"As he hath done unto My people, be it done unto him!" he muttered, but the words did not comfort him.
Lamar moved, half-smiling.
"That's right, Floy. What is it she says? 'Now I lay me down'——I forget. Good night. Kiss me, Floy."
He waited,—looked up uneasily. Dorr looked at his wife: she stooped, and kissed his lips. Charley smoothed back the hair from the damp face with as tender a touch as a woman's. Was he dead? The white moonlight was not more still than the calm face.
Suddenly the night-air was shattered by a wild, revengeful laugh from the hill. The departing soul rushed back, at the sound, to life, full consciousness. Lamar started from their hold,—sat up.
"It was Ben," he said, slowly.
In that dying flash of comprehension, it may be, the wrongs of the white man and the black stood clearer to his eyes than ours: the two lives trampled down. The stern face of the boatman bent over him: he was trying to stanch the flowing blood. Lamar looked at him: Hall saw no bitterness in the look,—a quiet, sad question rather, before which his soul lay bare. He felt the cold hand touch his shoulder, saw the pale lips move.
"Was this well done?" they said.
Before Lamar's eyes the rounded arch of gray receded, faded into dark; the negro's fierce laugh filled his ear: some woful thought at the sound wrung his soul, as it halted at the gate. It caught at the simple faith his mother taught him.
"Yea," he said aloud, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me."