It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with the
colors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly,
glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields and
the rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. The smell
of salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering forests, was
in his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before him a terrace
crowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage was the house; even
as he looked a light sprang up in a high window, and shone like a star
through the gathering dusk. Below the hill the home landing ran its gaunt
black length far out into the carmine of the river; upon the Golden Rose
lights burned like lower stars; from a thicket to the left of the bridle
path sounded the call of a whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from the
bay made to waver the lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened the
coral peace of the river, and pushed rudely against the master of those
parts. Haward laid his hand upon his horse that he loved. "This is better
than the Ring, isn't it, Mirza?" he asked genially, and the horse whinnied
under his touch.

The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the fireflies
beginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk of
the world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his house
looked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the front was
stark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back of the house
and hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were lights and
noisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown tongue.

It was but a stone's throw to the nearest cabin, and Haward's call made
itself heard above the babel. The noise suddenly lessened, and two or
three negroes, starting up from the doorstep, hurried across the grass to
horse and rider. Quickly as they came, some one within the house was