GIDEON'S BAND

 BOOKS BY GEORGE W. CABLE

 Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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[Illustration: Ramsey [_Page 80_]]

 GIDEON'S BAND

 A TALE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

 BY

 GEORGE W. CABLE

 ILLUSTRATED BY

 F. C. YOHN

 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1914

 Copyright, 1914, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

 Published September, 1914

 TO EVA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

 I. The Steamboat Levee 1

 II. "The Votaress" 5

 III. Certain Passengers 9

 IV. The First Two Miles 13

 V. Ramsey Hayle 17

 VI. Hayles's Twins 25

 VII. Supper 31

 VIII. Questions 37

 IX. Sitting Silent 43

 X. Peril 50

 XI. First Night-Watch 57

 XII. Hugh and the Twins 68

 XIII. The Superabounding Ramsey 75

 XIV. The Committee of Seven 83

 XV. Morning Watch 90

 XVI. Phyllis 95

 XVII. "It's a-Happmin' Yit--to We All" 106

 XVIII. Ramsey Wins a Point or Two 113

 XIX. This Way to Womanhood 122

 XX. Ladies' Table 131

 XXI. Ramsey and the Bishop 138

 XXII. Basile and What He Saw 147

 XXIII. A State of Affairs 152

 XXIV. A Senator Enlightened 158

 XXV. "Please Assemble" 164

 XXVI. Alarm and Distress 173

 XXVII. Pilots' Eyes 180

 XXVIII. Words and the "Westwood" 186

 XXIX. Studying the River--Together 195

 XXX. Phyllis Again 203

 XXXI. The Burning Boat 211

 XXXII. A Prophet in the Wilderness 222

 XXXIII. Twins and Texas Tender 229

 XXXIV. The Peacemakers 234

 XXXV. Unsettled Weather 246

 XXXVI. Captain's Room 252

 XXXVII. Basile Uses a Cane 260

 XXXVIII. The Cane Again 272

 XXXIX. Fortitude 280

 XL. Ramsey at the Footlights 289

 XLI. Quits 299

 XLII. Against Kin 306

 XLIII. Which from Which 313

 XLIV. Forbearance 319

 XLV. Applause 327

 XLVI. After the Play 331

 XLVII. Insomnia 337

 XLVIII. "California" 347

 XLIX. Kangaroo Point 354

 L. "Delta Will Do" 365

 LI. Loving-Kindness 374

 LII. Love Runs Rough but Runs on 383

 LIII. Trading for Phyllis 393

 LIV. "Can't!" 404

 LV. Love Makes a Cut-Off 412

 LVI. Eight Years After 425

 LVII. Farewell, "Votaress" 436

 LVIII. 'Lindy Lowe 443

 LIX. "Conclusively" 446

 LX. Once More Hugh Sings 460

 LXI. Wanted, Hayle's Twins 469

 LXII. Euthanasia 478

 LXIII. The Captain's Chair 493

ILLUSTRATIONS

_Ramsey_ _Frontispiece_

 FACING PAGE

_"Stop!. . . Stop! the safest place for you on thisboat now is right where you are standing--Phyllis"_ 258

_"My heavenly Father wouldn't 'a' had to call me inout of the storm"_ 334

_"For I believe that we belong to each other from thecentre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to theeyes of your brothers"_ 420

GIDEON'S BAND

I

THE STEAMBOAT LEVEE

Saturday, April, 1852. There was a fervor in the sky as of an Augustnoon, although the clocks of the city would presently strike five. 

Dazzling white clouds, about to show the earliest flush of the sun'sdecline, beamed down upon a turbid river harbor, where the water wasdeep so close inshore that the port's unbroken mile of steamboat wharfnowhere stretched out into the boiling flood. Instead it merely linedthe shore, the steamers packing in bow on with their noses to it, theirsterns out in the stream, their fenders chafing each other's lowerguards. 

New Orleans was very proud of this scene. Very prompt were her citizens, such as had travelled, to remind you that in many seaports vastwarehouses and roofed docks of enormous cost thronged out so greedily tomeet incoming craft that the one boat which you might be seeking youwould find quite hidden among walls and roofs, and of all the rest ofthe harbor's general fleet you could see little or nothing. Not so onthis great sun-swept, wind-swept, rain-swept, unswept steamboat levee. You might come up out of any street along that mile-wide front, and ifthere were a hundred river steamers in port a hundred you would beholdwith one sweep of the eye. Overhead was only the blue dome, in full viewalmost from rim to rim; and all about, amid a din of shouting, whip-cracking, scolding, and laughing, and a multitudinous flutter ofmany-colored foot-square flags, each marking its special lot of goods, were swarms of men--white, yellow, and black--trucking, tumbling, rolling, hand-barrowing, and "toting" on heads and shoulders a countlessworth of freight in bags, barrels, casks, bales, boxes, and baskets. Hundreds of mules and drays came and went with this same wealth, and outbeyond all, between wharf and open river, profiled on the eastern sky, letting themselves be unloaded and reloaded, stood the compacted, motionless, elephantine phalanx of the boats. 

The flood beneath them was up to the wharf's flooring, yet their low, light-draught hulls, with the freight decks that covered them doubled incarrying room by their widely overhanging freight guards, were hid bythe wilderness of goods on shore. Hid also were their furnaces, boilers, and engines on the same deck, sharing it with the cargo. But all theirgay upper works, so toplofty and frail, showed a gleaming white front tothe western sun. You marked each one's jack-staff, that rose mast highfrom the unseen prow, and behind it the boiler deck, high over theboilers. Over the boiler deck was the hurricane roof, above that theofficers' rooms, called the "texas. " Above the texas was thepilot-house, and on either side, well forward of the pilot-house andtowering abreast of each other and above all else--higher than the twosoaring derrick posts at the two forward corners of the passenger andhurricane decks, higher even than the jack-staff's peak--stood the twogreat black chimneys. 

And what a populace teemed round and through all! Here was the Creole, there the New Englander. Here were men of oddest sorts from theMissouri, Ohio, and nearer and farther rivers. Here were the Irishman, the German, the Congo, Cuban, Choctaw, Texan, Sicilian; the Louisianasugar-planter, the Mississippi cotton-planter, goat-bearded raftsmenfrom the swamps of Arkansas, flatboatmen from the mountains of Tennesseeand Kentucky; the horse trader, the slave-driver, the filibuster, theIndian fighter, the circus rider, the circuit-rider, and men bound forthe goldfields of California. 

More than half the boats, this April afternoon, flew from the jack-staffof each, to signify that it was her day to leave, a streaming burgeebearing her name. A big-lettered strip of canvas drawn along the frontguards of her hurricane-deck told for what port she was "up, " and thegrowing smoke that swelled from her chimneys showed that five was hertime to back out. 

In the midst of the scene, opposite the head of Canal Street--thestreets that run to the New Orleans levee run up-hill and get there headfirst--lay a boat which specially belongs to this narrative. A pictorialposter, down in every café and hotel rotunda of the town, called her"large, new, and elegant, " and such she was in fair comparison with allthe craft on all the sixteen thousand navigable miles of the vast riverand its tributaries. Her goal was Louisville, more than thirteen hundredmiles away. Her steam was up, a velvet-black pitch-pine smoke billowedfrom her chimneys, and her red-and-white burgee, gleaming upon it, namedher the _Votaress_. 

II

THE "VOTARESS"

Her first up-river trip! The crowd waiting on the wharf's apron to seeher go was larger and included better types of the people than usual, for the _Votaress_ was the latest of the Courteney fleet, hence a rivalof the Hayle boats, the most interesting fact that could be stated ofanything afloat on Western waters. 

So young was she, this _Votaress_, so bridally fresh from her Indianaand Kentucky shipyards, that the big new bell in the mid-front of herhurricane roof shone in the low sunlight like a wedding jewel. Itsparting strokes had sounded once but would sound twice again before shecould cast off. Both pilots were in the lofty pilot-house, down from thebreast-board of which a light line ran forward to the bell's tongue, butneither pilot touched the line or the helm. For the captain's useanother cord from the bell hung over the hurricane deck's front and downto the boiler deck rail, but neither up there on the boiler deck noranywhere near the bell on the roof above it was any captain to be seen. 

At the front angle of the roof's larboard rail a youth, quite alone, leaned against one of the tall derrick posts to get its shade. He wastoo short, square, and unanimated to draw much attention, although witha faint unconscious frown between widely parted brows his quiet eyesfell intently upon every detail of the lively scene below. 

The whole great landing lay beneath his glance, a vivid exposition ofthe vast, half-tamed valley's bounty, spoils, and promise; of its motleyhuman life, scarcely yet to be called society, so lately and rudelytransplanted from overseas; so bareboned, so valiantly preserved, soyoung yet already so titanic; so self-reliant, opinionated, and uncouth;so strenuous and materialistic in mind; so inflammable in emotions; sogrotesque in its virtues; so violent in its excesses; so complacentlyoblivious of all the higher values of wealth; so giddied with the newwine of liberty and crude abundance; so open of speech, of heart, ofhome, and so blithely disdainful of a hundred risks of life, health, andproperty. And all this the young observer's glance took in with maybemore realization of it than might be looked for in one not yettwenty-one. Yet his fuller attention was for matters nearer and of muchnarrower compass. 

He saw the last bit of small freight come aboard and the last belatedbill-lading clerk and ejected peddler go ashore. He noted by eachmooring-post the black longshoreman waiting to cast off a hawser. Heremarked each newcomer who idly joined the onlooking throng. Especiallyhe observed each cab or carriage that hurried up to the wharf's front. He studied each of the alighting occupants as they yielded their effectsto the antic, white-jacketed mulatto cabin-boys, behind whom theycrossed the ponderous unrailed stage and vanished on their up-stairs wayto the boiler deck, the cabin, and their staterooms. Had his mildscrutinizings been a paid service, they could hardly have been morethorough. 

By and by two or three things occurred in the same moment. A number ofboats above Canal Street and several of lesser fame below sounded theirthird bell, cast off, and backed out into the stream. The many pillarsof smoke widened across the heavens into one unrifted cloud with thesunbeams illumining its earthward side. Now it overhung the busy landingand now, at the river's first bend, it filled the tops of the dark massof spars and cordage that densely lined the long curve of the harbor'sup-town shipping. 

At the same time, while the foremost boats were still in sight, the twopilots in the pilot-house of the lingering _Votaress_ quietly took standat right and left of the wheel with their eyes on a distant vehicle, aprivate carriage. It came swiftly out of Common Street and across thebroad shell-paved levee. As quietly as they, the youth at the derrickpost regarded it, and presently, looking back and up, he gave them aslight, gratified nod. Through the lines of onlookers the carriage sweptclose up to the stage and let down two aristocratic-looking men. Thetaller was full fifty years of age, the other as much as seventy-five, but both were hale and commanding. 

As they started aboard the younger glanced up brightly to the unsmilingyouth at the roof's rail and then threw a gesture, above and beyond him, to the pilot-house. One of the pilots promptly sounded the bell. Down onthe forecastle a dozen deck-hands, ordered by a burly mate, leaped tothe stage and began, with half as many others who ran ashore on it, toheave it aboard. But a sharp "avast" stopped them, and four or fivecabin-boys gambolled out on it ashore. A smart hack came whirling up inits own white shell dust, and a fledgling dandy of seventeen sprang downfrom the seat of his choice by the driver before the vehicle could stopor the white jackets strip it of its baggage. 

III

CERTAIN PASSENGERS

From his dizzy outlook the older youth dropped his calm scrutiny uponthe inner occupants as they alighted and followed the boy on board. First came a red-ringleted, fifteen-year-old sister, fairlygood-looking, almost too free of glance, and--to her high-perchedcritic--urgently eligible to longer skirts. Behind her appeared an old, very black nurse in very blue calico and very white turban and bosomkerchief; and lastly a mother--of many children, one would havesaid--still perfect in complexion, gracefully rounded, and beautiful. 

This was the first time he on the hurricane deck had ever seen them, buthe knew at once who they were and looked the closer on that account. Theself-oblivious elation with which the slim lass gave her eyes and mindto everything except her own footing caused him to keep his chief watchon her. He even beckoned a black deck hand to do the same. Wherever herglance went her gay interest went with it, either in a softsoliloquizing laugh or in some demonstration less definite though moreradiant; some sign of delight from her lips, her eyes, her brow, herspringing step, dancing curls, or supple arms. The youth on the roof'sedge deepened his frown. At a point on the stage where its sheer, nakedsides spanned the narrow chasm through which the waters swept betweenboat and wharf, her feet strayed too near one perilous edge, and justthen her eyes went up to him. The two glances had barely met when shetripped and staggered. With a dozen others aboard and ashore, he gave astart. She sent him a look of terror, then turned from deadly pale torosy red and gasped her thanks to the smiling deckhand, whose clutch hadsaved her life. The next instant she was laughing elatedly to herhorrified nurse, and so disappeared with her kindred on the lower deckand front stairs. 

The mellow boom of the third and last parting signal diverted thegeneral mind, and a glance behind him showed the youth the close andwelcome presence of that superior-looking man in answer to whose gesturethe pilot had tolled the earlier bell. But this person was closelypreoccupied. Now his capable glance ran aft along every marginal line ofthe boat, now it dropped below to where the big stage lay drawn inathwart the forward deck from guard to guard. Now he gave short, quietorders to wharf and forecastle, now a single word or two to thepilot-house. Far below, the engine bells jingled. The bowline was in. Ayeast of waters ran forward from the backing wheels, the breast lineslacked away in fierce jerks, and the _Votaress_ began to depart. 

Meantime there was an odd stir on shore. A cab whirled up furiously andtwo more youths, shapely, handsome, and fashionable, twins beyond caviland noticeably older than their twenty years, visibly rich in finequalities but as visibly reckless as to what they did with them, sprangout, flushed and imperious, to wave the _Votaress_. One of her guardswas still rubbing along the steamer beside her, but before the paircould dash aboard this other boat and half across her deck, a gap hadopened, impossible to leap. They halted in rage as the more compactyouth on the moving steamer's roof, catching their attention, pointed agood two miles up the river front. Yet what he said they would not haveknown had not her mate repeated from the forecastle:

"Post forty-six! Drive up thah! We stop thah fo' a load of emigrants!"

They fled back to the cab. Aboard the receding boat the ruthless enginebells jingled on; the broad waterside and the city behind it seemed, from her decks, to draw away into the western clouds, and the yellowriver spread wide its shores in welcome to her swinging form. Now itsmighty current seemed to quicken and quicken as she gradually overcameher down-stream drift, the ship-lined shores ceased to creepup-stream--began to creep down--and her black crew, standing close aboutthe capstan, broke majestically into song:

 "Oh, rock me, Julie, rock me. "

From the forecastle her swivel pealed, her burgee ran down thejack-staff, a soft, continuous tremor set in among all her parts, herscape-pipes ceased their alternating roars, her engines breathed quietlythrough her vast funnels, the flood spurted at her cutwater, whitetorrents leaped and chased each other from her fluttering wheels, herown breeze fanned every brow, and the _Votaress_ was under way. 

IV

THE FIRST TWO MILES

The youth whom we have called short, square, and so on crossed to thestarboard derrick post. Several passengers had come up to the roof, andone who, he noticed, seemed, by the many kind glances cast upon her, tobe already winning favor, was the tallish lass with the red curls. 

The nurse was still at her back. She drew close up beside him and stoodin the wind that ruffled her hat and pressed her draperies against herform. Her servant betrayed a faint restiveness to be so near him, butthe girl, watching the steamer's watery path as it seemed of its ownvolition to glide under the boat's swift tread, ignored him ascompletely as if he were a part of the woodwork. The very good-lookingman who was "taking out" the boat returned from a short tour of the deckand halted by the great bell over the foremost skylights; but soon hemoved away again in mild preoccupation. The maiden's frank scrutinyfollowed him a step or two and then turned squarely to the youth. Herattendant stirred uncomfortably and breathed some inarticulate protest, but in a tone of faultless composure the girl spoke out:

"Is that the captain yonder?"

"No, " he said, equally composed, though busy thinking that but for hiseye she would at this moment be lying, in all these dainty draperies, asdeep beneath the boiling flood as she now stood above it. "That's notthe captain. "

"Then why is he running the boat?"

"He owns her. "

"Oh!" The girl's soft laugh was at herself. Presently--"Where's hercaptain?"

"Ashore, in the hospital. "

"What's he got?"

"Missy!" murmured the dark woman beseechingly. 

But missy gave her no heed. "Got cholera?" she ventured, "the Asiaticcholera?"

"No, a broken leg. "

"Oh! Is that all he's got?"

"No, he has another, not broken. " The speaker was so solemn that, withmirth in every drop of her blood, the inquirer contrived to be grave, herself. 

"How'd he get it--I mean get it broken?"

"He was superintending----"

"And fell? When'd he fall?"

"This afternoon, about----"

"Where'd it happen?"

"Down on the lower deck as he----"

"Which is the lower deck?"

"The deck you came aboard on. "

"They told me that was the freight deck!"

"It is. "

"Then, why--?" She ceased, pondered, and spoke again: "Is there any decklower than the lower deck?"

"None. "

She mused once more: "Why--that's strange. "

"Yes, " he said, "strange, but true. "

"Then how could the captain fall----" Again she ceased and yet againpondered: "Are the boilers--on the boiler deck?"

"No, the boiler deck is just over the boilers. "

"Then why do they--" Once more she pondered. 

"The boilers, " said the youth, "are down on the freight deck. "

The questioner brightened. "Do they ever put any freight on the boilerdeck?" she asked. 

Before he could say yes, and without the slightest warning, a laughburst from her tightened lips. He could not have called it unmusical anddid not resent it, although he did regard it as without the slenderestexcuse. Her eyes and brow, still confronting his in a distress of mirth, confessed the whim's forlorn senselessness, while his face returned notthe smallest sign of an emotion. As the moment lengthened, thetransport, so far from passing, spread through all her lithe form. Suddenly she turned aside, drew herself up, faced him again, and beganto inquire, "Do they ever--" but broke down once more, fell upon the oldwoman's shoulder with a silvery tinkle, shook, hung limp, threw one footbehind her, and tapped the deck with her toe. A married couple driftingby, obviously players and of the best of their sort, enjoyed thepicture. 

"Why, missy!" the nurse softly pleaded, "yo' plumb disgracin' yo'seff!Stop! Stop!"

"I can't!" whined the girl, between her paroxysms, "till he stopslooking like _that_. " But as the youth was merely looking like himselfhe saw no reason why he should stop. 

To avoid the current the steamer suddenly began to run so close besidethe moored ships that the continuous echo of all her sounds--the flutterof her great wheels, the seething of waters, the varied activities ofher lower deck--came back and up to the three voyagers with a nearnessand minuteness that startled the girl and drew her glance; but just asher dancing eyes returned reproachfully to the youth the big bell at herback pealed its signal for landing and she sprang almost off her feet, cast herself into the nurse's bosom, and laughed more inexcusably thanever. 

The woman put an arm about her shoulder and drew her a few steps backalong the rail to where four or five others were gathered. The young mangave all his attention downward across the starboard bow. The enginebells jingled far below, the wheels stopped, the giant chimneys ceasedtheir majestic breathing, and the boat came slowly abreast of a shipstanding high out of the water. 

V

RAMSEY HAYLE

The flag of Holland floated aft of a deck crowded with a sun-tanned andoddly clad multitude. The Dutch sailors lowered their fenders betweenthe ship's side and the boat's guards, lines were made fast, a lightstage was run down from the ship's upper deck to the boat's forecastle, and in single file, laden with their household goods, the silent alienswere hurried aboard the _Votaress_ and to their steerage quarters, outof sight between and behind her engines. 

Up on the boiler and hurricane decks her earlier passengers found, according to their various moods and capacities, much entertainment inthe scene. The girl with the nurse laughed often, of course. Yet herlaugh bore a certain note of sympathy and appreciation which harmonizedout of it all quality that might have hurt or abashed the most diffidentexile. Childlike as she was, it was plain she did not wholly fail to seeinto the matter's pathetic depths. 

The youth at the derrick post, scrutinizing each immigrant that passedunder his eye, could hear at his back a refined voice making kindreplies to her many questions. He knew it as belonging to the older ofthe two men for whose coming aboard the _Votaress_ had delayed herstart. Between the girl's whimsical queries he heard him indulgentlyexplain that the Dutch ensign's red, white, and blue were no theft fromus Americans and that at various periods he had lived in four or fivegreat cities under those three colors as flown and loved by four greatnations. 

Amazing! She could not query fast enough. "First city?"

First in London, where he had been born and reared. 

"And then?"

Then in Amsterdam, where he had been married. 

"And then?"

Then for ten years in Philadelphia. 

"And then?"

Why, then, for forty years more, down to that present 1852, in NewOrleans, while nevertheless, save for the last ten, he had sojournedmuch abroad in many ports and capitals, but mainly in Paris. 

The girl's note of mirth softly persisted, irrepressible butself-oblivious, a mere accent of her volatile emotions, most frequentamong which was a delighted wonder in looking on the first man offoreign travel, first world-citizen, with whom she had ever awarely comeface to face. So guessed the youth, well pleased. 

Presently, as if she too had guessed something, she asked if the boat'smaster was not this man's son. 

He now running it? Yes, he was. 

"And was he, too, born in England?--or in Holland?"

"In Philadelphia, 1803. "

"And did he, too, marry a--Dutch--wife?"

"No, a young lady of Philadelphia, in 1832; an American. "

"Did you ever see Andrew Jackson?"

"Yes, I knew him. "

"Were you in the battle of New Orleans?"

"Yes, I commanded a battery. "

"Did you know anybody else besides Jackson? Who else?"

"Oh, I knew them all; Claiborne, Livingston, Duncan, Touro, Sheppard, Grimes, the two Lafittes, Dominique You, Coffee, Villeré, Roosevelt----"

"I know about Roosevelt; he brought the first steamboat down theMississippi. My grandfather knew him. Did you ever have anygrandchildren?"

Yes, he had had several, but before she could inquire what had become ofthem the attention of every one was arrested by the second approach ofthe cab bearing the two hotspurs who had missed the boat at CanalStreet. All the way up from there their labored gallop, by turns hid, seen, and hid again, had amused many of her passengers, and now, as thepair shouldered their angry way across the ship's crowded deck and downthe steep gang-plank, a general laugh from the boat's upper rails galledthem none the less for being congratulatory. So handsome anddangerous-looking that the laugh died, they halted midway of the narrowincline, impeding the stream of immigrants at their heels, and sent up afierce stare in response to the propitiatory smiles of the boat'scommander and the youth standing near him. Only one of the twins spoke, but the eyes of his brother vindictively widened till they gleamed aflaming concurrence in his fellow's high-keyed, oath-bound threat:

"We'll get even with you for this, Captain John Courteney. We warn youand all your tribe. "

The old nurse on the roof, to whose arm her slim charge was clingingwith both hands, moaned audibly: "Oh, Lawd, Mahs' Julian! Mahs' Lucian!"

The girl laughed, laughed so merrily and convincingly--as if to laughwas the one reasonable thing to do--that most of the passengers didlikewise. Even the grave youth whose back was to her inwardly grantedthat the lamentable habit could make itself useful in an awkwardjuncture. While he so thought, he observed the unruffled owner of the_Votaress_ motion to the chagrined young men to clear the way by comingaboard, and as they haughtily did so he heard the commander's father sayto the girl still at his side:

"I believe those are your brothers?"

"Yes, " she responded, for once without mirth, "my brothers, " and thepeace-loving but conscientious nurse added with a modest pretence ofpure soliloquy:

"One dess as hahmless as de yetheh. "

The bell boomed. The last transatlantic stranger shuffled aboard, wanand feeble. Now to one wheel, now to the other, the pilot jingled toback away, then to stop, then to go ahead, then to both for full speed, and once more the beautiful craft moved majestically up the river. Hercourse shifted from south to west, the shores for a time widened apart, the low-roofed city swung and sank away backward, groves of orange andmagnolia grew plainer to the eye than suburban streets, and the coursechanged again, from west to north. Soon on the right, behind a highlevee and backed by a sombre swamp forest, appeared the live-oaks andgardens of Carrollton, and presently on the left came Nine-mile Pointand another bend of the river westward. As the boat's prow turned, thewaters, from shore to shore, reflected the low sun so dazzlingly thatnearly all the passengers on the roof moved aft, whence, ravished by theascending odors of supper, they went below. 

But the handsome old man, the sedate youth, the girl, the nurse, remained. Captain Courteney came along the deck and crossed toward thefour, eyed from head to foot by the girl even after he had stopped nearher. But her gaze drew no glance from him. 

"Well, Hugh, " he said. 

The youth turned with a smile that bettered every meaning in his toopassive countenance: "Well, father?"

"Oh!" breathed the startled girl. She looked eagerly into the three malefaces, beamed round upon her dark attendant, and then looked again atgrandfather, father, and son. "Why, of course!" she softly laughed. 

"John, " said the older man, "this young lady is a daughter of GideonHayle. "

"I thought as much. " The benign captain lifted his hat and accepted anddropped again the dainty hand proffered him with childish readiness. "Then you're the youngest of seven children. "

Her reply was a gay nod. Presently, with a merry glint between her longlashes, she said: "I'm Ramsey. "

The captain's smile grew: "That must be great fun. "

The girl looked from one to another, puzzled. 

"Why, just to be Ramsey, " he explained. "Isn't it?"

She gave him a wary, sidewise glance and looked out over the water. "Mythree married sisters all live near this river, " she musingly said; "onein Louisiana, two in Mississippi. " Her sidelong glance repeated itself:"I know who it would be fun to be--for me--or for anybody!" Her eyeswidened as her brother's had done, though in an amiable, elated way. 

"Your father?" asked the captain. 

She all but danced: "How'd you know?"

"I saw him--in your eyes, " was the placid reply. "Your father and I, andyour grandfather Hayle, and this gentleman here----"

"Ya-ass, ya-ass!" drawled the nurse in worshipping reminiscence, andRamsey laughed to Hugh, and all the while the captain persisted: "We'vebuilt and owned rival boats----"

"Fawty yeah'!" murmured the nurse. "Fawty yeah'!"

"Yes, yes!" chirruped the girl. "Pop-a's up the river now, building the_Paragon_! We're on our way to join him!"

"Law', missy, " gently chid the nurse, made anxious by a new approachwhich Ramsey was trying to ignore, "dese gen'lemens knows all dat. "

Ramsey twitched her shoulders and waist. Her lips parted for a brightquestion, but it was interrupted. The interrupters were the restlesstwins, whose tread sounded peremptory even on the painted canvas of thedeck, and the fineness of whose presence was dimmed only by the hardylawlessness which, in their own eyes, was their crowning virtue. 

"Ramsey, " drawled one of them, who somehow seemed the more forceful ofthe two. He spoke as if amazed at his own self-restraint. She whiskedround to him. He made his eyes heavy: "Have you had any properintroduction to these--gentlemen?"

A white-jacket, holding a large hand-bell by its tongue, bowed lowbefore the captain, received a nod, and minced away. With suspendedbreath the girl stared an instant on her brother, then on the captain, and then on his father; but as her eyes came round to Hugh his solemnitycaught her unprepared, and, with every curl shaking, she broke out in atinkling laugh so straight from the heart, so innocent, and so helplessthat even the frightened old woman chuckled. Ramsey wheeled, snatchedthe nurse round, and hurried her off to a stair, hanging to her arm, tiptoeing, dancing, and carolling in the rhythm of the supper-bellbelow:

 "Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding, Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding. "

Red and dumb, the questioner glared after them until, near one of thegreat paddle-boxes, they vanished below. But his brother, the one whohad the trick of widening his eyes, found words. "Captain Courteney, " hesaid, "by what right does your son--or even do you, sir--take theliberty, on the hurricane-deck of a steamboat, to scrape acquaintancewith an unprotec----?"

The captain had turned his back. "Hugh, " he affably said, "will you seewhat these young gentlemen want?" And then to the older man: "Come, father, let's go to supper. " They went. 

VI

HAYLE'S TWINS

Hugh was grateful for this task in diplomacy, yet wondered what mess heshould make of it. 

He was here for just such matters, let loose from tutor and books forthe summer, to study the handling of a steamboat, one large part ofwhich, of course, was handling the people aboard. Both pilots, upyonder, knew this was his rôle. Already he had tried his unskill--or let"Ramsey" try it--and had learned a point or two. She had shown him, atleast twice, what value there might be in a well-timed, unmanageablelaugh. But a well-timed, unmanageable laugh is purely a natural gift. Ifit was to come to his aid, it would have to come of itself. Lucian, thetwin who had asked the last question, turned upon him. 

Hugh smilingly lifted a pacifying hand. "You're entirely mistaken, " hesaid. "Nobody's tried to scrape acquaintance. " In the midst of the lasttwo words, sure enough, there broke from him a laugh which to him seemedso honest, friendly, well justified, and unmanageable that he stoodastounded when his accuser blazed with wrath. 

"You lie, damn you!" was the answering cry. "And then you laugh in myface! We saw you--all three of you--just now!" The note was so high thatone of the pilots began to loiter down from the pilot-house. 

Hugh crimsoned. "I see, " he said, advancing step by step as the frenziedboy drew back. "You really don't want a peaceable explanation, at all, do you?"

The other twin, Julian, arrested his brother's back step by a touch andspoke for him: "No, sir, we don't. You can't 'peaceably explain' foultreatment, you damned fool, and that's all we Hayles have had of youCourteneys this day. We want satisfaction! We don't ask it, we'll takeit! And we'll get it"--here a ripping oath--"if we have to wait for itten years!"

This time Hugh paled. "It needn't take ten minutes, " he said. "Come downto the freight deck, into the engine room, and I'll give both of you somuch of it that you won't know yourselves apart. "

"One more insult!" cried Lucian, the boy who so often widened his eyes, while Julian, narrowing his lids, said in a tone suddenly icy:

"That classes you, sir, on the freight deck. "

"We don't fight deck hands, " said Lucian. 

"Nor emigrants!" sneered his brother. "And when we fight gentlemen wefight with weapons, sir, as gentlemen should. "

Hugh's awkward laugh came again, and the pilot who had come down frombeside his fellow at the wheel inquired:

"What's the fraction here?"

"Oh, nothing, " said Hugh. 

"Everything!" cried Julian. "And you'll find it so the first time we geta fair chance at you--any of you!"

The pilot was amiable. "Hold on, " he suggested. "See here, my youngfriend, what do you reckon your father'd do to this young man"--touchingHugh--"if he should rip around on a Hayle boat as you're doing here?"

"That's a totally different matter, sir!"

The pilot smiled. "Don't you know Gideon Hayle would put him ashore atthe first wood-yard?"

"He'd be wrong if he didn't, " gravely said Hugh. 

"Do you mean that for a threat?--either of you?" snapped Lucian. 

"No, " said the pilot, "I was merely trying to reason with you. Come, now, go down to supper. It's a roaring good one: crawfish gumbo, rizbiscuits, fresh butter, fried oysters, and coffee to make your haircurl. Go on, both of you. You've had--naturally enough--last day in thecity--a few juleps too many, but that's all right. A square meal, anight's rest, and you'll wake up in the morning with Baton Rouge and allthe sugar lands astern, the big cotton plantations on both sides of us, you feeling at home with everybody, everybody at home with you. "

"Many thanks, " sneered Julian. "We'll go to our meals self-invited. Goodevening. "

Hugh granted the pair a slight nod. As they went, Lucian, looking backover Julian's shoulder with eyes bigger than ever, said: "We'll wake upin the morning without the least change of feeling for this boat'sowners, their relatives, or their hirelings. "

The relative and the hireling glanced sharply at each other. But thenHugh said quietly: "A man can't quarrel with boys, Mr. Watson. "

"No, " mused the pilot aloud as he watched the pair go below, "but he canwait. They'll soon be men. "

"And this be all forgotten, " said Hugh. 

"Not by them!" rejoined Mr. Watson. "They'll remember it ef they have totattoo it--on their stomachs. "

"I should have managed them better, " said Hugh. 

"Lord, boy, nobody's ever managed _them_ sence they was born. " Thespeaker sauntered back toward the pilot-house, coining rhetoric in hismind to relieve his rage. "It's only the long-looked-for come at last, "he thought, "and come _toe_ last. " As he resumed the bench behind hispartner his wrath at length burst out:

"Well, of all the hell-fry I ever come across----!"

"And they 'llow to keep things fryin', " said his mate. 

Which made Watson even more rhetorical. "Yes, it's their only salvationfrom their rotten insignificance. " He meditated. "And yet--hnn!" He wasabout to say something much kindlier when suddenly he laughed down froma side window upon the twins returned. "Well, I'll swear!"

"We heard, sir, " said Julian with a lordly bow. 

"And you, " chimed Lucian, "shall hear later. " Rather aimlessly theyturned and again disappeared, and after a moment or two the man at thewheel asked, with playful softness, with his eyes on the roof below:

"D'you reckon yon other two will ever manage to offset the tricks o'Hayle's twins?"

His partner rose and looked down. The old nurse and the third Haylebrother stood side by side watching the beautiful low-lying plantationsunbrokenly swing by behind the embankments of the eastern shore. Thelevel fields of young sugar-cane reposed in a twilight haze, while therows of whitewashed slave cabins, the tall red chimneys of the greatsugar-houses, and the white-pillared verandas of the masters' dwellingsembowered in their evergreen gardens, still showed clear in the lastlights of day. But the query was not as to the nurse and the boy. Nearthem stood Ramsey, with arms akimbo, once more conversing with Hugh. 

"Oh!" said the glowing Watson. "If that's to be the game, Ned, I'm init, sir! I'm in it!"

"Just's well, Watsy. You're in the twins' game anyhow. "

Meantime Ramsey's talk flowed on like brook water, Hugh's meeting itlike the brook's bowlders:

"Guess who's at the head of the table!"

"Who? my grandfather?"

"No, he's 'way down at the men's end. "

"Well, then, father?"

"Yes! And who's sitting next him--on his right?"

"Your mother?"

"Yes! And guess who's going to sit at the head of the children's table. You!"

"How do you know that?"

The reply was chanted: "I asked the steward to put you there. " Shelaughed and glanced furtively at her unheeding brother. Then her eyescame back: "And I'm to be the first on your right!" She spread her armslike wings. 

"Why, Miss Ramsey!" protested the nurse. 

Hugh blushed into his limp, turn-down collar. "I don't believe you'dbetter, " he said. 

"I will!" said Ramsey, lifting her chin. 

VII

SUPPER

Deep in love with the river life was Ramsey. 

She had tried it now, thoroughly, for an hour, and was sure! Thetwenty-four hours' trip down from her plantation home, on the first boatthat happened along, a rather poor thing, had been her first experienceand a keen pleasure; but this, on the _Votaress_, was rapture. 

One effect was that her mind teemed with family history. Her grizzly, giant father, whom she so rarely saw, so vehemently worshipped, son of awild but masterful Kentucky mountaineer who had spent his life floating"broadhorns" and barges down the Ohio and Mississippi, counted it one ofthe drawbacks of his career that so few of his kindred cared for theriver. One of his brothers was an obscure pilot somewhere on theCumberland or Tennessee. Another, once a pilot, then a planter, andagain a pilot, had been lost on a burning boat, she knew not how norwhen. The third was a planter in the Red River lowlands. Her threesisters, as we have heard her tell, were planters' wives, and thefather's home, when ashore, was on a plantation of his Creole wife'sinheritance, four or five miles in behind the old river town of Natchez. 

There Ramsey had been born and had grown up, knowing the greatMississippi only as a remote realm of poetry and adventure out of whichat intervals her mighty father came to clasp to his broad breast hersweet, glad mother, tarry a few days or hours, and be gone again. She, herself, had seldom seen it even from the Natchez bluffs, yet she couldname all its chief boats apart, not by sight but by the long, softbellow of their steam-whistles, wafted inland. But now, at last, she wasa passenger on its waters. As Hugh, so well grown up as to breadth andgravity, took his seat at the head of the dazzling board that filled thewhole middle third of the cabin, and as she sat down next him with allthe other adolescents and juveniles in places of inferior dignity, theaffair seemed the most significant as well as most brilliant in whichshe had ever taken part. 

Most significant, because to love the river for itself would be to findherself easily and lastingly first in her father's love and favor--heronly wish in this world. And most brilliant: without an angle orpartition the cabin extended between the two parallel lines ofstaterooms running aft through the boat's entire length from boiler deckto stern guards. Its richly carpeted floor gently dipped amidships andas gently rose again to the far end, where you might see the sofas andpiano of that undivided part sanctified to the ladies. Its whole coursewas dazzlingly lighted with chandeliers of gold bronze and crystal thatforever quivered, glittered, and tinkled to the tremor of the boat'sswift advance. It was multitudinously pilastered, gleaminglywhite-painted and shellacked, profusely gilded and pictorially panelled, and it bewilderingly reflected itself and Ramsey from mirrors wide ornarrow wherever mirrors wide or narrow could be set in. 

A new decorum came into her bearing. She ceased to ask questions. Shewaited for them to be put to her--from the head of the table--and smiledwhere an hour earlier she would have laughed. Above all, she felt in herspirit the same dreamy strangeness she had so lately felt in her bodilyframe when the boat first began to move: a feeling as if the youngcompany about her were but stayers behind on a shore from which she wasbeginning to be inexorably borne away. The wide river of a world's life, to which the rillet of her own small existence had been carelesslywinding, was all at once clearly in sight. She could almost have writtenverse! She yearned to tell her whole history, but not one personalquestion could she lure from Hugh. Silently she recalled the story ofher Creole grandmother, married at fifteen--her own present age. Thatyoung lady had met her future husband just this way on Roosevelt'sfamous _New Orleans_, earliest steamboat on the Mississippi. But theresat Hugh, as square, as solid, and as incurious as an upended bale ofcotton. And still she kept her manners. 

It was but the custom of the time and region that the most honored guestof the _Votaress_, wife of her owner's most formidable competitor, withher family, not only should enjoy her journey wholly without cost, butthat she should receive every attention courtesy could offer. The heatof the contest counted for nothing. And so, while Ramsey ate and talkedwith Hugh, his grandfather, near by in the ladies' cabin, at her leftand at Hugh's back, conversed with her mother on a sofa. It was aheavenly hour. The resplendent boat kept her speed with no inward signof her ceaseless ongoing except the tremor of her perfect frame, theflutter of her hundred-footed tread, and the tinkle and prismatictwinkle of her pendent glass, all responsively alternating with the deepbreathings of her stacks, and with no sign of her frequent turnings butthe softly audible creepings of her steering-gear. 

While never failing duly to receive and return Hugh's rather stiffattentions, and while doing superb justice to the repast, Ramsey, withside glances from her large, unconscious eyes emotionally enriched bylong auburn lashes, easily and with great zest contemplated her mother'scharming complexion, so lily-white and shell pink for a Creole matron, as well as the lovely confidingness of her manner, so childlike yet sowise. It was not for her to know that her mother, while hanging on everyword of the courtly old man, was closely observing both her and Hugh. 

The grandfather, too, her blue-and-auburn glances took in sidewise, astheir closer scrutiny had earlier done pointblank on the hurricane-deck. He was small, unmuscular, clean-shaven, erect, placid. She noted againhis snowy, waving hair, thin only on his pink crown. It shone like silk. He still kept a soft flush of unimpaired health and an air of innercleanness equal to that which showed outwardly from gaitered shoes tothe bell-crowned beaver in his hand. She observed the wide cambricruffle that ran down his much-displayed, much-pleated shirt-front. Hisstiff, high stock was tied with a limp white bow-knot. His standingcollar covered half of either cheek. He wore a jewelled breastpin and aheavy gold fob-chain and seal. In his too delicate hand, along with thebeaver and his gloves, was a stout, gold-headed cane, and from his coatskirt his handkerchief painstakingly peeped out behind. All of whichseemed quite natural on him and well related to the highly attractiveattire of the lady beside him. 

Yet suddenly Ramsey had a painful misgiving. Hugh was remarking uponsome matter on the other side of the world, when she asked him asabruptly as a boat might strike a snag: "Is your grandfather a Whig?"

"He is, " said Hugh. They laid up their napkins. 

"Oh!" sighed Ramsey, but then laughed. "Is your father a Whig, too?"

"Yes, my father, too. "

"Not a Henry Clay Whig?" she hopefully prompted. 

"Yes, a Henry Clay Whig yet. "

Self-consciously she dropped her head over the back of her chair to berid of her curls. "My father, " she musingly observed, "is a Democrat. "

"Yet we can be friends, " said Hugh, "can't we?" wondering, when he hadasked, why they need be. 

