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:
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. The woman who had begun it was swept to her feet; she stood with her tinsel gayety of apparel making her tragic ebony face infinitely grotesque and tormented while her tone rose in a clear emotional soprano:
