"Hush--Oh, hush, Hannibal! It is too awful to even speak of--"
and, sobbing and half hysterical, she covered her face with her
hands.
"But where are we going, Miss Betty?" asked the boy.
"I don't know, dear!" she had an agonizing sense of the night's
approach and of her own utter helplessness.
"I'll tell you what, Miss Betty, let's go to the judge and Mr.
Mahaffy!" said Hannibal.
"Judge Price?" She had not thought of him as a possible
protector.
"Why, Miss Betty, ain't I told you he ain't afraid of nothing?
We could walk to Raleigh easy if you don't want your niggers to
hook up a team for you."
Betty suddenly remembered the carriage which had taken the judge
into town; she was sure it had not yet returned.
"We will go to the judge, Hannibal! George, who drove him into
Raleigh, has not come back; if we hurry we may meet him on the
road."
Screened by the thick shadows, they passed up the path that edged
the bayou; at the head of the inlet they entered a clearing, and
crossing this they came to the corn-field which lay between the
house and the highroad. Following one of the shock rows they
hurried to the mouth of the lane.
"Hannibal, I don't want to tell the judge why I am leaving Belle
Plain--about the woman, I mean," said Betty.
"You reckon they'd kill her, don't you, Miss Betty, if they knew
what she'd done?" speculated the boy. It occurred to him that an
adequate explanation of their flight would require preparation,
since the judge was at all times singularly alive to the
slightest discrepancy of statement.
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