"Well, mother, thank you for all your trouble. Here's a dollar to buy a pair of shoes with. Good by." The old woman's eyes snapped as she clutched the money, and with Peek!" hobbled away. yer, "Bress a The rest of that day Peek devoted to a search for Victor. He sought him near the stable, — in the blacksmith's shop, in the market, at the few houses which Antoine frequented; but no Victor could be found. At last, late at night, weary and desponding, Peek retraced his steps homeward; and as he took out the door-key to enter the house, the dog he had been looking for rose from the upper step, and came down wagging his tail, and uttering a low squealing note of satisfaction. "Why, Victor, is this you? I've been looking for you all day." The dog, as if he fully understood the remark, wagged his tail with increased vigor, and then checked himself in a bark which tapered off into a confidential whine, as if he were afraid of being heard by some detective. Victor was a cross between a Scotch terrier and a thoroughbread Cuba bloodhound, imported for hunting runaway slaves. He combined the good traits of both breeds. He had the accurate scent, the large size and black color of the hound, the wiry hair, the tenacity, and the affectionate nature of the terrier. In the delicate action of his expressive nose, you saw keenness of scent in its most subtle inquisitions. Late as was the hour, Peek (who, in the event of being stopped, had the mayor's pass for his protection) determined on an instant trial of the dog's powers, for the exercise of which perhaps the night would in this instance be the most favorable time. He took him to Semmes's office, and making him scent the lawyer's glove, indicated a wish to have him find out his trail. Victor either would not or could not understand what was wanted. He threw up his nose as if in contempt, and turned away from the glove as if he desired to have nothing to do with it. Then he would run away a short distance, and come back, and rise with his fore feet on Peek's breast. He repeated this several times, and at last Peek said: "Well, have your own way. Go ahead, old fellow." Victor thanked him in another low whine, uttered as if ad dressed exclusively to his private ears, and then trotted off, assured that Peek was following. In half an hour's time, he stopped before a square whitewashed building with iron-grated windows. 66 Confound you, Victor!" muttered Peek. "You 've told me nothing new, bringing me here. I was already aware your master was in jail. I can do nothing for him. Can't you do better than that? Come along!" Returning to Semmes's office, Peek tried once more to interest the dog in the glove; but Victor tossed his nose away as if in a pet. He would have nothing to do with it. "Come along, then, you rascal," said Peek. "We can do nothing further to-night. Come and share my room with me." He reached home as the clock struck one. Victor followed him into the house, and eagerly disposed of a supper of bones and milk. Peek then went up to bed and threw down a mat by the open window, upon which the dog stretched himself as if he were quite as tired as his human companion. CHAPTER XL. YES THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND. "Let me have men about me that are fat; Shakespeare. ES, Ratcliff had escaped. His temper had not been sweetened by his forced visit to the North. In Fort Lafayette he had for a while given way to the sulks. Then he changed his tactics. Finding that Surgeon Mooney, though a Northern man, had conservative notions on the subject of the "nigger,” he addressed himself to the work of befooling that functionary. Inasmuch as Nature had already half done it to his hands, he did not find the task a difficult one. In his imprisonment Ratcliff had ample time for indulging in day-dreams. He grew almost maudlin over that photograph of Clara. Yes! By his splendid generosity he would bind to him forever that beautiful young girl. He must transmit his proud name to legitimate children. He must be the founder of a noble house; for the Confederacy, when triumphant, would undoubtedly have its orders of nobility. A few years in Europe with such a wife would suit him admirably. Slidell and Mason, having been released from Fort Warren in Boston harbor, would be proud to take him by the hand and introduce him and his to the best society. These visions came to soften his chagrin and mitigate the tediousness of imprisonment. But he now grew impatient for the fulfilment of his schemes. Delay had its dangers. True, he confided much in the vigilance of Semmes, but Semmes was an old man, and might drop off any day. A beautiful white slave was a very hazardous