CHAPTER XX.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE ST. CHARLES.

"Hail, year of God's farming! Hail, summer of an emancipated continent, which shall lay up in storehouse and barn the great truths that were worth the costly dressing of a people's blood!"- Rev. John Weiss.

N one of the rooms of the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans

IN

a man sat meditating. The windows looked out on a street where soldiers were going through their drill amid occasional shouts from by-standers. As the noise grew louder, the man rose and went to a window. He was hardly above the middle stature, slim and compact, but as lithe as if jointed like an eel. His hair was slightly streaked with gray. His features, though not full, spoke health, vigor, and pure habits of life; while his white, well-preserved teeth, neatly trimmed beard, and well-cut, well-adjusted clothes showed that, as he left his youth behind him, his attention to his personal appearance did not decrease. Fourteen years had made but little change in Vance. It had not tamed the fire of his eyes nor slackened the alertness of his tread.

As he caught sight of the "stars and bars" waving in the spring sunlight, an expression of scorn was emitted in his frown, and he exclaimed: "Detested rag! I shall yet live to trample you in the dirt on that very spot where you now flaunt so bravely. Shout on, poor fools! Continue, ye unreasoning cattle, to crop the flowery food, and lick the hand just raised to shed your blood. And you, too, leaders of the rank and file, led, in your turn, by South Carolina fire-eaters, go on and overtake that fate denounced by the prophet on evildoers. Hug the strong delusion and believe the lie! Declare, with the smatterers of the Richmond press, that Christian civilization is a mistake, and that the new Confederacy is a Godsent missionary to the nations to teach them that pollution is purity, and incest a boon from heaven. The time is not far distant when you shall learn how far the Eternal Powers are the allies of human laziness, arrogance, and lust!"

Suddenly the soliloquist seemed struck by the appearance of some one in the crowd; for, taking from his pocket an operaglass, and regulating the focus, he looked through it, then muttered: "Yes, it is he! Poor maggot! What haughtiness in his look!"

Just then a man on horseback, in the dress of a civilian, and followed by a slave, also mounted, rode forward nearer to where Vance sat at his window. A multitude gathered round the foremost equestrian, and called for a speech. "The Kunnle is jest frum South Kerlinay," exclaimed a swarthy inebriate, who seemed to be spokesman for the mob. "A speech frum Kunnle Ratcliff! Hoorray!"

Ratcliff, with a gesture of annoyance, rose in his stirrups, and said: "Friends, I've nothing to tell you that you can't find better told in the newspapers. This is no time for talk. We want action now. All's right at Charleston. Sumter has fallen. That's the first great step. The Yankees may bluster, but they'll never fight. The meanest white man at the South is more than a match for any five Yankees. We'll have them begging to be let into our Southern Confederacy before Christmas. But we won't receive 'em. No! As Jeff Davis well says, sooner hyenas than Yankees! But we must whip them into decency. And so, before the next Fourth of July, we mean to have our flag flying over Faneuil Hall. We are the master race, my friends! We must show these nigger stealing, beggarly Yankees that they must stand cap in hand when they venture to come into our presence. Don't believe the croakers who tell you slavery will be weakened by secession. It's going to be strengthened. So convinced am I of it, that I've doubled my number of slaves; and if any of you wish to sell, bring on your niggers! Do you see that flag? Well, that flag has got to wave over all Mexico, Cuba, and Central America. In five years from now every man of you shall own his score of niggers and his hundred acres of land. So go ahead, and aim low when you sight a Yankee.”

The speech was received with cheers, and Ratcliff started his horse; but the leading loafer of the crowd seized the reins, and said: "Can't let yer off so, Kunnle, can't no how you kun fix it. We want a reg'lar game speech, sich as you kun make

when you dam please.

So fire up, and do your prettiest.

Be n't we the master race?"

"Pshaw! Let go those reins," said Ratcliff, cutting the vagabond over his face with the but-end of a riding-whip.

The crowd laughed, and the loafer, astonished and sobered, dropped the reins, and put his hand to his eye, which had been badly hit. Ratcliff rode on, but a muttered curse went after him.

Seeing the loafer stand feeling of his eye as if had been hurt, Vance said to him from the window: "Go to the apothecary's, and tell him to give you something to bathe it in.”

"Go ter the 'pothecary's! With nary a red in my pocket! Strannger, don't try to fool this child."

"Here's money, if you want it."

"Money? I should like ter see the color of it, strannger." "Hold your hat, then."

