CHAPTER XLII. A HOW IT WAS DONE. "From Thee is all that soothes the life of man, Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor, And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away!" - Cowper. LL the efforts of Peculiar to induce the bloodhound, Victor, to take the scent of either of the gloves, had proved unavailing. At every trial Victor persisted in going straight to the jail where his master, Antoine, was confined. Peek began to despair of discovering any trace of the abducted maiden. Were dumb animals ever guided by spirit influence? There were many curious facts showing that birds were sometimes used to convey impressions, apparently from higher intelligences. At sea, not long ago, a bird had flown repeatedly in the helmsman's face, till the latter was induced to change his course. The consequence was, his encounter with a ship's crew in a boat, who must have perished that night in the storm, had they not been picked up. There were also instances in which dogs would seem to have been the mere instruments of a super human and supercanine sagacity. But Victor plainly was not thus impressible. His instincts led him to his master, but beyond that point they would not or could not be made to exert themselves. Had not Peek's faith in the triumph of the right been large, he would have despaired of any help from the coming of the United States forces. For weeks the newspapers had teemed with paragraphs, some scientific and some rhetorical, showing that New Orleans must not and could not be taken. They all overflowed with bitterness toward the always "cowardly and base-born" Yankees. The Mayor of the city wrote, in the. true magniloquent and grandiose style affected by the Rebel leaders: "As for hoisting any flag not of our own adoption, the man lives not in our midst whose hand and heart would not be paralyzed at the mere thought of such an act!" A well-known physician, who had simply expressed the opinion that possibly the city might have to surrender, had been waited on by a Vigilance Committee and warned. Taking the hint, the man of rhubarb forthwith handed over a contribution of five hundred dollars, in expiation of his offence. All at once the confident heart of Rebeldom was stunned by the news that two of the Yankee steamers had passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip. The great ram had been powerless to prevent it. Then followed the announcement that seven, then thirteen, — then twenty, — then the whole of Farragut's fleet, excepting the Varuna, were coming. Yes, the Hartford and the Brooklyn and the Mississippi and the Pensacola and the Richmond, and the Lord knew how many more, were on their way up the great river. They would soon be at English Bend; nay, they would soon be at the Levee, and have the haughty city entirely at their mercy ! No sooner was the terrible news confirmed than the Rebel authorities ordered the destruction of all the cotton-bales stored on the Levee. The rage, the bitterness, the anguish of the proslavery chiefs was indescribable. Several attempts were made to fire the city, and they would probably have succeeded, but for a timely fall of rain. On the landing of the United States forces, the frenzy of the Secessionists passed all bounds; and one poor fellow, a physician, was hung by them for simply telling a United States officer where to find the British Consulate. But if some hearts were sick and crushed at the spectacle, there were many thousands in that great metropolis to whom the sight of the old flag carried a joy and exultation transcending the power of words to express; and one of these hearts beat under the black skin of Peek. Followed by Victor, he ran to the Levee where United States troops were landing, and there O joy unspeakable !· - standing on the upper deck of one of the smaller steamers, and almost one of the first persons he saw, was Mr. Vance. - Peek shouted his name, and Vance, leaping on shore, threw his arms impulsively round the brawny negro, and pressed him to his breast. Brief the time for explanations. In a few clear words, Peek made Vance comprehend the precise state of affairs, and in five minutes the latter, at the head of a couple of hundred soldiers, and with Peek walking at his side, was on his way to the jail. Victor, the bloodhound, evidently understood it all. He saw, at length, that he was going to carry his point. Arrived at the jail, a large, square, whitewashed building, with barred windows, they encountered at the outer door three men smoking cigars. The foremost of them, a stern-looking, middle-aged man, with fierce, red whiskers, and who was in his shirt-sleeves, came forward, evidently boiling over with a wrath he was vainly trying to conceal, and asked what was wanted. "There is a black man, Antoine Lafour, confined here. Produce him at once." "But, sir," said the deputy, "this is altogether against civilized usage. This is a place for "I can't stop to parley with you. Produce the man instantly." "I shall do no such thing." Vance turned to an