"Not that I can see," said his employer shortly. "Go inside, and call
Zoe and her daughter from the cabin and bring them in the hall. Stay
till I come. Go!--I'll shut the windows myself."

"It must have struck somewhere, sah, shuah! Deh's a pow'ful smell of
sulphur right here," said the negro as he left the room.

Courtland thought so too, but it was a kind of sulphur that he had
smelled before--on the battlefield! For when the door was closed behind
his overseer he took the lamp to the opposite wall and examined it
carefully. There was the distinct hole made by a bullet which had missed
Cato's head at the open window by an inch.


CHAPTER VI.


In an instant Courtland had regained complete possession of himself. His
distracting passion--how distracting he had never before realized--was
gone! His clear sight--no longer distorted by sentiment--had come back;
he saw everything in its just proportion--his duty, the plantation, the
helpless freedman threatened by lawless fury; the two women--no longer
his one tantalizing vision, but now only a passing detail of the work
before him. He saw them through no aberrating mist of tenderness or
expediency--but with the single directness of the man of action.

The shot had clearly been intended for Cato. Even if it were an act
of mere personal revenge, it showed a confidence and security in the
would-be assassin that betokened cooperation and an organized plan.