Ramsey did not say. With her chin in her collar she looked herself overcarefully while she brokenly remarked, "All our men folks--fourmen--three boys--are--red-hot Democrats. "

But on the last word she checked and hearkened, and they smiled togetherat the far-away whistle of another steamer, deep-toned, mellowed bydistance, and long sustained. 

"That's a Courteney boat, " quietly began Hugh, but Ramsey was up andoff. 

"_The Empress!_" she called to her mother as she flew. 

VIII

QUESTIONS

Out forward of the texas and close beside the great bell, Ramsey halted, alone in the boundless starlight and rippling breeze on the cabin roof. The stately _Votaress_, with her towering funnels lost in the uppernight, was running well inshore under a point, wrapped in a world-widesilence broken only by the placid outgo of her own vast breath, the softrush of her torrential footsteps far below, and the answering rustle ofthe nearer shore. Even on that side the dark land confessed no outlinesave the low tree tops of two or three plantation-house groves, fromeach of which shone a lighted window or two, tinier and lonelier than aglowworm. 

Across the point, between its groves, the flood revealed itself atintervals in pale shimmerings, and just beyond one of these gleams, inmid-river, shone the nearing boat, her countless lights merged into asingle sheen brokenly repeated in the water beneath her. Hugh came tothe girl's side at a moment when a wood on the point's extreme endconcealed the steamer's approach; but in the next the fleet comer sweptout of hiding, an empress in truth to Ramsey, jewelled, from furnacedoors to texas roof, with many-colored lights as if in coronation robes. 

"That is how we look to her, " said Hugh. 

But his words were lost. With a startled laugh the girl shrank low overthe bell, clutching it as if a whirlwind had struck them, while itssingle, majestic peal thundering, "I pass to starboard, hail! farewell!"drowned speech and mind in its stupendous roar. Mirth, too, was drownedin awe. And now the vast din ceased, and now the _Empress_, every momentmore resplendent, responded, first with her bell, then with the long, solemn halloo of her whistle, and presently with huzzas from all herglittering decks as she passed within a cable's length. 

Ramsey gazed entranced. Not until the fading vision had dwindled downand around the great bend did her tread realize again the quiveringdeck, or her sight reawaken to the wonder of the ever coming, parting, passing flood, its prostrate, phantom shores, and the starry hosts andillimitable deeps of the sky. Even then she was but half-way back toearth, unconscious that she had stepped down forward to the captain'schair and into a group including Hugh and his grandfather, her motherand youngest brother. 

"Oh!" she cried, turning, "it's as if--" and found herself face to facenot with Hugh but his father. 

"As if--what?" smilingly asked the boat's master. 

"As if, " she said more softly, "we'd left one world and were huntinganother. "

His smile grew. Her own resented it. "I know what you're thinking, " shesaid, and glanced away. Her curls twitched, her chin tilted, and shesent down from it one of those visible waves that ended at her feet, asif they were the cracker of the whip. When he spoke, her eyes came backat him sidelong. 

"I was thinking only, " he rejoined, "that at your age it's always as ifwe'd just left one world and were seeking another. "

Her eyes--and lashes--were sceptical. "Weren't you going to say it wouldseem more so if we should blow up?"

"No, " he laughed, "nothing like it. "

She began absently to scrutinize his entire dress. It was like the oldman's though without the jewelry and ruffles. "Were you ever in anexplosion?" she asked. The words came of themselves. She was backslidingfrom her table decorum. 

"No, " he replied, "I was never in an explosion. "

"Ah, my child!" broke in the mother, "questions again? And even toCaptain Courteney?"

Ramsey laughed, gave the deck a wilful scuff, and demanded of thecaptain: "Were you ever on a burning boat?"

Madame Hayle flinched, gasped, and drew her from him as he replied:"Yes--once--I was. "

The mother started again. "There!" she cried; "so! you 'ave it! Now, go"--she laughingly pushed the querist--"go, talk with Hugh--allong withyo' brotheh. "

The girl, as she backed away, turned to the grandfather: "Was Hugh onthe boat--when it burned?"

Her mother smiled with new pain, but while the captain bowed himselfaway the old man replied: "Come, Miss Ramsey, sit down with me and I'lltell you the story--if we may, madam?--Hugh--some chairs, will you?"

Ramsey sprang to Hugh's aid, but her brother had a mind for mutiny. "Youtold me, " he accused his mother, "that I could go watch them playcards!"

"Yes?" she asked in a pretty irony; "well, then, of co'se, sisteh or nosisteh, you muz' instan'ly go!" The steady tinkle of the sister'slaughter as she passed with a chair provoked her own: "Yes, go! Me, I'llrimmain with her till Joy"--the nurse--"ritturn from suppeh. "

The boy went, flinging back for a last word: "You want to hear the storyas bad as Ramsey does!"

"'Tis true!" she brightly said to the old gentleman. "Since all thosenine year', me, I've want' to hear the Courteney side of that!"--littlesupposing that this was what neither she nor Ramsey would then or everquite lay hold upon. 

"No, " laughed the irrelevant girl to the old man, "you sit here. " Shefaced him up-stream, her mother on his "stabboard, " as she said, herselfon his "labboard, " and Hugh on her left, "labboardest of all. " But--toHugh--"now, wait--wait! If I'm on your stabboard--how can you be--on mylab'--? Oh, yes, I see!" She dropped into her chair and, to Hugh's greatweariness, laughed till her curls fell on her cheeks, larboard andstarboard by turns. 

Yet she ceased sooner than any one had hoped and the four sat silentwhile several ladies sauntered past on the arms of escorts, all highlyentertained to see such cordiality between any Hayles and theCourteneys. One trio that paused near by to catch some Hayle orCourteney utterance praised aloud the enchantment of the night and ofthe boat's speed, and as they strolled on again, having caught nothing, Ramsey breathed softly to the old man:

"They can't describe it! Nobody can! I've tried!"

Through four or five breathings of the giant chimneys she waited for thestory she was not to hear, and at length herself broke silence. "Ithink, " she said, "this boat is the most wonderful thing in the world. "

No one rejoined that it was or was not. "Don't you?" she airilychallenged the "labboardest of all, " defensively letting herself realizehow nearly a woman she was, how merely a boy was he. 

"It's very wonderful, " replied Hugh indulgently, as one so nearly a manshould to one so merely a child. "I've never seen anything in this worldthat wasn't. "

"Neither have I!" cried the girl and clapped her hands. 

In that moment, for the first time, each thought how admirable theother, as yet so absurd, was--some day--probably--going--to be, andright there arose between them a fellowship more potent than eitherwould recognize for a length of hours or days which is here best leftunstated. Their two seniors saw; saw, but kept still--_mais pourquoinon?_--and why not?--while the great steamer breathed on, quivered on, breathed and quivered, on and on. 

Ramsey transiently forgot them. "Do you, too, " she asked her"labboardest, " "feel yourself widen out of yourself and down and roundinto all this wonderful boat till you are it and it's all--you?"

"Yes, " Hugh confessed, and they in turn were still, even though theseniors resumed converse, one mildly telling which sugar estates alongthe shore had been whose and the other recounting how their heirs hadintermarried. 

IX

SITTING SILENT

Thus they sat, Hugh and Ramsey, not recognizing that sitting silent is asymptom. 

They sat and together felt their consciousness, his and hers, wing andwing, widen beyond their own frames to a mightier embodiment in thisgreat cloud-white structure breasting the air that cooled their browsand cleaving unseen the flood so far beneath them. Together in thisgreater self they felt the headway of the long, low hull, the prodigiousheart glow of the hungry fires, the cyclopean push of steam in eightvast boilers, the pulsing click and travail of the engines--whisper ofvalve and cylinder, noiseless in-plunge and out-glide of shiningrods--the ten-foot stroke of either shaft and equal sweep of crank, thenimble beat of paddle-wheels and tumble of their cataracts, the tranquilcreep of tiller-ropes, and the compelling swing and sage guidance of thehelm. 

In this vaster consciousness, by a partnership which had to be tacit orinstantly perish, they easily lifted and carried the abounding freight, of every form and substance, destined for the feeding, apparelling, orequipment of thousands awaiting it in homes and families whose strivingsand fortunes helped to make that universal wonder of things which keptHugh grave and Ramsey laughing. Especially the teeming human life of thegreat craft did these two jointly draw into this magnified self. Theydrew on deck-hands, mates, watchmen, firemen, engineers, and strikers, each with some aspiration and some appetite. They drew in stewards, cooks, chambermaids, and cabin-boys, every one with yearnings andsacrifices; pilots, clerks, and mud clerks, full of histories anddreams. Down in dim spaces behind the engines and between the two wheelsthey drew in the immigrant deck passengers, so mutely sad for thedistant homes behind them, so mutely hopeful and fearful for the distanthomes before. And on the deck above these exiles they took in the cabinpassengers--ladies who told their lives over their knitting orembroidery in floods of lamplight and the cushioned ease of feminineseclusion; children here and there battling against sleep or yielding toit in stateroom berths; the ruder sex at card-tables in the forwardcabin--from which, oddly, the twins were refraining; three or fourtipplers at the fragrant bar, and one or two readers under thechandeliers. Outside, scores of non-readers sat in tilted chairs, theirheels breast-high on the guard-rails and their minds tobacco-lulled to asilent content with the breezy lanternlight of the boiler deck, theoccasional passing of a downward-bound flatboat or steamer, the gradualoverhauling of some craft that had backed out earlier at New Orleans, and the wide, slow oscillations of the unbounded starlight overhangingland and flood. 

These too the young pair included. All these were parts of their blendedconsciousness as the alert Ramsey noticed that the grandfather's talkhad turned upon Hugh and boats. 

"He and the _Quakeress_ were the same age, " he was remarking, whenRamsey's laugh jingled. 

"Both, " she broke in, "built the same year!" Her curls switched backwardat the old man. She faced Hugh. "Where were you born?"

But he only signed for her not to interrupt. In the dim light she made awry face at him and jingled again while her mother said: "On the_Quakerezz_!--end of trial trip!--whiles landing at New Orleans! Me, Iwas there, ad the landingg! Yes! on the boat of my 'usband, the_Conqueror_--also trial trip--arrive' since only one hour biffo'!"

Ramsey, with her eyes roaming over Hugh, faintly kept up her laugh, yetparallel with it her mother managed to continue: "Yes, that was ineighteen-thirty-three, Janawary. Because that was the winter whenJackson he conquer' Clay in the election and conquer' Calhoun in thenullification, and tha'z the cause why my 'usband he name' his boat the_Conqueror_. Ah, veree well I rimember that; how the _Quakerezz_ shecame cre-eepingg in, out of that fog, an' like the fog so still an'white, cloze aggains' the _Conqueror_. And the firz' news they pazz----"

The old nurse reappeared, laid thin shawls on the mother and daughter, and sat down on the deck close below Ramsey. 

"Firz' news they pazz, " resumed the speaker, "'tis that CaptainCourteney he's got with him his wife, from Philadelphia, and----"

Ramsey broke in merrily: "Was _she_ the Quakeress? Was the _Quakeress_named for her?"

"Yes, and she's juz' have, they say, a li'l' son! An' my 'usband hedi'n' like that! Because----"

"But you had three little girls!" said Ramsey. 

"Girl', they di'n' count! Because those girl', you know, they can' neverrun those steam_boat_'. "

"I don't see why, " said Ramsey. Hugh might sit silent if he chose; hersilent sitting was over. 

"They di'n' count, " repeated the lady. "And so my 'usband he di'n' wantthose Courteney' to be ahead of those Hayle' in having boys!"

"He little knew what was coming, " said Ramsey, and wondered why theremark was ignored, especially when----

"Me, " said the pretty matron, "I was nearly ready to 'ave those twin', but Gideon Hayle he di'n' know they was goin' be twin', an' he di'n'know those twin' goin' be boys!" She gently laughed. The daughter staredas if in no light--or shade--could those twins be a laughing matter, butthe mother spoke on gayly: "Never I 'ear my 'usband swear so hard--an'so manny way'--like that day--at everything--everybody. Not because thatli'l babee--if that be all; but because he see that _boat_, that she'sthe mo' fine boat, that _Quakerezz_, an' when they ripport her run fromLoui'ville, he's already affraid--to hisseff--that she's goin' to be themo' fas'. "

"And was she?" asked the girl. 

"Barely, " said the grandfather. "It took years to prove it and by thattime your father had built another boat. "

"The _Chevalier_!" she exclaimed. 

"Yes, which beat the _Quakeress_ once or twice nearly every season untilthe _Quakeress_ burned. "

"Burned!" cried Ramsey, while Hugh, stirred to rise, yet remained. "Wasit the _Quakeress_ that--?" But the old man was telling earlier historyand she sank repiningly in her seat. "You're going backward, " she softlywhined. 

"In 'sixteen, " he said, "I built the _Huntress_, and----"

"We already know about that, " sighed Ramsey, bracing her feet in oldJoy's hands. "I know it from old nursie. "

"Ramsey!" murmured her mother. 

"In 'seventeen, " said the chronicler, "Miss Ramsey's grandfather builtthe _Hunter_. In 'twenty he built the _Charioteer_----"

"Ain't we ever going to hear about the burning?" laughingly whimperedthe girl, but the narrator kept on:

"In 'twenty-one I built the _Shepherdess_----"

Ramsey all at once revived. "And did the _Shepherdess_ outrun the_Charioteer_?"

"A trifle, yes. "

"Humph!" she said to herself, and twice again, on a higher key and witha grimace at Hugh, "humph!"

"But in 'twenty-five the _Charioteer_ was run into and sunk, and theHayle boat that came next, " continued the historian, "was the best everseen till then on these waters, of the hundred and sixty-five steamerslaunched. "

"Yes, " said Madame Hayle, "and the firz' boat what my 'usband wascaptain. "

Ramsey started wildly. "The _Admiral_!" she cried at Hugh. She whiskedround on his grandfather. "And then--to beat the _Admiral_--youbuilt----?"

"My son built--the _Abbess_. "

"And did the _Abbess_ beat the _Admiral_?"

"Not for a long time. But in 'thirty-three the _Conqueror's_ very firstrun broke the _Abbess's_ record. "

But madame was not to be outdone in generosity. "Ah, yes, " she cried, "but that same day the _Quakerezz_ she beat the _Conqueror_!" At whichthe teased Ramsey, suddenly seeing that all this was but a roundaboutpeacemaking where she could discern no strife, laughed herself so limpthat she all but tumbled into old Joy's lap. 

"That's where we began!" she commented. 

"True, " said the old man to her mother, "but in 'thirty-eight came yourhusband's _Chevalier_----"

"Came--yes! only to get beat racing yo'"--the name eluded her----

"_Ambassadress_, " prompted Ramsey. "Everybody knows about that--'wayback in the country--even the dates. The _Ambassadress_ beat the_Chevalier_, the Autocrat beat the _Ambassadress_, the _Empress_ beatthe _Autocrat_, the _Regent_ beat the _Empress_, te tum, te tum, te tum!Didn't the _Quakeress_ ever burn up, after all?"

"Ramsey----"

"Oh, well! this forever sitting silent! I----!"

"Ramsey!----"

X

PERIL

Ramsey clutched the old man's arm, pressed curls and brow against it, and laughed in a rillet of pure silver. 

Hugh bore it, sitting silent, while the great boat, so humanly alive andaglow in every part, ceaselessly breathed above and quivered below, andthe ruffling breeze as ceaselessly confirmed her unflagging speed. Themere "catalogue of the ships" had lighted in him a secret glow thatpersisted. In his roused imagination the long pageant of the rivalsteamers still moved on through the rudely thronging, ever-multiplyingfleet of the boundless valley's yearly swelling commerce, ocean-distantfrom all disparaging contrasts of riper empires; moved, yeasting, ruffling, through forty years of a civilization's genesis, each newboat, Hayle or Courteney, more beautifully capable than her newestsenior, and each, in her time and degree, as cloud-white by day, asluminous by night, and as rife with human purpose and human hazards asthis incomparable _Votaress_. 

The girl's mirth faded. From behind the four a quiet tread drew near. From another quarter came two other steps, lighter yet more assertive. The one was John Courteney's; the two, that halted farther away, meantagain the twins. 

"Well, captain?" mildly said the grandfather. 

"Well, commodore?" said the captain, declining his son's chair. 

"Oh, good!" cried Ramsey, and rose with her nurse. "I didn't knowanybody but my father was called commodore!"

"Yes, " replied the captain, "my father too. "

"Where've you been?" asked the fearless girl. 

His answer was mainly to her mother: "I've been making myself acquaintedin the ladies' cabin. This is no Hudson River boat, you know--whole tripin a day's jaunt. "

"Ah, 'tis a voyage!" said madame. 

"So it's well to know one's people, " added he. He looked up into thenight. "What a sky! Miss Ramsey, did you ever see, through a glass, theGolden Locks of Berenice?"

"The gold--" she began eagerly--"no-o! What are the golden--?" But thereshe checked, fell upon old Joy, and laughed whimperingly, "That's a digat my red hair!"

One of the twins gravely accosted his mother, but she and the captainwere laughing at Ramsey while the grandfather said: "My dear child, yourhair is beautiful. "

With face still hid on Joy's bosom, the girl shuffled her feet, thenturned upon the old man and playfully intoned:

"I'm not a child!"

"Ramsey!" said the mother, and "Missie!" said the nurse. 

"Hugh, " said the captain, "suppose you take Miss Ramsey up to thepilot-house and show her the----"

The girl laid a hand on his arm. "Do you want to tell mom-a somethingyou don't want me to hear?"

"Why--" began the captain, and laughed. "On second thought, no. I wantto tell your mother and the commodore something before any one else can, and before I tell any one else; but you may hear it if----"

"If I won't get frightened. Has anything happened to the boat?"

"Ramsey!" "Missie!" lamented matron and servant again. 

"Mother, " with much dignity pleaded the twins. 

"Oh, no, " said the captain, "not to the boat. "

"I want to stay and hear it, " whined Ramsey, jerking up and down. "Iwon't get scared. "

"'T'u'd be de fust time sence she wuz bawn ef she did, " audibly musedthe nurse, and Hugh said: "I believe that. "

The girl stared round at him and then back at his father, her eyes widewith merriment. "No Ramsey to the pilot-house with him if he can helpit!" she managed to say, and fell over her mother and nurse, down intoher chair and across its arm, her laughter jingling like a basket ofglass rolling down-stairs. Suddenly she hearkened. The captain wasspeaking to her mother:

"Must you reach Loui'ville as quickly as you can?"

"Ah!--well? yes? we muz' do our possible. My 'usband he--Ramsey!"

The girl had turned face down in a play of collapse. "Nobody, " shepiped, "finishes what he starts to tell!"

"Ho!" playfully retorted the mother, "an' you muz' go?--cannot wait?Well, good night. " But no one went. 

Her mother turned again to the captain. "There is something vereebad--on the boat?" Ramsey sat up alert. 

The captain's reply was heard by none but her mother and thegrandfather, but evidently the twins knew whatever there was to tell. "It was no time to take deck passengers at all!" said one of them to theother, in full voice, while the grandfather was asserting:

"We are as wholly at your command, madam, as if this were Gideon Hayle'sboat. Our one thought is your safety. "

"And comfort of mind, " added the captain, about to go. 

Ramsey guessed the trouble. "We are veree oblige', " said her mother;"we'll continue on the _Votarezz_. "

"Goody!" murmured the daughter to old Joy, to Hugh, and to the captainas he left the group. "Goody!"

"Mother!" protested the twins, "you must not!"

"Oh-h! you?" she radiantly inquired, "you rather go ashore, you, eh?Veree well. Doubdlezz the captain be please' to put you. " Her smile grewstately as Ramsey laughed. She turned to the grandfather. "Never in mylife I di'n' ran away from sicknezz. I billieve anybody can't die tillhis time come'. When his time come' he'll die. My 'usband he billievethat, too. "

"Don't the Germans come from Germany?" asked Ramsey, but no one seemedable to tell her. 

"And also, " pursued the lady, "I billieve tha'z a cowardly--to run awayfrom those sick. " She looked around for the twins but they wereconferring aside. "And also I billieve, me--like they say--to getscare'--tha'z the _sure_ way to catch that kind of sicknezz. 'Tis bythat it pazz into the syztem! My 'usband he tell me that. He's vereeacquaint' with medicine, my 'usband, yes! And----"

"Is Germany in Asia?" Ramsey drawled, but nobody seemed to knowanything. 

"And I billieve, " persisted madame, "to continue on the boat, tha'z alsothe mo' safe. Because if we leave the boat, where we'll find one doctorfor _that_ maladee-e? An' if we _find_ one doctor, who's goin' nurse usin that maladee?"

"Is Asia--?" tried Ramsey again, but hushed with a strange thrill as herear caught, remotely beneath her, a faint sawing and hammering. 

"Mo' better, I billieve, " continued her mother, "we continue on the boatand ourselve' nurse those sick. When the Mother of God see' that she'llmaybe privent from coming our time to die. "

"If Germany--" whined Ramsey, but huddled down in her seat as the sawingand hammering came again----

"What, my chile?"

Light at last! She instantly sat up: "Why do they call it the Asiaticcholera if--?" She stopped short. From the open deck far below rose anangry cry:

"Stop that fool! Stop her!"

Ramsey darted so recklessly to the low front guard that Hugh darted alsoand held her arm as she bent over, while close upon the cry came awoman's long, unmistakable wail for her dead. Twice it filled the air, then melted out over the gliding waters and into the night, above theregardless undertones of the boat's majestic progress. Grandfather, nurse, mother, brothers pressed after the girl and Hugh. Clutched by thenurse, released by him, she still looked wildly down, seeing little yetmuch. At their back the great bell boomed. The boat's stem began to turnto the forested shore. A glare of torches at the lower guards crimsonedthe flood under the bows. She flashed round accusingly upon Hugh:

"What are we landing in the woods for?"

He met her gaze and it fell. Her mother tried to draw her away but shedropped to her knees at the rail and bent her eyes upon a dark groupcompacting below. Hugh muttered to his grandfather:

"She'd better leave the boat. She'd rather. "

Catching the words, she leaped and stood, her head thrown high. "Iwouldn't! I won't!"

She glared on him through brimming tears, but something about him, repeated and exaggerated in the twins as she whipped round to them, reversed her mood. She smote her brow into her mother's bosom and, underthe stress of a silvery laugh that would not be stifled, hung to thematernal neck and rocked from side to side. 

XI

FIRST NIGHT-WATCH

Often through the first half of that night, while many other matterspressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of theimmigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh'sgrandmother, born and bred in Holland. 

With Hugh standing by, the girl had drawn its recital from hisgrandfather; as whose bride that grandmother had been an immigrant, likethese, though hardly in their forlorn way and with Philadelphia, not NewOrleans, for a first goal. Thence, years later, with husband and child, she had reached and traversed this wild river, when it was so muchwilder, and had dwelt in New Orleans throughout her son's, JohnCourteney's, boyhood. Thence again, in his twenty-first year, she hadrecrossed the water to inherit an estate and for seven years had livedin great ports and capitals of Europe, often at her husband's side, yetoften, too, far from him, as he--leaving his steamboats to good captainsand the mother to her son--came and went on commercial adventuresocean-wide. It was these first seven years of John Courteney's manhood, spent in transatlantic study, society, public affairs, and a father'spartnership, that had made him--what Ramsey saw. 

The tale was fondly told and had made Hugh feel very homespun comparedwith such progenitors. But Ramsey had looked him up and down as if hemust have all his forebears' beautiful values deep hid somewhere in hisinside pockets, and had wondered, as she tossed away to the pilot-house, if he was destined ever to show the father's special gift of winning andholding the strongest and best men's allegiance. A very mature thoughtfor her, but she sometimes had such, and had once heard her fatherfrankly confess that therein lay the Courteneys' largest advantage overhim, he being signally able to rule the rudest men by a more formidablerudeness, but not to command the devotion of men superior to that sortof rule. 

At length the stars of midnight hung overhead. The amber haze of QueenBerenice's hair glimmered to westward. Where the river had so writhedround on itself as to be sweeping northeastward, the _Votaress_, midwayof a short "crossing" from left shore to right, was pointing southwest. An old moon, fairly up, was on the larboard quarter, and in the nearestbend down-stream the faint lights of a boat recently outstripped werejust being quenched by the low black willows of an island. In the bendabove shone the dim but brightening stern lights of the foremost andspeediest of the five-o'clock fleet. A lonely wooded point beneath thebrown sand of whose crumbling water's edge the poor German home-seekerhad found the home he least sought lay miles behind; miles by the longbends of the river, miles even straight overland, and lost in the nightamong the famed sugar estates that occupied in unbroken successionCollege Point and Grandview Reach, Willow Bend, Bell's Point, and BonnetCarré. Past was Donaldsonville, at the mouth of Bayou Lafourche, andyonder ahead, that boat just entering Bayagoula Bend, and which the_Votaress_ was so prettily overhauling, was the _Antelope_. 

"Fast time, " ventured the watchman to the first mate. 

"Yes, fast enough for a start. "

No word from either as to any trouble aboard. 

A cub pilot risked a remark to his chief: "'--Chase the antelope overthe plain, ' says the song, but I reckon we won't quite do that, sir. "

No, they wouldn't quite do that. Not a breath as to any unfortunateconditions anywhere. But on every deck, wherever equals met, the fearfulplight of the queer folk down nearest the water was softly debated. Distressing to feminine sympathy was the necessity of instant burials, first revealed up-stairs by that woman's cry of agony down on the lowergangway. But masculine nerve explained that such promptness would savelives and might confine the disease to the lower deck. Was no physicianon the boat? No, one would be taken aboard in the morning. Of course youcould ask to be set ashore, but, all things considered, to stay seemedwiser. Where was Madame Hayle? Few passengers knew, none of the boat's"family" chose to tell, and at bedtime the majority "retired. " So muchfor the surface of things. 

But beneath the surface--"Good God, sir! if any one is to go ashore, whyshouldn't it be _they_--the foreigners?"

For the full bearing of this speech let us recount certain doings inthis first half of the night. The Hayle twins, coming aboard at "PostForty-Six, " had begun, by the time the boat backed away, to offerexchanges of courtesy with such men on the boiler deck as seemed bestworth while, and this they kept up with an address which, despite theirobvious juleps, unfailingly won them attention. Even a Methodist bishop, who "knew their father and had known his father, both stanchMethodists, " was unstintedly cordial. No less so was a senator. 

"Know Gideon Hayle?" He had "known him before they had! Hoped to knowhim yet when his sons should be commodores. " Was on the _Chevalier_ whenthe _Chevalier_ outran the _Quakeress_. One twin heard the tale whilethe other brought the bishop. 

"Senator, you already know Bishop So-and-So?"

"Senator, we'd like you to know Judge So-and-So, sir. "

Judge, senator, and bishop were pleased. The senator reminded the judgethat they had met years before for a touch-and-go moment as one wasleaving and the other boarding the _Autocrat_--or was it the_Admiral_--a Hayle boat at any rate--how time does fly! The brotherstook but a light part in the chat and were much too wise to betray anydegree of social zeal. Each new introduction was as casual as the onebefore it. Sometimes they were themselves introduced but only those herenamed stayed in the set. Chairs were found for four, and Julian, stepping aside for a fifth chair, came upon another worthy, as welljuleped as himself and carrying his deck load quite as evenly. 

"Bishop So-and-So, this is our father's boyhood friend, GeneralSo-and-So. Judge So-and-So--Senator So-and-So--you both know thegeneral?" The general accepted Lucian's chair, and presently Lucian, with two more chairs, brought one more personage, tall and solemn. 

"Senator, have you never met Squire So-and-So?"

The senator had long wished to do so, the judge was well acquainted, thegeneral shook hands grandly, and the bishop blithely said the squire hadthe largest plantation on the Yazoo River. The squire was too thirsty tosmile but said he hoped the bishop would not feel above joining theothers as his guest at the bar. The bishop declined, but kept the seatsof all till their return. They came back talking politics, having foundthemselves of one democratic mind, southwestern variety, and able todiscuss with quiet dignity their minor differences of view on a numberof then burning questions now long burned out with the men who kindledthem: Webster, Fillmore, Scott, Seward, Clay, Cass, Douglas, Garrison, Davis, and others. 

By and by, without a break in the discussion, the seven walked back intothe cabin and stood where, on the first tap of the supper bell, eachcould snatch a seat near the upper end of the table and so collectivelyassume among the hundreds on the boat that separate and superior stationto which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them. The squirehad his motherless children aboard but could leave them to a sister andbrother-in-law. Which reminded the twins to look after their sister, onthe roof, as hereinbefore set forth. But both the bishop and the senatorwere thoughtful for them and when they came tardily to the board theyfound the group close about the old commodore, their own places savedand the judge and the general sustaining the squire's rather pepperyassertion to the courteous but vilely inconvincible commodore, thatcertain new laws of Congress must be upheld with all the national power, Yankee mobs be squarely shot into and their leaders hanged, or theFederal Union would not long be worth a rap. 

The senator had almost thought of something tactful to say and thebishop had just the right word on the end of his tongue, when Julian, with very good manners in a very bad manner, asked leave to speak, andthe squire, ignoring the commodore, said: "Certainly, Mr. Hayle, sir, do!"

"One thing to be stopped at all cost, " said Mr. Hayle, "is this delugeof immigration. Every alien who comes to New Orleans, and especiallyevery alien who passes on up this river into the West, strengthens theNorth and weakens the South commercially, industrially, and politically, and corrupts the national type, the national speech----"

"The national religion, "----prompted the bishop. 

"The national love of law and order, "----said the judge. 

"And of justice and liberty, "----put in the general. 

"And the national health, " said the youth. "New Orleans should refuseevery immigrant entrance to the country, and every steamboat on theMississippi ought to decline to carry him to his destination!"

The commodore smiled to reply, but the senator broke in with ananecdote, long but good, of a newly landed German. The judge followedclose with the story of a very green Irishman; and the general, withmellow inconsequence, brought in a tale to the credit of the departedJackson and debit of the still surviving Clay. A new sultrinessprevailed. The judge's palliative word, that many a story hard on Claywas older than Clay himself, relieved the tension scarcely more than didLucian's inquiry whether it was not, at any rate, true beyond cavil thatClay had treated Jackson perfidiously in that old matter----

That old matter's extreme deadness reminded the group that the repastwas over and Whiggism amply squelched. Besides themselves only theladies'-cabin people and the captain, away aft, lingered. The long, intervening double line of mere feeders was gone and the cabin-boys weresetting the second table. The commodore rose and the seven drifted outagain, with their seven toothpicks, to the boiler deck. There men whohad passed the salt to each other at table were giving each othercigars, some standing in knots, others taking chairs about the guards. Almost every one had related himself to some other one or more assomehow his or their guest and host combined, and had taken his turn orwas watching his chance to recognize the captain as social and civilautocrat and guardian angel over all. The conspicuousness of the twinsled to stories, in undertone, of the long Hayle-Courteney rivalry. 

"Remarkable, how it's run on and on without their ever locking horns, eh?"

"Mighty nigh did it when the _Quakeress_ burned. "

"Oh! do you really think so?"

"I know it, sir!" He who knew spat over the rail, and the one who haddared to doubt moved on. Between stories there were debates on thecomparative merits of the two types of hull favored respectively by therival builders: the slim Hayle model and the not so slim of theCourteneys. 

"After all, sir, " asserted a man of eagle eye, "a duck flies faster thana crane. "

"I doubt that, sir, " said one with the eye of a stallion. "Not that Iquestion your word, but----"

Their friends had to separate them. 

At that point along came the _Empress_, as we know, a sight only lessinspiring on this deck than to Ramsey on the roof; shining, saluting, huzzaing, then fading round the bend. When the card-tables were set outour group of seven fell into three parts. The squire and the general satdown to a game with a Vicksburg merchant and a Milliken's Bend planter, who "couldn't play late, " their wives being on the boat. The twins, ceasing to tell the senator and the bishop what damnable things _some_boats were known to have done for the sake of speed, went down-stairs totake a glance at the safety-valve, following a few steps behind thecaptain. For him they had just seen, as he came down from the roof totheir deck and met an unexpected messenger from the engine-room, promptly turn with him and go below. But their needless glance at thesafety-valve they never took. They saw only two or three poor womensobbing like babes, the dead body of a young man being prepared forburial, and the carpenter finishing his coffin. When the captain, aswill be remembered, went back to the hurricane-deck to tell theirmother, they went too. 

The boat's torches enabled all on the various decks to view the burial. It ended the game of cards. During the swift ceremony and long after itthe twins consulted the squire, the general, the Vicksburger, thesenator, the bishop, the judge, and the planter from Milliken's Bend asto what ought to be done. They took care to advance their questions andsuggestions singly and according to the nature of each hearer'sinflammability, and as each one kindled they brought him close toanother, Julian always supplying the hardihood, Lucian the guile. Herewere men, they said, and soon had others saying--the squire to themerchant, the general to the Milliken's Bend planter--here were men, gentlemen, scores on scores, not to say hundreds, who at all times andeverywhere could take the chances of life like men, like gentlemen, native American gentlemen. But here also were women and children, thefamilies of many of these gentlemen. Such risks were not for such womenand children. Was no step to be generally agreed upon? Was it to besupinely assumed that the owners of the _Votaress_, now mainlypreoccupied in overhauling the _Antelope_, knew all that was best to doand would punctually do it all?

The twins did not originate half the inquiries or replies, they merelystarted the ferment and kept it working. "You saw at table, did you not, the positive contempt the commodore--who is a foreigner himself--showedfor the direst needs of our country?" To be sure that had little to dowith the management of the boat, but it made it easier to think that theCourteneys, the captain himself being half Dutch in his origin, mightincline to do more for those people down-stairs than was just to thoseabove them--every way above them. The general called it a criminal errorto plant the victims of a deadly contagion along a great nationalhighway, like fertile seed in a fertile furrow. The bishop counted it nomercy to the aliens themselves to keep them aboard when they could beset ashore in a rough sort of roofless quarantine on some such isolatedspot as Prophet's Island, which should be reached by sunrise, washeavily wooded, and lay but six miles below the small town of PortHudson. 

Nor could he call it a mercy to consult the immigrants' wishes. Howcould they be expected to view the matter unselfishly?

A deputation of seven elected itself to wait on the captain. Themasterful twins, finding themselves not of its number, sought him inadvance, alone. But their interview was brief. We pass it. The first_watch_ turned in. The men who had served through the first two hours'run came again on duty as "middle watch, " and in their care, after theirfour hours' rest, the shining _Votaress_, teeming with slumberers, breasted the strenuous flood as regally as ever. 

XII

HUGH AND THE TWINS

In the captain's chair, between the derricks and the bell, far above andbehind which the chimneys' vast double plume of smoke and sparks traileddown the steamer's wake, sat Hugh Courteney, quite uncompanioned. 

So his father had just left him, leaving with him the thought, thoughwithout hint of it in word or tone, that some night, on some boat asdeeply freighted with cares as this one, he must sit thus, her master. The wonder of it, with the wonder of the boat herself and all shecarried, sounded a continuous stern alarum through his spirit like along roll sounding through a camp: "Be a man! Make haste! See even thoseHayle twins, with all their faults, and up! Make haste! Rise up and be aman!" Had the wonder-loving Ramsey been there she must have laughedagain; looking into his round, heavy visage was so much like lookinginto the back of a watch--one saw such ceaseless movement of mind yetlearned so little from it. Amid his wonderings he wondered of her; notonly where at that moment she might be, but what a child she still was, and yet in how few years--as few as two or three--she would be a woman, might be a bride. 

But soon a bride or never, the boat was full of matters only lessremarkable and he gently let the girl out of his thought by lookingbehind him. The windows of the captain's room--between thechimneys--front room of the texas--gave shining evidence that somewherethe captain was yet astir. From the rayless pilot-house above it faintnotes of speech showed that some one was up there with the pilot, but atthe same time a near-by tread drew Hugh to his feet with quick pleasureand again his father stood before him, looking at the lights of the_Antelope_, a few hundred yards ahead. 

"She'll soon be astern, " said Hugh. 

"We can't keep her so, " replied the captain, accepting his chair. "Wemust land too often. Where's your crony?"

"The commodore? He's turned in. " After a pause--"Father, you've shippeda lot of trouble. "

"Yes, " was the light response, "counting Hayle's twins. "

"I wish you'd give me full charge of them. "

"Do you?" laughed the father. "Take it. You hear them, don't you?"

They were easy to hear, down on the forward freight deck, dancing rounda bottle of liquor, and----

"Singing 'Gideon's Band, '" said Hugh listening. 

"Yes, " said the amused captain, "after pledging me on their honor to gostraight to bed. " Hugh started away so abruptly that his father asked:"Where are you bound?"

"I'm going to send them to bed. "

"Both of them?" smilingly asked the captain. 

"Yes, both. "

"Not both at once?"

"Yes, both at once. Do you know where their sister is?"

"Why, abed and asleep long ago, is she not?"

"I don't know, " said Hugh, going; "I doubt it. "

On his way he glanced about for her. Taking charge of the twins seemedlogically to involve a care of her. Where the mother was he knew. Downin the after parts of the lower deck, between the ceaseless torrents ofthe wheels, most of the people from overseas had spread their bedswherever they might, while in one small place apart some five or six laysmitten with the deadly contagion, two or three in agony, one or two inpainless collapse, under the unskilled, heartbroken care of a fewterrified kindred. There, by stealth at first and by the captain'shelpless leave when he found her there, attended by a colored man andmaid from the cabin service, was Madame Hayle, ministering, now withmedicine, now with the crucifix, amid the hammer's unflagging din. Tothis Hugh was reconciled; but it would never, never do, he felt, to letthe daughter share such an experience. Better to find her, even at thathour, on the boiler deck. 

But on the boiler deck he found only its wide semicircle of chairs quiteempty and no one moving among the high piles of trunks and light freightunder the hanging bunches of pineapples and bananas. He looked into thesaloon. It was bright though with half its lamps cold, but the barber'sshop and the clerk's office were shut, and double curtains of silk andwool cloistered off the ladies' cabin. The fragrant bar stood open, andat two or three card-tables sat heavy-betting, hard-chewing quartets, but no one else was to be seen; even the third Hayle brother had gone tobed. Halfway down the double front stairs to the lower deck, on alanding where the two flights merged into one, Hugh paused. All aboutbeneath him forward of the wheels, clear out to the capstan andjack-staff, slept the deckhands, except a few on watch, a few more whowith eager crouchings, snapping fingers, and soft cries gambled at dicein the red glare of the furnaces, and one who had become an amusedonlooker of the Hayle twins--the negro who, six hours before, by merelyputting out a hand had saved their sister's life. 

And there, close before Hugh, at the stairs' foot, under the open sky, were the twins. In their hunger for notice, their equal disdain of thecaptain and the deputation of seven, and their belief that the gayestdefiance of the plague was its best preventive, they had set theirbottle on the deck and in opposite directions were daintily pacing roundit in a long ellipse and chanting to a camp-meeting tune their song ofGideon:

 "O, Noah, he did build de ahk, O, Noah, he did build de ahk, O, Noah, he did build de ahk, An' shingle it wid cinnamon bahk. Do you belong to Gideon's band?

 Here's my heart an' here's my hand! Do you belong to Gideon's band? Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]

A glance at Hugh gave them new life. Singing on, they halted at oppositeends of the beat, patted thighs, called figures, leaped high, crossedshins, cracked heels, cut double-shuffles, balanced, swung round thebottle, lifted it, drank, replaced it, and resumed their ellipticalmarch to another stanza:

 "He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He los' de crap, but he save' de seed! Do you belong to Gideon's band? . . . . . . . . Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

Hugh moved on down. "Both at once, " he had said, but on everyaccount--their mother's, her daughter's, his father's--it must be bothat once without a high word from him. On the bottom step he was about tospeak, when a tall, flaxen-haired German in big boots and green cap andcoat, meek of brow and barely a year or two his senior, came out frombehind the stair and stepped between the dancers, silent but with a handlifted to one and then to the other. 

"No, " said Hugh to him. The alien's meekness vanished. He motionedtoward the sick. His blue eyes flashed. But in the same instant he wasjolted half off his feet by the lunging shoulder of one of the Haylesmarching to the refrain:

 "Do _you_ belong to Gideon's band?"

His answer was a blow so swift that Hugh barely saw it. The singer fellas if he had slipped on ice. Yet promptly he was up again, and fromright and left the brothers leaped at their foe. But while men rushed inand hustled the immigrant aft the negro who had saved Ramsey caught onetwin as lightly as he had caught her, and Hugh, jerking the other to hisknees, snatched up the bottle and whirled it overboard. A moment laterhe found himself backing up-stairs, followed closely by the pair. Thesewere being pushed up from below by others, and, in lofty phrases hotwith oaths, were accusing all Courteneys of a studied plan to insult, misguide, imperil, assault, and humiliate every Hayle within reach andof a cowardly use of deckhands and Dutchmen for the purpose. 

