"Are all the men in the fields, Barb?" asked Landless. Barb informed him that they were, "as he might very well know, seeing that the sun was half an hour high." "Have you seen the man called Roach?" No: Barb had not seen him; but she had heard the overseer tell Luiz Sebastian to take two men and go to the strip of Orenoko between the inlet and the third tobacco house, and Luiz Sebastian, had been calling for Roach and Trail. Landless thanked her, and moved away without offering to bestow upon her that which Barb probably thought her information merited. "Do you find Woodson," he said to the Muggletonian, "and report this murder, saying nothing, however, of what we know. I myself will go to the tobacco house." "Had I not best come with thee to hold up thy hands?" said Porringer. "I would take up my text from the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and from Revelation, twenty-second, thirteen, and deal mightily with the murderer." "No," answered Landless. "Woodson must be seen at once, or we ourselves will fall under suspicion. And, friend, ask that thou and I may be the ones to bury _him_." *CHAPTER XIII* *IN THE TOBACCO HOUSE* The third tobacco house was built upon a point of land jutting into the larger inlet, and screened off from the wide expanse of fields by a belt of cedars. It was a lonely, retired spot, and the high, dark, windowless structure with its heavy, low-browed door had a menacing aspect. Landless expected to find the men within the building, instead of outside attending to their work, and he was not disappointed. As he walked through the doorway into the pungent gloom the three started up from the débris of casks, sticks, and pegs, amidst which they had been squatting, with their heads ominously close together. Landless strode up to Roach. "You murderer!" he said. The convict recoiled; then with a bestial sound, half snarl, half bellow of rage, he gathered himself for a rush. Landless awaited him with bent body and sinewy, outstretched arms; but the mulatto interposed. Laying his long, beautifully shaped, yellow hands upon Roach, he forced him back against a cask, and, pinning him there, whispered in his ear. The face of the wretch gradually resumed its usual expression of low brutality, though an ugly sweat broke out upon it, and the mouth opened and shut as though he had been running. He turned upon Landless with a half threatening, half cringing air. "So you ’ve found out what I was about last night, eh, pardner? But you ’ll keep a still tongue. You ’re not one to peach on your comrade as was in hell or Newgate with you, and as crossed the ocean with you to this d—d Virginia, and as has always liked you, and has the same spite as you have against the man what bought us. You say naught, comrade, and you ’ll not stand to lose by it." "I go from here to give you up to Colonel Verney," said Landless.