Radnor answered readily enough, but I noticed that the Colonel appeared restless under the inquiry, and the amused suspicion crossed my mind that he did not entirely discredit the story.

When a man has been born and brought up among negroes he comes, in spite of himself, to be tinged with their ideas.
Supper finished, the three of us turned down the gallery toward the kitchen.

As we approached the door we heard a murmur of voices, one rising every now and then in a shrill wail which furnished a sort of chorus.

Radnor whispered in my ear that he reckoned Nancy had "got um" again.

Though I did not comprehend at the moment, I subsequently learned that "um" referred to a sort of emotional ecstasy into which Nancy occasionally worked herself, the motive power being indifferently ghosts or religion.
The kitchen was a large square room, with brick floor, rough shack walls and smoky rafters overhead from which pended strings of garlic, red peppers and herbs.