I did not consider what I should say. My one longing was to confront them. But I had not reckoned with the darkness that fell earlier in the woods than in the open, and soon I had to pick my way for fear of a fall which might injure my arm. When I came in sight of the cabins it was dusk and a light already shone from one of the windows of the house. I was making for this light, with angry words on my lips, when a figure rose suddenly in the path before me and barred my way. It was Mammy Jacks. Apparently she had been crouching on the ground on the look-out for my coming. “Fer de Lord’s sake, stop, honey!” she gibbered, bringing her ugly face close to mine, her eyeballs and her teeth shining in the gloom. “Der’s Cap’en Levi dar, en de udder rapscallions! Ef you go in, you no mo’ chance den a rooster in de pan! Der ain’t no Marse Marion ter ’elp you loose de rope dis time! Ain’t you no eyes ter see de hosses?” And she clutched me by the arm and held me. I did see then—with a decided shock—a row of saddled horses standing beside the porch, thirty yards from us. With them were a couple of men lounging, as if on guard. The row extended round the corner of the house so that I could not count either men or horses and the dusk made all indistinct. The windows, now that I was nearer, showed more than one light, though these were darkened from time to time as a figure passed across them. A murmur of voices, a stir of feet, the clink of glass, and now and again a loud laugh issued from the windows and mingled with the jingle of bit and stirrup-iron. “See dat? W’at I tell you?” Mammy Jacks repeated in terror that was certainly not feigned; and she clung firmly to my sleeve. “You go in, en you sholy hang! Cap’en Levi, he mighty mad atter you en he make an eend dis time! Look like dey sarched de cabins, en you kin hide in dar! Hide in dar, Marse Craven! Fust thing you know de Cap’en’ll get up en go. He go fer sho’ in ten minutes.” I let her push me towards the door of the nearest hut; to hide there, as she said, seemed to be the wisest course for the present. But either the reek of the shack repelled me, or her insistence touched the wrong note. My pride rose and on the very threshold I turned. Why should I hide? I had Marion’s word and the girl’s word. And weeks had elapsed and nothing had happened since Levi’s last attempt. Was this some new trick for my good for if so, I would not stoop to it. The part I had played at the Bluff had been poor so far; I was not going to make it worse and disgrace myself by hiding in a nigger’s hut from a parcel of low rebels whom a single man with a pistol had put to flight. “No!” I cried; and I resisted the woman’s thrust. “I’ll be hanged if I do, Mammy! I’ll see Levi and all his crew with their father the devil first!”