The group was now a compact mass, every eye watching Chad's finger as though it were a divining rod--Fitz full of smothered fears lest after all the prize should slip from his grasp; the agent anxious but reserved; Yancey and the judge hovering between hope and despair, with eyes on the empty decanter; and last of all the colonel, on the outside, holding a candle himself, so that his guests might see the better--the least interested man in the room. Presently the finger stopped, and Chad looked up into his master's face. "If I was down dar, Marsa George, jes a minute, I could tole ye, 'ca'se I reckelmember de berry tree whar Marsa John had de spyglass sot on its legs. I held de pole on de rock way up yander on de hill, an' in dat berry rock Marsa John done cut a crotch." "And which way is the crotch in the rock from the marsh here?" asked Fitz eagerly. Chad stood up, looked at the plan glistening under the candlelight, paused an instant, then took off the gold-rimmed glasses, and handed them with great deference to Fitz. "'T ain't no use, Marsa George. I kin go frough dat ma'sh blindfolded in de night an' cotch a possum airy time along airy one ob dem fences; but dis yer foolin' wid lan's on paper is too much for Chad. 'Fo' Gawd, I doan' know!" CHAPTER XI _Chad on his own Cabin Floor_ The night after the eventful dinner in Bedford Place, the colonel, accompanied by his guests, had alighted at a dreary way station, crawled into a lumbering country stage, and with Chad on the box as pilot, had stopped before a great house with ghostly trailing vines and tall chimneys outlined against the sky. When I left my room on the following morning the sunlight was pouring through the big colonial window, and the breath of the delicious day, laden with the sweet smell of bending blossoms, floated in through the open blinds. Descending the great spiral staircase with its slender mahogany balusters,--here and there a break,--I caught sight of the entrance hall below with its hanging glass lantern, quaint haircloth sofas lining the white walls, and half-oval tables heaped with flowers, and so on through the wide-open door leading out upon a vine-covered porch. This had high pillars and low railings against which stood some broad settles--all white. [Illustration] The colonel, Fitz, and the English agent were still in their rooms,--three pairs of polished shoes outside their several doors bearing silent witness to the fact,--and the only person stirring was a pleasant-faced negro woman with white apron and gay-colored bandana, who was polishing the parlor floor with a long brush, her little pickaninny astraddle on the broom end for weight. I pushed aside the hanging vines, sat down on one of the wooden benches, and looked about me. This, then, was Carter Hall!