As I did so, a shiny, round, black face, with whitened eyes and huge red lips, seemed to float directly toward me through the inner darkness.

It was so startling an apparition that I sprang back in such haste as nearly to topple over backward from the steps.

Heaven alone knows what I fancied it might be; indeed, I had little enough time in which to guess, for I had barely touched the ground,--my mind still filled with memories of Seth's grotesque horrors,--when the whole figure emerged into view, and I knew him instantly for a negro, though I had never before seen one of his race.

He was a dandified-looking fellow, wearing a stiff white waistcoat fastened by gilded buttons, with a pair of short curly mustaches, waxed straight out at the ends; and he stood there grinning at me in a manner that showed all his gleaming teeth.

Before I could recover my wits enough to address him, I heard a voice from within the house,--a soft, drawling voice, with a marked foreign accent clinging to it.
"Sam," it called, "have you found either of the scoundrelly rascals ?" The darkey started as if shot, and glanced nervously back over his shoulder.
"No, sah," he replied with vigor, "dat Mistah Hawkins am not yere, sah.
An' dat Mistah Burns has gone 'way fer gud, sah.