"Amos," she said, "if you were not my cousin, I would say that you are an accomplished liar!" Before he replied there was heard the sound of a horse's feet. Edward Morgan drove by, gravely lifting his hat. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FACE OF THE BODY-SNATCHER. The methods of Royson's emissary were simple and direct. One day he wandered in among the negroes at Ilexhurst in search of a lost hound puppy, for Dick was a mighty hunter, especially of the midnight 'possum. No one had seen the puppy, but all were ready to talk, and the death of Rita had been the latest sensation. From them he obtained every detail from the time Edward had carried the body in his arms to the little house, until it had been buried under the crooked cedar in the plantation burying-ground. The body had been dressed by two of the women. There had been a little blood on her head, from a small wound in the left temple, where she had cut herself against the glass when she was "taken with a fit." The coffin was a heavy metal one and the top screwed on. That was all. When Royson received the report of the cut in the head and the blood, his breath almost forsook him. Morgan might have been innocent, but what a chain of circumstantial evidence! If Dick should return to tell him some morning that the false wound he was to make was already on the spot selected, he would not be surprised. So far he could show a motive for the crime, and every circumstance necessary to convict his enemy with it. All he needed was a cause of death. Dick's precautions in this venture were novel, from the Caucasian standpoint. His superstition was the strongest feature of his depraved mind. The negro has an instinctive dread of dead bodies, but a dead and buried cadaver is to him a horror. In this instance, however, Dick's superstition made his sacrilege possible; for while he believed firmly in the reappearance and power of departed spirits, he believed equally in the powers of the voodoo to control or baffle them. Before undertaking his commission, he went to one of these voodoo "doctors," who had befriended him in more than one peril, and by the gift of a fat 'possum secured a charm to protect him. The dark hour came, and at midnight to the little clump of trees came also Slippery Dick. His first act was to bore a hole with an auger in the cedar, insert the voodoo charm and plug the hole firmly. This chained the spirit of the dead. Then with a spade and working rapidly, he threw the mound aside and began to toss out the earth from above the coffin. In half an hour his spade laid the wooden case bare. Some difficulty was experienced in removing the screws, but down in that cavity, the danger from using matches was reduced to a minimum, and by the aid of these he soon loosened the lid and removed it. To lift this out, and take off the metal top of the burial case, was the work of but a few minutes longer, and the remains of poor Rita were exposed to view.