'I'm so sorry, Joseph. I did not mean to laugh, but you see I expected some terrible occurrence, and this is not so serious, is it?'

'Not serious!' shouted Joseph, beside himself. 'Have you no comprehension at all? No Alston slave has ever run away. My father will be scandalized. It's a shameful occurrence. Shameful!' he repeated, glaring at her.

'I'm sorry, Joseph,' she said again lamely, wondering if it were her own relief at Venus's absence, for any reason, which made it impossible to understand his violence. Or was it but another of those inexplicable differences in their viewpoints? There had been many of these, and yet they never ceased to astonish her.

Accustomed as she was to her husband's sudden rages, she was appalled at his vindictiveness. A vein throbbed in his forehead and his voice shook. 'The ungrateful bitch! I was too lenient with her last spring. She should have had the lash. Now when she's brought back, she shall have more than the lash. She shall have a chain around her yellow ankle, and at the other end a fine mate. I shall breed her to the Ape.'

'Oh, Joseph, no! Don't speak like that, you frighten me'. Theo stared at him horrified. The 'Ape' was a slobbering and dangerous idiot who dwelt in a remote cabin under the care of Maum Reba, his unfortunate mother. Even for Venus, Theo could not imagine such a fate.

Joseph slumped suddenly onto a chair, scowling at the floor. 'Couldn't you just let her go?' Theo ventured after a minute. 'What difference does one slave make? You can afford it'. 'Just let her go!' mimicked Joseph furiously; then he added more quietly, 'You don't know what you're talking about. She's worth near a thousand dollars, though that's not all. How long, think you, would our plantation system endure if runaway slaves were let go? How long before they would begin to feel themselves equal to the whites? Do you want an insurrection? Would you like the Oaks to be run by niggers?' She shook her head. 'But do you think you can find her?' 'She cannot have gone far. I've sent an advertisement to the Gazette and the Courier. She'll be hard to hide; she's an uncommonly handsome wench.'

Theo looked up quickly at something in his voice, but she saw that he had been unconscious of any unusual intonation, unconscious, too, of her recoil as he repeated slowly: 'When she's brought back, she shall have a taste of the cat on her deceitful yellow back, then she shall live with the idiot until such a time as I choose to sell her to the Spaniards in Florida. She shall see the rewards of disobedience and ingratitude.'

But the weeks went by and Venus was not found, though Joseph continued to advertise, and his overseer made many fruitless trips through the surrounding country.