"Vance of New Orleans," was the reply.

"Mr. Vance, I'm yourn. I know'd yer mus' be from the South. Yer mus' liquor with me, Mr. Vance. Sir, ye'r a high-tone gemmleman. I'm Kunnle Hyde, — Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Virginia-born, be Gawd! An' I'm not ashamed ter say it! My ahnces'tors cum over with the caval'yers in King James's time, slave-owners in the hull State of Virginia, yes, sir-r-r! Lost his proputty, every damned cent of it, sir, through a lowlived Yankee judge, sir!"

yes, sir-r-r! My father was one of the largest

"I could have sworn, Colonel Hyde, there was no Puritan blood in your veins."

"That's a fak!" said the Colonel, grimly smiling his gratification. Then, throwing his cigar overboard, he remarked: "The Champion 's nowhar, I reckon, by this time. She ain't in sight no longer. What say yer to a brandy-smash? sh'l it be a julep?"

Or

"The bar is crowded just now; let 's wait awhile," replied Vance.

Here Mr. Onslow turned away in disgust, and, rejoining the Berwicks, remarked to the lady, "What think you of your

gentleman now?"

"I shall keep my thoughts respecting him to myself for the present," she replied.

"My wife piques herself on her skill in judging of character by the physiognomy," said Mr. Berwick, apologetically; "and I see you can't make her believe she is wrong in this case. She sometimes gets impressions from the very handwriting of a person, and they often turn out wonderfully correct.”

"Has Mrs. Berwick the gift of second-sight? Is she a

seeress?"

"Her faculty does not often show itself in soothsaying," said Berwick. “But I have a step-mother who now and then has premonitions."

"Do they ever find a fulfilment ?"

"One time in a hundred, perhaps," said Berwick.

"If I

believed in them largely, I should not be on board this boat."

"Why so?" inquired Onslow.

"She predicts disaster to it."

"But why did you not tell me that before?" asked Mrs. Berwick.

"Simply, my dear, because you are inclined to be superstitious."

"Hear him, Mr. Onslow!" said Mrs. Berwick. "He calls me superstitious because I believe in spirits, whereas it is that belief which has cured me of superstition."

"I can readily suppose it," replied Onslow. "The superstitious man is the unbeliever, he who thinks that all these phenomena can be produced by the blind, unintelligent forces of nature, by a mechanical or chemical necessity."

"I may believe in spirits in their proper places," said Berwick, "and not believe in their visiting this earth."

"But what if their condition is such that they are independent of those restrictions of space or place which are such impediments to us poor mortals ?"

"Do you, too, then, believe in ghosts?" asked Berwick. "Yes; I am a ghost myself," said Onslow.

Berwick started at the abruptness of the announcement, then smiled, and replied, "Prove it."

"That I will, both etymologically and chemically," rejoined Onslow. "The words ghost and gas are set down by a majority of the philologists as from the same root, whether Gothic, Saxon, or Sanscrit, implying vapor, spirit. The fermenting yeast, the steaming geyser, are allied to it. Now modern science has established (and Professor Henry will confirm what I say) that man begins his earthly existence as a microscopic vesicle of almost pure and transparent water. It is not true that he is made of dust. He consists principally of solidified air. The ashes which remain after combustion are the only ingredient of an earthy character that enters into the composition of his body. All the other parts of it were originally in the atmosphere. Nay, a more advanced science will probably show that even his ashes, in their last analysis, are an invisible, gaseous substance. Nine tenths of a man's body, we can even now prove, are water; and water, we all know, may be decomposed into invisible gases, and then made to reappear as a visible liquid. Science tells me, dear madam, that as to my body I am nothing but forty or fifty pounds of carbon and nitrogen,

diluted by five and a half pailfuls of water.

Put me under

hydraulic pressure, and you can prove it. So I do seriously maintain, that I am as much entitled to the appellation of a ghost (that is, a gaseous body) as was the buried majesty of Denmark, otherwise known as Hamlet's father."

"And I assert that Mr. Onslow has proved his point admirably," said Mrs. Berwick, clapping her little hands.

"I confess I never before considered the subject in that light," rejoined her husband.

"If science can prove," continued Mr. Onslow, "that nine tenths of my present body may be changed to a gaseous, invisible substance (invisible to mortal eyes), with power to permeate what we call matter, like electricity, is it so very difficult to imagine that a spirit in a spiritual body may be standing here by our side without our knowing it?"

"I see you have n't the fear of Sir David Brewster and the North British Review before your eyes, Mr. Onslow."

"No, for I do not regard them as infallible either in questions of physical or of metaphysical science. Rather, with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, would I say, 'With my latest breath will I bear testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible world, that, namely, of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the testimony of all ages.""