His replies were in undertone: "Come up! Hush your noise, your mother'llhear you! Come on! Come up!"

On the boiler deck they halted. The crowd filled the stair beneath andhe marvelled once more as he gazed on the two young Hectors, who, trueto their ideals and loathing the obliquities of a moral world that leftthem off deputations, blazed with self-approval in a plight whose shameburned through him, Hugh Courteney, by sheer radiation. 

"And as sure, " said Julian, "as sure as _hell_, sir, your life's bloodor that of your kin shall one day pay for this! To-night we arehelpless. What is your wish?"

"My father's wish is that you go to your stateroom and berths and keepyour word of honor given to him. "

"That, sir, is what we were doing when a hired ruffian----"

"Never mind the hired ruffian. Charge that to me. "

"Oh, sir, it is charged!" said the two. "And the charge will becollected!" They went their way. 

[Footnote 1: [music]]

XIII

THE SUPERABOUNDING RAMSEY

In his hurricane-deck chair, with eyes out ahead on the water, JohnCourteney gently took his son's hand as the latter, returning to hisside, stood without a word. 

"Tucked in, are they, both of them?"

No reply. 

"Hugh, I hear certain gentlemen are coming to ask me to put our deckpassengers ashore. "

"You can't do it, sir. "

"Would you like to tell them so?"

"I'd like nothing better. "

"Now that you've tasted blood, eh?"

No reply. 

"It wouldn't be a mere putting of bad boys to bed, my son. It would beDavid and Goliath, with Goliath in the plural. "

"Can't I pass them on to you if I find I must?"

"Of course you can. Hugh, I'm tempted to try you. "

"I wish you would, sir. "

"With no coaching? No 'Polonius to the players'?"

"I wish you would. "

The father looked into the sky. "Superb night, " he said. 

Again no reply. 

"Were you not deep in the spell of it when I found you here awhile ago?"

"Yes, I was. "

"My son, I covet your better acquaintance. "

"You mean I--say so little?"

"You reveal yourself so little. Even your mother felt that, Hugh. "

"I know it, father. And yet, as for you----"

"Yes--as for me----?"

"I've never seen you without wanting to tell out all that's in me. " Thepair smiled to each other. 

"And you say that at last, now, you can do it?"

"Did I say that, sir?"

"Not in words. But you seem all at once to be seeing things--taking holdof things--in a new way. "

"The things themselves are new, sir. They're small, but--somehow--they've helped me on. "

"Couldn't I guess one of them?"

"I hardly think so, sir; they're really such trifles. "

"Well, for a first attempt, Ramsey. "

"Yes. How did you guess that?"

"She's such a persuasive example of perfect openness. "

"Her mother's a much lovelier one. "

"No, Hugh; allowing for years, Miss Ramsey's even a better. But--anothersmall thing--shall I mention it?"

"Yes, please. "

"All these Hayles, to-night, bring up the past--ours. "

"Yes!" said Hugh, and said no more, as if the remark had partly unlockedsomething and then stuck fast. 

The questioner tried a smaller key. "What were you thinking, " he asked, "when I joined you here to-night?"

"When you--? Oh, nothing we're thinking of now. "

"At the same time, what was it?"

"Why--something rather too fanciful to put into words. "

"All the same, let's have it. "

"Well, for one thing, seeing and feeling this boat, with all its lightand life, speeding, twinkling on and on through the night like a swarmof stars, the thought came--and I was wishing I could share it withyou----"

The elder hand pressed the younger. 

"The thought that since infinite space--" The thought seemed to stall, take breath, and start again--"since infinite space is lighted only bythe stars, the rush and roll of this universe through space is foreverand ever--in the large--a night scene--an eternal starlight. Is thatabsurd--to you?"

The father smiled: "Why, no. I merely--doubt it. All starlight issunlight--near enough by. "

"Yes. But between stars there is no near-by, is there?"

"That depends on who's looking, I think. We mustn't impute human eyes toGod--or angels--or saints. You remember the word: 'Darkness and lightare both alike to thee'?"

"Yes, " pensively said Hugh, rejoicing in this converse yet wondering whyit made him feel so childish to speak his best while Hayle's twinsshowed up in so manly a fashion when they spoke their worst. "Yes, Ithought of that, too. Yet I was glad to believe there will always beplenty of starlight for those who love it----"

"Wow!" yelled Ramsey in his ear. 

With a gulp he whirled and faced her where, limp with laughter, she hungand swung on the captain's chair. Its occupant quietly rose. The oldnurse wrung her hands, and Ramsey, in an agony of mirth and dismay, cringed back on her. Suddenly the maiden stood at her best height andwith elaborate graciousness said:

"I _hope_ I haven't interrupted!"

The father's hand appeasingly touched the son's while playfully he said:"You have a hopeful nature, Miss Ramsey. " And then, as her disconcertedeyes widened, he asked: "Where did you come from just now?"

He saw that if she spoke she must weep. Instead she jauntily waved awhole arm backward and upward to the pilot-house. Then, her self-commandreturning, she remarked, for Hugh in particular: "It's nice up there. They don't snub you. " She twitched a shoulder at him, made eyes to hisfather, and once more tinkled her laugh, interiorly, as though it were adoor-bell. 

The captain was amused, yet he gravely began to ask: "Does yourmother----?"

"Know I'm out? She doth. First time I've been out o' bed this late inall my long and checkered career. "

"If she does, Miss Ramsey, will you go up to the pilot once more andtell him to land the boat at the wood-yard just this side of Bonnabelplantation?"

Her mouth fell open: "Who, me? Tell the--?" She swept the strategistwith a quick, hurt glance, but beamed again beneath his kind eyes. "_Iget your idea_, " she said, snatched the nurse's arm, and hurried offwith her, humming and tripping the song she had quoted. 

The captain looked again into "infinite space. " The wide scene wasshifting. High beyond the _Votaress's_ bow the stars of the west swungas if they shifted southward. The moon crossed her silvering wake fromlarboard quarter to starboard. The _Antelope_ shone close ahead. "To me, Hugh, " he lightly resumed, "this boat, full of all sorts of people, isn't so much like your swarm of stars as it is like just one littlewhole world. "

"Yes, " said the son, facing him sidewise so that no Ramsey might againsurprise them: "I see it that way too. Father"--the father had stirredas if to leave him--"I want to tell you some things about our past. ButI can't tell them piecemeal. I must find some time when you're offwatch. "

"And when Miss Ramsey's asleep?"

"Yes. "

"Why have you never told me before?"

"I've tried for years. The power wasn't in me. I've had to grow up toit. But, as you say, 'now, at last, ' I can do it. "

The captain turned away and looked up to the dim pilot-house. Out of itcame the tranquil voice of the pilot who earlier had talked with thetwins: "Caving bank above has planted snags at that wood-yard, sir. Whippoorwill Ferry's a better landing, on t'other side, head o' thecrossing. "

"Well, Mr. Watson, land there. "

The boat was sweeping close by the west-shore village of Bayagoula, thatlay asleep where the stream for a brief space widened to a mile. Herveering jack-staff hid the north star a moment, then crept to right ofit and pointed up a five-mile reach of dim waters and dimmer shores, hard on the heels of the panting _Antelope. _ But the captain's eyelingered behind and above him. Between him and the pilot-house, softlyveiled by its moonlight shadow, stood in unconscious statuesqueness onthe front overhang of the texas roof, between the towering chimneys, Ramsey. 

Her rippling curls and slim shoulders stood above the shade thatenveloped the rest of her form and showed dark against the feeble lightof the moon at her back. As he looked she uttered a droll sound--faircounterfeit of the harsh note a mocking-bird speaks to himself beforehis nightly outburst--and then broke forth in a voice as untrained, butas fresh and joyous and as reckless of reproof or praise, as the bird's:

 "'O, the lone, starry hours give me, love, When still is the beautiful night----'"

At sight of a second and third figure he moved that way, while below thesinger's feet sounded a mother's moan: "Ramsey! mon Dieu! my chile! comedown from yondeh!"

The girl's eyes stayed in the sky, but one mutinous foot so keenly smotethe roof that her nurse, approaching behind, stopped short, and fromHugh came a laugh, a thin, involuntary treble, which caused Ramseyvisibly to flinch. 

"Ramsey!" entreated her mother again, but----

"Just this one moment, beloved mom-a! Listen, oh, listen, everybody! tomy midnight thought!" The rhapsodist struck a stiffer pose and beganwith all her voice, "Since infinite space is lighted only by the stars!their rush and roll--te rum te riddle, te rum te ree----"

"Ramsey!"

"--Is an eternal starlight!" The girl hugged and kissed her black nurse:"Oh, mammy Joy! is that absurd to you?"

"Ram-zee!" cried the mother. But a toll of the great bell silenced her. Another solemnly followed, and when a third completed the signal toland, the staggering footsteps of the vanished girl dragging old Joywith her in full retreat were a relief to every ear. As madame turned tosay good night a last bleat came out of the darkness:

"Please don't, anybody, tell about the _Quakeress_ to-night!"

XIV

THE COMMITTEE OF SEVEN

"Hitherto, " said the senator, in his stateroom, to the bishop and thejudge, "there really has been no need to take any assertive step. "

He was explaining his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seatseven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standingwas so much easier than elsewhere. 

Their business, the seven's, he added, was with the captain, andofficially the captain had gone off duty at eight o'clock and was onagain only now, at midnight, in the "middle watch. " Even yet there needbe no hurry; what they wanted done could not be done before earlymorning, at Prophet's Island. 

The bishop approved. "Don't cross the bridge till you get to it, " hequoted. 

The judge--whose elderly maiden sister was aboard and abed butawake and alarmed and amazed and astounded that he should be sohelpless--assented, too, but thought there was now no call for furtherdelay; Prophet's Island was nearer every moment and the sooner "thosepeople" were well ashore the safer--and easier--for everybody. 

"I was giving our numbers time to grow, " remarked the senator. 

"And the cholera time to spread?" queried the judge. 

"We're but a small minority yet, " persisted the senator. 

"A minority always rules, " smilingly said the bishop. 

The senator smiled back. "There are two or three hundred of those deckpassengers alone, " he responded. 

"Senator, " said the judge, "what of that? We've taken upon ourselves tospeak for all the cabin passengers on this boat, whether as yet theyagree with us or not. They are as numerous as those foreigners, sir, and, my God! sir, _they_ are our own people. Self-preservation is thefirst law!"

"Oh, surely you know, " protested the senator, "I'm with you, heart andsoul! We must extricate these people of our own from a situation whosedesperateness most of them do not recognize. We'll go to the captainnow, as soon as--as we must. But let us agree right here that whateverwe require him to do we also require him to do of his own free will. Hemust shift no responsibility upon us. You have, of your sort, bishop, aconstituency quite as sensitive as the judge's or mine, and we don'twant to give any one a chance to start a false story which we might findit difficult to run down. And so we can hardly be too careful----"

The absent four had returned while he spoke. "Sir, " interrupted thegeneral, whose th's were getting thick, "ththat is what we havebeen--too careful!"

The hearts of the four were on fire. A chance word of the barkeeper, they said, had sent them to the stateroom of Hayle's twins, who, withtears of wrath, had confessed themselves prisoners; prisoners of theirown word of honor--"after being knocked down----"

"What?" cried senator, judge, and bishop. 

"Yes, sirs, one of them literally knocked down by the acknowledgedminion of one Courteney, for having ventured to differ politically withanother and for daring to mention the pestilence to a third. "

The seven poured out to the guards and started for the roof. The bell upthere tolled for the landing at Whippoorwill Ferry. About to ascend astair, they uncovered and stood aside while Madame Hayle and a cabinmaid passed down on their way back to the immigrants' deck. By the timethe roof was reached the boat was close inshore. The captain had begunto direct her landing. The engine bells were jingling. Tall torchbaskets were blazing on the lower-deck guards, and another burialawaited only the running out of the big stage. Now it hurried ashore, aweirdly solemn pageant. The seven, looking down upon it, regained a morebecoming composure. When the swift task was done, the torches quenched, and the boat again under way and her movements in control of the pilot, they once more looked for the captain. His chair was empty, but his roomwas bright and its door ajar. Within, however, was only the whollyuninspiring figure of Hugh, at a table, where he was just beginning towrite. He rose and seemed sedately to count his visitors. 

"We are looking for the captain, " said the senator. 

"He's down on the after lower deck, sir. "

"Oh!" The bushy brows of the inquirer lifted. "Will you send for him? Wecan't very well go down there. "

"That's true, sir, " said Hugh, feeling the irony, "unless you wish tohelp. " He looked from one to another, but none of the seven wished tohelp. 

"Do you mean to say, " broke in the general, "ththat we can't sssee ththecaptain of ththis boat unless we nurse the cholera?"

"No, sir, I don't mean that, though he's very much occupied. If you willstate your business to me I will send for him unless I can attend to itmyself. "

"Why, my young friend, " said the senator, "does that strike you as duecourtesy to a delegation like this?"

"No, sir, ordinarily it would not be, sir. But my father--I am thecaptain's son--knowing you were coming and what you were coming for, waited for you as long as he could. Just now he is extremely busy, sir, doing what he can--short-handed--for the sick and dying. " The captain'sson, in spite of himself, began to warm up. "Those hundreds of peopledown yonder, sir, are homeless, friendless, dumb--you may say--and inhis personal care. He has left me here to see that your every properwish has every attention. Gentlemen, will you please be seated?" Heresumed his own chair and at top speed began again to write. 

It was a performance not pleasant for any one. He felt himself culpablytoo full of the resentful conviction that this ferment, whose ultimateextent nobody could predict, was purely of those Hayle twins' brewing, and he knew he was speaking too much as though to them and them alone. He was the only Courteney who could do this thing so badly, yet it mustbe done. Still writing, he glanced up. Not a visitor had stooped to sit. He dipped his pen but rose up again. "What can I do for you, sirs?"

"We have told you, " said the senator. "Send for the captain!"

"Will you please say what you want him for?"

"No, sir! We will tell him that when he comes!"

"He'll not come, sir. I shan't send. "

The senator glared steadily into the youth's face, and the youth, forgetting their disparity of years, glared as steadily back. The bishopblandly spoke:

"Senator, will you allow me, for an instant--? Mr. Courteney, you willadmit that this steamboat is not your property?"

"She's as much mine as anybody's, sir. I am one third owner of her. "

The bishop's pause was lengthy. Then--"Oh, you are! Well, however thatmay be, sir, your father ought to realize--and so ought you, sir--thatwe cannot consent to conduct an affair like this in a second-handedway. "

"It really isn't second-handed, sir; but if you think it is and ifyou're willing to put your request in writing and will dictate it to me, here and now----"

The senator exploded: "Damn the writing!" He whirled upon the bishop:"Your pardon, sir!"

"Some one had to say it, " jovially answered the bishop. Everybodylaughed. Hugh dipped his pen once more. 

"Shall I put that down, also?" he asked, looking to the bishop and thesenator by turns. 

"Put what?--down where?" they asked. "What are you writing there, anyhow?"

"Our conversation. "

The senator stiffened high: "For what, sir?"

And the bishop asked, "A verbatim report to the captain?"

"Yes, sir, and the newspapers. "

"Insolence!" exclaimed the general, but was hushed by the squire, thoughthe squire's own brow lowered. 

"Who will vouch for your accuracy?" loftily asked the senator. 

"I'll send now for witnesses. " The youth reached toward a bell-cord. Butthe senator lifted a hand between:

"Stop, sir. There will be nothing to witness. Nevertheless you know, ofcourse, that this is not the end. "

"I see that, sir. "

"When your passengers awake in the morning, your real, your cabinpassengers, they will, they _shall_ awake to the deadly hazard of theirsituation. Gentlemen, there will be available landings beyond Prophet'sIsland. We shall reach Turnbull's Island by noon and Natchez Islandbefore sundown. Meantime, sir, this mortal peril to hundreds of our bestpeople is wholly chargeable to your captain. "

"Captain and owners, " said Hugh. 

"Captain and owners! Good night, sir. "

"Good night, gentlemen. "

For half an hour the _Votaress_ headed west. Then the north star creptforward from starboard beam to bow and then back from bow to larboardbeam. Plaquemine town, bayou, and bend swept past, and as she laid hercourse east for Manchac bayou, bend, and point a tranquil voice came upto the pilot-house from the darkness forward of the bell: "Where isHugh, Mr. Watson?"

"He's just turned in, sir. "

XV

MORNING WATCH

Twinkled quite away were the four hours of middle watch. 

All the gentler turnings of the journey's first hundred miles werefinished and the many hundred miles of its wider contortions were wellbegun. One winding of thirty-five miles had earned but twelve ofnorthward advance. But at any rate that was now far downstream. BatonRouge, the small capital of the State, crowning the first high bank youreach, was some six miles astern. In the dark panorama of the shores, decipherable only to a pilot's trained sight, the unbroken procession ofsugar estates was broken at last and the shining _Votaress_, havingrounded a point from north to west, was crossing close above it withSeven Lakes and the Devil's Swamp on her starboard bow. The _Antelope_glimmered a short mile behind. 

It was the first mate's watch. On the hurricanedeck he paced at easeacross and across near the front rail, where at any instant his eyecould drop to its truer domain, the forecastle. The westerly moon hunghigh over the larboard bow. Now the boat ran so close along the lowlandthat in smiting the water each bucket of her shoreward wheel drew aseparate echo from the dense wood, as if a phantom boat ran beside heramong the moss-draped cypresses. Ramsey! what thrills you were missing!

She knew it. In her sleep she lay half consciously resenting the loss. Under the next point a close turn led into a long northeastward reach, and as the _Votaress_ bore due north across it the morning star, at oneflash, blazed out on the dark world and down the flood. Through herstateroom's high window its silvery beam found Ramsey in the upper berthand opened her eyelids with a touch. Staring on the serene splendor, shewould soon have slept again, but just then the many lights of a largesteamer glided out of the next bend above and Ramsey sprang to an elbowto watch its swift approach and await her own boat's passing call andthe other's reply. Now the _Votaress_ tolled a single stroke, as if tocry: "Hail, friend, we take the starboard. "

With bird-like speed the shining apparition came on, and after a fewseconds--that seemed endless--its soft, slow note of assent floated overthe waters. Crossing the star's slender path on a long oblique, thewonder came, came on, came close, glittered by, and was gone; nowlowland and flood lay again in mystic shadows, and the heavenly beaconof dawn, shedding a yet more unearthly glory than before, swung nearerand nearer to the _Votaress's_ course until it vanished forward of thegreat wheel-house as she headed northeast. 

The very pilot at the helm was not more awake than the reclining Ramseyas she pondered the hours, each one a year, that had passed since shecame aboard. All their happenings, dark and bright; all their speeches;all their faces, male, female, aged, adolescent, juvenile, dancedthrough her fancy with a variety and multiplicity of values which sevensuch little country-girl minds as hers, thought she, could hardly makeroom for. It seemed as though a shower of coined gold were overflowingher wee muslin apron of an intelligence and dropping through it. Shecould scarcely remain in the berth. Listen! Was her mother awake, in thelower one? The boat veered a trifle back northward and suddenly again, hovering over dim water and shore and blazing like a herald angel, wasthe morning star, a scant point or so to "stabboard. " She chuckled, softly, at the word. 

Gently her name was called, beneath her: "Ramsey?"

She let her face into the pillow and shook with the fun of it. If sheshould squeak half a note of reply she would be ordered to stay abed. Soon the mother rose and began stealthily to dress. No doubt it was toreturn to those poor Germans below. The thought was very sobering. Ramsey yearned to go with her, but knew she might as well ask leave toride in the white yawl which, night and day, so incessantly, invitinglyskimmed, zigzagged, foamed, and bounded after the _Votaress_, holding onto her fantail by its jerking painter. 

The yawl reminded her of the boy Hugh. He seemed to belong tothe boat in much the same way as it. He _was_ a boy, nothingelse--humph!--pooh!--though he seemed to think himself the elephant ofthe show. A boy, and yet with what a mind! Not that she should ever wantone like it--whoop! what would she ever do with it? No wonder she hadlaughed in his face. Without laughter she would have been his tossed andtrampled victim. Laughter was her ladder; the ladder up which the circusgirl runs to sit on the elephant's shoulder. 

The lock of the stateroom door whispered. Her mother was going! Now shewas gone! The daughter rose enough to look out on the gliding flood. Itwas day. But, night or day, how it intensified existence, thisperpetual, tremulous passing of heaven and earth over and round and byand beneath one! Every least incident, indoors or out, was large andvivid, and a mere look from a window became a picture in the memory, tohang there through life. Nay, a sound was enough, too much. The remotepeck-peck of that carpenter's hammer smote into her mind the indelibleimage of the only thing he could be making at such an hour. Trying to bedeaf, she thought of Joy--timely thought! At any moment the old dearmight steal in. She dropped from her berth, and when the actual invasioncame, when Joy appeared, Ramsey was at the wash-stand, splashing like acanary, while strewn about the cramped place lay a lot of fresh attire, her Sunday best, brightest, longest. 

"Now, you needn't say one word!" she cried. 

The old woman bridled to say many, but before she could speak there wasa fervent challenge to answer:

"Do you realize all I've got to attend to to-day?"

The nurse's mouth opened but another question was shot into it: "Hasanybody told about the _Quakeress_?"

There was a limit to forbearance. "Now, Miss Ramsey Hayle, ef dey istell it, aw ef dey hain't--to yo' ma--dat's all right an' beseemly. Butfo' you, dat ain't no fitt'n' story fo' you to heah!"

Ramsey stared from her towel with lips apart. "Why, you--I'm going tohear it!--all!--this day!--or, anyhow, this trip!--from--from--" Shefell upon the nurse's shoulder, convulsed. 

"F'om who' is you gwine hear it? Stop, missie, stawp! Dat's madness, datlaughteh. De Bible say' so! F'm who'--? Lawd! yo' head's a-wett'n' mybreas'-han'kercheh!"

Ramsey drew up, her eyes dancing, but went into a new transport as shereplied: "From the baby elephant!"

"No, you don't, Miss Ramsey Hayle! No, you don't! An' besides, befo' youheah de story o' de _Quak'ess_ you want to heah de story o' Phyllis. "

XVI

PHYLLIS

From earliest childhood the Hugh whom it gave Ramsey such rapture tonickname had unconsciously worn the dim frown that seemed to her sodroll because at once so scrutinous yet so appealing. 

To others that faint shade had never meant more than an inborn mentalpainstaking; a mind as steadily at work as the pulse; seeminglysluggish, really active. But Ramsey, in her stateroom, letting Joy dressher for all the Sabbath could mean afloat or ashore, could not acceptsuch a thought. A feminine eagerness to read the masculine brow hadpromptly imputed to Hugh's a depth of mystery for which her romanticyoung soul demanded a romantic interpretation. Hence, mainly, her hungerfor the story of the _Quakeress_. She had perceived, she thought, arelation between it and the clouded brow, and was bent on finding forthe brow's owner as amazing a part in the tale as could be contrived byany piecing together of its facts which did not absolutely mutilatethem. And these facts already she had begun to collect when by themention of this "Phyllis" she discovered that old Joy had at least ashare of the facts and under due pressure would yield them up. 

"Phyllis?" asked Ramsey, "who was Phyllis?"

"Humph! Neveh hear o' Phyllis? Well, dey wuz reason fo' dat, too. Phyllis wuz de likeliest yalleh gal I eveh see, not-in-standin' she wuzmy full fus' cousin. "

Now, one could be as dark as a sloe and yet have a cousin as yellow as amarigold, but Ramsey did not see it so. "How can that be?" she laughed, "when you are so out and out black?" The bare idea seemed too comicalfor human endurance. 

"I ain't no blackeh'n Gawd made me--oh, Lawd! missie, how I gwine buttonyou up ef you shif' an' wriggle like dat? Phyllis wuz nuss to all deCo'teney chil'en. 'Caze dat same day when de new _Quak'ess_ come down deriveh wid dis same Mahs' Hugh, new-bawn, dah wuz yo' pa on his new boat, de _Conjuror_----"

"Ow! the _Conqueror_!"

"Yass'm, dat's what I say. And dah wuz yo' ma, an' me, o' co'se, and dahwuz Phyllis, my full fus' cousin--now, ef you cayn't stop a-gigglin' an'wrigglin' long enough fo' me to finish dis----"

Ramsey was too unnerved to heed. "How could--" she insisted--"how coulda--a mulatto girl be your first cousin?"

"Now, you dess neveh min' how! Phyllis wa'n't no mullatteh, nohow. Shewuz a quadroom! Heh mullatteh motheh wuz my own sisteh!"

"Oh, you mean half-sister!"

"I means whole sisteh! Miss Hayle, betteh you dess drap dat subjic' now, an' thaynk Gawd fo' yo' ign'ance!"

"All right! all right! whole sister! go on! were you twins?" The queristgave a wild start of surprise at herself and sank to the floor. 

"Missie, " sighed the old woman, "y'ain't neveh in yo' life stopped tothink dat niggehs is got feelin's, is you?"

The speech was hardly begun before the girl was up and about theprotester's neck: "Hush! ple-ease hush! You've said it before, you'vesaid it before, you've said it before, before!"

The nurse's eyes filled: "Yass, an' what use it been? De wuss thing Iknow 'bout good white folks--an' when I says 'good' I means debest!--dat is, dat dey don't _believe_ niggehs is got feelin's!" It washard to speak on, for Ramsey had pushed her into a chair and was in herlap. 

"They do! they do, mammy Joy, they do!" She fell to kissing her, firstslowly, then wildly as Joy insisted:

"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pass shecame to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes' _believes_ dey believes, dat'sall. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got--oh, Lawd! _don't_spile my breas'-han'kercheh!--is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; butlots o' niggehs is got _lots_ mo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an'betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh----"

"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister musthave had feelings. Tell about Phyllis--and the Courteneys--and the_Quakeress_. "

"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'----"

"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to ask _him_ about and you knowI'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you tokeep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as youcan--listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! Andwe're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"

At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six;a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly madeout in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged asif doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity. 

"The _Fly-up-the-Creek_!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that _can't_ be all!" Shesprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on thehurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide gloryof water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her--but her behavior may as wellgo undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilothigh above at the wheel, Watson's "partner, " glancing down from his sidewindow, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet soheartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, andthought of home. 

When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and thetheme was once more Phyllis. 

"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question. 

"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold. "

Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashedback: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life soldone of his negroes!"

"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz aquadroom?"

"Why, " laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"

"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!--dat de likeso' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin _make_ a niggeh out'n asimon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat hehlike a niggeh; but----"

Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"

"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but--I's seen itdone! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how comePhyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"

"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she wasgood. "

"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de_Quak'ess_. " The narrator shut her lips tight. 

The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slimshoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed amarvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, andgold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the _Votaress_bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain thatshe was about to enter a "chute, " whose vividly green, low, wooded shoreon her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all theravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to theregion. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight. 

Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by lawwhen descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the mainriver. She had heard with awe that bit of history--not thishistory, --the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of fourhundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the whiteman, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now whatunmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recentpresence of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ away over here on this morning sideof the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had noright to be, coming down-stream. 

"My!" cried the girl, "I wish--oh, my, my, _my_, I wish I could be fivepeople at once!"

For here the boat's watchman sauntered by--a boat's watchman must be aworld in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still pacedathwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elderCourteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Hererushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menageriestill unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, hercook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing onher lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweetmother playing angel--oh, my, my!--and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute'sgreenwood walls and out over their tops--"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't everlisten to you, once we're in the chute!"

"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow. She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yallehsisteh--aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o'Vicksbu'g, same like _us_ got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa hestick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive'yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' grammadie' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa--a shawtspell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up. "

"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do. "

"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz. "

"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"

"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me upa-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'--well, I'll stop tell you quits degiggles. . . . Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeahayfteh y'uncle Dan--de bacheldeh--de pilot--quit de riveh a spell fo' torun de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speakup ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile. "

"Chi--you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"

"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul. "

Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"

"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat wholeVicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan'Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his'rights' like a sett'n' hen. "

"But what did mom-a _want_ to borrow her for?"

"Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got tosay she 'llow to p'otect heh. "

Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh, keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would nothave excused to her nurse. 

"Protect her from--from wha-at?" She rippled again. 

"F'om herseff!--an' f'om him!--an' him f'om heh!--and de whole Haylefambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!--up to dewery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when----"

"Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me----"

"Anybody else eveh tol' you? No. Us Hayles-es ain't fon' o' dat story. What I ain't tell you ain't be'n ripe to tell. I don't tell noth'n''tell it's ripe to tell, me!"

"Oh, it's dead ripe now. Go on, go on!--Burning pilot-house--my uncleDan--stop!. . . Hmm!. . . That's funny. . . . Why, mammy, how could he be myuncle if he--was burnt up--before I was born?"

"Dat's yo' lookout. He wa'n't bu'nt up tell you wuz goin' on five. Yo'mixin' his las' en' wid yo' grampa's. "

"Oh, I see-ee! He was lost on the _Quakeress_!"

"Well, thaynky, ma'am! Yo' perceivin' powehs is a-gitt'n' ahead o' dehounds. I wuz a-comin' to dat----"

Ramsey interrupted. Her cry of ecstasy was not for the breakfast bell, which on the deck next below rang joyously up and down both guards anddied away in the ladies' cabin. It was for a vision that rose before herand the _Votaress_; an illusion of the boat's whole speed being lost tothe boat and given to the shore. Suddenly the fair craft seemed to stopand stand, foaming, panting, quivering like a wild mare, while thegreen, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest--island and mainland--amid asinging of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute togulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain upon her beauty. 

"Go on!" cried Ramsey, her eyes enthralled by the scene, her ears by thestory:--"Mom-a borrowed Phyllis--go on!"

"When yo' grampa gone, " said Joy, "an' de will is read, yo' ma telly'uncle Dan fo' to neveh mine his rights aw his lef's; he kin go onownin' Phyllis and de chile, but, all de same, he cayn't have 'em. An'when he paw de groun' an' th'ow dus' on his back yo' pa dess--go an' seehim. Wheneveh yo' pa dess go an' see anybody, you know----"

Ramsey knew. She tinkled with delight. 

"But den come wuss trouble. 'Caze 'bout dat time----"

About that time Ramsey whisked round and stood so as to give HughCourteney, as he came on deck, a square view of her young back. Henoticed her better length of skirt. 

"Go on, " she murmured. "Is he coming this way?"

"Co'se he ain't. He gwine up to de pilot-house. "

"Humph, how _awful_ busy! That's just for grandeur. Go on. " And whilethe leafy jaws of the chute drew them in and all the air was suddenlyfilled with the boat's sounds flung back from every rippling bough, treetop, and mass of draping vines, the nurse went on:

"'Bout dat time yo' pa he git de hahdess ovehseeh he eveh did git, an'you can't 'spute de fact dat yo' pa he take' natchiully to hahd men, an'hahd men take natchiully to him. You kin say dat to his credits. "

"Yes, " replied Ramsey, "yes, " sighing, gesticulating, whimpering inecstasies of sight as the walls of the watery lane cramped in to halfits first width. They seemed to rush past of their own volition, whileout beyond them on either hand the whole dense gray-green interwovenwilderness, with ceremonial stateliness, swung round on itself in slowtime to the windy speed of the _Votaress_. 

XVII

"IT'S A-HAPPMIN' YIT--TO WE ALL"

Nevertheless, "Go on!" cried Ramsey. "How could the overseer be hard onPhyllis if Phyllis was mom-a's maid?"

"Phyllis fo'ce' him to it! 'Caze all dat time, while she sweet as roseswid yo' ma--so's to keep in cahoots wid heh an' not have noth'n' to dowid niggehs o' no breed, pyo', half, quahteh, aw half-quahteh--she sowild to git back to y'uncle Dan dat she----"

"And to leave mom-a! The goosy-goosy! What for?"

"Well, for one thing, by bad luck, f'om fus' sight, de ovehseeh he_fancy_ Phyllis. Y'un'stan'----"

"I don't! I don't want to--Go on!"

"Humph! Phyllis un'stan'. She un'stan' so well an' so quick dat de fus'drizzly night when de rain 'u'd spile de trail--de scent--she up wid dechile an' putt out. "

"For my uncle Dan! Walnut Hills! Go on!" The moving scene was forgottenthough the chute was widening again. 

"Well, de ovehseeh, o' co'se, he _got_ to run heh down an' fetch hehback. An' same time de creeks an' bayous----"

"Oh, now, that's the same old----"

"Yass, oh, yass, de same ole! So ole an' common dat you whitefolks--what has all de feelin's----"

"Now, just hush! You don't know anything about it! Go on! Go on! Thebayous were--what?"

"Bank full, dat's all. One place Phyllis an' him nigh got swep' away an'he drap' de chile. "

"Oh!. . . Oh!. . . Oh!"

"He bleeged to do it, he tell yo' ma, fo' to save Phyllis--what ain'twant'n' to be save'. Whils' de chile--wuz--de chile wuz drownded. " Theold woman moved to rise, but the girl, with a new expression in herface, prevented her. 

"Go on! What did mom-a do?"

"Lawd, what could she do--widout yo' pa?"

"Oh, I'd have done something. What did Phyllis do?"

"Phyllis? Dess th'ash' de bed fo' th'ee days--eyes a-blazin' murdeh;th'ee days and de Lawd know' how many night'. Yo' ma done one thing butyou don't want to know dat, I reckon. "

"What did she do? Did she turn Whig?"

"Wuss!--ef wuss kin be. She tu'n'--dat day--Abolitionless. Ain't nevehtell me, but--you ax heh. Mebbe it wa'n't all 'count o' Phyllis. Mebbeit wa'n't plumb hoss-sensible nohow. But dat day-- You ax heh!"

Ramsey flashed: "What are you telling me all this for?"

"Lawd! An' how many time' is you say, 'Go on'?"

"I meant about the _Quakeress_. "

"Well, ain't dis de story o' de _Quak'ess_? When----"

"Stop! I'll tell it to you. I see it all. "

"You! Y'ain't see it de quahteh o' half a quahteh. Dat story isa-happmin' yit--to we-all--on dis boat!"

The breakfast-bell rang again, and Hugh started down from thepilot-house. But Ramsey would ask the old woman one more question: "Isit happening to him, too?"

"Co'se, him; all o' us; twins an' all. When us brung Phyllis down deriveh yo' ma wuz dead ag'in sellin' heh, an' when us git win' dat deCo'teneys want' a nuss yo' pa he dat glad he snap his fingehs. 'Us'llrent Phyllis to 'em!' he say. 'Dey's Hendry Clay Whigs; dey'd ought totreat heh fine. ' (Dat wuz his joke. ) An' yo' ma make answeh: 'Ef deydon't, us kin take heh back! Betteh dat dan sell heh! Nobody o' de Hayleblood shayn't do dat whils' I live. '"

Hugh was near. "Good morning!" sang Ramsey. They met at the head of astair. She turned away and looked out beyond the jack-staff as radiantlyas if she had just alighted on the planet. The chute was astern. A newreach of open water came, sun-gilt, to meet them, and on either hand thelow, monotonous green shores crept southward a mile apart. 

She faced again to Hugh. "Isn't this God's country?"

"In a way, " the youth admitted with a scant smile. 

She glanced about. "Most beautiful river in the world!" she urged, andwhen he faltered she cried: "Oh, you're prejudiced!" She turned halfaway. "I know one thing; I wouldn't let _my_ grandfather prejudice_me_. "

A new thought struck her: "Oh!. . . I've just heard all about it!. . . Andit helps to explain--you!"

He enjoyed the personality. "Heard all about what?"

"Phyllis!" She jerked up and down. His smile vanished; his lips set; heturned red. 

Ramsey was even more taken aback than he or old Joy. She knew the pilotwas looking down on her, the mate glancing back at her. Yet she laughedand prattled and all at once frowningly said: "But one thing I justcan't make out! What on earth had the _Hayle blood_ to do with any rightor wrong of selling Phyllis? Do you know?"

Hugh reddened worse, and in that instant, outblushing him, she saw thetruth. "Never mind!" she cried. "Oh, did I stop you? Go on!--I--I meango on down--to breakfast!"

"Won't you go first?"

"No, thank you; go on! Please, go on!" Glancing up to the pilot andcatching his amused eye, she pointed distantly ahead. "What is that highbank on the--the stabboard shore?" she asked him. 

"Why"--his tobacco caused but a moment's delay--"nothing much. They callthat Port Hudson. "

"Thank you!" She darted below, where Hugh was already gone. As shestarted she caught sight of the twins. They had just come up on the farside of the boat and were approaching the mate. Still flushed, butstraight as a dart, at the stair's foot she turned on her attendant andwith brimming eyes said softly: "I don't want any breakfast. I'm goingto the lower deck--to find mom-a. "

"You shayn't! You'll git de cholera!"

"Pooh, the cholera!--after what I've got!--I'm going to tell mom-a onyou!"

"On me--me! Good Lawd! Go on, I's wid you!"

"You'd no right to tell me that story!"

"Missie, I on'y tol' you fo' to stop you. You said yo'se'f you gwine axhim all about it. "

"Oh, him!" The girl laughed, yet showed new tears. "I don't mind him; Imind the story! I don't even care who it's about, Hayles or no Hayles!"

"Why, den, what does you care----?"

"I care _what_ it's about. " She suddenly looked older. "Oh, I'm all overbespattered with the horrid----"

"Y'ain't. Y'ain't de sawt fo' dat. Look at yo' ma. She have bofe han'sin it. Is she all oveh bespattud?"

"Oh, you! You know nothing could ever bespatter mom-a!. . . I'm going toher to get clean!"

"Dat's good!" A shrewd elation lit up the black face. "Go on! As you sayyo'se'f, go on!"

Ramsey started away but with an overjoyed gasp found herself in hermother's arms. She pressed closer while the three laughed, and when theother two ceased she still mirthfully clung in that impregnablesanctuary. Suddenly she hearkened, tossed her curls, and stood verystraight. Two male voices were coming down the stairs. 

"We cannot, " said one, "submit to this alive!"

"Yes, " said the other, "we can. It's just _we who_ can--till the day wecatch them where they've got us to-day!"

"And what, now, is this?" smilingly inquired Madame Hayle as her twinsons halted before her. 

The young men uncovered. They were surprisingly presentable after thenight they had spent. Julian, in particular, looked capable and proud oftheir waywardness. 

"Good morning, " put in Ramsey, on her mother's arm. "See those littlehouses up on that bank? That's Port Hudson. Up there they can see awaydown the river, past Prophet's Island, and at the same time awayup-stream. If we were on the hurric--" She made a start, but her mother, while addressing the twins, restrained her. 

"Well, " she asked, "you cannot submit--to what?"

"We are ordered ashore!" said Julian. 

"At the next landing!" quavered Lucian--"Bayou Sara!"

Ramsey slipped from her mother and gazed at the twins with her eyes aslarge as theirs. "You shan't go!" she broke in. "Where's Hugh?" Shedarted for the cabin, old Joy following. Julian glared after them. 

"See?" he said to his mother. "You don't see--the plot? It's a plot!--tocompromise us!--you and her included!"

"Before this boat-load of witnesses!" chimed Lucian. 

Him the mother waved to a remote chair. "Bring me that, " she said, for apretext, and turned privately to Julian, speaking too swiftly for him toreply: "Was it part of that plot that you was both on that lower decklaz' night? No? But in the city those laz' two-three day' in how manystrenge place' you was--lower deck of the whole worl'--God only know', eh?--unless maybe also the devil--an' the scavenger? That was likewisepart of that plot aggains' us? No? But anny'ow that comity ofseven--h-ah!"--she made a wry face--"that was cause' by the wickedplotting of those Courteney'? An' that diztrac' you so bad this morningthat you 'ave not notiz' even that change' face on yo' brotheh?--or thatchange' voice, eh? An' him he's too affraid to tell you how he's feelingbad! As faz' as you can, take him--to his room--his bed--an' say you, both, some prayers. He's godd the cholera. "

XVIII

RAMSEY WINS A POINT OR TWO

There was half an hour yet before the first mate's watch would end. 

He had risen from the captain's seat on the approach of that middle-agedpair who in the first hour of the voyage had enjoyed seeing Hugh andRamsey together; a couple whose home evidently was far elsewhere--ifanywhere--and who as evidently had seen the world to better advantagethan most of the _Votaress's_ passengers. As he rose Hugh and Ramseycame up near one of the wheels. Seeing them start directly for him, hemade a heavy show of attention to the married pair. 