orderly, and said, "Arrest this man." At once the deputy was seized on either side by two soldiers. “Now, sir,” said Vance, cocking his pistol and taking out his watch, "Produce Antoine Lafour in five minutes, or I will shoot you dead." The bloodhound, who had been scenting with curious nose the man's person, now seconded the menace by a savage growl, which seemed to have more effect even than the pistol, for the deputy, turning to one of the men in attendance, said sulkily, "Bring out the nigger, and be quick about it." In three minutes Antoine appeared, and the dog leaped bodily into his arms, the negro talking to him much as he would to a human being. "I knowed you'd do it, ole feller! Thar! Down! Down, I say, ole Vic! It takes you, don't it? Down! Behave yourself afore folk. Why, Peek, is this you? "Yes, Antoine, and this is Mr. Vance, and here's the old flag, and you're no longer a slave." "What? I no longer a No! Say them words agin, Peek! Free? Owner of my own flesh an' blood? Dis arm mine? Dis head mine? Bress de Lord, Peek! Bress him for all his mercies! Amen! Hallelujah!" The released negro could not forego a few wild antics expressive of his rapture. Peek checked him, and bade him remember the company he was in; and Antoine bowed to Vance and said: "'Scuze me, Kunnle. I don't perfess to be sich a high-tone gemmleman as Peek here, but " 66 Stop!" cried Peek; "where did you get those last words?" "What words?" asked Antoine, showing the whites of his eyes with an expression of concern at Peek's suddenly serious manner. 6 "Those words, high-tone gemmleman.' Whom did you ever hear use them?" "Yah, yah! Wall, Peek, those words I got from Kunnle Delancy Hyde." "Where, - where and when did you get them?" "Bress yer, Peek, jes now, - not two minutes ago, the gallery whar the Kunnle's walkin' up and down." dar in Peek smiled significantly at Vance, and the latter, approaching the deputy who had not yet been released from custody, remarked: "You have a man named Hyde confined there." "Yes, Delancy Hyde. The scoundrel stole the funds given to him to pay recruiting expenses." "For which I desire to thank him. Bring him out." "But, sir, you would n't —” “Five minutes, Mr. Deputy, I give you, a second time, in which to obey my orders. If Mr. Delancy Hyde is n't forthcoming before this second-hand goes round five times, one of your friends here shall have the opportunity of succeeding you in office, and you shall be deposited where the wicked cease from troubling." The deputy was far from being agreeably struck at the prospect of quitting the company of the wicked. But for them his vocation would be wanting. And so he nodded to a subordinate, and in three minutes out stalked the astonishing figure of Colonel Delancy Hyde, wearing a dirty woollen Scotch cap, and attired in the coarsest costume of the jail. Ignorant of the great event of the day, not perceiving the old flag, and supposing that he had been called out to be shot, Hyde walked up to Vance, and said: "Kunnle, you look like a high-tone gemmleman, and afore I'm shot I want ter make a confidential request." “Well, sir, what is it?" said Vance, shading his face with his cap so as not to be recognized. "Speak quick. I can't spare you three minutes." "Wall, Kunnle, it's jes this: I've a sister, yer see, in Alabamy, jest out of Montgomery; her name 's Dorothy Rusk. She's a widder with six childern ; one on 'em an idiot, one a cripple, and the eldest gal in a consumption. Dorothy has had a cruel hard time on it, as you may reckon, an' I've ollerz paid her rent and a leetle over till this cussed war broke out, since when I've been so hard up I've had ter scratch gravel thunderin' lively to git my own grub. Them Confed'rate rags that I 'propriated, I meant to send to Dorothy; but the fogies, they war too quick for me. Wall, ter come ter the pint: I want you ter write a letter ter Dorothy, jes tellin' her that the reason why Delancy can't remit is that Delancy has been shot; and tellin' her he sent his love and all that- whar you can't come it too strong, Kunnle, for yer see Dorothy an' I, we was 'bout the same age, and used ter make mud-pies together, and sail our boats together down thar in the old duck-pond, when we was childern; an' so yer see Vance looked into his face. Yes, the battered old reprobate was trying to gulp down his agitation, and there were tears rolling down his cheeks. Vance was touched. 66 Hyde, don't you know me?" he said. "What! Mr. Vance? Mr. Vance!" 66 Nobody else, Hyde. He comes here a United States officer, you see. New Orleans has surrendered to Uncle Sam. Look at that flag. Instead of being shot, you are set at liberty. Here's your old friend, Peek.” The knees of Colonel Delancy Hyde smote each other, and his florid face grew pale. Flesh and blood he could encounter well as any man, but a ghost was a piling on of something he had n't bargained for. Yet there palpably before him stood Peek, the identical Peek he believed to have been drowned in the Mississippi some fifteen years back, |