They had issued from the cornfield now and were going along the road toward Raleigh.

Suddenly Betty paused.
"Hark!" she whispered.
"It were nothing, Miss Betty," said Hannibal reassuringly, and they hurried forward again.

In the utter stillness through which they moved Betty heard the beating of her own heart, and the soft, and all but inaudible patter of the boy's bare feet on the warm dust of the road.
Vague forms that resolved themselves into trees and bushes seemed to creep toward them out of the night's black uncertainty.

Once more Betty paused.
"It were nothing, Miss Betty," said Hannibal as before, and he returned to his consideration of the judge.

He sensed something of that intellectual nimbleness which his patron's physical make-up in nowise suggested, since his face was a mask that usually left one in doubt as to just how much of what he heard succeeded in making its impression on him; but the boy knew that Slocum Price's blind side was a shelterless exposure.
"You don't think the carriage could have passed us while we were crossing the corn-field ?" said Betty.
"No, I reckon we couldn't a-missed hearing it," answered Hannibal.