That night any
one who happened to have been belated on the Versailles 'pike might have
passed Elias jogging along on his horse, looking very important, and an air
of mystery enveloping him like a garment.
It was far into the night when he returned. As he started to creep up the
ladder to the loft above his young master's room, his shoes in his hand so
as not to awaken him, the Colonel, who had been tossing on a sleepless bed
for hours, called out. Elias, who evidently regarded himself as a
conspirator, waited until he had reached the loft, and then whispered back,
"Hit's all right, Marse Bill," and was instantly swallowed up in the
darkness.
It was one of those perfect June nights so often seen in Kentucky. The full
moon hung in a cloudless sky, filling the air with a soft white radiance.
There was not a movement in the still, warm atmosphere, and to Colonel
Bill, waiting beneath the shadows of the big oak-tree near the General's
gate, it seemed that all nature was waiting with him. The leaves above his
head, the gray old church steeple beyond the house, the long stretch of
deserted streets--they all wore a hushed, expectant look.
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