While the quick step of the two younger people brought them near, thehusband began to reply to the mate: "Why, to the common eye, tiresome, Idare say. To the artist--I wonder! It's the only much-travelled river inthe world whose most imposing sight is always the boat. "

"It isn't!" whispered Ramsey to Hugh. Then openly, yet decorously, "Ahem!" she said as they lapsed into waiting attitudes. But the mate wasnot to be ahemmed, and while he hearkened on to the critic she could dono better than hammer the small of her back and smooth into it a furtherperfection. 

"At the same time, " continued the stranger, "it's immensely interesting;politically as to its future, scientifically as to its past. " He turnedto his wife: "Look, for instance, at this bit of it right here. " Atrained art in his pose and gesture caused Ramsey and old Joy to look ashe prompted. "This is Fausse Rivière Cut-off, " he continued, and themate said it was--'False River'. 

"Yes. Now, barely two generations ago"--he animatedly took Ramsey intohis glance--"this stream suddenly abandoned twenty-odd miles of its owntremendous length and width and sprang through this two-mile cut-off. "There was such fervor in his tone, and in his wife's mien such vivacityof interest, that the amazing event stood before Ramsey as if it hadjust occurred. 

"You've read books about this river!" she said. 

"A few, drifting down it by flatboat. "

"Oh, by Christopher!" broke out the mate, "I remember you now! Yo'rethat play-actor! Yo're the man, by gad! who hauled me into yo' skiffhalf roasted and half drownded when the _Quakeress_ was a-burnin'! ByGeorge, look here! What do you want on this boat, that you ain't alreadygot? Name it, sir, just name it! Oh, by hokey, sir, I----!"

Smilingly the actor shook his head while his wife beamed delightedly. "We haven't a want ungratified, " he answered. 

"Oh, please!" put in Ramsey, "yes, you have--one!"

"Have we, mademoiselle? Surely we have if you have. "

The mate interposed. "That's a daughter of Gideon Hayle, sir--as good acaptain, by Joe, as ever took out a boat----"

The wife nodded gayly. "We know him, " she said. 

"Oh!" laughed Ramsey, scanning the pair up and down. 

"What is it we want, worthy daughter of Gideon Hayle?" asked theplayer--"you and my wife and I--and your--this is your brother, is henot?"

Ramsey's mouth and eyes spread wide. She turned to Hugh and at sight ofhis heavy face whisked round again with her handkerchief to her lips. The mate spoke for her:

"That's Captain Courteney's son, sir. "

"What Miss Hayle wants--" began Hugh----

"What _we_ want, " said Ramsey----

"Yes, " said Hugh, "what we want is the recall of----"

"An order, " broke in the mate. "I know; my order for them two twins togo ashore. You can't have that, Hugh. "

"We can!" said Ramsey, with tears in her laugh. 

"No, sir-ee!" said the mate. "Ashore they go!"

"Ashore they don't!" said Ramsey. "You just told this gentleman you'd doanything he----"

"I'd do anything he--yes, but"--the speaker looked beyond her--"Why, Mr. Play-actor, them two young Americans come up here a-smellin' o'buckwheat cakes and golden syrup, when they and some others--a generaland a senator, wa'n't they?--had had some political tiff with you----"

"Oh, not political at all! There's a proposition--I had no idea it wastheirs--to land our deck passengers on----"

"On Turnbull's or Natchez Island!"

Ramsey breathed an audible amazement. 

"Exactly, " said the player. "Well, I had the ill luck to call theirscheme a bad name or two. "

"Good! Now, sir, up they come here _a-demanding_ o' me to put youashore, 'where he'll get himself lynched, ' says they. "

"Oh, bless my soul!" cried the actor. "If that was all and you want toplease us, just let them alone. "

The mate smiled to Hugh and shook his head. "It wa'n't all. _You_ knowit wa'n't. Gad, Mr. Hugh, they got to go!"

"Oh, they must not!" begged both players. A few steps away the bishopand the judge were holding an earnest conversation with the grandfatherCourteney, and his eye tried to call the mate. But Ramsey, holding toHugh by his sleeve, gave the old gentleman a toss of her chin, a jerk ofher curls, and took the mate by a coat button. Her slim, silken figureintercepting him, and his rude bulk smiling down into her upturned facewith a commanding yet amiable restiveness, made a picture to the playersand to the distant pilot, but much more than a picture to the captivehimself. He had thought he had been fending off the banter of a child, but now, suddenly, this was not a child. A being was here not entirelymundane nor quite supernal yet surpassing all his earlier knowledge offeminine quality, something for which a year's hard thinking would nothave found him a definition. Holding his button, she spoke low:

"Please change that order. " What mysterious compulsion there was in that"please"! Her fingers tapped Hugh. "_He_ wants it changed--for me. We'llbe responsible!"

"Oh, you will!" The big man did not look at Hugh; his smile broadened ontheir common captor. Her answering eyes laughed, but even in them, deepdown, he saw a pleading ardor at once so childlike, so womanly, and socelestial that suddenly the deck seemed gone. 

"Please change it! quick!" she murmured again, "for us!"

He felt an inward start and saw a vision--of the future--with those twoin the midst of it. His brightening glance went belatedly to Hugh, andverily there was more of Hugh also than he had ever seen before, but thecrass significance of his smile was quite lost on the pair. 

"Yes, " insisted Ramsey, "_we_ want it changed, him and me--I mean he andI!"

The big man's laugh drowned hers. "Oh, it's plain either way. Well, byGeorge! that _is_ an argument. You and him! Gad, the case is covered!You and him has got me--by the hind leg!" He began to turn away, foryonder, apart from commodore, judge, and bishop, but with Madame Hayleat his side, stood the captain, giving him a sign which he promptlypassed on up to the pilot. "By the hind leg, " he repeated, whereat atitter broke from the averted face of old Joy, while Ramsey stood agapeat her success. 

"They _stay_--the twins--stay _aboard_?" she asked the actors, Hugh, andthe mate in turn. 

"Lord, yes!" said the latter. 

On tiptoes of gratitude she had parted her lips to say more, when theair overflowed with the long bellow of the boat. "Oh, " she criedprotestingly in the din, "but that's to land!"

His reply was unheard, but a shake of his head reassured her as he movedtoward the elder Courteneys, whom bishop and judge had left, and who nowstood alone awaiting him. She faced Hugh. He was telling the actor'swife that this landing was to get a physician. Ramsey touched him andspoke low:

"We're going to have an awful time. Don't you think so?"

He did not say. The great bell tolled thrice. She waved him to look atthe people ashore, of all sorts and shades, coming down to thewharf-boat to see them, but suddenly, invited by a glance from hisfather, he stepped away to him. "Humph!" she laughed to old Joy, andstarted to join her mother, who was leaving the deck. But the mothermotioned her back. "Where are you going?" whined Ramsey. 

"To Lucian. "

The daughter halted, aghast. "Has he got it?" But her mother went onwithout reply. She turned to the players and, when they smiledinvitingly, rejoined them. When she inquired their name they said it wasGilmore. 

"Will you tell me about the _Quakeress_?" she asked. 

The husband said he would. "But you don't mean now, " he qualified, "whenso many things are happening?"

"N-no, " she replied grudgingly, and presently added: "I'm afraid mybrother's got the cholera. " But then she brightened triumphantly. "Anyhow, " she said, "the mate didn't know that. " The engine bellsjingled, the wheels paused, and the shore appeared to drift down uponthem, pushing the crowded wharf-boat before it. "What d'you reckon thisbeautiful boat is saying to herself right now?" she asked. 

"She ought to say, " critically put in the bishop, behind her, to thesenator, while she turned and cast her head-to-foot scrutiny up and downthe two, "that for the welfare of that wharf-boatful of men and boys, and of the homes they live in, she'd best not land, after all. "

"That's what she _is_ saying!" defensively cried Ramsey, and, sureenough, while she laughed the scape-pipes roared and the wheels backedtill the wharf-boat stood still. At the same time the pilots changedwatch. The captain sauntered to the forward rail. The commodore, withthe mate and Hugh, went below. So closely did the actor's eyes followthem that Ramsey asked: "What are they going to do?"

"Going ashore in the yawl, I hope, for a doctor. "

"And medicines, " added some one. 

"And for a priest, " disparagingly said the smiling bishop as they movedto the shoreward edge of the roof. "Large demands our deck passengersare making. "

"An outrage!" said the senator. "It's an outrage that they, who wouldn'thave dared whimper a month ago in their own country, should be allowedto behave this way here!"

"It isn't!" said Ramsey, squarely in his face. There was a generalstart, old Joy groaned, and Ramsey's eyes, though still in his, lookedfrightened; yet there was in her tone and bearing something so pertinentand worthy, even so womanly, that she had nearly every one on her sidein a moment and the two players audibly murmured approval. 

The senator grew benign. "My fair young lady, " he said, "if your father, Gideon Hayle, were captain here he'd have those people off this boat inshort metre. "

"He wouldn't!" said Ramsey. Her eyes flashed and widened. Then as theydarted round upon the actor her most tinkling laugh broke out, and shecaught his wife's arm and rocked her forehead on it, the laugh recurringin light gusts between her words as they came singingly: "He wouldn't. . . He wouldn't . . . He wouldn't. "

"There they go, " said a voice, and down on the waters directly beneathappeared the white yawl like a painted toy, but full of men. Thecommodore was there and the mate. Beside the mate sat the young Germanwho had fought the twins. 

"That's the one they call Otto, " said Ramsey, though how she knew is tobe wondered; and somebody, to amplify, added:

"Otto Marburg. They're taking him along so the others will be quiet tillhe comes back. "

"Humph!" said Ramsey, arching her brows to old Joy and the Gilmores andby her own glance directing theirs to the aftermost figure in the yawl. It was Hugh. He was steering. 

XIX

THIS WAY TO WOMANHOOD

Noon came with a beauty of sky as if it smiled back to the smiles of aland innocent of pain, grief, or strife. 

It found the _Votaress_ under full headway, with a physician aboard andBayou Sara one great reach and two great bends behind. In a stateroom ofher texas, by madame's grateful acceptance of the captain's offer, layLucian, torn with pain but bravely meek, with Julian in closeattendance, Ramsey excluded, and the mother looking in often, thoughvery busy yet with the doctor on the lower deck. 

In the middle of the forenoon, invited by the captain, the bishop hadheld divine service in the ladies' cabin and, praying for his country, found himself praying also, resoundingly and with tears, for the"strange people" down under his bended knees, while out on the boilerdeck the disputation concerning them steadily warmed and spread, thecommittee of seven feeling themselves for the moment baffled but by nomeans beaten--baffled, for their casual brush with Ramsey had mostsurprisingly, not to say unfairly, discredited their cause. "GideonHayle's daughter" had become as universally known by sight as "JohnCourteney's son, " and all about among the male cabin passengers hermethod of debate--"It won't! They don't! He wouldn't! Weshouldn't!"--with a mirth often provokingly unlike hers--was the fashionand had won two or three small victories. 

"The side that laughs, nowadays and hereabouts, " agreed the two players, "wins. " But they said it aside from Ramsey, who, they had begun to fear, would be sadly spoiled, the juveniles were so humbly looking up to her, and so many grown-ups sought her to draw out her brief but promptutterances upon the situation and repeat them elsewhere to those wholiked their seats so much more than anything else. They tried to keepher with them and off the absorbing theme and were not without success. 

Just now the word had run all through the boat that the next turn wouldbring her into the "Raccourci, " or, as every one but the players calledit, "Raccourci Cut-off. " Counting up-stream, it was the second of fourgreat shortenings of the river, which, in the brief century and a halfsince the country had become a white man's possession, had reduced ahundred and twenty miles of its wandering course to half as many withina straight overland distance of thirty. Wonderful to Ramsey was thestory of it. The kindly Gilmore told it with a pictorial and personalinterest that made it seem as if he himself had planned and supervisedthe whole work. One of the shortenings was Shreve's Cut-off, made onlytwenty-one years before this birth year of the _Votaress_. Yonder itlay, just veering into the remotest view, where Red River, over twelvehundred miles from its source in the Staked Plains beyond the RockyMountains, swept, two thousand feet wide, into the Mississippi withoutbroadening the "Father of Waters" a yard. 

Yet why look there, so distantly, when here between, right here underthe boat's cut-water, was the Raccourci, barely four years old? The_Votaress_ was in it, half through it, before either Ramsey or Mrs. Gilmore could be fully informed, and now their attention was beyond eventheir own command. For yonder ahead, miles away in Shreve's Cut-off, riding the strong current under Turnbull's Island, came the _Regent_, finest and speediest of Gideon Hayle's steamers. 

So late in the season her passengers were few and she was not utterlysmothered in a cargo of cotton bales, yet her freight deck showed agoodly brown mass of them, above which her snowy form gleamed againstthe verdant background of the forested island, as dainty as a swan, while her gliding stem raised on either side a silver ribbon of waterthat arched itself almost to her gunwales. 

"Each to her own starboard, " answered the _Regent's_ mellow bell to thebell of the _Votaress_. Her whistle whitened and trumpeted in salute, and on jack-staff and verge-staff her rippling flags ran up and dipped, twice, thrice, to the answering flags of the Courteney boat. Wellforward on her hurricane-deck her captain, whom many on the _Votaress_pointed out by name, stood alone. Amid-ships her cabin-boys lined hercook-house guards. Her negro crew swarmed round her capstan with theirchantey-man on its head and sent over the gliding waters the samestalwart perversion of the wilderness hymn of "Gideon's Band" to whichthe twins had danced the night before. Now the lone, high voice of theleader sang:

 "Fus' come de animals, two by two, Fus' come de animals, two by two, Fus' come de animals, two by two, De elephantine and de kanguiroo, "

and now, while he held the key-note through the refrain's whole firstline, the chorus rolled up from an octave below:

 "Do you belong to Gideon's Band? Here's my heart an' here's my hand! Do you belong to Gideon's Band? Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

No song is so poor that it may not thrill a partisan devotion. Ramseystood on her toes. Down in his berth and in torture the shut-in Lucianfaintly heard, turned his gaze to his brother, whispered "the _Regent_!"and listened for another verse. The boats were passing widely apart, andwhen it came only memory made its foolish lines plain to his doting ear:

 "Nex' come de hoss and den de flea, Nex' come de hoss and den de flea, Nex' come de hoss and den de flea, De camomile and de bumblebee. Do you belong to Gideon's Band? . . . . . . . . 

 Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

On the last line the singers were half a mile downstream, in RaccourciCut-off, and Ramsey and the _Votaress_ were well started up the ten-milereach from Red River Landing to Fort Adams. 

How swiftly and incessantly the scene changed. Down in a stateroom nearthe boiler deck some beginner on the horn was dejectedly playing "A Lifeon the Ocean Wave, " but even with pestilence aboard and a brotherstricken with it what an exalted, exalting life was a life on thismighty stream! Flat lands? Flat waters? It was the highest, widestoutlook into the world of nature and of man she had ever had. Monotonous?--when one felt oneself a year older to-day than yesterdayand growing half a month's growth every hour? In yesterday'schildishness she had begun at Post Forty-six to keep count of all thetimber rafts and flatboats met, and here in this long stretch came threemore of the one and five of the other, with men hurrahing to her fromthem--men as wild as the wilderness, yet with homes and families awayback up the great tributaries and their tributaries. And here weremile-wide cotton fields, with the black people hoeing in them andlooking no bigger than flocks of birds feeding. And here came anothersteamboat--and yonder another! The very drift logs, so countlesslyfrequent, vast trees from vast forests, some of them not yet dead, toldto her sobering mind in tragic dumb show as they came gliding andplunging by, the age-long drama of their rise, decline, and fall. Unbrokenly green, yes, forever the one same green, were the low willowand cottonwood jungles of the creeping shores; but while the "labboard"shore was still Louisiana the "stabboard" was now her own nativeMississippi. 

Yes, these wild shores were States--States of the great Union, theworld's hope; Jackson's, Clay's, Webster's Union, which "must and shallbe preserved, " "now and forever, one and inseparable. " Somewhere betweenthese shores, moreover, and not behind but away on up-stream, probably, Mr. Watson said, in Dead Man's Bend, was, once more, the _Antelope_. Inthe long wait at Bayou Sara, where Hugh and the outlandish Otto--whocould speak French--had found the priest while the commodore and themate were getting the doctor, the _Antelope_ had reappeared, swept up, and foamed by, and now was so far ahead that in hardly less than anotherhundred and sixty miles could she be again overtaken. But to Ramsey, even without the _Antelope_ or any or all of the sights and facts oflandscape and history, no moment could go stale while the tale ofPhyllis and the _Quakeress_ waited like funds in a bank, and while thecommodore, the captain, and Hugh, the pilots, the mate, the Gilmores, the judge, general, bishop, squire, senator, Otto Marburg in his greencoat, and dozens and scores of others were all over the boat, each moreand more a story, a study, as hourly she grew older. 

On the bench close behind her in the pilot-house a lady with needlework, a gentleman with _De Bow's Review_ (the squire's sister andbrother-in-law), had begun to talk with the Gilmores and presentlymentioned the twins, speaking in such a tone of doom as to give Ramsey asudden panic. 

"It's fine!" said the husband, praising Julian's devotion to hisstricken brother. "And they are fine. Their faults--which you've hadoccasion to discover, sir--are spots on the sun; the faults, madam, ofall our young Southern gentlemen----"

"Would you say of all?" asked the actor's wife. 

"No!" said the other lady, "no, not of all!" and her husband was glad tostand corrected. 

"No, " he admitted, "but still of almost all; faults of which we mayalmost say, sir, that we may almost be proud!"

"Oh, well, " begged his wife, "please almost don't say it! They're thefaults of our 'peculiar institution' and I wish our 'peculiarinstitution' were--" She sewed hard. 

"In the deep bosom of the ocean buried, " suggested her husband to theplayers. "Why, honestly, so do I. But it's not, and can't be, and aslong as it can't be we----"

"Oh, well, " said his wife, "don't let's begin on that. "

Reckless of institutions Ramsey turned. "Is my brother worse?" she brokein, but a white-jacket entered with the dinner-bell and spoke softly toold Joy. "Yes, " said Ramsey to him, "I'm Miss Hayle. What is it? Is mybrother worse?"

"Miss Hayle, Mr. Hugh Co'teney make his comp'ments----"

Ramsey laughed in relief. 

"Yass'm, an' say' cap'm cayn' come to de table an' yo' ma she cayn'tcome----"

"I know she can't. Is my brother----?"

"And de commodo' he at de gemp'men's table, an' so he, Mr. Hugh, he'p'inted to de ladies' table, an' will you please fo' to set in de placeo' yo' ma?"

"Oh, rid-ic-ulous! Who? me? I?" The laugh grew plaintive. 

"Yes, you; why not?" said the pilot at the wheel, with his eyes fixedfar up the river. 

But Ramsey glanced at her short skirts and laughed to all by turns: "Oh, it's just some ridiculous mistake!"

"No, miss, 'tain't no mistake. All de yetheh ladies incline de place. "Every one laughed. "Oh, he on'y off' it to one! But when she say fo' tooff' it to you den dey all say de same; yass'm, sawt o' in honoh o' yo'ma. "

"They're afraid that seat'll give 'em the cholera, " said the pilot ingrim jest, still gazing up-stream, but the ladies cried out in denialfor all their sex. 

"I accept, " said Ramsey, with a downward pull at her draperies. "How'smy brother?"

"Thank y'ma'am, " was the bowing waiter's only reply. He tripped down thepilot-house steps and away. 

"Your brother, " said the squire's sister as they all followed, "isn't innearly so much pain, we hear. "

Ramsey flashed: "Does that mean better--or worse?"

"Why--we--we can't always be sure. "

"Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding!" sang the festive bell up anddown the deck to which they began to descend by a narrow stair, old Joyat the rear. Madame Hayle, ascending by another with the Bayou Sarapriest, espied the nurse and beckoned her. The pilot, high above, observed the three as they met, although his ear was bent to aspeaking-tube. Now he answered into it: "Yes, sir. . . . Yes, close abovethe point--Point Breeze, yes, sir. "

As he resumed his up-stream gaze he saw old Joy, still at the stair, stand as if lost and then descend alone while madame and the priestmoved toward the sickroom. The helm went gently over and the _Votaress_rounded the point, but the priest waited outside where madame had gonein, and when the door reopened enough to let one out it was Julian whogrimly confronted him, holding a pen, half concealed. 

"My brother declines to see you, sir. "

A flash came from the eyes of the priest, but the youth repeated: "Mybrother _declines_ to _see_ you, sir. "

The visitor caught breath to speak, but the great bell pealed foranother landing and burial, and madame came out. She addressed him a fewwords in French, and with an austere bow to Julian he humbly turned awayat her side. 

XX

LADIES' TABLE

Hugh stood at the head of the midday dinner-table, waiting for a fullassembly of its guests. The Vicksburg merchant and his wife, the planterfrom Milliken's Bend and his wife, also stood at their places. 

The two ladies glanced about as if listlessly noting the cabin's lavisharabesques and gilding, while each really studied and knew the other wasstudying the captain's son. For this tale which we tell, they saw. Itwas "a-happmin'" before their eyes and, in degree, to themselves. Hughand his father, the commodore and madame, the first mate, the twins, Ramsey, and the committee of seven--who, we shall see, were not takingdiscomfiture meekly--were scarlet threads in the story's swiftly weavingfabric--cogent reasons, themselves, why these two ladies had helped voteRamsey to the seat next Hugh. 

His face, Hugh's, was not easy reading. Certain shadows cast on it bythat part of his mind just then busiest were quite unintelligible. Deciphered they would have meant a solemn joy for his broadeningaccountability; an awesome anxiety and distressed eagerness to meet andfill that accountability as fast as it broadened. He was just thenrecalling one of Ramsey's queries of the evening before, when she hadseemed so much younger than now, and when, nevertheless, a germ offellowship had sprung up between them; that word of hers about "feelingoneself widen out of oneself, " etc. He did not at present feel himselfnearly so much as he felt things round about him growing and growing. 

The _Votaress_ had grown, grown wonderfully, and the story happening, the play being acted on her three decks at once, was neither story norplay to him. Which fact was one of the few things the two gentlestudents of his face made out to read. However, it quite rewarded them;it went, itself, so well into the story. 

And certainly, as even the Gilmores would have said, it is not when ourspiritual vision sees things at their completest values that _all_ theworld's a stage and its men and women _merely_ players. Nor is it at ourbest that we discern our own story, as a story, while it happens. It isa poor eye that sees itself. When Ramsey arrived at the table Hugh'sgaze was so big with the reality, not the romance, of things on all thethree decks that she had to laugh a little to keep her balance. 

Yet her question was an earnest and eager one: "Is my brother better, oris he worse?"

The toll of the bell on the deck above--to land, as we have said, nearPoint Breeze--came like a spectral reply, invoking, as it did, newtrouble unknown to her though just beneath her feet. 

"He's better not to be worse, " said Hugh, and when she frownedwhimsically he explained: "His sickness is not quite the same as that onthe lower deck. "

"How is it different?" she asked, unconsciously keeping the wholecompany of the ladies' table on their feet. At the gentlemen's table, just forward of them and tapering slenderly away in the long cabin'swhite-and-gilt perspective, that grosser majority who had come only tofeed were mutely and with stooped shoulders feeding like pigeons from atrough, and far down at its end the white-haired commodore had taken hisseat, with senator, judge, squire, general, and the seventeen-year-oldHayle boy nearest him on his right and left. The bishop was not there. He was at the ladies' table, paired with the judge's sister"--a leadenload even for a bishop. 

"Your brother's illness is so much slower, " Hugh said. 

"So, then--he--he had it when he came aboard?"

"He had it when he came aboard, " assented Hugh, moving for the group tobe seated. "But----"

"Wait, " said Ramsey. "Mustn't we all be as gay and happy as we can?" Andwhen every one but the judge's sister playfully said yes she turned tothe Vicksburg merchant: "Then will you change places with Mr. Gilmore?"

Faith, he would! It paired him with the actor's wife, and his wife withthe actor. Gayety began forthwith. "And will you change--with--withyou?" Ramsey asked the planter of Milliken's Bend and the squire'sbrother-in-law. 

Indeed they would. The change not only paired each with the other's wifebut brought the brother-in-law next to Ramsey. Underfoot meantime theengine bells jingled, overhead the scape-pipes roared, and in every partthe boat quivered as her great wheels churned or was strangely quiet asthey paused for another signal. So all sat down, well aware what thelanding was for, and began blithely to converse and be waited on, as ifthe world were being run primarily for their innocent delight. 

What a Sabbath feast was there spread for a bishop to say grace upon, and what travellers' hunger to match it. Among Hugh and Ramsey's dozen, if no further, how the conversation rippled, radiated, and out-tinkledand out-twinkled the fine tablewares. One almost forgot his wine or thatthe boat and her wheels had stopped; might have quite forgotten had notcertain sounds, starting in full volume from the lower deck but arrivingunder the cabin floor faint and wasted--emaciated, as you mightsay--stolen up and in. A diligent loquacity contrived to ignore the mostof them. The soft chanting of the priest as he walked down thelanding-stage and out upon the damp brown sands, followed by the bearersof the new pine box and by a short procession of bowed mourners, perished unheard at the table; but many noises more penetrative werealso much more discomfiting, and it was fortunate that the talk of thebishop and others could charm most of them away even from the judge'snervous sister, who, nevertheless, amid such remote themes as JennyLind, Nebraska, coming political conventions, and the new speed recordof the big _Eclipse_ in the fourteen hundred and forty miles from NewOrleans, could not help a light start now and then. It was good, to Hughand to Ramsey, to see how the actor, Gilmore, despite this upwardseepage of ghostly cries--faint notes of horror, anguish, anddespair--attenuated groans and wailings of bodily agony--held the eyesof the ladies nearest him with tales of travel and the theatre, andmention of the great cut-off of 1699, which they would soon pass andmust notice. But quite as good was it to the wives of Vicksburg andMilliken's Bend to observe with what fluency Hugh, commonly so quiet, discoursed to Mrs. Gilmore and to Ramsey on other river features near athand: Dead Man's Bend, Ellis Cliffs, Natchez Island, the crossing aboveit, Saint Catherine's Creek, and Natchez itself. 

"Where I was born!" said Ramsey. "Largest town in Mississippi and themost stuck-up. "

The other Mississippians laughed delightedly. 

"We stop there, " said Hugh, "to put off freight. "

"Mr. Courteney, " asked Ramsey, "what _is_ a 'crossing'?"

There were new lower-deck noises to drown and Hugh welcomed the slendertheme. "The channel of a great river in flat lands, " he said, "is ariver within a river. It frets against its walls of slack water----"

"I see!--as the whole river does against its banks!"

"Yes. Wherever the shore bends, the current, when strong, keeps straighton across the slack water till it hits the bend. Then it swerves justenough to rush by, and miles below hits the other shore, swerves again, and crosses in another long slant down there. "

"Except where it breaks through and makes a cut-off!"

"But a cut-off is an event. This goes on all the time, in almost everyreach; so that pilots, whether running down-stream in the current orup-stream in the slack water, cross the river about as often as thecurrent does. "

"Hence the term!" laughed Ramsey. 

"I think so. You might ask Mr. Watson. "

"No, I'll ask him what a reach is--and a towhead--and a pirooter--oh, don't you love this river?"

While the talk thus flowed, what delicacies--pastries, ices, fruits--hadcome in and served their ends! But also against what sounds from theunderworld had each utterance still to make headway: commands andthreats and cries of defiance and rage, faint but intense, and which allat once ceased at the crack of a shot! The judge's sister let out a softnote of affright and looked here and there for explanation. In vain. TheVicksburg merchant lightly spoke across the table:

"Shooting alligators, bishop?"

"Oh!" broke in the judge's sister, aggrieved, "that was for noalligator. " She appealed to a white-jacket bringing coffee: "Was thatfor an alligator?"

"I dunno'm. Mowt be a deer. Mowt be a b'ar. "

His bashful smirk implied it might be none of the three. Ramsey lookedat Hugh and Hugh said quietly to a boy at his back:

"Go, see what it is. "

XXI

RAMSEY AND THE BISHOP

"High water like this, " casually said the planter, next to Ramsey, "drives the big game out o' the swamps, where they use, and makes 'emfoolish. "

"Yes, " said the bishop. "You know, Dick"--for he and the planter wereold acquaintances--"not far from here, those long stretches of river agood mile wide, and how between them there are two or three short pieceswhere the shores are barely a quarter of a mile apart?"

"Yes, " replied Dick and others. 

"Well, last week, on my down trip, as we rounded a point in one of thosenarrow places, there, right out in mid-river, was a big buck, swimmingacross. Two swampers had spied him and were hot after him in a skiff. "

"Oh, " cried Ramsey, "I hope he got away!"

"Why, _I_ partly hoped he would, " laughed the bishop, "and partly Ihoped they'd get him. "

"Characteristic, " she heard the planter say to himself. 

"And sure enough, " the tale went on, "just as his forefeet hit thebank--" But there Hugh's messenger reappeared, and as Hugh listened tohis murmured report the deer's historian avoided oblivion only byasking:

"Well, Mr. Courteney, after all, what was it?"

"Tell the bishop, " said Hugh to the boy. 

"'T'uz a man, suh, " the servant announced, and when the ladies exclaimedhe amended, "leas'wise a deckhan', suh. "

"Thank Heaven!" thought several, not because it was a man but becausethe bells jingled again and the moving boat resumed her own blessedsounds. But the bishop was angry--too angry for table talk. He had hissuspicions. 

"Did deckhands make all that row?"

"Oh, no, suh; not in de beginnin', suh. "

"Wasn't there trouble with the deck passengers?"

"Yassuh, at fus'; at fus', yassuh; wid dem and dey young leadeh. Y'see, dey be'n so long aboa'd ship dey plumb stahve fo' gyahden-sass an''count o' de sickness de docto' won't 'low 'em on'y some sawts. But backyondeh on sho' dey's some wile mulbe'y trees hangin' low wid greenmulbe'ys, an' comin' away f'om de grave dey make a break fo' 'em. But demate he head' 'em off. An' whilse de leadeh he a-jawin' at de mate onsho', an' likewise at de clerk on de b'ileh deck an' at the cap'm on deroof----"

"In a foreign tongue, " prompted the bishop, to whom that seemed thekernel of the offense. 

"Yassuh, I reckon so; in a fond tongue; yassuh. "

"About his sick not having proper food?" asked Ramsey. 

"Yass'm--no'm--yass'm! An' whilse he a-jawin', some o' de crew think deysee a chance fo' to slip into de bresh an' leave de boat. An' when demate whip' out his 'evolveh on 'em, an' one draw a knife on him, an' hemake a dash fo' dat one, he--dat deckhan'--run aboa'd so fas' dat heain't see whah he gwine tell it's too la-ate. "

The bishop tightened his lips at Hugh and peered at the cabin-boy: "Howwas it too late?"

"De deckhan' he run ove'boa'd, suh. "

The ladies flinched, the men frowned. "But, " said the querist, "meantimethe mate had fired, hmm? Did he--hit?"

"Dey don't know, suh. De deckhan' he neveh riz. "

"Awful!" The bishop and Hugh looked steadily at each other. "So thatalso we owe to our aliens!"

"Yes, " said Hugh. 

"We don't, " said Ramsey softly, yet heard by all. 

Across the board Mrs. Gilmore said "Oh!" but in the next breath all butthe judge's sister laughed, the bishop, as Hugh and he began to rise, laughing most. 

"Wait, " said Ramsey, laying a hand out to each and addressing Hugh. "Howare those sick downstairs going to get the right food?"

The cabin-boy almost broke in but caught himself. 

"Say it, " said Hugh. 

"Why, dem what already sick dey a-gitt'n' it. Yass'm, dey gitt'n' deboat's best. Madam Hayle and de cap'm dey done see to dat f'om de staht. H-it's de well uns what needs he'p. "

"But, " said Ramsey, still to Hugh, "for sick or well--the rightfood--who pays for it?"

"The boat. "

"Who pays the boat?" she asked, and suddenly, blushing, saw hersituation. Except the bishop and the judge's sister, who were conversingin undertone--except them and Hugh--the whole company, actually withhere and there an elbow on the board, had turned to her in such brightexpectancy as to give her a shock of encounter. But mirth upheld her, and leaning in over the table she shifted her question to the smilingbishop: "Who pays the boat?"

"The boat? Why--ha, ha!--that's the boat's lookout. "

"It isn't, " she laughed, but laughed so daintily and in a gayety somodestly self-justified that the group approved and the Vicksburg manasked her:

"Who ought to pay the boat?"

"We!" she cried. "All of us! It's in the Bible that we ought!" Shelooked again to the bishop. "Ain't it?"

"Why, I don't recall any mention of this matter there. "

"Nor of strangers?" she asked, "nor of sick folks?" and her demuremirth, not flung at him or at any one, but quite to itself and foritself, came again. 

"Ah, that's another affair!" he rejoined. He felt her and Hugh, withhalf the rest, saying to themselves, "It is not!" but was all the moremoved to continue: "My fair daughter, you prepare the way of the Lord. Brethren and sisters, I want you to gather with me here as soon asthose yonder are through"--a backhanded toss indicated the children'stable, whose feasters showed no sign that they would ever be throughat all. "We must--every believer--and whosoever will--on thispassenger-deck--spend an hour--more if the spirit leads--in prayerfor this pestilence to be stayed. " He fastened his gaze on Hugh; nosenator was present to overtop him now, and certainly this colt of JohnCourteney's should not. Yet the largeness with which the colt's eyesstared through and beyond him was significant to all. 

"And we must do more!" he persisted. 

"We shall, " said Hugh. 

"We must!" said the bishop; "we must beseech God for a spiritualoutpouring. We have on this boat the stranger of our own land and thesick of our own tongue: the stranger to grace and the sick in soul, whomay be eternally lost before this boat has finished her trip; and asmuch as the soul's worth outweighs the body's is it our first duty tohelp them get religion!"

With her curls lowered nearly to the table Ramsey--ah, me!--laughed. Hernotes were as light as a perfume, but to the bishop all perfumes wereheavy. He turned to the actor. "Isn't that so, brother?"

"Oh, bishop, you know a lot better than I do. "

"He doesn't, " tinkled Ramsey, and, as the bishop swung back to her--"Doyou?" she ingratiatingly challenged him. "No, you don't! You know youdon't!"

The company would have laughed with her if only to save their face, andwhen he made a very bright retort they laughed the heartier. They rosewith Hugh. Ramsey said she wished she knew again how her brother was, and Hugh sent his servant to inquire. As all loitered aft, the bishopheld them together a moment more. 

"You don't object to such a meeting?" he asked Hugh. 

"Not if you don't alarm or distress any one. The doctor forbids that. "While Hugh so replied, the circle was joined by the commodore. Thebishop flared:

"Doctors always forbid! How can we exhort sinners without alarming ordistressing them?"

Hugh's answer was overprompt: "I don't know, sir. "

But Ramsey, drawing the Gilmores with her, came between. "Just a bitago, " she said to the bishop, "didn't you say yes, we must all be as gayand happy as we can?"

"I did, verily. But surely that shouldn't prevent this. "

"Oh, surely not!" exclaimed both the players. 

"It needn't, " said Ramsey. "But if we five"--Gilmores, Courteneys, andherself--"and some others--help you with your meeting to-day will youhelp us with ours to-morrow?"

"If I can, assuredly! But how will you help me to-day, my young sister?"

On three fingers the young sister--so lately his daughter--counted:"First, we'll get the people to come; we'll tell them you're not goingto alarm or distress anybody. Second, if you forget and begin to do itwe'll remind you! And, third, we'll take up the collection!"

The senator laughed so much above the rest that the bishop colored as hesaid: "I never exhort and collect at the same time. "

"Oh-h!" sighed Ramsey. "We must collect, you know, to pay our share, each of us, for the care of the sick. And we can't collect to-morrow;we'll all be so busy getting up our own meeting. " Her eyes wandered tothe senator, so fervently was he urging some matter upon the commodore. 

"What, " asked the bishop, turning to the players, "is to-morrow'smeeting to be for?"

"Why, " brightly said the wife, "just to keep every one as gay and happyas we can. " But Ramsey added: "And to raise money for the not-sickemigrants, to get them the right food. "

"Ho, ho! Another collection!"

"No, only admission fees. Six bits for the play, four bits for thedance. "

Half offended, half amused, the bishop swelled. "And you ask me"--helaughed, but she had turned away and he reverted to the players--"on topof our prayers for God's mercy upon our bodies and souls you ask me tohelp get up a play and a dance!"

Eagerly, amid a general merriment that was not quite merry, the Gilmoresanswered with amused disclaimers for themselves and copious excuses forhim. Ramsey's eyes, like Hugh's, were on the commodore and the senator, who were starting off together. The commodore's nod called Hugh and hemoved to overtake them. The boy whom Hugh had sent to the texas, returning, sought to intercept him, but Hugh passed on and the messengerfound Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to bothservants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainlydisturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stoodaddressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftilydefensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, ifour gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting aminister of the gospel, " he began----

"Amen to dat!" said old Joy, and as Ramsey's eyes showed tears thespeaker paused. 

"All right, " she quietly said. "Come to my sick brother. Won't you, please?"

"Why--why, yes, I--I will. Cer-certainly I will. Yet--really--if I'mforbidden to alarm him"--his smile could not hide his sense of mortalrisk. 

"Oh, he's already alarmed!"

"He's turrified!" softly said old Joy. 

"Why, then, the moment we're through our meeting----"

"Don't begin it!" said Ramsey. "It can wait heaps better than he can. He's waiting now and begging for you. Come! You needn't be afraid; I'llgo with you!" She laughed. 

"No!" cried Joy. "Lawd, Mahs' Bishop, she mus'n't!"

"She need not, " said the bishop. "But for me to go now, before I--why, Icouldn't come back and mingle----"

"Oh, come!" The girl drew him by the sleeve. But the Gilmores held herback and he went on alone, his face betraying a definite presentiment ashe glanced round in response to a clapping of hands. 

"Oh, thank you!" cried Ramsey. "Gawd bless you!" droned Joy. "We'll runyour meeting while you're gone!" called Ramsey. "And we'll pray for you!Won't we?" she asked the players, and they and others answered: "Yes. "

XXII

BASILE AND WHAT HE SAW

For these twenty hours of constant activity one young passenger, saveonly when asleep in his berth, had contemplated the _Votaress_ and herswarming managers and voyagers with a regard different from any we haveyet taken into account. The Gilmores, softly to each other, termed him"a type. " To the face of nature he seemed wholly insensible. As thegliding boat incessantly bore him onward between river and sky, shoreand shore, he appeared never to be aware whether the forests were grayor green, the heavens blue or gray, the waters tawny or blue. Noloveliness of land or flood could deflect his undivided interest inwhatever human converse he happened to be nearest as he drifted aboutdecks in a listless unrest that kept him singled out at every pause andturn. His very fair intelligence was so indolently unaspiring, sointolerant of harness, as we may say, and so contentedly attuned to thegeneral mind, mind of the multitude, that the idlest utterance fallingon his ear from any merest unit of the common crowd was more to him thanall the depths or heights of truth, order, or beauty that learning, training, or the least bit of consecutive reasoning could reveal. Earlier he had not lacked books or tutelage, but no one ever had beenable to teach him what they were for. This was Basile Hayle, theoverdressed young brother of the twins. Now that his seventeen years hadripened in him the conviction that he was entitled, as the phrase is, "to all the rights of a man and all the privileges of a boy, " he seemedyet to have acquired no sense of value for any fact or thought beyondthe pointblank range of the five senses. He could not have read tenpages of a serious book and would have blushed to be found trying to doit. 

He was not greatly to blame. That way of life was much the fashion allabout him, and he was by every impulse fashionable. Moreover, as hemeasured success by the crowd's measure, it was the way of life oftenestsuccessful, the way of his father. He did not see the difference betweenthe father's toiling up that way and his idling down it. So, at anyrate, agreed the indulgent Gilmores, reading him quite through in a fewglances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew bestpronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just asfolks" than were either the twins or the sister, from all three of whomhis impulses kept him amiably aloof. 

Of the three brothers certainly he had soon become the most widelyacceptable among not only the young people of the passenger guards butalso the male commonalty of the boiler deck. In a state of society whichhe, as "a type, " reflected they saw themselves; saw their own spiritualimage; their unqualified straightforwardness, their transparentsimplicity of mind and heart, their fearlessness, their complacentrusticity, their childish notions of the uses of wealth, their personalmodesty and communal vanity, their happy oblivion to world standards, their extravagance of speech, their political bigotry, their magisterialdown-rightness, their inflammability, and their fine self-reliance. Theysaw these traits, we say, reflected in him as in a flatteringhand-glass, perceived the blemishes rather plainer than the charms, andliked them better. 