piece of property. At a It was not difficult for Ratcliff to persuade Surgeon Mooney that his health required greater liberty of movement. time when, under the Davis régime, sick and wounded United States soldiers, imprisoned at Richmond in filthy tobacco-warehouses, were, in repeated instances, brutally and against all civilized usages shot dead for going to the windows to inhale a little fresh air, the National authorities were tender to a degree, almost ludicrous in contrast, of the health and rights of Rebel prisoners. If any of these were troubled with a bowel complaint or a touch of lumbago, the "central despotism at Washington" was denounced, by journals hostile to the war, as responsible for the affliction, and the people were called on to rescue violated Freedom from the clutches of an insidious tyrant, even from plain, scrupulous "old Abe," son of a poor Kentuckian who could show no pedigree, like Colonel Delancy Hyde and Jefferson Davis. A pathetic paragraph appeared in one of the newspapers, giving a piteous story of a "loyal citizen of New Orleans," who, for no namable offence, was made to pine in a foul dungeon to satisfy the personal pique of Mr. Secretary Stanton. Soon afterwards a remonstrance in behalf of this victim of oppression was signed by Surgeon Mooney. Ratcliff, whom the public sympathy had been led to picture as in the last stage of a mortal malady, was forthwith admitted to extraordinary privileges. He was enabled to communicate clandestinely with friends in New York. He soon managed to get on board a Nova Scotia coasting schooner. A week afterwards, he succeeded in running the blockade, and in disembarking safely at Wilmington, N. C. Anxious as he was to get home, he must first go to Richmond to pay his respects to "President" Davis, of whom everybody at the South used to say to Mr. W. H. Russell of the London Times, "Don't you think our President is a remarkable man?" Ratcliff was not unknown to Davis, and sent up his card. It drew forth an immediate "Show him in." The "remarkable man sat in his library at a small table strewn with letters and manuscripts. A thin, Cassius-like, care-burdened figure, slightly above the middle height. What some persons called dignity in his manner was in truth merely ungracious stiffness; while his hauteur was the unquiet arrogance that fears it shall not get its due. His face was not that of a man who could prudently afford to sneer (as he had publicly done) at Abraham Lincoln's homeliness. But before him lay letters on which the postage-stamp was an absurdly flattered likeness of himself, as like him as the starved apothecary is like Jupiter Tonans. -- In the original the cheeks were shrunken and sallow, leaving the bones high and salient. The jaws were thin and hollow; the forehead wrinkled and out of all proportion with the lower part of the face; the eyes deep-set, and one of them dulled by a severe neuralgic affection. The lips were too thin, and there was no sweetness in the mouth. The whole expression was that of one whose besetting characteristic is an intense self-consciousness. This man could not be betrayed into the ease and abandon of one of nature's noblemen, for he was never thinking so much of others as of himself. The absence in him of all geniality of manner was not the reserve of a gentleman, but the frigidity of an unsympathetic and unassured heart. There was little in him of the Southern type of manhood. It is not to be wondered that bluff General Taylor could not overcome his repugnance to him as a son-in-law. Although at the head of the Rebellion, this man had no vital faith in it; no enthusiasm that could magnetize others by a noble contagion. He was not a fanatic, like Stonewall Jackson. And yet, just previously to Ratcliff's call, he had been exercised in mind about joining the church, -a step he finally took. He had few of the qualities of a statesman. His petty malignities overcame all sense of the proprieties becoming his station; for he would give way, even in his public official addresses, to scurrilities which had the meanness without the virility of the slang of George Sanderson, and which showed a lack of the primary elements of a heroic nature. A man greatly overrated as to abilities. A repudiator of the sacred obligations assumed by his State, it was his added infelicity to be defended by John Slidell. Never respected for truthfulness by those who knew him best. Future historians will contrast him with President Lincoln, and will show that, while the latter surpassed him immeasurably in high moral attributes, he was also his superior in intellectual pith. The interview between Ratcliff and Davis began with an |