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"Judas," repeated the deep voice, "also betrayed an innocent."

The teamster felt he was being made sport of, a sort of ghastly sport.

"That ain't no way to answer a man!" he cried.

A mask in the front seat asked sardonically, "Do you think you're fit to live in the same county with decent men, Abner Teeftallow, after what you done?"

The question discomfited the teamster. He wanted to defend himself, to plead that other men had done the same thing, but all he could say was, "You ain't goin' to run me out of the country fer that, air ye?"

"Isn't that enough?" droned the deep voice at his side. "A woman is the noblest handiwork of God, Abner Teeftallow. Her station is above man and next to the angels. Beauty adorns her head, tenderness reigns in her heart, and innocence dwells in her soul. If your vile flesh were fed to the dogs, would that atone for the degradation of one of the handmaids to the Most High?"

The teamster grew more frightened than ever at this rhetoric, for the deep voice was intoning what may be called the Southern oratorical view of women. It was what Southern speechmakers always say of woman in the abstract, and somehow Southern men believe these dithyrambs, although not one of them ever knew an actual woman who approached such a seraphic being. Still, that never shakes the Southern credo. The country stands in the droll position of worshipping woman, but entreating their women rather hardly.

However, since the whitecaps repeated this jargon, such is the force of custom that its rolling measures gained on Abner. His heart sank when he thought of having dragged down one of these heavenly creatures. All that he had done now appeared to him unqualifiedly evil and corrupt where a few minutes before it had seemed sweet and innocent. And the whole dark skin was saddled on him alone. Nessie, as abstract woman, had no share in it at all, although, as one of the concrete women, the whitecaps meant to chase her out