The Secret Shot; Or, The Rivals Of Misty Mount — page 11: what you’re looking at

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MASTER AND SLAVE. as well as misery. All the slaves of the estate were closely examined, without elicit- ing any thing of importance; and the ‘shrewdness of the old chieftain, Wandalo, was brought into requisition, with no better success. He searched all the adjoining thickets thoroughly, and finally gave it up as a hopeless quest. CHAPTER III. New Actors on the Scene. GATEKEEPER. See, fellow, my lord knits his brows; and now he chuckles like a cackling hen. Depend on’t, that mother wit of his has laid another | Ay, and there'll be deviltry hatching soon. OLD PuLay. On that same dark day, as the twilight deepened over the valley, a solitary figure was standing motionless within a little ar- bor which stood on the lawn, in front of old Jacob Gleason’s dwelling, scarcely a mile from Misty Mount. It was the bent figure of a gloomy old man. He seemed to be lost in thought as he gazed out of the arbor toward the mansion. His reflec- tions must have been any thing but pleasant. The house was large and of some elegance of style, but sadly out of repair. Indeed, every thing about the place gave token of stinginess or poverty in the possessor. The wooden portico, in front, was much decayed ; some of the upper windows were broken, and the once trim garden was sadly over- grown with weeds. But it was not poverty that kept the place in this dismal condi- tion. A light step on the lawn aroused him, and he looked up expectantly. It was only, however, the form of his mulatto housekeeper’ who approached, and he was disappointed. “What do you want, Judith ?” he inquired, pettishly. “My master,” was the reply. There was something remarkable in the appearance of this slave-woman. Her com- plexion was very light—almost white— and her features had some remnants of beauty in their passionate lines; She was not young—forty or thereabouts—but her long, straight hair was of raven blackness ; her large, dark eyes were intensely bright— almost feverishly so. The air of this woman was not that of a slave—hardly that of a servant. | “ What do you want?” again asked the master. “JT bear news,” said the slaye-woman. “ Walter Gwin was shot to death an hour ago, by a concealed assassin.” “Shot? and killed? Who could have done the horrid deed ?” “Ay, who could have done it?” The woman stood before him with folded arma, eyeing the old man with a kind of ferocity which expressed mingled pleasure and con- sciousness of the possession of a secret. “What do you mean ?” instinctively asked the now trembling master. “T mean that what you have wished for is accomplished—that no second heir to the manor now stands in the way of your schemes!” This was uttered in a tone of defiance and contempt, which, had Jacob Gleason been a guiltless man, would have caused him to strike the presumptuous slave to the earth. As it was, he could only mutter a protest against the mulatto’s assumption. | * Judith !” The slave smiled in her consciousness of power, and gazed upon him with her great, passionate eyes, as if the moment were one of triumph. “ Which one is the slave?” seemed to be the words ready formed upon her tongue. Approaching footsteps put a stop to fur ther recrimination “Ts that the indiatts tread ?” asked Glea- son, bending his ear to listen. “No; the footstep of the Indian is noise- less by night. This is the step of a moody man.” “Whose ?” “ Your son’s,.” As she spoke, the tall form of Heartstead Gleason stood in the door of the arbor. He was haggard and trayel-worn, and looked like a haunted man. Without saying a word, but throwing a scowl at Judith, he took the old man by the arm and pro- ceeded up the lawn with him to the house. Judith was left alone. She watched the departing twain through the gathering gloom, and then came out of the arbor, and sat down on a little bench outside. There she remained a long time. The night grew pitchy dark without her noticing it; them the rising moon glimmered like an. uplifted shield above the tree-tops, and the balmy luster played upon her face, but she did not observe its beauty. At length aleaf rustled behind her, and ‘she started. The dusky Comichook 3