“Oh, we can both sleep in this bed; there’s plenty of room. Do stay, my boy, please.”
But Waldo stepped out.
“It was such a little whip, Waldo,” said Bonaparte, following him deprecatingly. “I didn’t think it would hurt you so much. It was such a little whip. I am sure you didn’t take the peaches. You aren’t going to call her, Waldo, are you?”
But the boy walked off.
Bonaparte waited till his figure had passed round the front of the wagon-house, and then slipped out. He hid himself round the corner, but kept peeping out to see who was coming. He felt sure the boy was gone to call Tant Sannie. His teeth chattered with inward cold as he looked round into the darkness and thought of the snakes that might bite him, and the dreadful things that might attack him, and the dead that might arise out of their graves if he slept out in the field all night. But more than an hour passed and no footstep approached.
Then Bonaparte made his way back to the cabin. He buttoned the door and put the table against it and, giving the dog a kick to silence his whining when the foot throbbed, he climbed into bed. He did not put out the light, for fear of the ghost, but, worn out with the sorrows of the day, was soon asleep himself.
About four o’clock Waldo, lying between the seats of the horse-wagon, was awakened by a gentle touch on his head.
Sitting up, he espied Bonaparte looking through one of the windows with a lighted candle in his hand.
“I’m about to depart, my dear boy, before my enemies arise, and I could not leave without coming to bid you farewell,” said Bonaparte.
Waldo looked at him.