第26章

When Courtland's eyes opened again, he was in bed in his own room at Redlands, with the vivid morning sun occasionally lighting up the wall whenever the closely drawn curtains were lightly blown aside by the freshening breeze.The whole events of the night might have been a dream but for the insupportable languor which numbed his senses, and the torpor of his arm, that, swollen and discolored, lay outside the coverlet on a pillow before him.

Cloths that had been wrung out in iced water were replaced upon it from time to time by Sophy, Miss Dows' housekeeper, who, seated near his bedhead, was lazily fanning him.Their eyes met.

"Broken?" he said interrogatively, with a faint return of his old deliberate manner, glancing at his helpless arm.

"Deedy no, cunnle! Snake bite," responded the negress.

"Snake bite!" repeated Courtland with languid interest, "what snake?""Moccasin o' copperhead--if you doun know yo'se'f which," she replied."But it's all right now, honey! De pizen's draw'd out and clean gone.Wot yer feels now is de whiskey.De whiskey STAYS, sah.It gets into de lubrications of de skin, sah, and has to be abso'bed."Some faint chord of memory was touched by the girl's peculiar vocabulary.

"Ah," said Courtland quickly, "you're Miss Dows' Sophy.Then you can tell me"--"Nuffin, sah absomlutely nuffin!" interrupted the girl, shaking her head with impressive official dignity."It's done gone fo'bid by de doctor! Yo' 're to lie dar and shut yo'r eye, honey," she added, for the moment reverting unconsciously to the native maternal tenderness of her race, "and yo' 're not to bodder yo'se'f ef school keeps o' not.De medical man say distinctly, sah," she concluded, sternly recalling her duty again, "no conversation wid de patient."But Courtland had winning ways with all dependents."But you will answer me ONE question, Sophy, and I'll not ask another.Has"--he hesitated in his still uncertainty as to the actuality of his experience and its probable extent--"has--Cato--escaped?""If yo' mean dat sassy, bull-nigger oberseer of yo'se, cunnle, HE'Ssafe, yo' bet!" returned Sophy sharply."Safe in his own quo'tahs night afo' las', after braggin' about the bloodhaowns he killed;and safe ober the county line yes'day moan'in, after kicking up all dis rumpus.If dar is a sassy, highfalutin' nigger I jiss 'spises--its dat black nigger Cato o' yo'se! Now,"--relenting--"yo' jiss wink yo' eye, honey, and don't excite yo'se'f about sach black trash; drap off to sleep comfor'ble.Fo' you do'an get annuder word out o' Sophy, shuah!"As if in obedience, Courtland closed his eyes.But even in his weak state he was conscious of the blood coming into his cheek at Sophy's relentless criticism of the man for whom he had just periled his life and position.Much of it he felt was true; but how far had he been a dupe in his quixotic defense of a quarrelsome blusterer and cowardly bully? Yet there was the unmistakable shot and cold-blooded attempt at Cato's assassination! And there were the bloodhounds sent to track the unfortunate man! That was no dream--but a brutal inexcusable fact!

The medical practitioner of Redlands he remembered was conservative, old-fashioned, and diplomatic.But his sympathies had been broadened by some army experiences, and Courtland trusted to some soldierly and frank exposition of the matter from him.Nevertheless, Dr.Maynard was first healer, and, like Sophy, professionally cautious.The colonel had better not talk about it now.It was already two days old; the colonel had been nearly forty-eight hours in bed.It was a regrettable affair, but the natural climax of long-continued political and racial irritation--and not without GREAT provocation! Assassination was a strong word; could Colonel Courtland swear that Cato was actually AIMED AT, or was it not merely a demonstration to frighten a bullying negro? It might have been necessary to teach him a lesson--which the colonel by this time ought to know could only be taught to these inferior races by FEAR.

The bloodhounds! Ah, yes!--well, the bloodhounds were, in fact, only a part of that wholesome discipline.Surely Colonel Courtland was not so foolish as to believe that, even in the old slave-holding days, planters sent dogs after runaways to mangle and destroy THEIROWN PROPERTY? They might as well, at once, let them escape! No, sir! They were used only to frighten and drive the niggers out of swamps, brakes, and hiding-places--as no nigger had ever dared to face 'em.Cato might lie as much as he liked, but everybody knew WHO it was that killed Major Reed's hounds.Nobody blamed the colonel for it,--not even Major Reed,--but if the colonel had lived a little longer in the South, he'd have known it wasn't necessary to do that in self-preservation, as the hounds would never have gone for a white man.But that was not a matter for the colonel to bother about NOW.He was doing well; he had slept nearly thirty hours;there was no fever, he must continue to doze off the exhaustion of his powerful stimulant, and he, the doctor, would return later in the afternoon.

Perhaps it was his very inability to grasp in that exhausted state the full comprehension of the doctor's meaning, perhaps because the physical benumbing of his brain was stronger than any mental excitement, but he slept again until the doctor reappeared.