“’Pears t’ me mo’ like a big han’ ’an anythin’ else, Marse Davi’son,” commented Huldah, pausing and staring upward. “Mo’ like a big fist, kinda. Dat air’s a new drip come las’ night, I reckon. Dis here ole place ain’ gonna hang togethah much longah, less’n some repairin’ be done mighty quick now. Yassir, dat air’s a new drop, sho’s yo’ bo’n, en it come on’y las’ night. I hain’t never seed dat befo’.”
And then he had inquired, thinking of the fierceness of the storm:
“Huldah, do you have many such storms up this way?”
“Good gracious, Marse Davi’son, we hain’t seed no sech blow en—en come three years now. I hain’t seed no sech lightnin’ en I doan’ know when.”
Wasn’t that strange, that it should all come on the night, of all nights, when he was there? And no such other storm in three years!
Huldah stared idly, always ready to go slow and rest, if possible, whereas he had turned irritably. To be annoyed by ideas such as this! To always be thinking of that Monte Orte affair! Why couldn’t he forget it? Wasn’t it Mersereau’s own fault? He never would have killed the man if he hadn’t been forced to it.
And to be haunted in this way, making mountains out of mole-hills, as he thought then! It must be his own miserable fancy—and yet Mersereau had looked so threateningly at him. That glance had boded something; it was too terrible not to.
Davidson might not want to think of it, but how could he stop? Mersereau might not be able to hurt him any more, at least not on this earth; but still, couldn’t he? Didn’t the appearance of this hand seem to indicate that he might? He was dead, of course. His body, his skeleton, was under that pile of rocks and stones, some of them as big as wash-tubs. Why worry over that, and after two years? And still—
That hand on the ceiling!