And Vance dropped into the hat something wrapped in a newspaper which the loafer incredulously unfolded. Finding in it a five-dollar gold-piece, he stared first at the money, then at Vance, and said: Strannger, I'd say, God bless yer, if I did n't think, what a poor cuss like I could say would rayther harm than help. Have n't no influence with God A'mighty, strannger. But you're a man, -you air, not a sneakin' 'ristocrat as despises a poor white feller more 'n he does a nigger. I've seen yer somewhar afore, but can 't say whar." "Go and attend to your eye, my friend," said Vance. "I will. An' if ever I kun do yer a good turn, jes call on Vance could not hear the name; but he bowed, and the loafer moved on. Looking in another direction, Vance saw Ratcliff dismount, throw the reins to his attendant, and disappear in a vestibule of the hotel. Vance rose and wildly paced the room. His whole frame quivered to the very tips of his fingers, which he stretched forth as if to clutch some invisible antagonist. He muttered incoherent words, and, smiting his brow as if to keep back thoughts that struggled too tumultuously for expression, cried: "O that I had him here, face to face, weaponless, both of us! Would I not merciless villain! The cowardly miscreant! To lash a woman! That moment of horror! Often as I've lived it over, it is ever new. Can eternity make it fade? Again I see her,

here,

The

-

pale, very pale and bleeding, and tied, — tied to the stake. O Ratcliff! When shall this bridled vengeance overtake thee? Pshaw! What is he,-an individual, — what is the sum of pain that he can suffer? Would that be a requital? Will not his own devices work better for me than aught I can do?"

Seating himself in an arm-chair, Vance calmed his vindictive thoughts. In memory he went back to that day when he first heard Estelle sing; then to their first evening in Mrs. Mallet's little house; then to the old magnolia-tree before it. That house he had bought and given in keeping to Mrs. Bernard, a married granddaughter of old Leroux, the Frenchman. Every tree and shrub in the area had been reverently cared for. Had not Estelle plucked blossoms from them all?

He thought of his marriage,- of his pleasant walks with Estelle in Jackson Square, of their musical enjoyments,-of all her little devices to minister to his comfort and delight,and then of the sudden clouding of this brief but most exquisite sunshine.

Vance took from the pocket of his vest a little circular box of rosewood. Unscrewing the cover, he revealed a photograph of Estelle, taken after her marriage. There was such a smile on the countenance as only the supreme happiness of a loving heart could have created. On the opposite circle was a curl of her hair of that strangely beautiful neutral tint which Vance had often admired. This he pressed to his lips. "Dear saint," he murmured, "I have not forgotten thy parting words. For thy sake will I wrestle with this spirit that would seek a paltry revenge. Thy smile, O my beloved! shall dispel the remembrance of thy agony, and thy love shall conquer all earth-born hate. For thy dear sake will I still calmly meet thy murderer. O, lend me of thy divine patience to endure his presence! Sweet child, affectionate and pure, I can dream of nothing in heaven more precious than thyself. If from thee, O my beloved! come this spiritual refreshing and reinforcement, — if from thee these tender influences, so bright and yet so gentle, then must thy sphere be one within which the angels delight to come."

There was a knock at the door. Vance shut the box, replaced it in his pocket, and cried, "Come in!"

"Colored man down stars, sar, wants to see yer."

"Did he give his name?"

"Yes, sar, he say his name is Jacobs."

"Show him up."

A negro now entered wearing green spectacles, and a wig of gray wool. Across his cheek there was a scar. No sooner was the door closed upon the waiter, than Vance exclaimed: "Is it possible? Can this be you, Peek?"

Peek threw off his disguises, and Vance seized him by the hand as he might have seized a returning brother.

"What of your wife and child? Have you found 'em?” "No, Mr. Vance, I'm still a wanderer over the earth in search of them. I shall find them in God's good time." "Sit down, Peek."

"Excuse me, Mr. Vance, I'd rather stand."

"Very well. Then I'll stand too."

"Since you make it a point of politeness, sir, I'll sit." "That's right. And now, my dear fellow, tell me what you've been about these many years.

covered some traces of the lost ones?"

Surely you've dis

"None that have been of much use, Mr. Vance. I'm satisfied that Flora was lured on to Baltimore by some party who deceived her with the expectation of meeting me there. From Baltimore she and her child were taken to Richmond by the agent of her old master, and sold at auction to a dealer, who soon afterwards died. There the clew breaks."

'My poor Peek, your not finding her has probably saved you from a deeper disappointment."

"What do you mean, Mr. Vance?"

"The chance is, she has been forced to marry some other man.'

22

"I know, sir, that would be the probability in the case of ninety-nine slave-women out of a hundred. But Flora once swore to me on the crucifix, she would be true to me or die. And I feel very certain she will keep her oath."

"Ah! slavery is so crafty and remorseless in working on human passions," sighed Vance. "But you are right, my dear your adventures."

Peek, in hoping on. Tell me of

"When you and I parted at Memphis, Mr. Vance, I went to