Betty suddenly remembered the carriage which had taken the judge into town; she was sure it had not yet returned.
“We will go to the judge, Hannibal! George, who drove him into Raleigh, has not come back; if we hurry we may meet him on the road.”
Screened by the thick shadows, they passed up the path that edged the bayou; at the head of the inlet they entered a clearing, and crossing this they came to the corn-field which lay between the house and the highroad. Following one of the shock rows they hurried to the mouth of the lane.
“Hannibal, I don't want to tell the judge why I am leaving Belle Plain—about the woman, I mean,” said Betty.
“You reckon they'd kill her, don't you, Miss Betty, if they knew what she'd done?” speculated the boy. It occurred to him that an adequate explanation of their flight would require preparation, since the judge was at all times singularly alive to the slightest discrepancy of statement. They had issued from the cornfield now and were going along the road toward Raleigh. Suddenly Betty paused.
“Hark!” she whispered.
“It were nothing, Miss Betty,” said Hannibal reassuringly, and they hurried forward again. In the utter stillness through which they moved Betty heard the beating of her own heart, and the soft, and all but inaudible patter of the boy's bare feet on the warm dust of the road. Vague forms that resolved themselves into trees and bushes seemed to creep toward them out of the night's black uncertainty. Once more Betty paused.
“It were nothing, Miss Betty,” said Hannibal as before, and he returned to his consideration of the judge. He sensed something of that intellectual nimbleness which his patron's physical make-up in nowise suggested, since his face was a mask that usually left one in doubt as to just how much of what he heard succeeded in making its impression on him; but the boy knew that Slocum Price's blind side was a shelterless exposure.
“You don't think the carriage could have passed us while we were crossing the corn-field?” said Betty.
“No, I reckon we couldn't a-missed hearing it,” answered Hannibal. He had scarcely spoken when they caught the rattle of wheels and the beat of hoofs. These sounds swept nearer and nearer, and then the darkness disgorged the Belle Plain team and carriage.