So it was that our friend the senator had early discovered Basile andlater had found a capital use for him. In him he saw a most timelyopportunity, one not afforded by anybody besides. He showed the youthmarked attentions, affirming in him all the men's rights and boys'privileges he had ever thought of, got him assigned to his sickbrother's place at table, presented him to the committee of seven, called him Gideon by mistake, and at the right moment made him aninstrument, not to say tool, by diverting his idle course through thecrowd into a highly successful soliciting of signatures to thecommittee's, or let us say his own, the senator's, petition. 

Unlucky task! An exceptional feature of the _Votaress_ was that herpassenger guards ran aft in full width all round her under the sternwindows of the ladies' cabin. Beneath, the lower deck ended in a fantailof unusual overhang, around whose edge curved the stout bars of the"bull-ring, " to fence it off from the billowing white surge that writhedafter the rudder blade and the trailing yawl, so close below. Among thepetition's subscribers were several pretty girls of an age at whichtheir only important business was beauty and levity and who gave smallheed to the document's purport, readily assuming that nothing _they_were asked to sign needed to be taken seriously. There was much laughterover the performance. They turned it into a "Signing of theDeclaration, " patterned after the old steel engraving. One of them, asthe scroll lay open on the rail under her pen hand, unwittingly set footin a scrubbing bucket kept there with a line attached for bailing waterfrom the river, and was so unnerved by the fun of it that all at oncethe scroll flirted back into scroll form and fell through the whirlingair that eddied behind the boat. Yet it had the luck to drop upon thedeck below, and there presently an immigrant stood mutely gazing up withit in his lifted hand. Otto Marburg came and stood looking up besidehim. 

Dropping the bucket's line through the balusters under the rail, Basilestepped over the guards and proceeded, while the girls acted out theirgirlish distresses, to let himself down. The foolish exploit wassufficiently unsafe and painful to be its own reward, the rough linecutting his hands and forcing him, as soon as he dared, to drop into thearms of the two men. With them and others he passed from sight betweenthe great wheels but soon was with the pretty signers again, coming upalone by way of the cook-house and pantry. His hands showed ugly redscars as he brushed away a few flies that liked his perfumery and hadstubbornly followed him from below. 

But the fun was over. It was not his galled palms but his pallid facethat struck the young company with a frank dismay. His whole bearing wastransformed and betrayed him smitten with emotions for which he found nospeech. Had it made him ill, they asked, going down by that dreadfulrope? No, he was not ill at all. But when they vacantly proposed toresume the signing he exclaimed almost with vehemence that he had namesenough, and left them, to return the petition to the senator. 

This was an incident of the forenoon. As he delivered the paper thesenator spoke a pleased word and then gazed on him in surprise. "Why, what's the matter? Sick?"

"No, I'm not sick. "

"But, look here, where--where's your own signature?"

"You can't have it. "

"Oh, you want to sign, don't you?"

"No. " A sudden anguish filled the boy's face. "Not for all the gold inCalifornia. God A'mighty, sir, I've been down there and seen thosepeople!"

"Oh! my! dear! fellow! If we let mere sights and sounds--of things thatcan't be helped--upset us--There's the dinner-bell--come, have acocktail with me--a Rofignac!. . . Ah! general--judge--wet your whistlewith us?"

The general and the judge, accepting, looked sharply at Basile. "Why--what's the matter? Sick?"

But he went with them to the bar and to the board. 

XXIII

A STATE OF AFFAIRS

Watson was in the pilot-house, though not at the wheel. 

So early of a Sabbath afternoon, in the middle of his partner's watch, he might well have been in his texas stateroom asleep, but to aMississippi River pilot Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon, or forenoon, or midnight, or dusk or dawn, on watch or off, the one thing in thisworld was the river. Else what sort of a pilot would he be, when thewhole lore of its thousands of miles of navigation was without chart, light, or beacon, a thing kept only in pilots' memories, a lamp in atemple?

Glancing down forward of the bell, he was reminded of a certain younglady the sight of whom on the previous evening just after his brush withHayle's twins, standing there before Hugh Courteney with her armsakimbo, had led him to say: "If that's to be the game I'm in it. " Hewished she were there now, or up here again in the pilot-house askingher countless questions about this endlessly interesting world'shighway. He would be answering that the mouth of Red River was nowtwenty miles behind, the mouth of Buffalo Bayou ten and of HomochittoRiver four; that right here they were in the great cut-off of a hundredand fifty-odd years before. He would say they were passing up the westshore because the current was over yonder on the east side, PalmettoPoint, and that behind there, inland, lay the great loop of still waterwhich had once been part of the river. He would explain that now theslender Homochitto ran through that still water lengthwise, for miles, until, within forty rods of the Mississippi, it recoiled again to launchin at last farther down, opposite Black Hawk Point, still in sightastern. And he would tell how, over here on this west side, Red Riverwas yet only four miles away and actually sent Grand Cut-off Bayouacross into the Mississippi, but likewise swerved away southward throughseven leagues more of wet forest before it finally surrendered to themightier stream. All this would he tell, without weariness, to one wholoved his great river. 

Yet really he was in the pilot-house at this time not chiefly for theriver, nor the girl, nor the _Votaress_, though the _Votaress_ was new, with kinks of character quite her own and important to be learned. Hewas there because the stateroom given Hayle's twins in the texas wasnext to his, and they, rarely in their life having restricted themselvesto tones of privacy and being now especially in a state of storm andstress, had made sleep impossible even to a pilot off watch after amidday Sunday dinner. Lounging in his berth, he had overheard thingswhich ought to be told to one Courteney or another early, though, ofcourse, casually. 

Meantime he enjoyed not telling his partner, at whose back he quietlychatted while the partner stood with hands and foot on the wheel andwith eyes well up the river, holding the jack-staff close to his "mark"far ahead in the next bend. 

"I couldn't stay, " drawled Watson. "Noth'n' 'twixt the sick one an' mebut a half-inch bulkhead. "

"Cholery can't scratch through a half-inch bulkhead, " said the partner. 

"Sounds kin. Funny what little bits o' ones kin. An' the sawt o' keen, soft way he hollas an' cusses through his sot teeth an' whines an' yapsinto his piller--why, he's suffered enough by now to be dead five timesover. "

"That sufferin', that ain't the peggin'-out stage. "

"No, I know that, an' I don't misdoubt but what he's a-goin' to gitwell. "

"Hmm!--sorry fo' that. What's goin' to kyore him?"

"His simon-pyo' cussedness! He's so chuck full of it--looks like it'sa-p'isonin' the p'ison o' the cholery. "

"Pity!" said the partner. . . . "Humph! _Now_ what's up?"

To see what was up, Watson rose and looked down. On the roof below, evidently having come there for privacy, were the commodore, thesenator, and Hugh. Watson loitered from the pilot-house and disappeared. 

Down on the roof the commodore and the senator conversed across Hugh'sfront. The statesman, with heavy "dear sirs" and heavier smiles, wasbuttonholing the elder Courteney, who at every least pause affablyendeavored to refer him to Hugh. The grandson's turn to speak seemed notto have arrived. The senator was trying to keep it from arriving andHugh was glum. Hence it may be doubted if the senator's cigar was reallycocked as high, or that his silk hat was as dingy, his very good teethas yellow, his cheeks as hard, or his forehead as knotty as theyappeared to Hugh, or that his tone of superiority, so overbearing lastnight, so ingratiating to-day, was any worse for the change. Hugh wasbiassed--felt bias and anger as an encumbering and untimely weight. Inself-depreciating contrast he recalled a certain young lady's airy, winning way--airy way of winning--and coveted it for himself here andnow: a wrestler's nimble art of overcoming weight by lightness; oflifting a heavy antagonist off his feet into thin air where hisheaviness would be against him. His small, trim grandfather had it, ingood degree; was using it now. Would it were his own in this issue, where the senator held in his hand the folded petition, having alreadyvainly proffered it to the commodore, who had as vainly motioned him tohand it to Hugh. Would the art were his! But he felt quite helpless tocommand it, lacking the joyous goodness of heart which in the young ladyso irresistibly redeemed what the senator, the bishop, and the judge'ssister, to themselves, called her amazing--and the Gilmores to eachother called her American--bad manners. It made Hugh inwardlybad-mannered just to feel in himself this lack, and tempted him to thinkwhat a comfort it would be to apply the wrestler's art physically andheave the senator overboard. 

Said that gentleman--"For you saw I wouldn't let the matter come up atthe table. A lot of those men who signed this paper--which your grandsonsuggested last night, you know--" He smiled at Hugh. "Now, I am nevertouchy, and I know, commodore, that you're not. But, Lord, so many ofus--maybe Democrats a little more than Whigs--are! We take our politics, like our bread, smokin' hot. " He put away his smile. "My dear sir, to usthe foreigner--as you saw last night at supper--has become a politicalproblem, a burning question. Yet I propose to keep this whole subject sounmenacing to you personally, you owners of this boat, that I won't leta word be risked where any one might take even a tone of voiceunkindly. "

"So, then, Hugh can take care of it. "

The senator tossed a hand in amiable protest: "Oh, sir, you see it muchtoo small! My half of it is large enough for me, with forty times thisyoung gentleman's experience. I don't see just this one boat and tripand these few hundred native-American citizens in deadly contact with afew hundred of Europe's refuse. I see--your passengers see--we view withalarm--a state of affairs--and a test case!"

The old commodore's eyes flashed to retort, but the senator forced apropitiative smile, adding: "However, let that pass just now, here'ssomething else. "

"Is it also in that paper?"

"It is. "

"Tell it to Hugh--or let him read it. "

But as the old gentleman would have moved away, the senator, ignoringthe suggestion, stepped across his path:--

"Last night, commodore, this matchless new boat"--he paused to let thecompliment sink in, his eye wandering to Watson, who had sauntered downfrom the texas roof--"this _Votaress_, swept past everything that hadbacked out at New Orleans ahead of her. "

"Built to do it, " put in Hugh while the commodore, by a look, drewWatson to them and the senator flowed on. 

XXIV

A SENATOR ENLIGHTENED

"But, lying at Bayou Sara this morning, " said the senator, "everythingworth counting left us behind again. "

"For the time being, " said Hugh. 

"Good for you, " said the senator. "Mr. Pilot, this paper, of a hundredsignatures, petitions this boat to put off her foreigners at NatchezIsland. If that is refused, when and where are we likely to overhaul the_Antelope_?"

"_Antelope_? Let's see. We'd still be a-many a bend behind the_Antelope_ at sundown but fo' one thing. At Natchez she's got todischarge an all-fired lot o' casting an' boilers, things she can't putashore 'ithout han'spikes, block-an'-taickle an' all han's a-cuss'n' tooncet. Like as not we'll catch her right there. "

"Good again; sundown!" said the senator. "Now, commodore, this petitionbegs----"

The commodore tried to wave him to Hugh but the senator's big handgently prevented. "It begs, " he went on, "and every friend of GideonHayle and John Courteney on this boat insists, that Madame Hayle berequired to leave this suicidal work she's doing and with her daughterand youngest son be put aboard the _Antelope_ to join her husband aheadof all bad news. " With his under lip pushed out he smiled into thecommodore's serene face. 

Hugh spoke. "The _Votaress_ being slow?" he inquired. 

"Not at all! But, my young friend, the _Votaress_ can't hold funeralsand outrun the _Antelope_ at the same time. "

The commodore had turned to Watson: "Want to see me?" The two moved afew paces aft. 

"Then it isn't, " Hugh asked the senator, "that your hundred signers ofthis thing are afraid madame will get the cholera?" He took thepetition's free end between thumb and finger and softly pulled. But itsholder held on. 

"Why, yes, " said the holder-on, "we fear that, too. Good Lord, she mayhave the contagion now!" It gave him grim amusement to note that thegrandson's face was as quiet as the old man's, yet as hard and heavy asany of the _Antelope's_ big castings. He thought how much better it wereto have this chap for an adherent than opponent. 

"Yet you're all willing, " slowly pressed Hugh, while--with their pull onthe paper increasing--they here and the commodore and Watson yonderreturned the bow of the bishop as he came from below and passed on up tothe sick-room--"you're willing to send the cholera aboard the_Antelope_?"

"Willing, my God, no, sir! compelled!--to risk it--for the sake ofGideon Hayle and his people and of you and yours, in a great publicinterest centring in you and them. " The speaker smilingly tapped thehard-pulled document so lately urged upon the grandfather. "We couldn't_write_ that--in this paper. When I've explained _that_ I'll hand you_this_--don't pull it. "

"Well, then, let go of it, " said Hugh, with a light jerk which put itwholly into his possession. 

The senator's eyes blazed, but when he saw that Hugh's, though as muchtoo wide as his own, looked out of a face as set and hard as ever, herecovered his suavity, puffed his cigar, waved it abroad, and said:"That's all right. Take that to the captain at once, will you?"

"No, " replied Hugh, the wrestler's nimble art being as far, far awayfrom him as the "happy land" of the children's hymn, which the cornetwas essaying below. 

"No?" questioned the tolerant senator. 

"No. " Small knots of passengers, the squire in one, the general inanother, had drawn within eavesdropping range and Hugh lowered hisvoice. "Not till I hear what you couldn't write, " he said. "When you'veexplained _that_ I'll hand him _this_. No one's in his room, comethere. "

As they reached its door and the senator passed in, Hugh was joined bythe grandfather and Watson and detained some moments in private council, with Watson as chief speaker. Then the commodore returned leisurelyforward toward the captain's chair while Watson sought the texas roofand pilot-house, and Hugh shut himself in with the senator. 

They sat with the writing-table between them. "I wish, " said thesenator, "I had a son like you. I'd say: 'My son, the worst notion inthis land to-day is that always the first thing to do is fight, and thatthe only thing to fight with is hot shot. Don't you believe it! Don'tthink every man's your enemy the moment he differs with you. He may beyour best friend. And don't think every enemy wants to stab you in theback. ' But, Lord! I needn't offer a father's advice to you, with such afather--and grandfather--as you've got. 

"Now, here we are. It's idle for me to tell you what we wanted to put inthat paper and couldn't, if you can't believe that maybe, after all, I'ma peacemaker and your friend, hunh? I don't set up to be your onlyfriend or only your friend or your friend only for your sake. Frankly, my ruling passion is for the community as a whole; the old Jacksonianpassion for the people, sir. If I'm meddling it's because I see asituation that right on its surface threatens one misfortune, and atbottom another and bigger one, to them, the people--a public misfortune. I don't want to avert just the cholera, here to-day, gone to-morrow; Iwant to avert the lasting public misfortune of a Courteney-Hayle feud. There, sir! That's my hand! Cards right down on the table! Oh, I'mnothing if not outspoken, flat-footed! A lot of those signers don't seethat bottom meaning. They don't need to. But, sir, _you_ know--yourgrandfather's always known--that by every instinct the Hayles, even tothe sons-in-law, are fighters. They don't know any way to succeed, inanything, but to fight. It's the Old Hickory in them. Old Hickory alwaysfought, your Harry of the West has always compromised. The Hayles loathetact. They don't know the power of concession as you Courteneys do. Andthat's why your only way to succeed with them is to _con_cede something. Not everything, not principle--good Lord, not principle! yet somethingdefinite, visible, conciliatory, hunh?

"Mind you, I hold no brief for them. I know those twins haven't behavedright a minute. But no Hayle's been let into this affair, from first tolast. "

The falsehood was so rash a slip that its author paused, but when Hugh'sface showed no change he resumed: "Sir, it is in your interest we askyou to put those foreigners off. If you don't you'll rouse publicresentment up and down this river a hundred miles wide for a thousandmiles. And if, keeping them aboard, you don't put Madam Hayle and herdaughter on some other boat, and anything happens to them on this one, you'll have Gideon Hayle and his sons--and his sons-in-law--for yourmortal enemies the rest of your lives, long or short--and with publicsympathy all on their side. Oh, I'm nothing if not outspoken! Why, mydear boy, if you don't think I'm telling you this in friendship----"

"Call it so. But stop it, at once. "

"Why--you say that--to me?"

"I do. Stop it, at once, or we'll call it----"

"Ridiculous! What will you call it, sir?"

"Mutiny. The captain has so ordered--and arranged. "

The inquirer drew breath, leaned forward on an elbow, and stared. Thestare was returned. The senator began to smile. Hugh did not. The smilegrew. Hugh's gaze was fixed. The smiler smiled yet more, but in vain. Abruptly he ha-haed. 

"We'll call it that till you prove it's not, " said Hugh. 

"Did you ever hear of a poker face?" asked the senator. 

"No, sir. "

"You've got one, now; youngest I ever saw. I wish I had it--haw, haw!Where'd you find it? I doubt if ever in your life you've had any realcontact with any real guile. "

"I have, " said Hugh, very quiet, very angry, yet with a joy ofdisclosure, communicative at last by sheer stress of so much keptunsaid. "And I've never got over it. "

"Well, well! When was that?"

"All through the most important ten years of my life. "

"Of your life! Good gracious! Which were they?"

"The first ten. A guile seemingly so guileless that yours, compared withit, is botch work. "

The two were still looking into each other's eyes when the latch clickedand John Courteney stepped in. 

XXV

"PLEASE ASSEMBLE"

Out from behind Fritz Island the _Votaress_ swept northward into adeluge of light from a sun just finishing the first half of hisafternoon decline. 

Before her lay, far and wide, an expanse of river and shore so fair, without a noticeable sign of man's touch, that one traveller ofexceptional moral daring--conversing with the Gilmores andRamsey--personified the scene as "Nature in siesta. " At the steamer'sapproach the picture--or, as the daring traveller might have insisted, the basking sleeper--seemed to awaken and in a repletion of smilingcontent to stir and stretch and every here and there to darken andlighten by turns as though closing and opening upon the intruder amultitude of eyes as unnumbered as those of a human sort that looked onthe scene, the sleeper, from the beautiful boat. 

So for several minutes. Then the _Votaress_ curved into the west tillthe great twin shadows of her chimneys crept athwart the pilot-house andtexas, while more than one passenger of the kind who tell all they knowto whoever will hear said that yonder bright mass of cottonwoods andwillows, bathing in sunlight directly up the stream, with open watershimmering all round it, was Glasscock Island; that Glasscock Towheadlay hidden behind it just above, and that a towhead was an island in themaking. The whole view was such a stimulus to the outpouring ofsentiment as well as of information, that one young pair, eachsucceeding flutter of whose heart-strings was more tenderly entanglingthem, agreed in undertone that the river's incessant bendings were stepsof a Jacob's ladder with these resplendent white steamers for ascendingand descending angels. 

"Yonder comes another now, " said both at once. They pressed forward tothe foremost boiler-deck guards, among the many sitters and standers whowere trying to determine, by the ornamental form of the stranger'schimney-tops or the peculiar note of her scape-pipes, before her namemight show out on paddle-box or pilot-house, whether she was the_Chancellor_, the _Aleck Scott_, the _Belle Key_, or the _Magnolia_. Tobe either was to be famous. The next moment she swept into view on theisland's sunward side, as pre-eminent in all the scene as though the sunwere gone and she were the rising moon. The moon was not her equal inthe eyes of those beholders. On every deck, from forecastle to afterhurricane roof, there were big spots of vivid color, red, green, blue, never seen in the moon and which were quickly made out to be ahigh-piled freight of ploughs, harrows, horse-mills, carts, and wagonsdestined for the ever-widening Southern fields of corn and cotton, sugarand rice. The passenger with the pocket spy-glass--there is alwaysone--proclaimed that her boiler deck was hung full--as no deck of themoon ever is--of the finest spoils of the hunt: geese, swan, venison, and bear; while the nakedest eye could see at a glance that from forwardgangway to sternmost guard her bull railings were up, and a closerscrutiny revealed that the main load of her freight deck was everyfarm-bred sort of living four-footed beast: horses, mules, beeves, cows, swine, and sheep. She did not pass near though unaware of the distressshe avoided; but in courtly exaggeration she sent across the interveningmile a double salute, white plumes of sunlit steam from her whistle--thenew mode--and the gentler voice of her bell, the older form. The courseof the _Votaress_ lay on the island's eastern side, and the hail andresponse of the two crafts had hardly ceased to echo from the variousshores, or hats to wave and handkerchiefs to flutter, when the floodbetween them began to widen, a thousand feet to the half minute, andthey parted. 

At the same time, from the middle of the boiler deck floated a soundordinarily most welcome but at this time a distasteful surprise: thedinner-bell again. Not with festal din, however, it called, but witheach solitary note drawn out through a full second or more, church-steeple fashion, and with a silken veil tied on its tongue togive each stroke a solemn softness and illusion of distance. Smallwonder that the most of the company, just risen from "a plumb bait, "turned that way and stared, seeing old Joy, with joyless face, tollingout the notes in persistent monotone while in front of her stood theGilmores at either side of a chair, and on the chair, also standing, thedaughter of Gideon Hayle. With her hands and eyes fastened upon awritten notice and with the bell tolling steadily at her back shetremblingly read aloud:

"Fellow travellers: Please assemble at once in the ladies' cabin tosupplicate the divine mercy for a stay of the scourge on this boat, andin concerted worship to seek spiritual preparation for whatever awaitsus in the further hours of our voyage. In the absence of BishopSo-and-So, who is ministering to the sick, and at his request, themeeting will be conducted by the celebrated comedians Mr. And Mrs. Gilmore, late of Placide's Varieties, New Orleans. "

The art of advertising being then in its swaddling-bands, this specimenof it struck its hearers as really creditable. While it was being readtwo or three men rose, and one, uncommonly shaggy and of toweringheight, could hardly wait for the last word before he responded with thevoice of a hound on the trail: "By the Lord Harry, sis', amen! says I, that's jest my size! I'm a Babtis' exhorteh an' I know the theâtreair the mouth o' hell, but ef you play-acto's good enough to run aprah-meet'n, I'm bad enough to go to it. Come on, gentle_men_, the wholek'boodle of us, come on. "

Some brightly, some darkly, a good halfdozen followed him into thecabin; but the most remained seated, staring at Ramsey from head to footand back again, some brightly, some darkly, while the bell perseveredbehind her. She sunk to her knees in the chair. Gilmore addressed thathalf of the company on his side of her: "Please assemble at once, willyou, all, in the ladies' cabin. "

And his wife, on her side, repeated: "Will you all please assemble atonce in the ladies' cabin. "

A few more rose, but still the many, brightly or darkly, only stared on, the bell persisting. The kneeling Ramsey again began to read:

"Fellow travellers: Please assemble at once in the ladies' cabin tosupplicate the divine mercy for a stay of the scourge on this boat, andin concerted worship----"

"Oh, well!" some one laughingly broke in, "if that's your game--" andthe whole company, in good-natured surrender, arose and went in. But the"bell-ringers, " as they were promptly nicknamed, passed on to furtherconquests. 

When at length they turned to join the assemblage the four had doubledtheir number. With Ramsey was the commodore. With the actor was Watson. With Mrs. Gilmore came old Joy, and, strange to tell, due to some magicin the tact of the senior Courteneys, the senator, no longer makingbotch work of his guile, walked with Hugh, displaying a good-naturedloquacity which he was glad to have every one notice and from which heceased reluctantly as they parted, finding no place to sit together. Theplayer and his wife, over-looking the throng, complacently discoveredstanding-room only, and the meeting which Hayle's daughter had pledgedherself and them to "run" was running itself. For hardly had theyentered the saloon when, from a front seat and without warning, theexhorter exploded the stalwart old hymn-tune of "Kentucky, " and soon allbut a scant dozen of the company followed in full cry, though hardlywith the fulness of the leader's voice, that rolled through the cabinlike tropical thunder:

 "'Whedn I cadn read my ti-tle cle-ah Toe madn-shudns idn the-e ske-ies I'll bid fah-wedl toe ev'-rye fe-ah Adn wipe my weep-ign eyes. '"

From the chairman's seat the actor kept a corner of one eye on Ramseyand as the hymn's last line rolled away he stood up. She had not sung, but neither had she laughed. No one could have seen the moment's hugegrotesqueness larger, yet to the relief of many she had kept her poise. In her mind was the bishop, overhead in the texas, consciouslyimperilling his life to save her brother's soul, and in the face of alldrolleries she strenuously kept her ardor centred on the gravestsignificancies of the hour, as if the bishop's success up there hung onthe efficiency with which this work of his earlier appointment should bedone, down here, in his absence. She saw in the exhorter a tragic aswell as comic problem. Nor was he her only perplexity. Another, shefeared, might easily arise through some clash of any two kinds ofworshippers each devoted to its own set forms. Certain main features, she knew, had been carefully prearranged, yet as the actor stood silentabout to ask the Vicksburger to lead in prayer she tingled with all theexhilaration a ruder soul might have felt in hunting ferocious game orin fighting fire. Her soul rose a-tiptoe for the moment when thePresbyterians, who also had not sung, should stand up to pray, while thefew Episcopalians, kneeling forward, and the many Baptists andMethodists, kneeling to the rear, should find themselves face toface--nose to nose, anxiously thought Ramsey--with only the open backsof the chairs between. She was herself the last to kneel, kneelingforward but doubting if she ought not to face the other way, hardlyknowing whether she was a Catholic or a Methodist; and she was much thelast to close her eyes. But the various postures were taken without ajar and the modest Vicksburger prayed. His words were neither impromptunor printed, but, as every one quickly perceived and Ramsey had knownbeforehand, were memorized and were fresh from the pen of the actor. Diffidence warped the first phrase or two, but soon each word cameclear, warm from the heart, and reaching all hearts, however borne backby the rapturous yells with which the exhorter broke in at every pause. 

"And though to our own sight, " pleaded the supplicant, "we are but atomsin thy boundless creation, we yet believe that prayer offered thee inlove, humility, and trust cannot offend. Wherefore in this extremity ofgrief and disaster we implore thee for deliverance. "

Close at Ramsey's back, in the only seat whose occupant her diligent eyehad failed to light on, a kneeler heaved a sigh so piteous that itstartled her like an alarum. 

But the prayer went on: "Drive from us, O Lord, this pestilence. Allowit no more toll of life or agony. Have mercy on us all, both the sickand the sound. "

"Have mercy, " moaned the suffering voice behind, and Ramsey, sufferingwith it, wished she had been Methodist enough to kneel with her facethat way. 

"Spare not our earthly lives alone, " continued the supplicant, "but saveour immortal souls. Pardon in us every error of the present moment andof all our past. Forgive us every fault of character inherited oracquired. "

"God, forgive!" sighed the voice behind, in so keen a contrition thatRamsey, while the supplication in front pressed on, found herself intears of her own penitence. The mourner at her back began responsivelyto repeat each word of the prayer as it came and presently Ramsey wasdoing likewise, striving the while, with all her powers, to determinewhose might be the voice which distress so evidently disguised even fromits owner. 

"Enable us, our Maker, " she pleaded in time with the voice behind, thatfollowed the voice in front, "henceforth to grow in thy likeness, and inthy strength to devote ourselves joyfully to the true and diligentservice of the world wherein thou hast set us. Grant us, moreover, wepray, such faith in thee and to thee that in every peril or woe, to-day, to-morrow, or in years to come, we may without doubt or fear commit allwe have, are, and hope for, temporal or immortal, alike unto thee. And, finally, we beg thee to grant us in this immediate issue a courage forourselves and compassion for all others which, come what may, living ordying, will gird us so to acquit ourselves that in the end we may standbefore thee unashamed and by thy mercy and thy love be welcomed intothine own eternal joy. "

"Amen!" cried the exhorter and burst anew into song:

 "'Chidl-dredn of the-e heabm-lye kiggn, As we jour-nye sweet-lye siggn. Siggn----'"

He ceased and flashed a glance, first up to Hugh, whose hand lay on hisshoulder, and then over to the standing player. A hush was on thereseated company, and its united gaze on Ramsey and the mourner who withher had been audibly following the prayer. Two seats from her Mrs. Gilmore vainly tried to catch her eye. The penitent was in his seatagain. He bent low forward, his face in his hands, and face and handshid in his thick fair locks. Ramsey had turned toward him with a knee inher chair, a handkerchief pressed fiercely against her lips, and herdrowned eyes gazing down on him. But as the actor was about to speak shewheeled toward him and stood with an arm beseechingly thrown out, hervoice breaking in her throat. 

XXVI

ALARM AND DISTRESS

"It's Basile!" she cried. Then, one after another, to the exhorter, toHugh, to each of the two Gilmores separately: "This is wrong, all wrong!You said we mustn't alarm or distress any one--and we mustn't!" Shetried to face her chair round to the bowed head, and Hugh, at a touchfrom his grandfather, moved to her aid. Mrs. Gilmore too had started butwas kept back by others, whispering with her on the edges of theirseats. 

"It's all wrong, " insisted Ramsey to Hugh close at hand, "and we mustn'tdo it! You said we mustn't!"

The exhorter was gratified, not to say flattered. "H-it ain't none of itwrong, my young sisteh, " he called across. "Ef yo' bretheh's distress ahthe fear o' damnation it's all right and Gawd's name be pra-aised!"

"Amen!" groaned one or two of the undistressed majority, while old Joymodestly pressed up from the rear. 

"Please, good ladies an' gen'lemens, " she said as she came, "will youplease fo' to lem-me thoo, ef you please? Dat's my young mahsteh, what Idone nu's' f'om a baby. Ef you please'm, will you please suh, fo' tolem-me pass, ef you please?" In gentle haste she made her way, many eyesfollowing, and heads swinging right and left to see around the headsthat came between. The goal was reached just as Ramsey, in her turnedseat, leaned to lay fond hands on her brother's locks. But Hughinterposed an arm. 

"No, " he said, "we mustn't do that either. "

"No!" said Joy, "dat's right! Fo' de Lawd's sake tek heh clean away--efyou kin. An' ef you please, good ladies an' gen'lemens, fo' to squeezeback a leetle mite----?"

They squeezed the mite and she knelt by the boy. The sister knelt too, but as she left her chair Hugh, taking it, put himself between her andher brother. The actor was the only one left standing. 

"Sing, will you, please, " he said--"and will you all sing

 "'There is a land of pure delight--'

Mrs. Gilmore, will you raise the tune?"

But the exhorter was too quick for them and "riz" it before the requestwas fairly uttered. All sang, and over all easily soared the voice ofthe zealot:

 "'Thah is a ladnd o' pyo' de-light Whah saidnts ib-maw-tudl reigdn. Idn-fidn-ite day dis-pedls the-e night Adn pleas-u'es badn-ish paidn. '"

Now he rolled his enraptured eyes and now his quid, spat freely on therich carpet, beat time on one big palm with the other and on the floorwith one vast foot, while through the song like a lifeboat throughwaves, undisturbed and undisturbing, cleft the steady speech of thenurse to the boy. Regardless of the precaution just urged for Ramsey, her arm fell over his bowed form. 

 "'Thah eveh-last-ign sprign a-bi-dns Adn nev-eh with-'rign flow-ehs--'"

--ran the hymn, and straight through it, heard everywhere, pressed mammyJoy's tearful inquiry:

"Is you got religion, honey boy, aw is you on'y got de sickness? Tellme, honey, which you got? Is you got bofe?"

The lad moaned, shook his head, and suddenly sat up, and cried to hiskneeling and gazing sister: "Neither! Great God, I'm not ready foreither!"--his words, like old Joy's, cutting squarely across the hymn asit continued:

 "'Death like a nor-rah streabm di-vi-dns This heab'-mly ladnd frobm ow-ehs. '"

Ramsey stood. "Well, don't be alarmed or distressed!" she half laughed, half wept, while the nurse crooned:

"Honey boy, ef you ain't yit got de sickness----"

"I don't know!" he cried, so loudly that only the Methodists andBaptists sang on. He sprang up and glanced round to the judge, thegeneral, the squire, the senator, exclaiming: "I've been right init!--to get back that infernal petition of yours when I dropped it! I'veall but touched the dying and the dead! I've been handled all over bymen who'd been handling them! Whatever I've caught from them I'll knowis a judgment! For at last I've got a sense of sin! Right down underhere behind this boat's engines I got it! I want you-all people to prayfor me! I've been an awful sinner for years!"

"So have I!" wept Ramsey aloud. 

"Praise de Lawd!" said Joy, from her knees. 

Mrs. Gilmore drew Ramsey backward and shared a chair with her. Theexhorter and a stout few hung to the hymn--

 "'Whi-dle Jur-dan ro-dled be-tweedn, '"

--and the terrified boy talked on through everything, no one edging awayfrom him as the wise might in these days. 

"I'm not fitt'n' to die, Mr. Gilmore, " he said. "That petition's not myworst sin--by half--by quarter. But it's opened my eyes. You-all thatgot it up, and you-all that signed it, it would open yours, one lookbelow; and I want you-all, right here, now, to tell God you take itback, before he lays his curse on me! You can manage that somehow, Mr. Manager, can't you? Can't somebody pray it? Or--or can't--can't you voteon it?"

"Yes, " broke in Ramsey, clung to by the player's wife but standing andglancing from the player so directly to the senator that all looked athim, "vote! vote!"

He gave the player the sort of nod one gives an auctioneer, and thesingers stopped. "I think we can, " said the actor, "and that if thesenator votes yea so will every one. All in favor of withdrawing thepetition raise the right hand. It is unanimous. "

The exhorter was up. "Mr. Play-actoh, that's all right. I neveh signedthat trick, nohow. So fah so good, fo' a play-acto's church--ef you kingit sich a church into the imagination o' yo' mind! But vot'n' ain'tenough!" He pointed to Ramsey, fast in Mrs. Gilmore's arms, and to herbrother, in old Joy's. "Vot'n' don't take heh--naw him--out'n the gallo' bittehness naw the bounds o' iniquity. Oh, my young silk-an'-satinsisteh, don't you want us to pray fo' you?"

Ramsey's courage was tried. Many gazers, but particularly the judge'ssister, seemed, by their eyes, crouching to pounce on her whether sheanswered yea or nay. "I know, " she said, in tears again, andunconsciously wringing her hands, "I know I ought to, but--but I--I'mafraid there isn't time. For I want--oh, I--I want to vote again! I wantto vote to take up a collection, and a big one, for those peopledown-stairs that mom-a's with. And then we can pray for her--and forCaptain Courteney. Mom-a's a Catholic but it's in her Bible the same asin any: 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. '" Thelast word was but a breath on her quivering lip. Facing the actor shestood and waited. Joy was getting Basile away. 

"It is moved by the last speaker, " said the player, "and secondedby"--he glanced inquiringly about--"by several--that we make animmediate contribution for the benefit of our deck passengers, who arein dire need, and that----"

"That we make it a big one!" repeated Ramsey. 

"All in favor--" he said. "Unanimous. I will ask Mr. Courteney and MissHayle to take up the collection. "

 * * * * *

The dispersal of the meeting found the lady of Milliken's Bend with thejudge's sister. The judge, joining them, reported that the laughingRamsey's collection was double that of the solemn Hugh. The sister'seyes snapped as she put in: "She made me double my contribution. " Ramseypassed at a distance. "It's a shame to keep short dresses on a girl ofthat age and of her--her----"

"Spontaneity?" asked the judge. "I like spontaneity, even exuberance, attimes. "

"Well, I don't, " said the sister. 

"No, " murmured the judge. These two, who were to get off at Natchez, were just beginning to be enjoyed--as types. The sister was one who hadall her life complained of "enlargement of the spleen" and even oftenerof a "bitter mouth. " On which the judge's only comment was: "Hmm!" Justnow, as to Ramsey, he grew daring. 

"Her dress, " he said, "is longer than it was yesterday. "

"It's a mile too short. "

"As much as that?"

"I wish you were not going to leave us so soon, " said the lady of theBends, and then bravely added, of Ramsey: "Her dresses are short by herown choice, old Joy says. "

"Shouldn't doubt it a moment. "

"Yes, she keeps them short to keep her mother young. I think that'sright sweet of her, don't you?"

"No, " replied the sister, and went to lock her trunks. 

XXVII

PILOTS' EYES

Once more the hurricane deck. What space! What freedom! Again from theairy, sun-beaten roof, that felt as thin underfoot as the levelled wingof an eagle, the eye dropped far below to where the tawny waters glidedto meet the cleaving prow or foamed away from the smiting wheels. Againthe dazzled vision rose into the infinite blue beyond clouds and sun, orrested on the green fringes of half-drowned shores forever passing inslow recessional. 

Four in the afternoon. Esperance Point rounded and left astern in theeast. Ellis Cliffs there too, whitening back to the western sun. SaintCatherine's Bend next ahead, gleaming a mile and a quarter wide where itswung down from the north. And the _Votaress_ herself! Once again thatperfect grace in the faint up-curve, at stem and stern, of the low whiterail that rimmed the deck. Again, above the stained-glass skylights ofthe cabin, the long white texas, repeating the deck's and cabin's linesin what Ramsey called a "higher octave, " its narrow doors overhung withgay scrollwork, and above its own roof, like a coronet, the pilot house, with Watson just returned to the wheel. Once more the colossal, hot-breathing twin chimneys, their slender iron braces holding them souprightly together and apart, the golden globe--emblem of the Courteneyfleet--hanging between them, and their far-stretched iron guys softlyharping to one another in the breeze. All these again, and away outbeyond the front rail, with a hundred feet depth of empty air between, the jack-staff, high as a pine and as slim for its height as a cane fromthe brake, its halyards whipping cheerily, the black night-hawk at itsmiddle, a golden arrow at its peak. 

John Courteney, coming up into this scene, laid a hand on his solitarychair at the forward rail but then paused. Between the chair and theskylights behind it stood the squire's sister and brother-in-law andRamsey. Yes, they eagerly agreed with him, the view ahead was certainlydazzling. Ramsey would have asked a question, but the husband rememberedthe contagion from whose field below the captain had just come, the wifenoticed that the presence of ladies would keep the captain standing, andthe three, remarking that such a scene was too brilliant to confront, moved aft. As they went, Watson, up at the wheel, and Ned, his partner, lingering by him, had a half-length view of them, their lower half beinghid by the cabin roof, close under whose edge their feet passed, whereits shadow kept the deck cool. The wife still had her embroidery, thehusband his De Bow. By certain changes about Ramsey's throat andshoulders Ned noticed that she was in yet another dress, whoseskirt--such part as showed above the cabin roof--was in flounces almostto the waist. He would tell that at home to his wife and daughter, whonow and then depended on him for fashions, with striking results. Watson, too, noticed Ramsey, yet his chief attention remained, assteadily as his gaze, on his steering-mark far up in the bight of thesunlit bend, at the same time including, here below, his seatedcommander. 

"Cap' ought to be pootty tol'able tired, Ned. "

"Well, now, he jest ought!" The partner dropped back and perched on thevisitor's bench, whence he could still see the river though not theclosely intervening cabin--and texas roofs; and all the two said laterwas without an exchange of glances. Watson thought the captain would"rest more now, on watch, than what he did before, off, " having gotmatters running so much smoother down below; though the cholera was"a-growin', straight along. "

Ned told of his pleasure in seeing Hugh conduct the senator down to thedevotional services: "Lard, they hev done him brown, ain't they?--atween'em, Hugh and Hayle's girl?"

"With some help, " said Watson, modestly. "That petition--ef th'sanything else aboard this boat as dead as what it is"--he ran intoinelegancies. 

Ned offered to bet it was not dead inside the senator, and Watsonadmitted that the statesman would probably never forgive the "genteel"way he had been euchred; though like euchre, he said, a lot of it wasluck. 

"But, man! the bluff he _kin_ put up! Couldn't believe my eyes when we'dpassed the hat an' adjourned an' I see him a-standin' at the fork o' thefor'a'd stairs, ag'in the trunk room, same ole bell-wether as ever, a-makin' a _bully_ speech to Madame Hayle an' that Marburg chap down inthe gangway, foot o' the steps, an' a-present'n' him our'oblations'--says he--meanin' the swag!"

"An' her a-translat'n' for him!" said Ned, fancying the scene, with thesenator, under his mask, "a-gritt'n' his tushes!" and Watson, toheighten it, told of Hugh and the actor at one head of the double stair, and Mrs. Gilmore and Ramsey at the other--"a-chirpin' him on, an' thewhole b'iler deck, ladies and gents, takin' it in, solid!"

