The man traveling through the Louisiana swamps is often appalled by the deathlike stillness of the woods. Slimy creatures crawl in the muck under his feet without a croak or hiss. Gaudy birds fly from living trees to dead, gaunt stumps without a note of music. The fox and wolf which sometimes make the woods vocal with their barking, slink away at the approach of man in silence. The whole place seems to be engaged in the deepest conspiracy to accomplish something which the slightest sound would disturb or frustrate.
Generally, a negro walking through the woods alone will bawl a song at the top of his voice. For some reason he feels that there is safety in sound, just as the Chinaman beats a tin pan to chase the devil away. But no negro ever has the courage to shatter one of these conspiracies of silence when he finds it in the swamp. If everything else begins to make a racket, he will, too. But he won’t start anything.
Which accounts for the fact that two negroes, not two hundred yards apart, were walking through the Little Moccasin Swamp, and were unaware of each other’s presence.
One negro was troubled. He stopped, removed his high silk hat, and mopped the sweat from the top of his bald head. He lowered his head and listened, then he raised his head and listened. For a moment he thought he heard something, then he found the silence more intense than ever.
“Dar’s somepin gittin’ ready to happen aroun’ dis woods,” he whispered to himself. “I been listenin’ in dese here swamps all my life, but I ain’t never heard no sound like dat ontil now.”
He squatted behind a stump and peered anxiously about him. Great trees of the primeval forest reared themselves above him, skirted and frocked like a Druid priest with the funereal moss. Under the wide-spreading branches of these trees long corridors ran in every direction like the floral avenues through some giant hot-house conservatory. Nothing moved, no sound could be heard under those majestic arches of the forest.
The negro stooped and placed his ear to the ground. He had heard an express train at a long distance, and the sound he was hearing at intervals was something like that. But he knew it was twenty miles to the nearest railroad which carried a train which could travel fast enough to make a similar sound. He had also heard a wolf-pack coming through the forest on one occasion, and that pad-pad-pad of their flying feet was not dissimilar in sound to what he was hearing. He was also familiar with the herds of wild hogs which infested the Little Moccasin, and when they were moving rapidly at a long distance the sound would be like the persistent thrumming he could dimly hear.
“Whutever dat is, ’tain’t hittin’ de groun’ wid its foots,” he announced to himself, as he glanced up about him with fear-shot eyes. “Dis here nigger is gittin’ ready to vacate hisself from dis swamp.”
He glanced up at the sky. It was as clear as a soap bubble. The haze of the evening was settling upon the tree-tops like a vail of purple and gold under the setting sun. He was looking for the signs of the sudden storms which blow in from the Gulf, and he sniffed the air for the odor of smoke from a forest fire.
“’Tain’t no fire, an’ it ain’t no cycaloon storm,” he muttered.
He turned and walked rapidly down the little foot-path, still listening, but now more interested in getting out of the darkening woods than in locating the source of the sound. Suddenly he heard the noise so loud and distinct that his next guess was nearer than he dreamed.
“Dat’s a automobile engyne!” he chattered, the goose-flesh rising all over his body. Then he shook his head in mute denial of his assertion. The nearest public highroad was ten miles away.
“Not even a skeart nigger preacher kin hear ten miles,” he muttered. “An’ nobody but de debbil could run a automobile in dese here woods whar dar ain’t no road!”
The thought brou............