They proceeded down the plantation road, but Zora could not speak. She pushed them slowly on, and turned aside to let the anger, the impotent, futile anger, rage itself out. Alone in the great broad spaces, she knew she could fight it down, and come back again, cool and in calm and deadly earnest, to lead these children to the light.
The sorrow in her heart was new and strange; not sorrow for herself, for of that she had tasted the uttermost; but the vast vicarious suffering for the evil of the world. The tumult and war within her fled, and a sense of helplessness sent the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She longed for rest; but the last plantation was yet to be passed. Far off she heard the yodle of the gangs of peons. She hesitated, looking for some way of escape: if she passed them she would see something‚ÅÝ‚Äîshe always saw something‚ÅÝ‚Äîthat would send the red blood whirling madly.
‚ÄúHere, you!‚ÅÝ‚Äîloafing again, damn you!‚Äù She saw the black whip writhe and curl across the shoulders of the ploughboy. The boy crouched and snarled, and again the whip hissed and cracked.
Zora stood rigid and gray.
‚ÄúMy God!‚Äù her silent soul was shrieking within, ‚Äúwhy doesn‚Äôt the coward‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù
And then the “coward” did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy’s hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came back to her senses.
“Poor child!” she gasped, as she saw the boy flying in wild terror over the fields, with hue and cry behind him.
‚ÄúPoor child!‚ÅÝ‚Äîrunning to the penitentiary‚ÅÝ‚Äîto shame and hunger and damnation!‚Äù