The senator was long-headed. "Yes, an' yit Hugh's throwed him fair jestby main strength an' awk'ardness. "

"I dunno!" said Ned. "It wuz long-headed, too, fo' Hugh an' theplay-acto's to give him the job. "

"It wuz long-headed in her who put 'em up to it. "

"Oh, look here! _She_ didn't do that, did she?"

"'Less'n I'm a liar, " replied Watson, eyes front. 

"Hunh! Wonder which! Say, Wats'; on the b'iler deck--did she have onthis gownd she's a-wearin' now?"

"No, " said Watson, tardily, with eyes still up-stream. 

"Not wast'n' yo' words, " said the inquirer. 

"No. "

"A short answer turneth away wrath, I s'pose. "

"It turneth away discussion o' ladies' gownds. "

"Lard! I don't discuss 'em to excess. Noticed hern--its upper works--an'a flounce or two--an' sort o' wondered as to the rest of it, how muchwater it's a-drawin'. Anything li-bell-ious about that?"

"No, considerin' the source. "

Ned slipped from the bench to go, but Watson looked back with a lightbeckon of the head and he turned to the wheel. Thence he glanced downover the breast-board, over the forward eaves of the texas, down to theskylight roof and upon several persons. First, the boat's commander. Hewas leaving his seat at the approach, from the head of a boiler-deckstair, of Madame Hayle and the doctor. On the skylight roof, near thebell, were the two players, just greeting Hugh as from the other side hereached the deck and stepped up to their level. On the same roof, midwaybetween these and the front of the texas, were the squire's sister andher husband returning from their search for shade. And lastly, closeafter them, came Ramsey, a source of general astonishment. For the gownshe was in and whose lower possibilities had aroused Ned's avowed andWatson's concealed interest was her mother's and swept the deck. 

Madame Hayle grew more beautiful as with a play of indignation whichwholly failed to disguise her pleasure she cried: "By what_per_-mission? by what _per_-mission have you pud--my--clothes?"

The girl would have flown to her arms but the doctor forbade, and forsecond choice she set up a dainty tripping to and fro athwartships;dipping, rising, skipping, swaying, bridling, like a mocking-bird on agarden wall. It made Ned and Watson themselves worth seeing. Professional dignity set their faces like granite though every veinseethed with a riot of laughter. But the laughter's chief cause was notRamsey. 

"Look at Hugh, " muttered Watson, gently drawing down the wheel for the_Votaress_ to sweep round into a northward reach at whose head NatchezIsland would presently show itself. To look at Hugh took nerve, but in amoment----

"Look at her, " said Ned. . . . "There! she tipped her nose at him!"

"She didn't!"

"She did. Wats', yo' game ain't never goin' to work. "

"Ned, y'ain't got the sense of a loon. "

"Well, I swear I've got more'n Hugh--or her. "

XXVIII

WORDS AND THE "WESTWOOD"

Down on the roof, while Ramsey's mother started with the physicianaround the skylights for the texas, and Hugh and Gilmore conversed withthe captain, Mrs. Gilmore, her hands on Ramsey, said to madame:

"I want her now, to begin to make ready for tomorrow evening. Mydear"--to the girl--"I've a dozen dresses that will become you betterthan this one. "

"Long?" cried Ramsey. "I'll take the lot!" She felt Hugh distantlylooking and listening. 

"We won't trade on Sunday, " laughed Mrs. Gilmore; "but youmustn't"--scanning her approvingly--"ever put on a short dress again. "

"Ho-oh, I never will!" said Ramsey, with a toss meant for Hugh, who wentby, hurrying aft to meet a newcomer. She started after him. MadameHayle, in that direction, had gone into the sick-room, whence Ramsey'sbrother Julian, with barely a word to his mother, had come out. Steppingdown into the narrow walk between the roofs of cabin and pantry andglancing over his shoulder upon the company about the bell, he winced atsight of his sister's attire. Yet he kept his course and was wellstarted aft before he saw that he was being met by some one in thenarrow way, and by whom but Marburg. It was that alien whom Hugh washastening to reach and on whom Ramsey was staring. He had come up fromthe engine room through the steward's department, by the unguarded routewhich Basile's ascent had revealed, and now came face to face with a foewhere there was room only for friends to meet and pass. So said the eyesof each to each, but just then a quick footfall on the cabin roof, behind and somewhat above him, caused Julian to face round and heconfronted Hugh. 

"Mr. Hayle, " was Hugh's word, "what will you have, sir?"

"Nothing, sir, of you! What will _you_ have of _me_, sir?"

Ramsey glided by both and halted before the exile, whose scowl vanishedin a look so grateful and supplicating that her words, clearly meant tojustify his presence, caught in her throat: "What will you--have, sir?My mother?--back again?--and the doctor?"

"Yes, " he replied, and then added in German with an anguish of gesturewhich was ample interpretation, "yes, for _my_ mother! for my littlebrother! Ah, God! he is not dead! He is yet alive! His arms are assupple as _these_. There is color still in his cheeks!"

She stood dumb with horror. Yet she woke to action as, close beside her, she heard her brother snarl at Hugh:

"I'll go where I please! Who stops me, God pity him!"

She dropped nimbly from the skylights' overhang to the alien's level andwith looks as beseeching as his waved him back a step. Then with thesame mute entreaty she faced Julian and Hugh. But there was a ludicrouscontrast, visible to all, between Hugh's phlegm and her brother's pomp, and by a flash of feminine instinct she divined the best mood with whichto match it. Grimly elated, Hugh saw what was coming. Julian saw, andgroaned a wearied wrath. The captain, the commodore--for the commodorehad returned--the Gilmores, the Yazoo couple, the pilots overhead, allwaited with lively and knowing gaze. She went limp, hid her face, swayed, sank to one knee, and filled the whole width of the narrowpassage with arms and draperies, the meanwhile breaking into a laugh sowholly soliloqual that the two players became learners. But again shesprang erect and had hardly thrown her curls back from her blushing facewhen her mother, the bishop, and the doctor stepped from the sick-room, and madame addressed the immigrant:

"Ah, ritturn, if you ple-ease. Me, I am ritturning!"

"Yes, " chimed the bishop and the doctor; "yes, at once!" and the exile, with pleading looks to Ramsey, to the others by turn and to her again, went below. Madame and the physician began to follow. 

"How's Lucian?" called Ramsey after them. 

"Getting well, " replied both. They passed behind the wheel-house andonly the pilots knew that at its corner Madame Hayle stopped where shecould still see and hear. All others kept their eyes on Julian, who wasin a redder heat than ever, and on Hugh, who was addressing him in adepth of tone that amused the Gilmores almost as keenly as it didRamsey, who had rejoined them at his back. Suddenly he faced around. 

"If Miss Hayle, " he said, "would as soon go below----"

Miss Hayle sang her reply, bugled it: "She would no-ot. "

Hugh stepped down into her brother's path and faced him again: "You havewritten your father a letter----"

Julian's head flew up but bent in slow avowal. 

"To be put aboard the _Antelope_, " pursued Hugh----

The head went higher: "Well, sir?"

"To outrun this boat. "

"And--if--I--have, sir?"

"Why, yes, " murmured the squire's brother-in-law and sister, to theGilmores, "suppose he has?"

"So have I, " said Hugh to Julian. He glanced up to the Yazoo couple andthen to the bishop self-isolated near the sick-room door. Ramsey and thecouple laughed. Hugh turned her way again: "If Miss Hayle----"

"She wouldn't, " said Ramsey, laughing more. 

"Well, sir!" drawled the waiting Julian, to Hugh. 

Hugh waved a hand toward the bishop: "That gentleman has risked his lifefor your sick brother. "

"Yes, " said Ramsey. The bishop scowled up the river. Julian scowled atHugh. 

"Well, sir?" he once more challenged. 

"He was told he was wanted as a minister, " said Hugh. 

"_Well, sir?_"

"He was wanted merely to get your letter off secretly. "

"You lie!"

"Oh!" sighed the Yazoo pair. Ramsey shrank upon Mrs. Gilmore. 

"Not at all, " said a quiet voice overhead and the eyes of Julian, blazing upward, met Watson's blazing down. 

"Come, " said the player's wife to Ramsey, "come away. "

"I won't, " tearfully laughed Ramsey, and Mrs. Gilmore and the squire'ssister had to laugh with her. 

"The lie, " said Hugh, "will keep. Your letter is such that the bishopdeclines to touch it. "

The bishop swelled. Julian recoiled and, glancing behind him, confrontedhis mother. 

"My son, " she began, but he whirled back to Hugh. 

"You keyhole spy!" he wailed; "you eavesdropping viper!"

Ramsey came tiptoeing along the edge of the pantry roof to light downbetween them but he imperiously motioned her off, still glaring at Hughand gnawing his lip with chagrin. "Oh, never mind!" was all he couldchoke out; "never you mind!" He ceased again, to catch what Hugh wasreplying to him. Said Hugh:

"I'll take your letter and send it with my own. "

"No, sir! No, you grovelling sneak!"

"Mais, yass!" called Madame Hayle from her place, and Ramsey laughedfrom hers, but a new voice arrested every one's attention. The bishopwheeled round to it with an exclamation of dismay that was echoed evenby Julian. In the sick-room door stood Lucian, half dressed and feeblyclinging to the jamb. 

"Let him do it, Jule!" he cried in a tremulous thin voice. "Take thewhelp at his word! Don't you see? Don't you see, Jule? We'll have him ina nine hole. It'll be hell for him if he puts it through and worse if heslinks it!" He tried to put off the bishop's sustaining arm. 

A light of discernment filled Julian's face. There was no time toponder. He had always trusted Lucian for the cunninger insight and didit now though Lucian lay in the bishop's arms limp and senseless. Hedrew forth the letter. Gayly stooping over the skylights Ramsey reachedfor it and passed it to Hugh. Julian sprang up to the bishop, who hadborne Lucian into the sick-room and now filled its door again, waving acheerful reassurance. 

"A mere swoon, " said the bishop; "all right again. "

"It may be all right up there, " the squire's sister began to say to theactor's wife--and hushed. But Ramsey had heard, as she watched hermother hurry below to the young Marburg brother lying as limp andfaintly pink in death as her brother up here in life; heard, and thoughtof the perils in store for Hugh and his kin and her and hers unless thissweet, wise mother could charm them away as sunlight charms awaypestilence. Mr. Gilmore called her:

"Come, we've lots to do. "

But how could one come just then? A slight turn of the boat's head wasputting Natchez Island close on her larboard bow and, seven miles away, bringing hazily into sight Natchez herself, both on her bluffs and"under-the-hill. " Nay, more; abreast the _Votaress_ was another fineboat. The _Westwood_, she was named. Her going was beautiful, yet the_Votaress_ was gradually passing her. The Yazoo pair knew her well. Whenthey made salute toward two men who stood near her forward skylights, one of them returned it. 

"Why should he be so solemn?" asked the wife. 

"Why shouldn't he?" laughed Ramsey. 

"Because he's a mere passenger, on his wedding tour. "

"Humph!" said Ramsey. "Weddings are solemn things. Is that other man thecaptain?" she asked the husband. 

"No, I regret to say, he's only her first clerk. "

"Why should you regret to say it?" inquired the girl; but the wife, too, had a question:

"Do you think there's anything wrong?"

"N-no, oh, no. "

The _Westwood's_ clerk made a sign to Captain Courteney. The captainglanced up to Watson, and the two boats, still at full speed, began todraw sidewise together. But Ramsey's liveliest interest was in the_Westwood's_ crew, who, far below about her capstan, were paying theircompliments to the newer, larger, speedier boat in song and refrain withstately wavings and dippings of ragged hats and naked black arms. Nowthe boats' guards almost touched and their commanders spoke so quietlytogether that she did not hear their words. But she noted the regretfulair with which John Courteney shook his head to the _Westwood's_ clerkand then to the passenger, and the _Westwood_ began again to dropbehind. Hugh came near, paused, and glanced around. 

"Looking for the commodore?" she asked. 

"I thought you went down with Mrs. Gilmore, " he replied, "to rehearseyour part in the play. "

"Commodore's down on the lower deck, " she said; "freight deck--withmom-a--and the bishop. "

Hugh showed astonishment. "The bishop?"

"Yes, mom-a made him go. " She laughed. "Some of the sick folks downthere are Protestants and were threatening to turn Catholic. Is anybodysick aboard the _Westwood_?"

"No. "

"Then where's her captain?"

Hugh made no reply but to meet her steady gaze with his own till sheasked in a subdued voice: "Cholera?"

Hugh nodded. Each knew the other was aware of the song that floated upafter them from the boat behind. 

"What did the bridegroom want?" asked the girl. 

"Wanted to give us a thousand dollars to take his bride--with him orwithout him--aboard the _Votaress_. "

"But when he heard how much worse off we are--" prompted she. "Yes. "

"But, Mr. Hugh----"

"Yes?"

"Anyhow, this boat hasn't got that boat's trouble!"

"No, " said Hugh, and knew they were both thinking of his father. Together they stood hearkening to the last of the _Westwood's_ song:

 "'Ef you git dah befo' I do-- _O, high-low!_-- Jest tell 'em I'm a-comin' too-- _John's gone to high-low!_'"

XXIX

STUDYING THE RIVER--TOGETHER

They did not tie to the wharf-boat at Natchez. At that stage of waterthere was good landing a few yards below, where the sandy bank was nottoo wet to walk across to a higher one which floods never reached, closeunder the bluff. Here had left the boat half a dozen passengersincluding the judge and his sister. So good-by to that lady. Never would_she_ have set foot on the _Votaress_ had she dreamed she was to be"dumped off" on such a spot. She believed that girl of Gideon Hayle'shad laughed as she went up the perilous stage plank. And really there isno proof to the contrary. 

Another incident awoke in Ramsey no mirth. Yet she never forgot it. Itoccurred on the upper, greener level that overlooked, across the river, a great sweep of Louisiana lowlands at that moment bathed in a goldensunset. The same light fell upon the incident itself--the Marburg lad'sburial; fell upon the bent mother standing behind the priest and betweenher elder son and Madame Hayle, surrounded by her fellow exiles, many ofwhom, with faces hidden like hers, wept more for her bereavement thanthey had earlier done for their own. So the rude pine coffin descendedinto the unhallowed ground. From the hurricane-deck Ramsey looked downwith wet eyes to the meek mourner returning aboard on the arm of herOtto. Thinking how easily in the play of chance the lost brother mighthave been saved and her saved brother lost, and recalling the plight ofthe _Westwood_, she suddenly realized that no one could tell who mightgo next--"to high-low. " Otto Marburg, glancing up, saw her tears, andwould have paused but for the sacred burden on his arm. 

At the same time, for eyes, even wet eyes, as lively as Ramsey's therewere livelier things to see. Hugh had gone ashore and up to thewharf-boat, crossed it, and boarded the busy _Antelope_ with severalletters in hand, the twins' letter among them. Said the squire'sbrother-in-law:

"That boy must know the danger to him there is in that document, " andthe planter of Milliken's Bend agreed. 

So did their wives. There was "everything in it he wouldn't want thereand nothing he would want. "

He was doing the "brave thing, " they all said, and the wives called ittoo brave. The brave thing, they thought, "ran a slim chance againstHayle's twins. "

"My dear ladies, " said the planter, "it runs the only chance he has. Thebrave thing is the only thing those two young fire-eaters have anyrespect for. " He stopped short; Ramsey had overheard. Yet she kept apretty front. 

"Why do you call him 'that boy'?" she laughingly asked. 

"Well, really, because, " replied the planter, twinkling, "he's so muchmore than a boy. Don't you think so?"

She gave him a sidelong glance, twitched her curls, and looked downashore. Her mother was there with the "boy's" grandfather. They weregetting into a rickety hack. Now Hugh joined them from the _Antelope_, and they went whipping up the steep road across the face of the bluffand into the "stuck-up" Natchez atop the hill. She guessed their errand. 

Meantime the _Westwood_ had reached the wharf-boat, put her bridal pairaboard the _Antelope_, and backed out again so promptly that as the_Antelope_ cast off and started after her she had rounded Marengo Bendand was showing only her smoke across Cowpen Point. And now reappearedMadame Hayle, the commodore, and Hugh, bringing with them--welcomesight--two sisters of charity. The moment they touched the lower deckthe _Votaress_, with John Courteney on her roof, backed away, and soon, in the first bend above, any eye could plainly see the _Westwood_, stillless than four miles off across country though eight by the river, withthe _Antelope_ four miles behind her and four ahead of the _Votaress_. Said the pilot, Ned, to Ramsey, pulling the wheel down to head into thecrimson west:

"Four 'n' four's eight, ain't it? Used to be. Can't tell what'll changeon this river. When Lake Concordia, over here in Louisiana, was part o'the river, an' Vidal's Island, in its middle, was in the river, thisbend wa'n't jest eight mile' round, it wuz twenty. These are _the_bends. F'om here to Cairo we got to run one etarnal wriggle o' sixhund'd 'n' eighty mile' to make three hund'd 'n' seventy. "

"Oh, I'm glad of it! At least--ain't--ain't you?"

He shook his head: "Not this run. " The supper bell rang and Ramsey fled, but he repeated: "No, not this run!" He turned and looked back uponNatchez bluff far behind the steamer's wake. "I wished every last Hayleon this blessed boat wuz off o' her an' 'top o' you!"

On that bluff, in colonial days, had stood Fort Rosalie, whose diretragedy Ramsey, down in the cabin, found Gilmore, at table, recountingto Hugh and others: murder of its French settlers by Natchez Indians andthe extermination of the Natchez tribe by the French from New Orleans. He was brief, and for a good ending went on to recall his own firstsight of the spot, before the time of steamboats, when Natchez was avillage; how, as his low broadhorn came drifting down around this pointclose above it, the bold rise swung into view, crowned with pines, itslower parts evergreen with the bay magnolia, and its precipitous frontlighted up, as now, with the last beams of day. He made it seem so fairand important that Ramsey's native pride and a shame of her previousblindness almost drove her from the board to take a last look at it fromthe stern guards; but she was again in her mother's seat and again veryhungry. He was good company to every one, the actor; always acting, yetalways as natural as if acting and nature were one; a quiet education toHugh, an unfailing joy to his wife, and both to Ramsey. 

After supper the players got out an old two-act play for the nextevening's entertainment. They cast Hugh and Ramsey for two small rôles, and for two larger ones found a young brother and sister--ofNapoleon--at the mouth of the Arkansas--who would have just time to actthem before leaving the boat. Supper had prevented its guests fromseeing the _Votaress_ turn Giles's Bend and Rifle Point and meet anotherboat as glittering as she and pass Lake Saint John and Fairchild'sBend--where the river widened to three miles about Fairchild's doubleisland. Wherefore the indulgent Gilmores, on Ramsey's pleading, electedto coach first the brother and sister--of Napoleon--letting Hugh ascendto the starlight of the roof and Ramsey follow attended once more by oldJoy. 

She met Hugh at the foot of the pilot-house steps. "We are postponed!"she said, "you and me--I!"

"Yes. Do you know for what?"

"Yes, because those other two parts are so much bigger than ours, andbecause--I d'n' know--I believe they think I'm sleepy--ha, ha! I'm glad, for _I_ want to study this _river_, all I can, day and night. Andyou--must, mustn't you?"

"Yes, " he said, which was all he was to say in the play. 

Half-way up the steps she halted: "You're to be a captain on it yourselfas soon as you're fit, ain't you?"

"If that time ever comes. "

"Phew! how modest" She stared an instant, turned her back, clasped therail, and with her forehead on her arms laughed till Hugh was weary--notnecessarily long. 

He spoke: "Here come the _Westwood_ and the _Antelope_. "

"Where?" She glanced round, sprang up the steps, and soon was makingroom for him beside her at a larboard window behind Watson. Lookingthence across the long, slim neck of Cole's Point they saw the two boatscoming back westward in the upper reach of the fourteen-mile easternloop they were running to make two miles into the north. Now the_Westwood_ passed and now the _Antelope_, their skylights glinting likefireflies through the intervening tree tops, and Watson showed how totell them apart by night. Presently they turned north again andvanished, leaving the mighty stream to its three students. 

"It'll cut off this whole fourteen mile' some day, " said Watson; but theother two, in their dim nook, remained silent. He knew that sort ofsilence. When Ramsey by and by spoke, her words were to Hugh exclusivelyand in undertone. 

"The _Quakeress_--Oh, I didn't mean----!"

"That's all right, " said Hugh. "The _Quakeress_----!"

"Oh, I meant the _Antelope_! She'll soon be in the lead again?"

"Yes. "

"With both those letters. "

"Both. "

"Ain't you glad I didn't mean the _Quakeress_?"

"No. "

"Well, you're glad I didn't mean Phyllis, ain't you?"

"No. "

"Would you really be willing to tell me about Phyllis?"

"I would. "

"You wasn't willing--before--was you?--were you?"

"No. "

"What's changed your mind?"

"Lawd, missy!" sighed the forgotten Joy. 

But Ramsey insisted: "What's changed it?"

"You, chiefly. "

"I haven't, " very quietly said the girl. 

"You have. "

Ramsey glanced cautiously at Watson, but the pilot's eyes were a leagueahead. Hers returned to Hugh. "Wasn't it my brothers changed yourmind--the twins?"

"They helped. "

She looked him over absently: "I love my brothers. "

"I don't, " said Hugh. 

She stared again and slowly remarked: "You haven't got to. . . . You'repowerful queer, ain't you?"

"Not by choice. "

"I'm queer. Wish I wasn't--wa'n't--weren't--but I am. "

"Yes, " said Hugh, "you are. "

She tilted her chin, stepped to Watson's side, and called down over thebreast-board to the Gilmores, who had finished with their two pupils fora time and had taken chairs with a newly found young married pair on thetexas roof:

"Oho, down there!"

"Oho!" the group answered. 

"Do you want us to stay up here?" asked Ramsey. "'Cause if you do we'llcome right down. Or if you'd rather we'd come down we'll stay up here!"It was a new note. 

The players laughed. "It's the long dress says that, " they observed tothe other pair. 

"It certain'y is, " replied they; which is Southern form for "probably. "

XXX

PHYLLIS AGAIN

About eleven o'clock that same Sunday evening the _Votaress_, at fullspeed, was in a part of the river whose remarkable character sustainedthe son of John Courteney and the daughter of Gideon Hayle in the theorythat their interest in it was all that had brought them to--all thatdetained them in--the unlighted pilothouse, on the visitors' bench, beside Watson. Below, the passengers were for the most part once more inslumber. The exhorter had loudly sung himself to sleep:

 "'Mahch-ign thoo Im-madn-uedl's groudnd Toe fahr-eh wordlds odn high. '"

Madame Hayle was in her stateroom and berth, deep in sleep under theweight of her toils and assured by the players that Ramsey should go tobed when they did. Basile, too, slept, but talked and tossed in hissleep, while old Joy, sent to him by Ramsey and the Gilmores, crouchedoutside his door and dozed with an ear against it. The Yazoo squire, hischildren, his sister, her husband, the Vicksburgers, and they ofMilliken's Bend, purposing to be called up an hour before day to leavethe boat at their proper landings, had "retired" early, saying fondgood-bys and hoping to meet every one again. The ladies had astonishedRamsey with kisses, given, doubtless, she thought, because her fatherwas a hero and her mother a saint. The squire's brother-in-law hadassured her that her brothers, all three--as Southern boys always, oralmost always, did--would come out all right--every way; but on beingasked for details he had slipped away to give his De Bow to thecommodore and his last good-by to Hugh. 

The actor and his wife, however, were as broad awake as Watson. Lovingthe lone starry hours for the hours' own starry sake and having for Hughand Ramsey a certain zeal unconfessed even to each other, they were yetin view from the pilot's wheel and visitors' bench at this hour ofeleven, staying up as willingly as nightingales with the young husbandand wife who had agreed with them that somebody's mental radius"certain'y had" lengthened as suddenly as her gown. 

This young pair were expecting to go ashore within the next half-hour at"New Carthage, " a city of seven houses, nearly opposite another of equalpride called Palmyra, and some four miles above the head of HurricaneIsland, whose foot the _Votaress_ was then passing. They and theGilmores were still down at the forward edge of the texas roof, theplayers finding the Carthaginians very attractive: fluent on morals, cuisine, manners, steamboats, the turf, fashions, the chase; voluble onthe burdensomeness of the slave to his master, the blessedness of themaster to his slave; but sore to the touch on politics andreligion--with their religion quite innocently adjusted to theirpolitics--and promptly going hard aground on any allusion to history, travel, the poets, statistics, architecture, ornithology, art, music, myths, memoirs, Europe, Asia, Africa, homoeopathy, or phrenology. Itentertained the players just to see how many things the happy loversknew nothing about and to hear them state in some new form, each timethey backed off a sand-bar of their own ignorance, that they had seenthe world, sucked the orange, yet found no spot of earth so perfect tolive in as New Carthage. 

The briefest sittings at such entertainment had been enough for Hugh, too much for Ramsey, and had driven them back, twice and thrice, to thatfairer world on high in the pilot-house, where they could study theriver undistracted. There and thence, now together, now apart, they hadgone and come all through Watson's watch, moved by Hugh's duties or hercaprice. Their each new meeting had been by accident, but it is odd howoften accidents can occur--"at that stage o' the game, " thought the kindpilot, and on each recurrence he noticed that they had got a bit fartheron in the story of Phyllis. 

"How long is this island, Mr. Watson?" inquired Ramsey, as if islandswere all she was sitting up for. 

"Two mile' 'n' a half. D'd you ask me that before? I don't hear muchbehind me if it ain't hove right at me. " Stalest device of thesentimentalist--the self-sacrificing lie! But Watson cared not for itsstaleness if it might promote the game. And the game, though aswanderingly as the river, went on. Without strict order of time, now onthe bench, now on the roof, early and late, here is how it went:

"You're not afraid of my brothers, are you? I'm not. "

"I'm afraid for them. And for my father and grandfather. And for yourfather and your mother. "

"Good gracious!" laughed Ramsey, then mused, and then asked: "Ain't youafraid for me?"

Hugh said nothing, and thenceforth her tone grew more maidenly thoughher words remained childlike enough. 

"I know why you want to tell me about Phyllis, " she added more softly. "You think if you don't my brothers will. "

"They don't know the facts, " murmured Hugh. 

"Don't they think they do? And ain't that the trouble?"

"Yes. " Hugh thought her insight surprising, while she enjoyed thespiritual largeness she fancied she saw in his immobile features. "Yes, "he repeated, "they think they do; that's the trouble, much of it. "

"How do you know they don't?"

"By what they believe and by what I know. "

"How do you know you know?"

"By my own eyes and Phyllis's own lips. "

"Would she tell you things she never told any one else?"

"Yes, things she never dared tell any one else. "

Ramsey pondered, laughed, and pondered and laughed again: "Why, most ofthat time you was--you were--nothing but a little toddler. Didn't shelove you?"

"She hated me. "

Ramsey flinched but quickly laughed a bright unbelief to the youth'sface, a face which might as well have been a wood-carving. "Oh, " shecried, "how ridiculous!"

"She used to flog me, cruelly. "

Ramsey gasped: "And you never told? Oh, why--why----?"

"She said she'd kill me--and my mother. And she'd have done it, somehow. "

"But she's been dead ten years!"

"Has she?"

"Why, of course! Wasn't she on the _Quakeress_ when----?"

"So was I. "

Ramsey flinched worse and stared away with lips apart, wondering if thatwas what gave him that look. 

"But Phyllis, " she resumed, "was lost. "

"Was she?"

"Why . . . Wasn't she? Mammy Joy says my uncle--in the blazingpilot-house--did you know my uncle Dan?"

"Yes. That night, half an hour before the burning----"

"Oh! was it at night?"

"Yes. I was sitting with Phyllis, behind him, with him at the wheel, aswe're sitting now behind Mr. Watson. "

"Uncle Dan didn't hate you, did he?"

"No, indeed. "

"Then why didn't you tell him about Phyllis? He was her master, youknow. "

"I did. He wormed it out of me. He was like you--in some things. "

The questioner flashed and stared but then dropped her eyes. "Didhe--have red curls?"

"Yes, redder than yours. "

"Humph!" . . . She mused. . . . "I'm tired here. Let's go down by theGilmores and walk--'thortships!"

They went. "Well?--about Phyllis? What did she whip you for? Being bad?"

"Bad or good was all one to Phyllis. "

"Wasn't--weren't--weren't you ever bad, Mr. Hugh?"

"Frequently. "

"How were you bad?--steal jam?--eat green plums?"

"Yes; had fights, went in swimming--in snake holes----"

"D'd you tease your sisters?--pull their hair?--let the sawdust out o'their dolls?"

"Yes, yes, all that. "

"Hmm! that's nothing. Basile and I--Ain't you going on? Of course, ifyou don't want to I--I shan't worm. Why did Phyllis--oh, pshaw!"

With the exclamation came such one-sided mirth that Mrs. Gilmore lookedround. But her husband said there would never be anything to look roundfor while "that laugh" kept its quality. 

Presently Hugh found himself murmurously "going on" and Ramseylistening. It was a great moment in both lives. If we cannot see it so, no matter; but in still depths of perception below all formulatedthought both the youth and the girl were aware, separately, that thestory of Phyllis was not the largest fruit of the hour. 

Phyllis, Hugh said, had not hated him alone. In her heart had burned apure flame of wrath against every member--save one--of the fair race towhich she belonged by three-fourths of her blood but by not one word ofhuman law. Wronged for the race she disclaimed, she hated the race thatdisclaimed her. Hated even the mothers of Hugh and Ramsey, who abhorredslavery, a slavery enthralling men, women, children in whose veins rannot four only but eight and sixteen times as much masters' blood asslaves'. She hated them because all their sweet abhorrence found nodeliverance or revenge for her. Mitigations there were, but mitigationsshe loathed. The uncompromising quality of her hatred was one thing thathad made dissimulation easy, and through all Hugh's childhood she hadpractised it perfectly in every relation and direction on every one buthim. Another easement had been her indomitable, unflagging triplepurpose to be free, to be reunited to her master, and to be revenged. 

And a third, craftily won through the trustfulness of Hugh's Quakermother, had been the opportunity to wreak the frequent overflow of herresentments on him. The fact that he was almost of the exact age of herown lost offspring had forever goaded her, and to him, with eachmaltreatment, she had told again her heart's whole burden, outermostwrong, innermost rage, thus recovering poise to treat his sisters andbrother with exemplary care and tenderly to discuss with their motherHugh's precocious reticence and gravity. Always she had held aself-command cunningly tempered in the fire of her triple resolve andfitted to the desperate chances with which she unceasingly crosseddaggers. She never tired of telling her little white slave that, havingherself once got the lash, she was only paying interest on it throughhim. Him, at least, she would teach to hate slavery as she hated it. 

Hugh's listener moved as if to touch him. A boat was coming by. Theypaused in their "thort-ships" walk and with a slight choke in her voiceRamsey asked: "You know what I hope?" Her voice went lower. "I hope youlearned. "

"That's the strangest part, " said Hugh. "I did. "

The boat passed, a cloud of burning gems. "Go on, " said Ramsey, "I cansee that and hear you at the same time. "

But Hugh's mind was too masculine for such legerdemain and though shesighed and sighed again he waited until the vision grew dim astern. Then, as he was about to resume, she interrupted. 

XXXI

THE BURNING BOAT

"Where was the commodore all that time?" she asked. 

"In Europe. We did business there too. It wasn't all river and boatsthose days. "

"Humph!" She preferred it to be all river and boats. 

"But at length, " said Hugh----

"What length?"

"Ten years. Grandfather was coming home, to stay. We were all to go upto Saint Louis on the _Quakeress_. "

"Phyllis too?"

"Yes, to meet him there and bring him back with us. "

"Ten years!" marvelled Ramsey. "Hadn't Phyllis ever heard from my--fromWalnut Hills?"

"Now and then, yes; and when those ten years seemed to have worn her, body and soul, to the breaking point----"

"You're strange. You feel tender to her yet. "

"Perhaps I do. One day--night--she got word--I heard it from my nurserybed--she got news; news that to her was as good and as bad as news couldbe. "

"That _he_ was on the river again!" guessed Ramsey. 

"Yes, relearning it--it changes so fast, you know--and that your fatherhad asked my father to employ him; for he didn't want to go with yourfather. "

"No, Hayles will _fight_ for Hayles, pop-a says, but they won't work forthem. "

"Also that he was going to be married. But Phyllis told my mother someekly that the past was all past----"

"And she'd seemed so good for so long, I suppose. "

"Yes--that even my father thought it _was_ past, and when we went aboardthe boat and it started up the river, there at the wheel was your uncleDan. "

"You didn't dare tell on her?--Oh, you were only ten years old!"

"It wasn't that. I was older than I am to-day. But if I told a word I'dhave to tell all, and by that time she'd made me believe that about allthe guilt was mine. "

"Yours! Well, and then? Was his lady-love on the boat?"

"No, but a passenger who came aboard at Natchez turned out to be theoverseer Phyllis had once run away from. "

"Oh! oh! the man who lost the child! What a difference that must havemade!"

"Difference a wind makes to a fire. And yet for a time things ran alongas smoothly as the old boat. "

"She wasn't any older than you. "

"For a boat she was, several times. Mr. Watson, " asked Hugh from theroof between the Gilmores and the pilot, "what's the average age of aboat on this river?"

"Average age? Well, it varies! Say about five year'. "

Hugh's voice dropped again. "The overseer being aboard, Phyllis and I, to be clear of him, were allowed free run of the roofs, and I being thecaptain's son it was so natural to see us often in the pilot-house----"

"And she was so wary, and you were so silent----"

"Yes--that no one noticed anything and the past still seemed past. Oneday your uncle Dan told me of your twin brothers. They'd spent half ayear with him. "

"Which mom-a's sorry for to this day. They worship him yet, she says. Goon; skip their visit. "

"Well, when we reached Saint Louis I knew that he and Phyllis had agreedon something perfectly joyful to her. I don't know even now--what itwas. She was to be set free, but that was only a small part. "

"Skip again. The commodore joined you?"

"No, he failed us. We had to turn back without him. "

"But with Uncle Dan, of course?"

"Yes, in wedding clothes. And with the overseer and with Phyllis. She'dtried to run away again, in Saint Louis, but she couldn't do it withoutmy mother's help, and my mother, though she declared the laws wereshameful, wouldn't break them. "

"I'd 've broken them!" whispered Ramsey. "Well, you turned back?"

"Yes, and I saw at once there was something horribly wrong. Day andnight Phyllis was frantic. She hid her feelings from others, wonderfully, but she poured them out on your uncle Dan. It was then hesuspected how she'd been treating me, and coaxed me to tell him; andwhen he told her I'd told him and that he would tell she saw she was atthe end of everything and I thought that now she would whip me todeath. "

"Stop! Stop!" The two were again in the pilot-house, but Watson, justthen jingling his engine bells, was too busy to heed anything not "hoveat him. " His big bell had sounded for New Carthage, and John Courteneyhad appeared down forward of it, but neither Hugh nor Ramsey was enoughdiverted to answer the parting hail of the town's two residents joyfullygoing ashore. "I can't stand it!" she ran on. "I won't hear it!"

"But I must tell you, " murmured Hugh. 

"Why must you?"

"Because of what you have already heard and will hear and because youare you; who you are; what you are. "

"Mr. Hugh, I'm the same I was last night when you and your father weretalking poetry and trying to get rid of me!"

"Not quite. "

"Well, go on; they quarrelled and you thought your hour had come--itseems it hadn't. Go on--if you 'must. '"

"I must, " he said, and went on. "I had picked up, that day--it was thethird day out and we were down in these bends and had taken on nearlyhalf a load of cotton--I'd picked up, where your uncle Dan had droppedit, a small paper box of fusees--you know?--matches that you can't blowout. Childlike, guiltily, I kept them. In their quarrel, that night, Phyllis ended by imploring your uncle Dan not to tell on her. I neverknew what supplication was till then. She wept on her knees, clinging tohis. When she had to leave him, to put me to bed, he made her promisenever again to do me the least hurt, and swore that if she did he'd sellher to the overseer. 

"We went. I was afraid that down in the stateroom she'd find the fuseesin my pocket and that I should go to jail as a public thief. But shestood me in the middle of the room, threw herself on my berth, andwrithed and hid her face and beat her head and looked at me ahundredfold more murderously than your uncle Dan had ever looked at her. So once, while she lay still a moment, I slipped out onto the guards, and as I lifted my hand to throw the fusees into the river she caught itin hers, it and them. Then for the first time in my life I resisted her. I fought. Do you know what a cow-eat is?"

Ramsey stared. "No. Is it a way of fighting?"

It was not a way of fighting. Cattle often eat deep holes into cottonbales. "Ah, yes!" The tale went on. 

"I fought her, and somehow the fusees, the whole box, got lighted andwere dropped. Whether she dropped them purposely or not, or I droppedthem, I'll never know; but they fell just over the rail, among thecotton bales, and we saw the lint in a cow-eat about three tiers downflash like gunpowder. She snatched me back into the stateroom, shut thedoor, and stood clutching me wildly and listening. 'Say your prayers, 'she said, and knelt with me. She'd never knelt with me before. When Ifinished she had me go over them again. She did not say them with me, only whimpered and whispered, and fluttered her hands on my head andback. She made me begin once more, but before I was half through weheard the watchman run along the roof close over us and cry: 'Fire!' Shelifted me to my feet, whispering, 'Now! Now!' and began to put alife-preserver on me, still saying over and over nothing but 'Now! Now!Now!' until the sounds of alarm were everywhere, and just as she spranginto the next stateroom to rouse the other children my mother came intoit from the main cabin. I got my little brother into my room and wasdressing him there while my mother dressed one sister and Phyllis theother, when your father's overseer, who had once followed the riverhimself, came down the cabin shouting to every one to come out and goforward and was kicking in every door he found locked. At ours he toldmy mother not to mind the smoke--which had grown thick and choking--butto rush us all straight through it to the boiler deck and down theforward stairs, and on her life not to stop for life-preservers but togo at once. So she and Phyllis ran with the three little ones; but I, childlike again, had got the notion that life-preservers were forbiddenand was so long getting mine off that Phyllis turned back for me. 

"That delay saved my life, for, as we ran out into the cabin together, the smoke in front of us, forward, turned red and then went all toflame, and right in the midst of it, hurrying toward us, we saw theoverseer. He tripped on a hassock or something and fell and the flameliterally swallowed him alive. We sprang through an open stateroom andclimbed a wheelhouse stair to the hurricane deck. There we saw no one, but through the crackle and roar of the flame, which a light breezebehind us sent straight up into the darkness, I heard the voice of myfather, twice, at his post in front of the skylights, and the answer ofthe engine bells showed that your uncle Dan and the engineers weresticking to their places. We were landing in a strong eddy under a pointand didn't have to round to. The boat was wonderfully quiet. I evenheard--probably because the shore was so close ahead of us--the firstmate--same that's with us here now--heard him ordering the stage run outover the water, as always when about to land. I heard the clerks andothers telling the passengers to 'keep cool' and 'not crowd, ' sayingthere was room and time for every one. 

"The pilot-house was burning brightly on one side but it was so wrappedin smoke that your uncle Dan was hid from Phyllis and me till the boathit the bank. Then the breeze gave us a glimpse of him as it curled thewhole blaze forward so that it overarched the people who filled thefront stairs and gangway, waiting to swarm off across the stage. Thatbrought panic and the panic brought death. Some male passengers--wecouldn't see, but our hearing was like sight--had got all the women andchildren to the front of the crowd and a few even partly out on thestage, over the water, to be the first put ashore. 

"When the boat's nose struck the shore the back part of the crowdthought the landing was made and began to push, and there were no men infront to push back--for some of the boat's family, missing Phyllis andme, had run aft to find us--and when that smoke rolled down on every onethe push became a rush and suddenly two or three women were screaming atone edge of the stage, with nothing to lay hold on but one another. 

"We heard their cries and the cry of the crowd, through the crackling ofthe fire. My mother tried to save them, with her three children clingingto her, and the whole six fell into the black shadow of the freightguards and the swift eddy drew them under the boat's hull before a thingcould be done except that two of our men jumped in and sank with them. "

Ramsey covered her face. "What did your father do?"

"He let himself down by one of the derrick posts. As he did so, and whenthey who had tried to rescue us had failed, the mate, who is a famousswimmer, sprang overboard, as near the larboard wheel as the fire wouldlet him, struck out round it, climbed up on it into the paddle-box, andtried to reach the cabin deck by the kitchen stair. But a sweep of theflames drove him back into the river, and he was just sinking when Mr. Gilmore, you know, drew him into his skiff. 

