“Then those lights higher up must be on the bluff at Beaucaire?”

“Yas, sah; looks like de whol’ house was lit up.  I reckon things am right lively up thar ’bout now.”  He chuckled to himself, smothering a laugh.  “It’s sure goin’ fer ter bother Massa Donaldson ter lose dis nigger, sah, fer Ah’s de only one he’s got.”

The lights slowly faded away in the far distance, finally disappearing altogether as we rounded a sharp bend in the river bank.  The engine increased its stroke, giving vent to louder chugging, and I could feel the strain of the planks beneath us as we battled the current.  This new noise may have aroused her, for Rene lifted her head as though suddenly startled and glanced about in my direction.

“We have passed the village?” she asked, rather listlessly.

“Yes; it is already out of sight.  From the number of lights burning I imagine our escape has been discovered.”

“And what will they do?” an echo of dismay in her voice.

All fear of any treachery on the part of the negro had completely deserted me, and I slipped down from my perch on the edge of the cockpit to a place on the bench at her side.  She made no motion to draw away, but her eyes were upon my face, as though seeking to read the meaning of my sudden action.

“We can talk better here,” I explained.  “The engine makes so much noise.”

“Yes; and—­and somehow I—­I feel more like trusting you when I am able to see your face,” she admitted frankly.  “I am actually afraid to be alone.”

“I have felt that this was true from the first.  Indeed, I seriously wonder at the trust you have reposed in me—­a total stranger.”

“But—­but how could I help it?  Have I been unwomanly?  I think I scarcely know what I have done.  I could very easily have told what was right in the old days; but—­but surely you understand—­this was not to be decided by those rules.  I was no longer free.  Do you mean that you blame me for what has been done?”

“Far from it.  You have acted in the only way possible.  To me you are a wonderfully brave woman.  I doubt if one in a thousand could have faced the situation as well.”

“Oh I can hardly feel I have been that.  It seems to me I have shown myself strangely weak—­permitting you to do exactly as you pleased with me.  Yet you do not understand; it has not been wholly my own peril which caused me to surrender so easily.”

“But I think I do understand—­it was partly a sacrifice for others.”

“In a way, yes, it was; but I cannot explain more fully, even to you, now.  Yet suppose I make this sacrifice, and it fails; suppose after all they should fall into the hands of these men?”

“I will not believe that,” I protested, stoutly.  “I feel convinced they had warning—­there is no other way in which to account for their disappearance, their failure to return to the house.  They must have encountered Pete and gone away with him.”