Suddenly there was a step, or something like a step, near him—he was
not sure about it, for he must have been dozing—and he looked up. His
heart jumped into his throat. Before him in the hall stood, tall and
gray, the “Indian-killer,” his eyes blazing like coals of fire.
“Good God!” he gasped.
No, it was speaking—it was a man. But it was almost as bad. Still had
not seen Jacquelin before in two years. And he had never noticed how
like the “Indian-killer” he was. What did he want?
“I have come to see you about the grave-yard,” said Jacquelin. The
voice was his father’s. It smote Still like a voice from the dead.
Still wanted to apologize to him; but he could not speak, his throat
was dry. There was a pistol in the drawer before him and he pulled the
drawer open and put his hand on it. The cold steel recalled him to
himself and he drew it toward him, his courage reviving. Jacquelin must
have heard the sound; he was right over him.
“If you attempt to draw that pistol on me,” he said, quietly, “I will
kill you right where you sit.”
Whether it was the man’s unstrung condition, or whether it was
Jacquelin’s resemblance to the fierce Indian-killer, as he stood there
in the dusk with his eyes burning, his strong hands twitching, or
whether it was his unexpected stalwartness and fierceness as he towered
above the overseer, the latter sank back with a whine.
A negro entered at a side door with a light, but stood still, amazed at
the scene, muttering to himself: “Good Lordy!”
Jacquelin went on speaking. He told Still that if he cut down so
much as a bush in that grave-yard until he had a decision of court
authorizing him to do so, he would kill him, even if he had the whole
Government of the United States around him.
“Now, I have come here to tell you this,” he said, in the same quiet,
strange voice, “and I have come to tell you one thing more, that you
will not be in this place always. We are coming back here, the living
and the dead.”
Still turned even more livid than before. “What do you mean?” he gasped.
“What I say, we are coming back.” He swept his eye around the hall,
turned on his heel, and walked toward the picture over the fireplace.
Just then a gust of wind blew out the lamp the negro held, leaving the
hall in gloom. When the servant came back with a light, according to
the story that he told, Still was raving like a mad-man, and he drank
whiskey and raved all night.
[Illustration: BEFORE HIM STOOD, TALL AND GRAY, THE INDIAN-KILLER.]
Neither Still nor Jacquelin ever spoke of the interview; but a story
got abroad in the neighborhood that the old Indian-killer had appeared
to Still the night of Mrs. Gray’s burial and threatened him with death
if he should ever touch the grave-yard. Still said he had never meant
to touch it anyhow, and that Leech had made him put it in the letter
for a joke. It was, however, a dear joke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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