"At the same time your uncle Dan came tumbling down from a pilot-housewindow and staggered with us back to the stern rail, for all the stairswere burning. It was idle to call for help. The whole thing had lastedbut a minute or two. Phyllis didn't want help and we had just thatinstant to get down in. 

"Those who had gone ashore could not see us. The smoke hid us. So didthe texas. Your uncle Dan dragged a mattress out of it and dropped itover the stern, away down onto the fantail, scores of feet below. Theflames made the boat's shadow as black as ink. We thought the yawl wasdown there, but some of the crew had swum out from the shore and pulledaway in it to pick up the mate--and us, of course, if we were with him. 

"Your uncle, though fearfully burnt, took me on his back and showedPhyllis how to climb down beside him by the bracket work and posts andbalustrades of the guards, as I could have done, but he wouldn't let me. 

"If the wind had been the other way we should have perished right there. But the guards of the ladies' cabin ran round the stern, as they do onthis boat, and her fantail, below, stretched still farther aft. So wegot down to those guards easily. But in the ladies' cabin the fire hadworked aft faster than outside, and on those guards the heat wastorture. We could only hang from them and drop. Your uncle went first, then Phyllis and then I, he catching us, for down there he had lightenough, looking up, and as we fell the flames shot through the cabinstern windows. He caught us, but then he said, 'I'm gone, Phyllis, ' andcrumpled down at her feet. Then I cried for help but Phyllis said wedidn't need to call, and we didn't. We'd been seen at last, on theguards as we climbed down. They called to us to stick to the boat tillswimmers could reach us. But we couldn't. The wind had turned, the heatwas worse than ever, the fire had parted the boat's lines and she wasbeing blown out into the current. Then your uncle struggled half upagain and helped Phyllis get the mattress outside the bull railings, where I climbed out and held it. He asked if I could swim and when Isaid yes he warned me not to swim to the shore as the river was fallingand the bank caving, but to float with the mattress and call till I waspicked up. So I went over with it. But it twisted away from me. I swamto a floating cotton bale, one with a flicker of fire still on it, as itdrifted up-stream in the eddy. At the same time I'd heard your uncle andPhyllis strike the water together, and a moment later I saw them--theirheads. She was holding to the mattress with one hand and to him with theother. But presently I heard her give a low wail and saw him slip fromher and sink. Then the smoke came down between us, and by and by thereturning yawl, whose men had heard my calls and had seen Mr. Gillmore'sskiff pick up the mate, found me on the cotton bale and had barelylifted me in when I fainted away. "

Ramsey covered her face again. It would have been joy to her to let oneof the drops that melted through her fingers fall on Hugh's hand. 

Watson cleared his throat. "Sort o' inquirin' fo' one o' you, down onthe roof, " he said without looking back. He was a man not aboverepeating himself for a good end. "Third time they've sung out to me, but--up here I off'm don't notice much f'om anywheres 'at ain't hoveright at me. "

Ned entered and silently took the wheel. 

XXXII

A PROPHET IN THE WILDERNESS

Through all the middle watch of Sunday night, with her Ned quite alonein the pilot-house, the _Votaress_ came and passed from crossing tocrossing, up reaches, through chutes, around points and bends, a meteorin harness. Such she seemed from the dim shores. So came, so passed, before the drowsy gaze of that strange attenuated fraction of humanitywhich scantily peopled the waters and margins of the great river to winfrom it the bare elements of livelihood or transit, winning them at adeath-rate not far below the immigrant's and in a vagabondage often aswild as that of the water-fowl passing unseen in the upper darkness. 

If to the contemplation of the Courteneys, father and son, the faircraft, "with all her light and life, speeding, twinkling on and onthrough the night, " was "a swarm of stars, " or "one little whole world, "how shall we see her--with what sense of wonder and splendor--throughthe eyes of the flatboatman or the swamper, the raftsman, the islandsquatter, the trading-scow man, the runaway slave in the canebrake, thewoodyard man, or the "pirooter"--that degenerate heir, dwarfed to aparasite, of the terrible, earlier-day land-pirates and river-wolves ofPlum Point and Crow's Nest Island? To such sorts, self-described ashuman snapping-turtles and alligators, her peacock show of innumerablelights was the jewelled crown of the only civilization they knew, knowing it only with the same aloofness with which they knew the stars. She woke them with the flutter of her wheels as of winged feet andpassed like a goddess using the river's points and islands forstepping-stones, her bosom wrapped in a self-communion that gave noleast hint of its intolerable load of grief and strife. 

Not until she entered the great bend of Vicksburg did she once come intocontrast with anything that could in any degree diminish her regalsupremacy. There, as day was breaking, she entered the deep shadow ofthe southernmost "Walnut Hill. " The town on its crest was two hundredfeet above her lower deck, and the stiff Yazoo squire, his kindlybrother-in-law and sister and the Vicksburg merchant and his wife, waiting down there while she slowed up to the wharf-boat at its foot tolet them and others off, were proud of the bluff and of the two miles ofsister hills hid by it and the night. Even overproud they were. The twohusbands and wives silently wished for that lover of wonders, thesleeping Ramsey, that they might enjoy her enjoyment of the sight, who, though from exalted Natchez, never had beheld so vast an eminence or acity stuck up quite so high. 

But Ramsey, far removed in her new, sweet-smelling berth, did not stirfrom a slumber into which she was throwing all the weight of anoverloaded experience. She was paying large back taxes to sleep and hadbecome so immersed in the transaction that her mother's rising, dressing, and stealing away lifted, this time, not one of her eyelashes. In not a sigh or motion did she respond to the long, quaking, world-filling roar of the _Votaress's_ whistle, nor to John Courteney'stolling of her great bell, nor to the jingle of lesser bells below, norto any stopping or reversing or new going ahead of her wheels either forlanding or for backing out and straightening up the river again. Sheslept on though these were the very Walnut Hills of her uncle Dan's andPhyllis's dark story; persevered in sleep though John Courteney's son, her profoundest marvel, was once more up and out, with the story stillon his heart and "a-happmin' yit. " It was one of its happenings that, very naturally, though quite unreasonably, he begrudged the sleeper'sabsence from texas roof and pilot-house. 

The _Votaress_ was under full headway, with Vicksburg astern, Watsonagain at the wheel and the captain in his chair. The most northerly ofthe Walnut Hills were on the starboard bow. Beyond them the sun, risinginto thunder-clouds, poured a dusty-yellow light over the tops of theiralmost unbroken woods, here and there brightening with a strangevividness the tilled fields and white homestead and slave quarters ofsome noted plantation. Between the hills and the river lay a mile'sbreadth or more of densely forested swamp, or "bottom, " swarming withreptiles great and small, abounding in deer, bear, and panther, and fromwhich, though the buffalo had been long banished, the wolf was not yetgone. On the skylight roof, close "abaft the bell, " as Ramsey would havesaid, stood the commodore and Hugh. They had just met there and after acasual word or so Hugh was about to say something requiring an effort, when they were joined by the exhorter. 

"Mawnin', gentle-_men_, " he said. "Now, what you reckon them-ah po'Gawd-fo'-saken'd Eu-_rope_-ians down-stahs air a-thinkin' to theyse'v'swhilst they view this-yeh lan'scape o'? D'you reckon they eveh, ev'm inthey dreams o' heav'm, see sich

 "'Sweet fiel's beyond the swellin' flood Stand deck' in livin' green'?

"I tell you, gentle-_men_, as sho' as man made the city an' Gawd madethe country, he made this-yeh country last, when he'd got his hand in!You see that-ah house an' cedah grove on yan rise? Well, that's the old'Good Luck Plantation. ' Gid Hayle 'uz bawn thah. His fatheh went to Gawdf'om thah an' lef' it to Dan, the pilot, what 'uz lost on the_Qua'_--Hell! listen at me! As ef _you_ didn't know that, which ev'ysight o' you stahts folks a-talkin' about it! But, Lawd! what a countrythis-yeh 'Azoo Delta is, to be sho'! Fo' craps! All this-yeh Mis'sippiRiveh, you mowt say, fo'm Cairo down, an' th' 'Azoo fo' the top-rail!Fo' craps--an' the money-makin'est craps! An' jest as much fo' game! Notpokeh but wile game; fo'-footen beasts afteh they kind an' fowl aftehthey kind. An' ef a country's great fo' craps _an'_ game, what mo' kinit be great faw what ain't pyo' Babylonian vanity an' Eu-_rope_-ianstinch?"

The commodore admitted that game was a good thing and that crops wereeven better. 

"No, sir-ee! Game comes fust! Man makes the craps but Gawd made thegame! It come fust when it fust come an' it comes fust yit! LawdA'mighty! who wouldn't drutheh hunt than plough, ef he could hev hisdruthehs? But the game ain't what it wuz, not ev'm in this-yeh 'Azoocountry an' not ev'm o' the feathe'd kind. Oh, wile turkey, o' co'se, they here yit, by thousan's, an' wile goose, an' duck, an' teal, byhund'eds o' thousan's, an' wile pigeon, clouds of 'em, 'at dahkened thenoonday sun. Reckon you see' 'em do that, ain't you? I see' it this ve'yseason. But, now, take the pelikin! if game is a fah' name fo' him--awheh, as the case may be; which that bird--nine foot f'm tip to tip, thewhite ones--use' to be as common on this riveh as cuckle-burrs in asheep's tail!" The jester laughed, or, more strictly, exhaled his mirthfrom the roof of a wide-spread mouth in a long hiss that would have beenmore like an angered alligator's if alligators used fine-cut tobacco. Itwas addressed to the commodore; for Hugh, his grandfather's consciousinferior in human charity, had turned the squarest back--for itsheight--aboard the _Votaress_, to gaze on a wonderful sight in theeastern sky. The exhorter resumed:

"Why, I ain't see' a pelikin sence I use' to flatboat down toOrleans--f'om Honey Islan' an' th' 'Azoo City. 'Pelikin in thewildeh-_ness_, ' says the holy book, but they 'can't stan' thewildeh-_ness_!' They plumb gone!--vamoost!--down to the Gulf!--what fewain't been shot!" He grew indignant. "An' whahfo' shot? Faw noth'n'!Jeemany-crackies! gentle-_men_, it makes my blood bile an' my bile gosour! Ain't no bounty on pelikins. Dead pelikins ain't useful--nawawnamental--naw instructive, an' much less they don't tas'e good. No, suh, they jess shot in pyo' devil-_ment_ by awngawdly damn fools--sameas them on this boat all day 'istiddy a-poppin' they pistols at ev'ylive thing they see'--fo' no damn' reason in the heab'ms above aw theearth beneath aw the watehs undeh the earth--Lawd! it mighty nigh makesme swah! An' I feel the heab'mly call--seein' as that-ah tub-shape'Methodis' bishop _h-ain't_ feel it--fo' to tell you, commodo', you-allhadn't ought allowed that hell-fi'ud nonsense on Gawd's holy day. "

Even to his grandfather's response Hugh paid no visible attention. Theeastern sky had become such a picture that down forward at the break ofthe deck John Courteney rose eagerly from his chair and looked back andup to be sure that his son was one of its spectators. Yes, Hugh was justcasting a like glance to him and now turned to invite the notice of hisgrandfather. The thunder-clouds had so encompassed the sun that its raysburst through them almost exclusively in one wide crater, crimsoning, bronzing, and gilding their vaporous and ever-changing walls. Thencethey spread earthward, heavenward, leaving remoter masses to writhedarkly on each other and themselves, in and out, in and in, cloakingthis hill in blue shadow, bathing that one in green light, while from awatery fastness somewhere hid in the depth of the forested swamp underthe hills, some long-lost bend of the Mississippi or cut-off of theYazoo, rose into the flood of beams an innumerable immaculate swarm ofgiant cranes. Half were white as silver, half were black as jet, andfrom moment to moment each jet magically turned to silver, each silverto jet, as on slowly pulsing wings they wove a labyrinthian way throughtheir own multitude with never a clash of pinion on pinion, up, down, athwart and around, up, down, and around again, now raven black acrossthe sun and now silver and snow against the cloud. 

An awed voice broke the stillness and old Joy stood a modest step backfrom Hugh's side with rapt gaze on hill and sky. 

XXXIII

TWINS AND TEXAS TENDER

"Sign f'om de Lawd!" droned the old woman. "It's de souls o' de saintsin de tribilatioms o' de worl'!"

But explanation was poor tribute to such beauty. Hugh glanced away tohis father, then around to the commodore, up to Watson, and back againupon the spectacle. In a tone of remote allusion the grandfather spoke:"One wants a choice partnership for a sight like that. "

Hugh cast back a sudden frown but it softened promptly to a smile whichold Joy thought wonderfully sweet. 

"Late sleepers, " persisted the commodore, "know what they gain but notwhat they lose. "

"Naw yit, " audibly soliloquized the nurse, "what dey makes de earlyriseh lose. " She added a soft high-treble "humph!" and gave herself asmile at least as sweet as Hugh's, which he repeated to her as he said:

"Good morning, auntie. "

She courtesied. "Mawnin', suh. " They need not have been more cordial hadthey just signed a great treaty. 

 * * * * *

The _Votaress_, swinging westward, left the picture behind, and theneglected exhorter, caring far less for cranes and clouds than forpelicans and sinners, reopened, this time on Hugh: "But that's anothehthing 'at rises my bristles, ev'm ef it don't the bishop's. "

"What rises them?" asked the solemn Hugh, the commodore's attentionwandering. 

"Shell I spit it out? Wall, it's folks a-_proj_-eckin' togetheh--churchmembehs an' non-membehs a-_proj_-eckin' _togetheh_--fo' to drownd GawdA'mighty's chas-tise_ments_ in the devil's delights. _You_ know theya-layin' fo' to do that on this boat this ve'y evenin'. You know theya-_proj_-eckin' fo' to raise filthy lucre by fiddlin' an' play-actin'an' a-singin' o' worl'ly songs an', to top all, a-dayncin'!--right ovehthe heads o' the sick an' dyin', my Gawd! You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm mixed up in it. "

"An' they a-doin' it fo' what? Fo' no betteh reason 'an to he'p them-ahdamn' ovehwhelmin' furrinehs to escape the righteous judg-_ments_ o' theLawd! Young brotheh, my name is Jawn. Jawn the Babtiss, I am, an' assich I p'otess! An' also an' mo'oveh I p'otess ag'in' any mo' leadin'sf'om them-ah 'Piscopaliam play-actohs, an' still mo' f'om that-ahbodacious brick-top gal o' Gid Hayle's. Which she made opem spote o'_my_ leadin's in 'istiddy's meet'n'! An' o' co'se! havin' a popishmotheh. "

"Oh!--my!--Lawd!" gasped Joy, and the commodore had begun to meetprotest with protest, when Hugh touched him. 

"This is too small for you. May I----?"

"Take it, " said the grandfather and turned inquiringly to the nurse. 

"Yaas, suh, " she hurried to say, "my mist'ess ax de honoh to see you atde stateroom o' Mahs' Basile. "

Meantime Hugh answered the complainant: "My friend, that young lady--youmustn't call her anything else again--made no sport of you whatever. "

"Oh, dat she didn't, boss!" put in old Joy, breaking off from her talkwith the commodore. 

"Honestly, sir, " continued Hugh, "I was afraid some one would, but Ihappened to see her from first to last, and----"

"Happ'm'd! The hell you happ'm'd! Yo' eyes 'uz dead _sot_ on heh whenthey'd ought to been upraise' in prah!"

Hugh laughed--a laugh so hearty it might have been the brick-top's own. The texas tender enjoyed it as he bore a tray of dishes from the room ofthe twins. Down beyond the bell it drew the father's smile and up at thewheel the stoical gaze of Watson. Half of it was for the exhorter andhalf for a newcomer at tardy sight of whom the exhorter paled, certainthat he had been overheard. 

"Oh!" he cried, "I ain't meant no offence to nobody naw tuck none!" andeagerly followed the commodore's beckon to go below with him and thenurse. Hugh, still smiling, met the blazing stare of Julian Hayle. 

"Good morning, " he said, while Hayle was inquiring:

"May I again ask of you a word in private?"

"Oh, this is private enough, " said Hugh. "Every private word I've hadwith you so far, or with your--coterie, has been so unsatisfactory toyou--and them, and so tiresome to everybody, I can't see why you shouldwant another. My friend----"

"We are not friends, sir. "

"Well, then, let's make friends. Here's my hand. I'm utterly ashamed ofthis miserable little spat. "

Hayle folded his arms. "You'll find it life-size before we're done. "

"Nonsense! it's too small for words, private or otherwise. Let's end it, for that reason if for no better. "

"That's not your reason, sir. You have another. "

"Yes, I simply can't quarrel with you. "

"You--crawling--poltroon!"

Hugh's smile vanished at last. He gulped as though a wave had gone overhim. But he remembered his father. Beyond doubt his father had heard. Heglanced down to him, and what he saw was worth a year of commonplaceexperience. The father had heard, yet he sat at ease, his knees crossedand his gaze out forward on the boat's course. Watson--but what couldWatson matter then? Hugh's eyes burned big on Hayle, his voice deepened, his words came slow. "We can't fight here and now. I can only put youashore. Don't make me do that. There's trouble enough on this boat as itis. You're having your share. Mr. Hayle, I fear--though I don'tknow--that Basile has the cholera. "

"Damn him and it! You wouldn't fight me if you could. "

"True. "

"Why? On your father's account--and his father's?"

"On everybody's. Your own father's. Your mother's. "

"My sister's?" The question was a threatening sneer. 

"Yes, sir. " The breakfast bell rang merrily below and Hugh turned toleave. Julian blazed out in curses:

"I forbid you 'that young lady's' company henceforth!"

"And that's the private word you had for me?"

"Yes, damn you! I know who sat up late last night. If you do it againI'll shoot you right on this boat!"

"My private word for you, Mr. Hayle, isn't as public as that. Only I andthe texas tender know it. "

"Most fitting partnership!"

"No, it was entirely his own enterprise. While you and your brother weregetting your information from him he got your weapons from both of you. I have them in the clerk's safe. "

XXXIV

THE PEACEMAKERS

Some four of the _Votaress's_ "family, " one seated, three standing atease, were allowing their mild, slow conversation its haphazard wayunder barely enough constraint to hold it in the channel of discretion. It drifted as unpretentiously as a raft or flatboat, now and then merelyfloating without progress, like a floating alligator; that is, with onesmall eye imperceptibly open to every point of the compass. 

He who sat was the first clerk, a man of thirty-seven or so, andtherefore, as age then counted, fairly started on the decline of life. He occupied the high stool in the clerk's office, his limp back againstits standing desk. Nearest him the second clerk, standing, leaned on anelbow thrown out upon the desk and rested one foot on a rung of thestool. A second clerk might do that; a third or "mud" clerk would hardlyhave made so free. The youthful mud clerk, with his hat under his foldedarms, leaned on the jamb of a door that let back into the clerks'stateroom. Opposite him the youngest of the four, latest come amongthem, stood out in the cabin and hung in over the broad window counter, across which the office did business with the world. Watson's "cubpilot" he was, on the sick list, thin and weak with swamp-fever. 

The forenoon watch was half gone. The boat was fluttering along at highspeed under a bright but fickle sky, and the clerks and the "cub" hardlyneeded to glance out the nearest larboard window to know that she wasalready turning northward into a pleasant piece of river called NineMile Reach. A certain Point Lookout was some five miles behind in theeast, and the town of Providence, negligibly small, with LakeProvidence, an old cut-off, hid in the woods behind it, was close ahead. One of the number mentioned the boat's failure during the night to makethe miles expected of her, but the four agreed that the cause was notany lack of speed power but an overplus of landings below Vicksburg--twobeing for burials--and a long delay at Vicksburg itself, providing forthe sick. 

This explanation, the second clerk said, had been as gratifying to theplanter of Milliken's Bend and his "lady" as their not having to becalled up before day. They had taken breakfast in the general company, which, with the commodore at one end of the cabin and Hugh at the other, had sat down when Old River and the mouth of the Yazoo were on thestarboard bow, and had risen while passing My Wife's Island. Finallythey had gone ashore in great elation, thanking Hugh with high voicesand fervent hand-shakings, and his father with wavings from the bank tothe roof, for the "most delightful trip anybody ever made"; careless asinfants of the hundreds of strangers gazing on them, both native andalien, both woe-stricken and self-content, and, even when the greatwheels were backing the boat away, calling fond messages to Hugh for thestill invisible "Miss Ramsey" as if she were in his exclusive keepingand all those strangers were trees. 

So recounted the second clerk, not to criticise such innocent disdain ofthe public eye and ear--to him an every-day sight--but with a feelingfor the picturesque and in mild humor making the point that suchmessages, so given, were hardly calculated to make life easier for Hugh. The mud clerk and the cub pilot grunted their accord yet privatelyenvied Hugh. To be message bearer to that young lady would have beenrapture to either of them under whatever hardness or peril of life, themore the better. Oddly enough, with Milliken's Bend now forty milesastern the messages had not been delivered. 

"No fault of his, " said the first clerk, the second said no, and the mudclerk and the cub loyally echoed them. For they knew, at least the threeclerks knew, always knew, not by flat inquiry but by trained perceptionsand the alligator's eye, whatever was going on in each and every part ofthe boat. Indeed, the boat's news naturally flowed to them; flowed toand ran forth again from them, aerated and cleansed, as normally asblood to and from the breast of a strong man. By the sound of the steamthey knew the water was right in the boilers. By the rhythm of themachinery they knew all was right in the engine room. They could havesaid, nearly enough, how soon the boat would have to stop again forwood. To them the quiet of the populous boiler deck, where nearly everyman sat reading some stale newspaper of Louisville, Saint Louis, orCincinnati--brought aboard from the Vicksburg wharf-boat--wasinformational, witnessing a general resigned admission that there wasalready "trouble enough. " Of three notables not there they knew thatone, the bishop, was in his berth, very weary, and that the senator andthe general had been for some time with Hayle's twins. They could havegreeted every cabin passenger by name. They knew who were filling theplaces lately vacated at the ladies' table, whose was each ubiquitouschild selling tickets for the appointed "show, " and whose each privateservant, however rarely seen: not such as old Joy merely, but thesenator's black Cato, the general's yellow Tom, Mrs. Gilmore'stheatrically handsome Harriet, or the nearly as white Dora of the younglady from Napoleon. And they knew well that the non-delivery of thosemessages was no fault of Hugh's. 

Miss Ramsey was up, yes; but she had breakfasted in seclusion and wasthen in a small under-cabin for ladies' maids, close beneath the mainone, rehearsing with Mrs. Gilmore and others. Gilmore had been coachingthem but was now momentarily out on the boiler deck. Through theextensive glass of the cabin's front they could see him standing beforea knot of men: John the Baptist and the man with the eagle eye and theman with the eye of a stallion and the man who knew so slap-bang thatthe Hayles and Courteneys had all but locked horns when the _Quakeress_burned. They were the only exponents of unrest out there and only theactor wore an air both spirited and kind. No one in the office openlykept an eye on the outer group. In there the gossip lingered on Hugh. Hugh had plenty, it was agreed, of the Courteney stuff and somethingbesides which these four hoped was the very thing with which to meetthis new phase so plainly at hand in the Hayle-Courteney contest. 

Suddenly the first clerk looked straight out on Gilmore, so obviously atbay, and murmured to the cub pilot: "Go, bring him. " While the cub went, the clerk spoke on. Hugh, he said, would one day be the best-liked ofhis name. 

In kindly dissent the second clerk shook his head, but the first wouldhave it so. The liking might be slow coming, he allowed, because ofHugh's oddities, but in the end men would like even the oddities. 

The mud clerk named one as if he liked it: "When he's by himself he'sgot the iron-est phiz----"

The second clerk laughed his appreciation. "And when he's poked up, " hesaid, "it gets ironer and ironer. "

"It'll need to mighty soon, " observed the first clerk. 

"When he runs into Gid Hayle, " said the second. 

The actor came. His pleased manner was more thankful than inquiring andhe insisted on remaining outside the window shelf with the cub. 

"Mr. Gilmore, " said the first clerk gravely, "we thought you mightcondescend to inspect our ceiling decorations through fresh foliage. "

The player looked puzzled an instant but a smell of mint from the barcleared his mental vision. Yet again he declined. Later in the day heshouldn't be so coy, he admitted, but one oughtn't to take too long arunning start for his jump into bed. 

"No, he _might_ get there too soon, " said the clerk. "My boys, sir, wantto ask you a riddle. You know Gid Hayle. How can his daughter, here, bejust like him for all the world and yet those twins be just like him forall the same identical world, too?"

"Well put!" was the prompt rejoinder. "My wife and I have been toyingwith that riddle these twenty-four hours. Those brothers are GideonHayle's sons if ever a man had sons; that daughter is his from theground up; yet the two and the one are as unlike as night and noon. "

The clerks and cub pilot agreed so approvingly that the actor, lover oflines, was inspired to go on at more length. He remarked, in effect, that he had never seen so striking an instance of a parent's naturaltraits growing into--blemishes--in one inheritor and into graces inanother. Yet to know Gideon Hayle was to read the riddle. As quick toanger as his sons, as full of mirth as his daughter; open-hearted, wrong-headed, generous, tyrannous, valorous, contemptuous of all bookwisdom yet an incessant, keen inquirer with a fantastical explanation ofhis own for everything in nature, science, politics, or religion. Implacable in his prejudices, he----

"Yes, " interrupted the first clerk, with amazing irrelevancy, "but a manof Henry Clay's experience ought to have known better. Kossuth is agentleman who--well, general, how are you now? Mr. Gilmore, you know thegeneral? Senator, you know Mr. Gilmore?"

"Assuredly!" The condescending senator had known Mr. Gilmore, "a day bycontact but long by fame. "

The general was civil but not suave. He remembered the player's hardnames for the committee's dead scheme. "Taking care of Henry Clay, too, sir?" he asked him. "With so many pleasanter cares"--that meantRamsey--"you might let Henry Clay take care of himself. "

"That's something, " put in the second clerk, flushing defensively, whilethe senator, with cigar cocked one way and his silk hat another, drewGilmore aside, "that's something Henry Clay never does. "

"Right, young man. He merely tries. Th-there's no one in the nation hast-tried harder or f-failed worse!"

The youth turned to his work at the high desk. "Sir, " said the generalto the first clerk, who rose, "the senator and I have been up to yourtexas----"

"Contrary to orders, " mildly said the first clerk. 

"I admit it, sir, but our intentions were only th-the k-kindest. Itseems to us, sir, or to me--us or me, sir, as you will--that th-thosesons of our old friend Hayle are not getting justice. "

"They ought to be mighty glad of that, general. "

"S-s-sir, they'd rather have it! We admit, of course, --we or I--I, ifyou prefer, sir, or if the senator prefers--I admit they are notunbiassed. "

"No, I admit they're not. "

"Th-they are supe-perbly stiff-necked and illogical young barons fromfour centuries back, sir, without a f-f-fault that isn't a v-v-virtueoverdrawn--or out of date. "

The speaker turned to the actor and senator and they to him: "If thoseboys have the pride of L-l-lucifer, Mr. Gilmore, they have also hisintrep-idity. Th-they may be as high-headed as giraffes, sir, butthey're as s-s-straightf-f-forward as a charging bull! Mr. Clerk, thesplendid surge of their imp-pulses should excuse their f-f-foibles evenif their s-s-souls were _not_ wr-wri-writhing under the lash of a newwhip on old sores, sir. "

"Will you just make that a little clearer, general?"

"I will, " softly put in the senator--"by your leave, general?"

With limp majesty the general waved permission. 

"All for peace, however, " said the senator smilingly to the clerk. "There's been enough strife. "

"Never saw so much aboard boat, " said the clerk. 

"Well, "--statesman and clerk laid elbows on the shelf and dropped theirvoices while the actor and the general drew a step aside, --"this thing canbe settled only by the right friends and it's now or never. " The twoexchanged a look but the clerk was mute and the senator spoke on: "You'veheard of Dan Hayle--and the girl Phyllis, hmm?"

"I was first clerk on the _Quakeress_ when she burned. "

"Why, so you _was_. These twins believe, bitterly, that in thatmysterious disaster all due search for their uncle was neglected to savethe captain's son and that the girl and Dan Hayle were never fullyaccounted for. "

"Shucks! Why--Dan--it was I found Dan's body. "

"Yes, but they call it an outrage for him to have been there at all; togive him the wheel and take her aboard on the same trip. "

"_Law'_! what did she count, with him about to marry?"

"Why, they think that for that very reason John Courteney let hiswife--from Philadelphia, you know--abolitionist--bring the girl and Dantogether, hoping he'd either set her free or else skip the wedding andsomehow disgrace the whole Hayle family. Just those boys' guessbut--they believe it. What they _see_ is a Hayle killed and no onekilled for him. "

"Oh, we settled that with their dad ten years ago. "

"They say not. And, really, you know, some of the liveliest feuds alongthis river are founded on less cause. Gid Hayle, they claim, couldn'tbring the Courteneys to law at the time because the only men he had toback him were his two in-laws. Now these twins are men and they feelhonor-bound to throw down--no, to take up--the gage, thrown down to themevery hour they've been on this boat. "

"Shoo! They've been treated only too well. "

"Tactfully, do you think?"

"Depends on what you call tact. Ordinary tact's the worst thing youcould throw at 'em. " The clerk spoke with both eyes on the general andthe actor. His fellow clerk, second clerk, had nudged him. The generalwas raising his voice to the actor. 

"They f-forbid your lady to chaperon their sister, since you both, lastevening, all-llowed young Courteney to give her his account of theb-urning of the _Quakeress_. "

"General!" the smiling senator cautioned him, "privately, if you please!more privately!"

But the soldier persisted. "Th-they even suspect you, sir, ofs-s-piriting off to Canada their s-s-lave p-roperty, missing after thatevent. "

"Why, gentlemen, " began the player, looking very professional but alsovery handsome, and with a flash of annoyance only when he noticed thatthe exhorter had joined the group, "I never in my--nonsense! fantasticalnonsense! Why, I'll be--I'll see you later! At present, as I've alreadysaid, I'm overdue at that rehearsal. "

"Yes, Mr. Gilmore, " said the first clerk, "you are. "

"A moment, " interposed the senator. "Purely in the interest of peace, Mr. Gilmore----"

"Oh, senator, " the actor amiably laughed, "I don't question yourgood-will, or the general's; but you don't know, either of you, theinterest of peace when you run against it--pardon! I take that back. Myannoyance, at quite another thing, flew off the handle. I take it back. Excuse me, I'll make it a point to see you later. " The three bowed. Ashe started away the exhorter blocked his path. 

"Excuse _me_, " said the zealot. "Fust tell us: Ef ye _mowt_ sperit aniggeh off to Canady would ye aw wouldn't ye?"

For an instant the player stood mute and then he said only, in apreoccupied tone: "Please let me pass. " But at the same time he laid hisunexpected left hand lightly on the questioner and by some stage tricksent him stumbling aside along a line of chairs and toppling to thefloor. The cub and the younger clerks had him up in a twinkling, while adozen men appeared from the boiler deck as if by magic, and the playerwalked away down the cabin. 

"Now, no more noise here, " said the second clerk to the lifted man, restraining both his arms. "No, you stay right here. He didn't do athing to you, you just stepped a little too spry and sort o' trippedup. "

From his window shelf the first clerk, in the tail of his eye, saw thezealot and his group disperse while he, the clerk, talked laughingly tothe soldier on one subject and gravely to the statesman on another. 

"You can't challenge a man, general, " he said, "who apologizes forcalling you a poor peacemaker. "

"By--! s-sir, I can and I sh-shall!" was the retort. 

The clerk ignored it. He and the senator bent heads together again. "No, " he said, "Hugh only told him he _feared_ it was Basile. In fact, it wasn't. It isn't. "

"Who is it, then? It's a passenger and a bad case. "

"Will you keep it dark--by the patient's own request--till the show'sover to-night?"

The senator nodded. The two heads came closer. The general scorned tolisten. The name did not reach him. 

"Jove!" gasped the senator. "Come, general. " They went. 

The first clerk turned to the second clerk's elbow at the high desk, saying dryly: "They came to demand those shooting-irons and couldn'tmuster the brass. "

XXXV

UNSETTLED WEATHER

Again the _Votaress_ was passing the Westwood and again was but a shortmile behind the _Antelope_. 

Led by Ramsey, the amateur players, including Hugh, had stoppedrehearsing and were on the skylight roof, gathered about the commodore, the Gilmores, and the bell. In their company, though below them on theforward hurricane deck, the first mate leaned bulkily against the roofon which they stood. It was his watch. Ned was up at the wheel. 

As early as the evening before, a good hundred and fifty miles back downthe river, the _Antelope_, it will be remembered, had been close on the_Westwood's_ heels. So Gilmore reminded his wife. So Hugh needlesslyreminded Ramsey. From the mate it was further learned that the pursuerhad overhauled the pursued between Petit Goufre--which he and the wholecompany called Petty Gulf--and Grand Gulf; places named before the daysof steam for their dangerous eddies. Yet, he went on to tell Ramsey, theswifter boat, with more freight to put ashore and with a larger appetitefor cord-wood, had never got clean away. Even now, in full view ahead, she was down at half speed, wooding up from a barge in tow alongside. You could hear her crew singing as they trotted under their greatshoulder loads of wood. The amateurs, except Hugh but including Ramsey, caught up their song and were promptly joined by a group around the bellof the _Westwood_ as that gallant loser foamed along between the_Votaress_ and the shore:

 "Oh, if I had a scolding wife, As sure as you are born I'd take her down to Noo Orleans And trade her off for corn. "

Presently the _Antelope_ cast off the emptied flat in midstream, and aredoubled whiteness behind her paddle-boxes showed full speed. 

"Now we can give her a square deal!" said a youth. 

"And pass her inside of an hour!" declared another. 

"In Bunch's Cut-off!" ventured one to the commodore, but the commodoresaid the _Votaress_ herself was hungry for wood, and the mate confirmedhim by a nod. 

"How much wood, " some one asked the mate, "will a boat like this use upin twenty-four hours?" It quickened the blood to be up here midwaybetween these turbid waters and yonder passionate sky so joyous in onequarter, so angry in another; particularly to be here while steadilydistancing one beautiful boat and overtaking another "amid greenislands, " as Mrs. Gilmore quoted--one of which, still in sight astern, was that old haunt of flatboat robbers, called Island Ninety-four, Stack's Island, or Crow's Nest. One half forgot the sad state of affairsbelow. Conversation glided as swiftly as a flock of swallows and in asmany directions. 

"How much wood?" said the mate. "Well, that sort o' depends. I once partowned a boat that fo' one whole month didn't burn enough wood to dry thesheriff's shoes, but that 'uz 'cause he kep' her tied up to the bank. "

Ramsey did not hear this and cared nothing for the laugh it won. She hadseen the doctor and the priest slip from the twins' room in the texasand go below aft. "How's mom-a?" she eagerly asked the commodore. 

"Very well. "

"How's Lucian?"

Lucian was so much better, he told her, that both brothers had beenreturned to their cabin stateroom. 

"Then you've just put a new case into the texas!"

The commodore smiled. "Yes, from the freight deck. "

"Freight--humph! That's the lower deck, " she reminiscently said, turningto Hugh. "Who is it? Is it--Otto?"

But Hugh's face wore its absurd iron look, which had its usual effect onher. The old man spoke: "Will Miss Ramsey do us all a favor; one thatwill help the play?"

"Whew, yes! That'll help everything. What is it?"

"It's to make no mention of the new case to any one. "

"Till the close of the evening, " put in the Gilmores, and Ramsey sawthat they knew. Yet----

"All right, " she said. "Oh, I know who it is. " She tossed her curls. "It's Otto's mother. " But both tone and glance lacked conviction. Thecommodore left them. 

Meantime the mate was amusing his half of thecompany. 

"How much wood, " he was repeating. "I as't that myself once 'pon a time. D'dy'ever hear the answer? They tell the yarn on lots o' loons but I 'uzthe real one 'n' I got the answer f'm Gid Hayle aboard the old_Admiral_. "

The names caught Ramsey's ear and drew her gaze. "That _Admiral_, "continued the mate, "could eat wood like a harrikin. Says Hayle to me:'Well, that depends on yo' boat 'n' yo' wood. With the right boat 'n'the right wood--oak, ash, hickory--y'ought to burn f'm sixty to sevemtycord' a day. But ef yo' feed'n' this boat cottonwood, why, yo' simplyshovellin' shavin's into hell. '"

Ramsey looked sad. Weary of contrasts unflattering to her men-folks, sheglanced from the refined actor to the elegant old commodore, blushed tothe player's wife and accepted her embracing arm. "Yass, " pursued themate, "s'e jest so: 'Yo' simply shovellin' shavin's----'"

It was not Hugh's motion that cut him short but Ramsey's voice as with aflash she said: "Go on. I don't care! If pop-a said it it's so!"

A raindrop wet her cheek. From the pilot-house Ned, as he pulled thewheel over to chase the hardpressed _Antelope_ westward into Bunch'sCut-off, warningly drawled that they were about to run into a shower. Athis side Watson's cub was letting down the storm board. A blue-blackcloud overhanging the green head of the cut-off had suddenly widenedacross all that quarter and turned leaden gray. A writhing wind struckthe boat fairly in front. The waters ruffled, flattened, and seemed torun faster. On an island close abeam thousands of young cottonwoods, amantle of unbroken verdure, bent low, paled, reeled, darkened, andwhipped. Dead ahead, a flash of lightning dropped from zenith tosky-line, stood blindingly quivering, and scarcely had vanished when thethunder cracked to split the ear. 

"Scoot, ladies, " said the mate, "or in three shakes you'll be as wet asthe river!" A single glance up the stream--though Ramsey must needs takea double one--showed the rain coming, so near and so dense that not asign of the _Antelope_ was visible. The company fled, some to a larboardstair, some to a starboard. Hugh and Ramsey suddenly missed theGilmores, the Gilmores missed them, each pair turned to find the other, the lashing rain leaped down upon them as if they were all it had comefor, and with words lost in a second thunder-clap the mate threw openthe captain's room, pressed them in, and began to dry them with awhisk-broom. The captain, he said, was below. "Off watch didn't mean offwatch to John Courteney. "

"Nor to Gideon Hayle, " prompted Ramsey, and while he ha-haed a cordialassent she asked: "Whereabouts below is he--Captain Courteney?" But themate had turned away and she asked Hugh: "Where's your father? What's hedoing?" Her thought was still on the unmentionable new case. 

"I'll tell you, " said Hugh in the low voice she liked so well. "Will youlook at the river with me?"

He felt her responsive nod and smile even after they had moved to thefront window farthest from their three seniors and stood gazing out intothe beautiful tempest. Both wind and downpour had somewhat slackenedtheir fury. A bit nearer than before and more to starboard they couldfaintly make out the _Antelope_, so white that it seemed as if she hadgone down and her ghost come up wrapped and whipped in sheets of rain. 

"You don't ask me about your mother, " said Hugh. 

XXXVI

CAPTAIN'S ROOM

"Ah!--when you've been all this time with us!"

"No, once I was away, a good while. "

"That's so! And while you was away--were away--" In lively undertoneRamsey ran on to tell of Mrs. Gilmore's having in Hugh's absence calledin her maid Harriet to show the young lady from Napoleon how to do a bitof stage business without a hint of the stage. At the tale's end thepair glanced round from the nearing _Antelope_ to the Gilmores and backagain. "Harriet's talented. You wouldn't think she could be talented. And isn't she handsome!"

"I've yet to see her face, " said Hugh abstractedly. 

"That's so, too! When she heard you coming back that time, she ran likea kildee. " The narrator checked a laugh. "How's mom-a? Oh, she's well oryou'd have told me. I just can't imagine mom-a any way but well. " Butagain the tone betrayed incertitude. 

"Yes, she's well, " said the youth. "So is my father. "

"Where is he?"

Hugh's queer solemnity deepened. "He's down in a stateroom with yourbrothers. The senator and the general have just joined them. "

What a freshet of grave information! Ramsey laughed straight at him. "You talk like a trance medium. "

"Not at all. "

"You do! I heard one once. You're in a trance now. "

"Not at all. "

"You are! Y'always are. " When Hugh laughed, her laugh redoubled. Themate and the players, though busy talking, took time to smile; the matewinked an eye. Suddenly Ramsey sobered. "Is Basile in hot water again?Tell me quick. "

"Tell me first, " said Hugh, "why his two brothers----"

"Are so wild? Because pop-a won't allow mom-a to hold them in. Pop-asays: 'Oh, let 'em sow their wild oats early, like me; so deep they'llnever come up. ' Oh, my! they're up now. "

"I wasn't going to ask that. "

"Well, I can't tell if you don't ask. "

"Why do they keep themselves so apart from you?"

