The planter's
teeth knocked together. He was having a terrible acquaintance
with fear, its very depths had swallowed him up; it was a black
pit in which he sank from horror to horror. He had lost all
faith in the Clan which had terrorized half a dozen states, which
had robbed and murdered with apparent impunity, which had
marketed its hundreds of stolen slaves. He had utterly collapsed
at the first blow dealt the organization, but he was still seeing
Murrell, pallid and shaken.
A step sounded in the hall and an instant later Hicks entered the
room without the formality of knocking. Ware recognized his
presence with a glance of indifference, but did not speak. Hicks
slouched to his employer's side and handed him a note which
proved to be from Fentress. Ware read and tossed it aside.
"If he wants to see me why don't he come here?" he growled.
"I reckon that old fellow they call Judge Price has sprung
something sudden on the colonel," said Hicks.
"He was out here the first thing this morning; you'd have thought
he owned Belle Plain. There was a couple of strangers with him,
and he had me in and fired questions at me for half an hour, then
he hiked off up to The Oaks."
"Murrell's been arrested," said Ware in a dull level voice.
Hicks gave him a glance of unmixed astonishment.
"No!" he cried.
"Yes, by God!"
"Who'd risk it?"
"Risk it? Man, he almost fainted dead away--a damned coward.
Hell!"
"How do you know this?" asked Hicks, appalled.
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