillow. His dark skin seemed to grow ashen white as he looked, his thick, ugly lip quivered convulsively, and two tears darted from his black eyes and rolled down upon his breast. He gazed long and mournfully, seeming to take in every lineament of that beloved face; then, as he turned reluctantly away, stooped carefully down, and touched his rough lips tenderly and lightly on the cold, white hand that lay outside of the coverlid.
"Twas a hand that never struck me, and was always kind to me," he murmured, mournfully, as he went out, followed by the injunction from Mrs. Clendenon to report that Mr. Conway was still in the same condition—sleeping quietly.
Lulu looked down at the hand lying so still and lifeless on the counterpane. A tear-drop that had fallen from the eyes of the poor black boy lay on it, shining purely as a pearl in the subdued light. Lulu would not wipe it away. It was a precious drop distilled from the fountain of unselfish love and sorrow; it seemed to plead mutely to the girl for the man who lay there so still and pale, unable to speak for himself.
"There must have been much good in the poor young man," she thought, impulsively, "or his servants would not have loved him like that."
By and by she stole down to her brother, who was still pacing, with muffled footfalls, the parlor floor. He turned to her, inquiringly.
"Well?" he queried.
"No change yet—not the slightest."
"Probably there will not be until midnight. I trust it will be favorable, though we have no grounds to expect it. The surgeon fears internal hemorrhage from that great bullet-wound in the side—it narrowly escaped the heart. He will be here again to-night before the crisis comes."