Lemuel saw Bowman's
hand slip under his coat, but it came out immediately; the fingers
drummed on the table.
The careless fool--he was unarmed.
There was no hurry; he could make one, two steps at Bowman's slightest
movement.... Lemuel thought of Flavilla deserted, dying alone with a
parched mouth, of all that had gone to wreck in the evil that had
overtaken him--the past that could not, it appeared, be killed. Yet
where Bowman was the past, it was nearly over. He'd finish the beer
before him, that would leave some in the bottle, and then end it. With
the glass poised in his hand he heard an absurd unexpected sound.
Looking up he saw that it came from the platform, from a black woman in
pale-blue silk, a short ruffled skirt and silver-paper ornaments in her
tightly crinkled hair. She was singing, barely audibly:
_"Oh, children ... lost in Egypt
See that chariot....
... good tidings!"_
Even from his table across the room he realized that she was sunk in an
abstraction; her eyes were shut and her body rocking in beat to the
line.
"Good tidings," she sang.
A negro close beside Doret looked up suddenly, and his voice joined in
a humming undertone, "See that chariot, oh, good tidings ... that
Egyptian chariot."
A vague emotion stirred within Lemuel Doret, the singing annoyed him,
troubled him with memories of perishing things. Another joined, and the
spiritual swelled slightly, haltingly above the clatter of glasses and
laughter.
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