Peter lay on his straw bed before the fire, sleepily watching
Neptune finish his prayers. He still had a child's faith, but he was
beginning to wonder how a laboring negro could retain it. One thing
he was sure of; if there was such a thing as a Christian man,
endowed with ideal Christian virtues, that old man kneeling in his
cabin, pouring out his heart to his Maker, was a Christian. And
remembering comfortable, complacent white Christians--well fed, well
housed, well clothed; with education and all that it implies as
their heritage; with all the high things of the world open to them
by reason of their white skin; praying decorously every Sunday to a
white man's God--Peter felt confused. How should the white man and
the white man's God answer and account to the Daddy Neptunes, who
had been "born in slaveryment," had lived and would die in
slaveryment to poverty and prejudice? Where do they come in, these
dispossessed dark sons of the Father? Surely, the Father has a very
great deal to make up to them!--Then the firelighted cabin walls,
the wavering figure of the kneeling old man, the soft sound of light
rain on the roof, faded and went out. Peter fell asleep.

He slept a tired boy's dreamless slumber. The night deepened. The
rain ceased, and a wan and sad moon climbed the sky, wearily, like a
tired old woman. In the River Swamp frogs croaked, a whippoorwill at
intervals gave its lonesome and lovely call, the shivering-owl's cry
making it lovelier by comparison. The cypresses shook blackly in the
blacker swamp water which licked their roots. From the drenched
vegetation arose a fresh and penetrating odor, the smell of the
clean June night. And presently, he didn't know why, Peter awoke
with every sense instantly alert. It was as if his soul had sensed a
sound, knew it for what it was, and was on guard.