IN THE SHADOW
"You amaze me, Comte Dessalines," said Leyden sternly. "In the first place permit me to remind you that I am at present acting as Miss Moultrie's escort and that I am responsible for her safety; in the second place I beg to inform you that whatever the custom may be in Hayti, in England it is not good form to interrupt the previously arranged engagement of a lady and gentleman. This has nothing to do with it however; I consider your presence upon that animal a menace to the safety of Miss Moultrie and have therefore the honor to wish you good day."
Dessalines, through the bland and unctuous assurance of whose voice the keen-edged words of Leyden had cut like a knife through tallow, stared in bewilderment; perhaps generations of heredity were against him; perhaps his subjective centers mirrored ancient impulses where such words were followed by the bite of a lead-tipped lash; perhaps the shallower intellect was groping for a missile in the mud beneath; at all events he was first at a loss, and then, before he could recover or rally his dignity in its rout, the two-edged voice was at him again and he drew back blinking, almost with the turn of the head which one sees in an ox lashed across the face by a switch in the hand of the farmer boy … and all the while Leyden was thrusting forward, a rampart between the African and the white maiden with the shocked hazel eyes, the pale face, and the grand scale of impulses which began below those of Dessalines and terminated in high overtones of these same far above the reach even of the naturalist.
At the first note of the cold, authoritative voice the girl's heart had seemed to pause, to flutter, and then to
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