"Mr. Renfrew," he stammered, "Mr. Renfrew--I--I--" His throat abruptly ached and choked. He felt his face distort in a spasm of uncontrollable grief. He turned quickly from this strange old man with a remote sarcasm in his eyes and a remote affection in his tones. Peter clenched his jaws, his nostrils spread in his effort stoically to bottle up his grief and remorse, like a white man; in an effort to keep from howling his agony aloud, like a negro. He stood with aching throat and blurred eyes, trembling, swallowing, and silent. Presently Nan Berry opened the door. She held a half-burned paper in her hand; Dr. Jallup stood near the bed, portioning out some calomel and quinine. The prevalent disease in Hooker's Bend is malaria; Dr. Jallup always physicked for malaria. On this occasion he diagnosed it must be a very severe attack of malaria indeed, so he measured out enormous doses. He took a glass of the water that Viny had brought, held up old Caroline's head, and washed down two big capsules into the already poisoned stomach of the old negress. His simple face was quite inscrutable as he did this. He left other capsules for Nan to administer at regular intervals. Then he and Captain Renfrew motored out of Niggertown, out of its dust and filth and stench. At four o'clock in the morning Caroline Siner died. CHAPTER VI When Nan Berry saw that Caroline was dead, the black woman dropped a glass of water and a capsule of calomel and stared. A queer terror seized her. She began such a wailing that it aroused others in Niggertown. At the sound they got out of their beds and came to the Siner cabin, their eyes big with mystery and fear. At the sight of old Caroline's motionless body they lifted their voices through the night. The lamentation carried far beyond the confines of Niggertown. The last gamblers in the cedar glade heard it, and it broke up their gaming and drinking. White persons living near the black crescent were waked out of their sleep and listened to the eerie sound. It rose and fell in the darkness like a melancholy organ chord. The wailing of the women quivered against the heavy grief of the men. The half-asleep listeners were moved by its weirdness to vague and sinister fancies. The dolor veered away from what the Anglo-Saxon knows as grief and was shot through with the uncanny and the terrible. White children crawled out of their small beds and groped their way to their parents. The women shivered and asked of the darkness, "_What_ makes the negroes howl so?"