While this discussion was proceeding, Colonel Hyde and his new acquaintance were pacing the larboard side of the deck, pausing now and then at the railing forward of the wheel-house and looking down on the lower deck, where, seated upon a coil of cables, were four negroes, one of them, and he the most intelligent-looking of the lot, being handcuffed.

"How are niggers now?" asked Mr. Vance.

"Niggers air bringin' fust-rate prices jest now," replied the Colonel; "and Gov'nor Wise he reckons ef we fix Californy and Kahnsas all right, a prime article of a nigger will fotch twenty-five hunderd dollars, sure."

"What's the prospect of doing that?" "Good. The South ain't sleeping, - no, not by a damned sight. Californy's bound to be ourn, an' the Missouri boys will take car' of Kahnsas."

"I see the North are threatening to send in armed immi

grants," said Vance; "and one John Brown swears Kansas shall be free soil."

"John Brown be damned!" replied the Colonel. "One common Suthun man is more 'r a match fur five of thar best Yankees, any day. Kahnsas must be ourn, ef we hev to shoot every white squatter in the hull terrertory. By the way, that's a likely yuller gal, sittin' thar with the bebby. That gal ud bring sixteen hunderd dollars sure in Noo Orleenz."

"Whose niggers are those I see forward there, on the cables?" asked Vance.

"Them niggers, Mr. Vance, air under my car', an' I'm takin' 'em to Texas fur Kunnle Barnwell. The feller yer see han'cuffed thar an' sleepin', run away three or four yars ago. At last the Kunnle heerd, through Hermin & Co., that Peek (that's his name) was in New York; an' so the Kunnle gits me ter go on fur him; an' cuss me ef I did n't ketch him easy. The other three niggers air a lot the Kunnle's agent in St. Louis bowt fur him last week."

"How did you dodge the Abolitionists in New York?" inquired Vance. "You went before the United States Commissioner, I suppose, and proved your claim to the article."

"Damned ef I did! Arter I'd kotched Peek, he said, ef as how I'd let him go home, an' settle up, he 'd return, so help him Gawd, an' give hisself up without no fuss or trial. Wall, I'm a judge of niggers, — kn see right through 'em, — kn ollerz tell whan a nigger's lying. I seed Peek was in airnest, and so I let him go; and may I be shot but he cum back jest at the hour he said he would."

"Very extraordinary!" said Vance, musingly.

be a great judge of character, Colonel Hyde."

66

"You must

'Wall, what's extrordinerer still," continued the Colonel, "is this: Peek wanted money ter send ter his wife, and cuss me ef he did n't offer ter go the hull way ter Cincinnati without no officers ter guard him, ef I 'd give him twenty-five dollars. In coorse I done it, seein' as how I saved fifty dollars by the operation. The minute he got on board this 'ere boat I hahd him han'cuffed, fur I knowed his promise wah n't good no longer, anyhow."

66

Colonel, what's your address?" asked Mr. Vance. "If

ever I lose a nigger, you 're the man I must send for to help me find him."

The Colonel drew forth from his vest pocket a dirty card, and presented it to Mr. Vance. It contained these words: "Colonel Delancy Hyde, Agent for the Recovery of Escaped Slaves. Address him, care of J. Breckenridge, St. Louis; Hermin & Co., New Orleans."

"Shall be proud to do yer business, Mr. Vance," said the Colonel.

"I must have a talk with that handcuffed fellow of yours by and by," remarked Vance.

"Do!" returned the Colonel. "Yer 'll find him a right knowin' nigger. He kn read an' write, an' that air 's more 'n we kn say of some white folks in our part of the kintry."

"Do the owners hereabouts lose many slaves now-a-days?" "Not sence old Gashface was killed last autumn."

"Who's Gashface? Is it a real name?" asked Vance.

66

Nobody ever knowed his raal name," returned the Colonel; "an' so we called him Gashface, seein' as he 'd a bad gash over his left cheek. He was a half mulatto, with woolly hair, an' so short-sighted he weared specs. Wall, that bloody cuss hahz run off more niggers nor all the abolitioners in the Northwest,

damned ef he haint! Two millions of dollars would n't pay fur all the slaves he 's helped across the line. He guv his hull time ter the work, an' was crazy mad on that one pint. Last yar the planters clubbed together an' made up a pus of five thousand dollars fur the man that 'ud shoot the cuss. Two gemmlemen from Vicksburg went inter the job, treed him, shot him dead, an' tuk the five thousand dollars. An almighty good day's work!” *

"How did the planters know they had got the right man?" asked Vance.

"Wall, there wah n't much doubt about that, yer see," said the Colonel. "Them as shot him war' high-tone gemmlemen,

*It afterwards appeared that the Vicksburg "gentlemen," impatient at their want of success, selected a man who came nearest to the description of Gashface, shot him, and then marked his body in a way to satisfy the expectations of those who had formed an imaginative idea of the personal peculiarities that would identify the celebrated liberator, so long the terror of masters on the Mississippi.