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Page 62
"Oh, Mr. Starbuck!" she called, in her laziest voice.
He turned almost impatiently.
"Since you're so civil and pressing, I thought I'd tell you I was
just runnin' over to Aunt Chloe's," she said dryly.
"I should think it was hardly the proper thing for a young lady to
do at this time of night," he said superciliously. "But you know
best,--you know the people here."
Polly's cheeks and eyes flamed. "Yes, I reckon I do," she said
crisply; "it's only a STRANGER here would think of being rude.
Good-night, Mr. Starbuck!"
She tripped away after this Parthian shot, yet feeling, even in her
triumph, that the conceited fool seemed actually relieved at her
departure! And for the first time she now thought that she had
seen something in his face that she did not like! But her lazy
independence reasserted itself soon, and half an hour later, when
she had left Aunt Chloe's cabin, she had regained her self-esteem.
Yet, to avoid meeting him again, she took a longer route home,
across the dried ditch and over the bluff, scarred by hydraulics,
and so fell, presently, upon the old garden at the point where it
adjoined the abandoned diggings. She was quite sure she had
escaped a meeting with Starbuck, and was gliding along under the
shadow of the pear-trees, when she suddenly stopped. An
indescribable terror overcame her as she stared at a spot in the
garden, perfectly illuminated by the moonlight not fifty yards from
where she stood. For she saw on its surface a human head--a man's
head!--seemingly on the level of the ground, staring in her
direction. A hysterical laugh sprang from her lips, and she caught
at the branches above her or she would have fallen! Yet in that
moment the head had vanished! The moonlight revealed the empty
garden,--the ground she had gazed at,--but nothing more!
She had never been superstitious. As a child she had heard the
negroes talk of "the hants,"--that is, "the HAUNTS" or spirits,--
but had believed it a part of their ignorance, and unworthy a white
child,--the daughter of their master! She had laughed with Dick
Ruggles over the illusions of Larry, and had shared her father's
contemptuous disbelief of the wandering visitant being anything but
a living man; yet she would have screamed for assistance now, only
for the greater fear of making her weakness known to Mr. Starbuck,
and being dependent upon him for help. And with it came the sudden
conviction that HE had seen this awful vision, too. This would
account for his impatience of her presence and his rudeness. She
felt faint and giddy. Yet after the first shock had passed, her
old independence and pride came to her relief. She would go to the
spot and examine it. If it were some trick or illusion, she would
show her superiority and have the laugh on Starbuck. She set her
white teeth, clenched her little hands, and started out into the
moonlight. But alas! for women's weakness. The next moment she
uttered a scream and almost fell into the arms of Mr. Starbuck, who
had stepped out of the shadows beside her.
"So you see you HAVE been frightened," he said, with a strange,
forced laugh; "but I warned you about going out alone!"
Even in her fright she could not help seeing that he, too, seemed
pale and agitated, at which she recovered her tongue and her self-
possession.
"Anybody would be frightened by being dogged about under the trees,"
she said pertly.
"But you called out before you saw me," he said bluntly, "as if
something had frightened you. That was WHY I came towards you."
She knew it was the truth; but as she would not confess to her
vision, she fibbed outrageously.
"Frightened," she said, with pale but lofty indignation. "What was
there to frighten me? I'm not a baby, to think I see a bogie in
the dark!" This was said in the faint hope that HE had seen
something too. If it had been Larry or her father who had met her,
she would have confessed everything.
"You had better go in," he said curtly. "I will see you safe
inside the house."
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