"Did you see him kill them?" I asked, wondering whom "he" might be,
and scarcely knowing what I said.
"Some," she answered, with a final nod and a glance of extreme
childish cunning. "But why you not talking, Rosa?" she demanded,
turning on the negress. "You speak English; it is no use to
pretend."
The black woman stared at me for a moment from under her
loose-hanging lids.
"You go 'way," she said slowly. "You get no good in these parts."
"Very well, ma'am," said I, steadying my voice, "and the sooner the
better, if you will kindly tell me the shortest cut back to the
creek."
"_And_," the woman went on, not seeming to heed the interruption,
"you tell the same to your friends, that they get no good in these
parts. But, of us--and of this"--she pointed to the sodden paper
which she had snatched from her mistress's hands--"you will say
nothing. It might bring mischief."
"Mischief?" I echoed.
"Mischief--upon _her_."
"But this is nonsense you talk, Rosa!" broke in the little lady.
"At the most, what have I written?--a little song from Gluck, the
divine Gluck! Just a little song of Eurydice calling to Orfeo.
Ah! you should have heard me sing it--in the days before my voice
left me; in the opera, boy, and the King himself splitting his gloves
to applaud us! Eh, but you are young, very young.
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