Marian’s heart beat fast within her, but she said never a word, and only pressed Nora’s hand, which she held convulsively within her own, harder and tighter than ever, in her mute suspense and agony.
Presently another group passed close by, and another voice said tremulously: ‘Louis Delgado dead—Louis Delgado dead! Mr Hawtorn is wonderful man for true! Who’d have tought it, me brudder, who’d have tought it?’
‘That’s Martin Luther,’ Nora cried almost aloud, unable any longer to restrain her curiosity. ‘I know him by his voice. He wouldn’t hurt me.—Martin, Martin! what’s that you’re saying? Has Mr Hawthorn shot Delgado?’ As she spoke, with a fierce anticipatory triumph in her voice, she stepped out from the shadow of the gate on to the main bridle-path, in her white dress and with her pale face, clearly visible under the faint moonlight.
Martin flung up his arms like one stabbed to the heart, and shouted wildly: ‘De missy, de missy! Dem done killed her on de piazza yonder, and her duppy comin’ now already to scare us and trouble us!’
Even in that moment of awe and alarm, Nora laughed a little laugh of haughty contempt for the strong, big-built, hulking negro’s superstitious terror. ‘Martin!’ she cried, darting after him quickly, as he ran away awe-struck, and catching him by the shoulder with her light but palpable human grasp, ‘don’t you know me? I’m no duppy. It’s me myself, Missy Nora, calling you. Here, feel my hand; you see I’m alive still; you see your people haven’t killed me yet, even if you’ve killed your poor old master.—Martin, tell me, what’s this you’re all saying about Mr Hawthorn having shot Delgado?’
Martin, shaking violently in every limb, turned round and reassured himself slowly that it was really Nora and not her ghost that stood bodily before him. ‘Ha, missy,’ he answered good-humouredly, showing his great row of big white teeth, though still quaking visibly with terror, ‘don’t you be ’fraid; we wouldn’t hurt you, not a man of us. But it doan’t Mr Hawtorn dat shot Delgado! It God Almighty! De Lard hab smitten him!’
‘What!’ Nora cried in surprise. ‘He fell dead! Apoplexy or something, I suppose. The old villain! he deserved it, Martin.—And Mr Hawthorn? How about Mr Hawthorn? Have they hurt him? Have they killed him?’
‘Mr Hawtorn up to de house, missy, an’ all de niggers pray de Lard for true him lib for ebber, de blessed creature.’
‘Why are you all coming away now, then?’ Nora asked anxiously. ‘Where are you going to?’
‘Mr Hawtorn send us home,’ Martin answered submissively; ‘an’ we all ’fraid, if we doan’t go straight when him tell us, we drop down dead wit Kora, Datan, an’ Abiram, an’ lyin’ Ananias, same like Delgado.’