In the leaping and hovering light the negroes looked gigantic. Coal black, bending, lifting, rushing forward, set about with night and the snarl of the tiger, they had the seeming of genii from an Eastern tale. Their voices came chantingly, or, after a silence, in a sudden shout. Their shadows moved with them on the ground. Edward glanced around for the directing white man. “Dar ain’t none,” said ’Rasmus. “De haid oberseer when he heah dat New Orleans been taken he up en’ say dey need mo’ soldiers than dey do oberseers, en’ he went ter Baton Rouge! En’ de second oberseer dat come up en’ tek he place, en’ is er good man, las’ week he broke he hip. En’ dar wuz two-three others er-driftin’ erroun, doin’ what dey wuz tol’ ter do, en’ dey gone too. When hit wants ter, de river kin pull ’em in en’ drown ’em en’ tek ’em erway, but dishyer war’s de wust yet! Yaas, sah, dishyer war’s er master han’ at eatin’ men! No, sah, dar ain’t no white man, but dar’s a white woman—” Then Edward looked and saw Désirée Gaillard. She was standing high, beneath her heaped logs, behind her the night. She had clasped around her throat a soldier’s cloak. The wind raised it, blew it outward, the crimson lining gleaming in the torchlight. All the red light beat upon her, upon the blowing hair, upon the deep eyes and parted lips, the outstretched arm and pointing hand, the dress of some bronze and clinging stuff, the bent knee, the foot resting upon a log end higher than its fellows. The out-flung and lifted cloak had the seeming of the floating drapery in some great canvas, billowing mantle of heroine, saint, or genius. “Saintly,” however, was certainly not the word, and Désirée would not have called herself heroine or genius. She was simply fearless and intent, and since, to keep the negroes in courage and energy, it was needful to keep them in good spirits, she was, also, to-night, cheerful, humorous, abounding in praise. Her voice rang out, deep and sweet. “Good man, Mingo! Mingo’s carrying two to everybody else’s one! Lawrence is doing well, though! So is Hannah’s Tom!— ‘Levee! levee! lock your hands hard! Levee, levee! keep the river from my home!—’ _Par ici, François!_ Christopher, Harper, Sambo, Haiti, Mingo Second, make a line! Big Corinth, throw them the sacks! Work hard—work hard! You shall have rest to-morrow, and at night a feast! Look at Mingo, how he works! He isn’t going to let the river cover Cape Jessamine! When the Colonel comes home he is going to say, ‘Good boy, Mingo!’ To-morrow night all the banjos playing, and good things to eat, and the house-servants down at the quarters, and a dance like Christmas!—Mingo, Mingo, put ten sacks just there—”