"Me? Oh, they just can't stand me!--nor even mom-a. "

"That's bad, for all of us. "

"All of--who? Oh!. . . Humph!. . . Oh, but it's worse for Basile! He goeswith them till he's sick of 'em, then tries mom-a and me till he's justas sick of--of me--and himself--and then strays off to whoever he canpick up with!"

"This time, " said Hugh, "he's been picked up. "

"Oh, _now_ what's happened?"

"He sickened of those boys and girls he was selling tickets with and todrown yesterday's recollections he took a hand at cards with twostrangers. "

Ramsey caught her breath but then laughed joyously. "He couldn't! He hadno money!"

"Except from his sale of tickets. "

"Oh!" Her tears started. "Oh, where was mammy Joy?"

"Nursing the sick. "

"The new--?" She barely escaped breaking her word. "Oh, " she moaned, "hedidn't use _that_ money?"

"He lost it. He was wild to play on and recover it, and his brotherswere as eager to have him do it. "

"Why, _they_ couldn't help him. They tried, yesterday, to borrow frommom-a. . . . Wait. " The last word came softly. The Gilmores and the matedrew near to see the _Antelope_ overtaken. There she loomed, out on thestarboard bow, shrouded in the swirling rain. How unlike the earlierpassing, down below Natchez! No touching of guards, no hail by sign orsound. "Like ladies under two umbrell's!" laughed Ramsey to the actor'swife. 

Now squarely abreast, stem and stem, wheel and wheel, the two craftsseemed to stand motionless with the tempest rushing aft between them. Then fathom after fathom the _Antelope_ fell behind, the mate and theGilmores moved away, Ramsey softly bade Hugh "go on, " and his firstutterance drew her liveliest look. 

"There's another thing makes your brothers wild, " he said, "whichthey're not to blame for. "

"What's that?"

"Our starving plantation life, " said Hugh, speaking low. 

"Why, they call it the only life for a gentleman!"

"That's because they're so starved, so marooned. "

"It's so tasteless without high seasoning, Basile says, " said Ramsey. She meditated. "Basile loves to eat. "

Said Hugh, "It's a life I don't want you to live, " and for an age ofseconds they looked into each other's eyes. 

Then Ramsey--not drooping a lash--"I love the river. "

"For keeps?"

She nodded, and still they looked. At length said Hugh:

"I tried hard to make friends with the twins, but----"

"They wouldn't. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore. "

"Yet a while ago, on the strength of it, they sent for me, to ask me toask my father to indorse their note. "

Ramsey gasped: "You declined, of course?"

"Yes, but I told those other two passengers if they cast another cardwith any of your brothers they'd go ashore, themselves, as quick as theboat could land. "

Ramsey turned and gazed out on the subsiding storm. "Why are the senatorand the general down there?"

"For quite another matter. "

"Weapons. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore. I thought that wassettled. "

"It is. "

"Then why is your father there?"

"To get the twins away from the senator and the general, and theirbrother away from them and back to his----"

"Sister!" softly laughed Ramsey. "Oh, not to mom-a! just to me! I'llgo--" She started, but Hugh said:

"To you, yes, when my father has put him in a way to cover his losswithout telling your mother. "

Their eyes met again. Hers were bright and wet with accusal. "Is that_your_ proposition?"

"Yes, and my father's too. "

She whipped round and gazed out again over the tawny waters. To gaze outbeside her he came so near that they almost touched. The shores wereonce more a clear picture, greener than ever and unvexed by the wind. The rain was slight and fine. The boat was swinging northward toward asmall blue rift in the gray. At the room's farther door the mate wasleaving the Gilmores for the forecastle. 

Without a stir she asked: "Why don't _you_ bring Basile?"

"I must stay with our friends here. "

The surprised girl glanced across at the players. 

Side by side they also were gazing out and speaking low. "I'd like toknow why with them. "

"And I must tell you. "

She faintly tossed, gazing out again: "Why 'must'?"

"Because to you I _can_--tell things. "

"Haven't you told your father yet--about--Phyllis? Humph!--had topractise on me first. "

"Yes. But there's a better reason--for everything I've ever told you. "

She slowly faced him, and he added: "I want your help. "

"For what? Not the Gilmores?"

"Yes, for them too now. They're in real danger. "

"Fr'--from what? Not--not from--my brothers?"

"The twins, yes, and the general, John the Baptist, and a dozen more. They've guessed it out that the Gilmores----"

"Are--So have I! A, b, ab----"

Hugh was mute. She glanced round at the players' backs and then again athim, asking with soft abruptness:

"Where's the bishop? With mom-a yet?"

Hugh kept silence. "No, you know he's not, " she answered for him. In hersteady eyes he could see, growing every moment, a new sense of thefearful plight of things and of her relation to them. Her young bosomrose and fell, and when her lips parted to speak again their cornerstwitched. "He--he's the new case! I will mention it! I've a good right. Why shouldn't I?"

"Only that he didn't want you to know. He wanted you--us--all, withoutknowing, to go right on with the programme. We must. Even now you will, won't you?"

She could only nod. Just then Mrs. Gilmore's maid, in a long burnoose, with umbrellas and wraps, rose into sight close below, on a stair fromthe passenger-guards, spread one of her umbrellas and looked eagerlyabout for her mistress. One glance went up to Ramsey, who beckonedthrough the glass, but the maid gave no sign of seeing her. The slightrain had momentarily freshened, and she was so muffled to the eyes inthe light veil which was always on her head or shoulders in prettySpanish fashion that when she started forward round the skylights forthe other side of the roof Ramsey laughed to Hugh:

"Why, I know it's Harriet by her veil, don't you?"

"I know only the veil. I saw it come aboard. "

"The veil of mystery!" she playfully murmured, began to hum a tune andbit her lip on noticing that it was "Gideon's Band. " "Don't you think Imight omit that to-night?"

"No, it's the best thing you do. "

"Humph!--mighty poor reason--Aha! I knew it was Harriet. "

The Gilmores were beckoning out their window. The actor opened the dooron that side and the maid came warily in. Briefly and in hurried apologyunder her breath while dealing out her burdens she told of theimpatience of those below to resume the rehearsal and of their havingdriven her to this errand the moment they could. Mrs. Gilmore handedHugh a shawl for Ramsey and an umbrella for himself, her husband laid amantle on her shoulders, and the maid reopened the door he had shut; butHugh called from the one opposite that it was the better way and theplayers started for it. The younger pair gave them precedence, a breezeswept through, the maid reshut her door, Hugh, holding his, bade herfollow her mistress, she sprang to obey and the "veil of mystery, " whichcaught in the closed door, was stripped from her like a sail from awreck. 

[Illustration: "Stop!. . . Stop! the safest place for you on this boat nowis right where you are standing--Phyllis"]

Instantly she crouched and with the swiftness of a wild creature flashedround and snatched open the door by which she had entered; but a formpressed between her and the opening and when she threw up her face shewas looking close into the astounded eyes of Hugh Courteney. Her framerecoiled but not her eyes; his own held them. Without turning he shutthe door at his back as Ramsey closed the one opposite, and stillholding the maid servant's gaze, he followed her slow retreat, and inthat droll depth of voice which earlier had been Ramsey's keenestamusement said to the eyes so near his own:

"Stop!. . . Stop! the safest place for you on this boat now is right whereyou are standing--Phyllis. "

XXXVII

BASILE USES A CANE

There was a gorgeous sunset that day. Many were on the uppermost decksto see or show it, amid a lively social confusion dull to Hugh butdelightful to Ramsey. In fact, Hugh had begun to want her and thehurricane-deck to himself. 

The actor and his wife were there. And there, indifferent to sunsets butas hungry as ever for company, was Basile. Dinner, at midday, haddissolved the group which the twins had for a time held together. Thecaptain had squared Basile with the ticket treasurer and by someadroitness of Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore the restless boy had been won fromhis brothers and given a hand at euchre with the actor, the senator, anda picturesque Kentuckian, late of California, "back East" by way of theIsthmus and about to return by the Plains. 

Another of this hurricane-roof assemblage was a young gentleman whomRamsey told Basile it was not a bit nice to speak of as Watson's cub. And there were all the amateur players, eager for the evening'sperformance; and there, too, the senator, the general, John the Baptist, and others with whom Ramsey had not made better acquaintance only forlack of moments! One of these was the Californian. Think of it! A manwhose shirt-pin was a gold nugget of his own digging, yet a man somodest as to play euchre with Basile, and who stood thus far utterlyuncatechised save by John the Baptist. Oh, time, time! A history of thisvoyage must and should be written with large room given to these lastten hours: "Chronicles of a Busy Life, " by "A Young Lady of Natchez. "

Captain Courteney stood near the bell. Watson was up at the wheel. Hiscub--whose attentions to Basile, like the Californian's, only Ramseycould not fathom--told her this was the second dog-watch. He was tellingher everything he knew. She was asking him everything he knew not. Indeed, among all there was great giving and getting of information onmatters alow and aloft. There was, too, frequent praise of thecommodore, the doctor, the priest, the sisters of charity, MadameHayle--all those heroic ones on the immigrant deck, where the pestilencewas making awful headway. But there was so perfect a silence as to thebishop that it was manifest that every one knew about him but was toodiscreet to tell. 

Matters beyond the boat, too, far and near, were much discussed, thoughsome actually saw the sunset they were all there to see. Nowhere withinfive hundred miles the compass round, the actor said, was there a townof ten thousand souls, if of five thousand. Nowhere within a hundredmiles was there a town population of five hundred. Since the morningthundershower the _Votaress_ had come ninety miles, yet the great YazooDelta was still ahead, abeam, astern, on the river's Mississippi side. Some one told two or three, who told four or five, it was a hundred andseventy-five miles long by an average of sixty wide, and covered seventhousand square miles. From zenith to farthest east the clouds thatoverhung it were pink and ashes-of-roses in a sea of blue. The entirewest was one splendor of crimson and saffron, scarlet and gold, withintervals of black and green. Even the turbid river between was anunbroken rosy glow. The vast wooded swamps over on that shore were inArkansas. Louisiana had been left behind in that vivid moment whenRamsey and Hugh were making their discovery of "Harriet" and when Hugh, we may here add, was handing back her "veil of mystery. "

"When I saw you do that, " Ramsey had later said to him, "I knew she wassafe--and she knew she was!" The laughing girl's mind was brimful yet ofthe amazing incident, at every pause in her talk, which was now withthis one, now with that, and often with the cub. 

It was interesting to note the masterful-careless air with whichWatson's apprentice more than once endeavored to make it clear to Hugh, concerning this daughter of Gideon, that, whereas the mud clerk, at hisdesk below, was utterly love-bemired, his, the cub's, liking for her wassolely for her countless questions, of which he said that "you nevercould tell where the next one would hit. " No singed moth he! To prove ithe offered Hugh a very blasé query: "What do women ever do with all theanswers we men give 'em, hey?"

Hugh could not tell him. Yet to Hugh the riddle was at least as old ashis acquaintance with Ramsey. He pondered it as he and Mrs. Gilmoreconversed in undertone while gazing on the wonderful changes of the sky, and while Ramsey, near by, visibly studied the exhorter, whom she wascross-examining together with the actor on the lore of the river as theyhad known it in the days before steam. For she had actually got thosetwo antipodes face to face again in a sort of truce-rampant like that ofthe lion and the unicorn on the _Votaress's_ very thick plates andmassive coffee-cups. She was not like most girls, Hugh thought. Whiletheir interrogations were generally for the entertainment, not to sayflattery, of their masculine informants, hers were the outreachings ofan eager mind free from self-concern and athirst for knowledge to bestored, honey-like, for future use. Some women have butterfly minds, that merely drink the social garden's nectar. Others are more like bees. The busy bee Ramsey, Hugh felt assured, was by every instinct a honeygatherer. 

But who, at a single cast, ever netted the whole truth as to any one?Even while he so mused--at the same time doing his best to give Mrs. Gilmore his whole attention--Ramsey, with her back turned yet vividlyaware of him, willing--preferring--that he should hear alone from thatlady what she would later draw from him, and ardently mindful of hisword that he "wanted her help, " was not merely gathering facts regardingher beloved river but was also deep in diplomacy, endeavoring with allher youthful arts, such as they were, to help him. 

Her manoeuvres were fairly good. To her it seemed as though thisspirit of strife so electrically pervading the _Votaress_ might yet betranquilized through a war of wits exclusively and she was using her ownwith the tactical nimbleness of the feminine mind. She knew the twinswere down on the boiler deck again, one faint, yet both pursuing, eggedon by him of the stallion's eye and him of the eagle's, and all the moresocially and dangerously active because, by strict orders to every one, cut off from the gaming-table and the bar. She could not do a hundredthings at once--though she could do six or seven--and it was well tograpple this one task first. Thus she kept Hugh free to confer with theplayer's wife as to "Harriet. "

Her husband, the wife told Hugh, had drawn "Harriet" from the water justas Dan Hayle sank, and husband and wife had concealed her on theirflatboat, unable to resist her wild appeal not to be given back intoslavery. 

"We didn't dream she'd done anything wrong; she didn't tell us that foryears. Players, Mr. Hugh, don't meddle much in politics and we'd neverthought whether we were for slavery or against it until there was thewhole awful question sprung on us in an instant. "

"So you took her----?"

"For my maid, yes--on wages, of course--down to New Orleans--we werebound there--and kept her when we went North and ever since. "

"And she's always been----?"

"Well-behaved, faithful, kind, and wise. That one terrible deed, whichshe says you know all about----"

"I do. "

"It seemed to change the very foundations of her character, to converther soul. "

"Yes, " said Hugh, as if speaking from experience. 

"Yet she kept her high spirit. She would never put on a disguise. Andreally that was safest since she wasn't being looked for by any one. 'I'm no advertised runaway, ' she said. Still she's never been foolhardy. She'd never have come--we'd never have brought her--aboard this boatcould we have foreseen the mishap to her captain which decided you andyour father and grandfather to come on her. "

So ran the story hurriedly, but before it had got thus far Hugh'sattention, in spite of him, was divided. It was wise, we have implied, for Ramsey to take the exhorter while he was in a manageable humor. Hehad come to the roof with an improved regard, got by his fall in thecabin, for the "'Piscopalian play-actoh, " and with brute shrewdness wasglad to make an outward show of good-will to Gilmore, and accepted withavidity every pretty advance of Gid Hayle's "bodacious brick-top gal. "Hugh could hear him answering Ramsey's inquiries regarding variouspieces of river seen or unseen during the day. 

"Spanish-moss Ben'? Why, they calls it that by reason 'at when we-allused to come down the riveh in flatboats, that's whah we al'ays fus' seethe moss a-swingin' f'om the trees. Yass, sawt o' like scalps f'omwigwam poles. An' that ho'pe us to know whah'bouts we 'uz at. We knowedwe 'uz at Spanish-moss Ben'. Didn' we, Mr. Play-actoh?"

The actor would have said yes, but the fountain of information flowedstraight on: "Yass, same as at Islan' Ten--aw Twenty--aw any numbeh, weknowed by count we 'uz that many islan's f'om whah the Ohio comes in. Efthat wah the tenth islan' we'd seed then we knowed that 'uz Islan' Tenaw whaheveh it wah, whetheh it wah a' islan' yit aw b'en j'inded on tothe main sho' sence it got its numbeh. "

They were rounding Cypress Bend and Ramsey had asked another question. "Was this where you first used to see cypress woods?"

"Thundeh, no! This gits h-its name by reason 'at they steals mo'millions o' dollahs wuth o' cyp'ess timbeh f'om the gove'ment out'n thisben' than any otheh on the whole Fatheh o' Watehs, es the Injins say. You know that, Mr. Play-actoh. Lawd! all the places ain't name' alike. 'Way back down yondeh whah we met the _Troubado'_ this mawnin'----"

"Oh!" moaned Ramsey, "another o' pop-a's boats!"

"Yass, whilst you-all 'uz a-temptin' Provi-_dence_ a-practisin' of aplay! Down yondeh by Islan' Ninety, Seary's Islan'--which it ain't be'na raal islan' these fawty year'--you 'membeh, Mr. Play-actoh, that olesan'-bah jess below it, full o' snags as my granny's mouth, which befo'the earthquake it used to be a reg-lah death-trap fo' flatboats? Well, _you_ know h-it didn' git its name by reason 'at anybody fo' the fusttime see thah Gen'al Hull's Lef' Leg! No; an' likewise away up yondehpas' the Tennessee line, at Islan' Thutty-eight, whah the current's sofull o' biles an' swells an' snags an' sawyehs 'at they calls it theDevil's Elbow! Now, nobody ain't neveh sho' 'nough see' the devil'sidentical elbow--in this life. No, suh, you'd ought to know that efanybody. Oh, no, Devil's Elbow, Presi-_dent's_ Islan', Paddy's Hen an'Chickens, Devil's Race-groun', Devil's Bake-ov'm, they jess sahcaysticnames. " He turned to Watson's cub, who with Basile had joined the trio, and was watching to get in a word. "You know that. "

The boy assented. "But did you see, " he asked Ramsey, "the swarms ofbirds down around Island Eighty-eight?"

"No!" interposed the exhorter, "she wah still atemptin' Provi-_dence_ inlike manneh as afo'said!"

Basile flashed resentment. "To put it politely, " he retorted. But theactor and Ramsey laughed. 

"Oh, John the Babtis' wouldn't 'a' putt it no politer. I see' the birds. We 'uz a meetin' the _Southe'n Cross_----"

"Anoth'--!" Ramsey began to wail. 

"Anotheh o' Gid Hayle's boats, yass, an' mighty nigh his bes'. Round'n'the foot o' the islan' our whistle bellered howdy to her an' we riz onesolid squah mile o' wings; an' when she bellered back, a-round'n' itshead, she riz anotheh. Yit them birds wa'n't a pinch naw a patchin' towhat I hev see' thah; millions an' millions an' millions _uv_ millionso' swan, pelikin, san'-hill crane, geese----"

"Birds of paradise?" asked Brick-top. 

"They 'uz all birds o' paradise! the whole kit an' bilin'! by reason 'atthis _wah_ a paradise them days, this-yeh whole 'Azoo Delta, which you, suh"--the speaker turned to Gilmore with reviving spleen. By oppositestairs, larboard and starboard, the twins, each carrying a sword-cane, as Hugh saw by the double gold band around it a finger-length from thetop, had just reached the roof, and the emboldened orator began to makeit plain that despite his "bodacious" criticism of their sister, overheard by Julian, he had at least half righted himself with bothbrothers and was on their side in whatever was now afoot. 

"Which you, suh, " he repeated, "hev tuck on yoseff to drap hints 'at itain't a civilize' country!--by reason 'at it ain't cityfied! Like Paris, I s'pose, my Gawd!--with thah high-heel' shoes an' low-neck' dresses!"

His voice rose as the twins, Mrs. Gilmore, and Hugh came close. "AwBabylon with thah jeweldry!--rings on thah fingehs an' bells on thahtoes! Aw Sodom an' Gomorrah!--with thah staht-neckid statutes! Well, thaynk the Lawd, yo're plumb right, we ain't! Thaynk Gawd we _air_ a'new-bawn civilization'--as says you when you didn' suspicion I waha-listenin'"--he fell into a mincing mimicry--"'a new-bawn civilizationwith all the chahm an' all the pity o' new-bawn things, ' says you to yo'wife--ef she air yo' wife. "

The shock of the insult ran through the group and out to a dozen hearersbeyond; to the captain and a knot of young people courting hisconversation; to Watson, high above; to the stallion-eyed man and theeagle-eyed, who both had come up with the twins and were adhering to thesenator, the general, and the Kentuckian from California. 

Gilmore paled with anger. Ramsey's merriment, which had begun at thebeginning, ceased for a breath and then, to the loathing of the twins, came on worse as she found herself very erect in one of Mrs. Gilmore'sgentle arms. The eyes of both the wife and the girl were on the actorand their every nerve was unstrung. Beseechingly he waved them away. 

"Come, " the wife said, though without moving, "come on. "

"Oh, not a step!" laughed Ramsey. "They--they need us! We must help!"She had turned her frank gaze to Hugh in mingled wonder, exultancy, anddistress. It seemed a dream that he should be the dull boy of yesterday. He was speaking to the exhorter and appeared not to have her in sight ormind, although, in fact, her untimely levity ran him through like adart. His absurdly deep voice was rich with a note not of mereforbearance but of veritable comradery, yet his eyes, as they held theoffender's, were as big and dangerous as she had ever seen her mightyfather's and she laughed on for what laughter might be worth, the onlyhelp she could furnish. 

"Not that you mean the slightest offence, " he prompted. 

The exhorter stiffened up. The nearer few packed close. Slender Basilewas just at Hugh's left between him and the twins. The exhorter openedhis mouth to reply but the words hung in his throat. To help them out hegave his head a disputative tilt, but Basile's hysterical treble brokein:

"Say no! You slang-whanging lick-skillet, say no!"

The man gasped. The boy whirled to his convalescent brother. "Give methat cane!" He snatched it, whipped out its keen stiletto, and with allhis light force smote the empty staff, left-handed, across theexhorter's cheek and ear, yelping: "Say no! Say it!"

"No!" said the victim, but the word was equivocal and the boy besidehimself. For Hugh had wrenched the staff from him and was holding thehand that gripped the stiletto, while the lad, with streaming tears, plunged, whined and gnashed at the backwoodsman. 

"Let me go!" he begged. "I see their game! Let me kill their insulter ofladies!"

The game was not hard to see. At a better moment than this blunderer hadchosen, some one was to provoke the actor to an assault which the twinswould make their pretext for a combined attack on that political"suspect" and common pest, using the canes as canes until Hugh should bedrawn into the fray, when the canes would become swords, dirks, theactor a secondary consideration, and the game--interesting. Hugh saw itbut saw it with even less sense of peril than Ramsey, who stood herground nervously cling-ing to her chaperon, yet flashing and tinklingwith a mirth as of some reckless sport; a mirth mildly reflected by hercompanion and which, for Hugh, suddenly shed a ludicrous light on everyone: on himself and Basile; on the pallid Lucian as he peevishly, vainly, ordered Ramsey off the scene; on Julian as he posed in atragical disdain more theatrical than the actor's--who also saw thegame; on the captain's dumfounded young folk; on the senator, thegeneral, and the Californian, standing agaze, and on the two men withthem, whose extra--eagle-eyed, stallion-eyed--solicitude told him theywere the lenders of the canes. All at once, still holding the anguishedBasile, he saw, and observed that the actor saw, the heaped-up nonsenseof the affair. Ramsey's mood leaped to both of them like a flame, andthey laughed together while Hugh exhorted the exhorter: "Go below! Foryour life, go!"

The man cast a pleading look on the twins, but when Lucian granted himonly a withering smile, and Julian with his cane in his folded arms saidmajestically, "Go, you hopeless ass, " he went--with haste. 

Out of the group by the bell John Courteney, apparently as unmoved as ifall this were but common routine, answered Watson's silent look with hisown while the pilot, taking his ear from a speaking-tube, grasped thebell-rope. 

"Wood?" asked the captain. 

XXXVIII

THE CANE AGAIN

"Partly, sir. "

All marked the qualifying word though at the same time all witnessed thecross-fire of challenge and retort that flashed between the threebrothers. Basile had dropped his weapon and ceased to struggle, yetstill showed a mental torture, the same he had betrayed at the previousafternoon's worship, and in all hearts, even those of the senator'sgroup, it brought back for him the same tender indulgence as before. Meanwhile Ramsey and the cub pilot had caught up the cane's two partsand laid them in the hands of the actor, who quietly resheathed themwhile Basile mocked the twins. "So that's the way Hayles, " jeered thelad, "stand by a cat's-paw friend, is it?"

"Hayles, " said Julian, "never settle difficulties before ladies. "

The boy resisted again as his laughing sister half knelt to lay her armsabout him soothingly. "Oh, these ladies won't mind, " he tearfullysneered. "Come on! Here's your man, with the steel, and three behindeach of you to see fair play!" A wave of the hand indicated Lucian andthe canes' owners on one side, and himself, the cub pilot, and Hugh onthe other. The latter and the players, momentarily together, gave suddenattention, but again the humor of the situation saved it. The laugh wasgeneral; the young people about the captain, whom his equanimity andRamsey's and Mrs. Gilmore's stay had emboldened to linger, drew near;and the three groups became one. 

The twins themselves might have made fair actors, though no one ever haddared suggest it. Julian scowled on Gilmore and Hugh and half drew theother cane from his folded arms, but then looked distantly away, whileLucian with an indolent air said to the younger brother:

"Babe! Hayles never line up on two sides. "

To retort, the lad had to snatch Ramsey's fingers from his lips and solost his chance, while under her breath she futilely implored him todesist. 

"I'm not!" he wailed back at her. "I'm not ridiculous! You! you'll findjudgment-day ridiculous, I don't doubt--oh, good Lordy! stop youreternal titter. "

The great bell thundered and he recoiled. "There! wood! 'wood, partly. 'And partly what else? d'you know? Another funeral. " In spite of her fondrestraints he cried out to the company: "With more to follow! Thebishop----"

But the sister's fingers were on his lips once more and while she halfwhispered, half laughed her tender chidings old Joy appeared, comingfrom the bishop's bedside. Ramsey turned a beseeching look to Hugh butthe general had halted the nurse with a private question and nowproclaimed:

"Th-the bishop's doing as well's could be exxxpected. "

"Expected!" cried Basile, "yes, when he's expected to die. And thenit'll be my turn. "

"It won't!" exclaimed Ramsey. "It sha'n't!" The boat was rounding to ata wood-yard and most of the company were glad to turn away to theshoreward scene. The boy dropped his head on the black woman's shoulder. 

"Oh, mammy, if I was the bishop, or you, or even Ramsey, I wouldn'tmind, for I could be ready to go. Oh, God! why can't I get religion?"

"Why, 'caze you done got it, sugah boy. You done got religion 'istiddy. "Only the twins smiled. The captain stepped down to the roof's forwardedge as the boat neared shore. 

"And you're not going to get anything else, " said Ramsey, snatching thelad's hands and finding them cold. 

He moaned in unbelief: "What do you know about it? Oh, sis', if I couldonly die doing some fine thing!--in a fight!--or an explosion!--anythingbut a deathbed!"

"Law'! honey, " interposed old Joy, "what you want to do fine things faw?You's done got religion. You on'y ain't got peace. Come to de bishop. Gawd won't let a religious enquireh kitch noth'n'. I 'uz tellin' debishop 'bout missy an' you, bofe gitt'n' religion 'istiddy, an' he say, s'e: 'Go, fetch yo' young missy; fetch bofe. '"

"We'll go!" said Ramsey before the willing boy could reply, though fromevery side came protests. 

For once Hugh and the twins were in accord. "You must not!" called Hugh. "You shall not!" said Julian. 

She glanced from one to the other, tinkling her prettiest, and suddenlyflushed. "We will!"

The twins sent Hugh a hot look which he paid back with a cold one, whileMrs. Gilmore said:

"I'll have to go with you, Ramsey. "

For one breath the girl was taken aback, but then:

"Yes, " she said, "to the door, that's all. "

As they turned after Basile and Joy she added: "'Twas I, you know, thatgot the bishop sick in the first place. "

At the corner of the texas they glanced back but were reassured to seethe cub-pilot disappearing on the nearest boiler-deck stair at theouter, depopulated side of the boat, the actor and Hugh moving towardit, and the twins holding the field and scowling after their opponents. Nevertheless, the moment the sister and wife passed from view Juliansturdily, Lucian feebly, pressed after Hugh and the player. The lastwitness was gone; now was their time. 

"Mr. Courteney, " said Julian. The other two looked back and paused. 

Lucian spoke: "Mr. Gilmore, you have my cane, sir. "

The player smiled. "Is this really your cane?"

With a ripping oath Julian put in: "What's that to you, you damnedGypsy? Give him the stick!"

The player let go a stage laugh. Hugh took a step forward with a graveshow of self-command hardly justified. "Mr. Hayle, " he said, "you don'twant to be another 'hopeless ass, ' do you?"

"Gawd!" Julian rose to his toes and lifted and brought down his cane. But it never reached its mark. One stride of the actor, one outflash ofarm and staff, foiled the blow, and when a second was turned on him thecane flew from Julian's hand he knew not how and dropped ten feet away. 

He dared not leap after it but faced the skilled fencer, blazingdefiance though fully expectant of the unsheathed dirk. But no dirk wasunsheathed. Lucian, forgetting his feebleness, sprang for the cane andhad dropped to one knee to snatch it up when Hugh set foot on it. 

"No!" said Hugh. The convalescent straightened up, his brow dark with ananguish of chagrin, and before he could find speech Hugh was adding:"Wait. I'll give it to you. "

"Don't!" cried Gilmore. "Keep it!"

"No, " wearily said Hugh, glaring on the glaring twins, "we're allbelittled enough now. " He caught up the cane, drew its dagger, snappedit in half on the deck, and resheathed the stump. Then tossing the pointinto the river he said: "Here, Mr. Gilmore, swap. "

With an actor's relish for a scene the actor swapped, and theconvalescent wept with rage as Hugh, having treated the second cane likethe first, tendered it to him. 

"Don't take it!" cried his brother; "don't touch it!" And then toGilmore: "Don't you hand me that one, either! Don't you dare!"

Yet thereupon the actor dared, saying: "But for--others--I'd trounce youwith it like a schoolmaster. "

The words were half drowned by Lucian, who snatched from Hugh the canehe tendered, answering the less crafty Julian, "Take it, you fool! takeany odds they'll give!" and, while Julian complied, adding to Hugh: "Oh, you'll pay for this--along with the rest of it!"

"You'll pay for this first!" put in Julian, "and with your lives--thepair of you!"

Hugh and Gilmore merely turned again toward the stair, but a voicestopped them though addressed only to the twins. 

"Did you say pair?" it inquired. 

The boat was at the bank; her great wheels were still. The sun's lastray tipped the oak-leaf caps of her soaring chimneys. Once more from thecook-house rose the incense of coffee, hot rolls, and beefsteak, andfrom her myriad lamps soft yellow gleams fell upon the wind-rippledwater and, out of view on the other side, into the tops of the densewillows. Over there the senator, the general, and the company that hadgone with them looked down upon two movements at once. The funeral theycould not help but see; the other was the wooding-up. The mud clerk hadmeasured the corded pile, and the entire crew, falling upon it likeants, were scurrying back and forth, outward empty-handed, inwardshoulder-laden, while those who stood heaping the loads on them sang asthey heaped:

 "Do you belong to de Vot'ess' ban'?"

"You don't mean just the pair, do you?" repeated Watson. He looked downloungingly from a side window of the pilot-house. "There's anyhow fiveon our side, " he added. "I'm in that tea party. "

Julian had caught breath to retort, when from a new direction a beckonchecked him and at the nearest corner of the texas he beheld againRamsey. Mrs. Gilmore was not with her, but at her back were the nurseand Basile. The boy wore such an air of terror that the player instantlypressed toward him. 

Ramsey's beckon, however, was to Hugh. Her bright smile did not hide hermental pain, which drew him to her swiftly despite the twins' deepeningfrown. The two brothers heard the question she asked him when he was buthalf-way; perhaps she meant they should. "Can you call through Mr. Watson's speaking-tube to mom-a--and the commodore?"

"Certainly. "

"Tell them"--tears suddenly belied her brightness--"to come up to thebishop, quick. I'm 'fraid--afraid----"

A word or two more Hugh failed to hear, but even the twins, at theirdistance, read them on her lips:

"The bishop's going to die. "

She sprang to Gilmore. His arm was about Basile; he was trying hispulse. The twins would have followed but in between camesenator--general--all that company, moved by physical foreknowledge ofan invitation whose drawing power outweighed whatever else land, water, sky, or man could offer. Suddenly it pealed in their midst:

 "Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding----"

The captain stayed by his chair. "Cast off, " he said to the matebeneath, and to Watson above: "Back your starboard. "

A jingle sounded below. The steam roared from one scape and widenedaloft like a magic white tree--twice--thrice. "Stop her. " It ceased. Sheswung. "Go ahead on both. " Two white trees shot up together andtrembling she went. Down in the quivering cabin, round the shiningboard, every one's spirit rose with the rising speed. 

"Senator, 'twas I sent you them hot rolls, suh. "

"Why, thank you! But--don't disfurnish yourself. "

"General, them fried bananas----"

"Th-th-thank you, sir, I have a suff-fficient plenty. "

Only the seats of the Courteneys, the Gilmores, Ramsey, and Basile stoodvacant. 

XXXIX

FORTITUDE

"Courage, " the slender play was called. It is to be regretted that wecannot fully set it forth, for Gilmore was himself its author. 

Also because, whatever it lacked, there was in it a lucky fitness forthis occasion, since, conditions being what they were on the decks aboveand below, the one strong apology for giving it was the need ofupholding the courage of its audience. 

It was even a sort of kind rejoinder to the various ferments kept up bythe truculent twins, the pusillanimous exhorter, and the terrifiedBasile. Its preachment might well have been less obvious, though lines, its author bade Hugh notice, never overbalanced action, never came tillsituation called them. It was to the effect, first, that courage ishuman character's prime essential, without which no rightness orgoodness is stable or real; and, second, that as no virtue of charactercan be relied on where courage is poor, so neither can courage betrusted for right conduct when unmated to other virtues of character, the chiefest being fidelity--fidelity to truth and right, of course, since fidelity to evil is but a contradiction of terms. "From courageand fidelity, " it was the part of one player at a telling moment to say, "springs the whole arch of character, " and again, "These are the Adamand Eve of all the virtues. " (Adam and Eve were decided to be quitementionable. Mention was not impersonation. )

Naturally the Gilmores knew every line of the play. 

"As perfectly, " ventured the two young Napoleonites, "as John theBaptist knows the moral law, don't you?"

"Better, I infer, " said Gilmore abstractedly. They were in the ladies'cabin, awaiting its preparation as a stage, behind the curtains thatscreened it from the gentlemen's cabin, the auditorium. His wife smiledfor him. 

"Even my Harriet, " she said, "knows one or two parts. She's played MissRamsey's in emergencies. "

Her half-dozen feminine hearers flinched. Yet one said, excusingly:"That's a servant's part, anyhow. "

"And Harriet's her very size and shape, " said another. 

And another, drolly: "They're enough alike to be kin!"

"Harriet's free, isn't she?" asked the first. 

"Yes, " replied Mrs. Gilmore, without a blush, looking squarely at Hugh, who stood among them silent. 

"You'd never notice she was a nigrah if you wa'n't told, " said another, "or didn't see her with nigrahs. "

But then said a youth, cousin to one of the girls: "Yet after all anigrah she is. "

"No such thing!" said his cousin. "After all that's what she isn't. Ourown laws say she isn't. "

"Well, I say she is. One drop of nigrah blood makes a nigrah--for me, law or no law. "

"Well, that's monstrous--for me. "

"Yes, your politics being what they are. "

"My pol'--I'm as good a Southerner as you, any day!"

"All right, but I shan't play if that born servant is allowed to takeany but a servant's part. "

To Hugh a crisis seemed to impend, but he held off for the Gilmores, whoseemed to be used to crises. 

They had not thought of Harriet, they said, for any part but MissRamsey's. Miss Ramsey might find herself too distracted by--otherthings. Or, even if not, the doctor, or the captain, might thinkHarriet's contact less contaminating than Miss Ramsey's. 

Their smile was not returned. Hugh gravely nodded but the rest shooktheir heads. Impossible! And suppose it were possible! they were notgoing to shun Miss Ramsey for refusing to shun "a sacred duty. " By dutythey meant the bishop, aware of his illness but not of his extremity, and none but Hugh and the Gilmores knowing that only two doors from thebishop lay Basile, also stricken, and that Ramsey and the old nurse werewith the boy. The young people fell into pairs confessing their contemptfor the besetting peril. Vigil is wearisome and they were almost asweary of blind precautions as, secretly, were Hugh and others. The twoNapoleonites "didn't believe doctors knew a bit more than otherfolks--if as much!" The two cousins so unimpeachably Southern were"convinced that contagion never comes by contact, " and two or three said"the cholera was in the air, that's where it was, and whoever was goingto get it was going to get it!" They all agreed that "if Miss Ramsey, because of the extra strain she was under, had lost her nerve----"

"She has not, " put in Hugh with a very solemn voice and solid look. Thegirls nudged elbows. "But, " he added, to Mrs. Gilmore, "for the bettercomfort and safety of both sick and well we must let her off. "

Must! Ahem! The amateurs lifted their brows. Of which was he sole owner, Miss Hayle or the boat? "Orders!" softly commented one tall youth. 

"Yes, " said Hugh, facing him with a gaze so formidable, yet to the restso comical, that the nudgings multiplied. 

"Miss Hayle's songs, however, " Hugh began to add. 

"Yes, how about the songs?" asked some one. "They're no servant's partand they're out before the curtain. "

"She must sing them, " replied Hugh. "They won't keep her long and theyinvolve no contact. "

"Right!" exclaimed one. "Good!" said another, and yet another. "Withoutthem we might as well give up the whole business. " From the curtainsthrough which he had been peering the actor glanced back. "Thosefootlights are capital, " he said to his wife, and then, for the joy ofall: "We've got a full house!"

The wife looked, turned quickly, and murmured to him: "Hayle's twins inthe front row. "

"Yes, " he said, absently again, "with war in their eyes. . . . Now, Mr. Hugh, if you'll send for Miss Hayle----"

"Harriet's gone for her, " replied his wife. 

"Here I am, " spoke Ramsey at the door of a stateroom appropriated as apassageway. And assuredly there she was; but by the magic of dress, through the trained cunning of Mrs. Gilmore's mind and "Harriet's" hand, and even more by the imprint of her new weight of experience, she wasRamsey transformed, grown beautiful. An added year was in her face. Achastened tenderness both lighted and shaded it, half veiling yet halfreasserting its innocent hardihood. The astonished amateurs hailed herwith a clapping of hands, in which, it pleased her deeply to notice, Hugh Courteney, staring, took no share. Beyond the curtain the unseenaudience answered with a pounding of heels and canes in good-naturedimpatience. Gilmore hurriedly waved away all the lads but Hugh, and Mrs. Gilmore all the girls but Ramsey. To her she glided while Hugh and herhusband conferred on some last point. 

"Well, dear, " she said, pressing her backward into the stateroom, "areyou ready?"

"No, dear Mrs. Gilmore, please, no, I'm not. "

"Ah, yes, you are. You'll go on from"--they passed out and entered thenext room forward--"from here. And mark! when you find nothing betweenyou and the people but the footlights, and their glare blinds you, don'tstand close over them trying to see, or they'll make you look scared andpale, and you're not scared the least bit, are you?"

"I don't know, " laughed Ramsey, softly, through tears. "I never was, before; never had sense enough, mom-a says. But, oh, I know I'm ashamed. I'm that 'shamed that I wouldn't wonder if I'm scared too. Oh, dear Mrs. Gilmore, Basile's so sick! The doctors are doing all they can for him, and mom-a and mammy Joy are with him; but he's so tortured with pain, and with fright! And the bishop--he's pow'ful weak, as mammy Joy says. One of those sweet sisters--of charity--I got her up through thespeaking-tube--oh, you know what I mean--and she's there now talking tohim _so_ beautifully! And down on the lower deck, freight deck, MadameMarburg's sick too, and her son and the priest and the other sister arewith her and with the other sick ones--there's a dozen of them!" Thelast words were to Gilmore as he and Hugh appeared at the outer door. 

The actor stepped inquiringly into the narrow room and began a warningwhisper but Ramsey spoke on to wife and husband by turns: "And in theface of all that here we are--or here I am--about to do the silliest, most heartless thing in all my silly, heartless life. No, I'm notready. "

"Tsh-sh!" whispered the husband, with both hands up. "My dear younglady, this isn't you; you've caught this mood of a moment from yourbrother. "

It was not his words, however, that startled Ramsey to silence; theaudience was again stamping and pounding. Now she resumed: "Oh, I hear!Mrs. Gilmore, the trouble's not that home song nor the spring song northe love-song; it's that silly thing you-all say I _must_ sing if I getan encore--which I can't believe I'll get!"

"My dear, you'll get several. We've arranged that. "

"Arr'--! Why, I've only that one silly thing!"

"The fate of the whole show is in that one silly thing. "

"Oh, it's not! It's in you two talented, professional, famous people!"

"Ah, maybe it ought to be, but it's not. That's the way of the stage, mydear. Your silly thing has plenty of verses. Sing only two at a time. "

"A sort o' Hayle's twins, " laughed the girl. Then despairingly shedropped to the edge of the berth. But Hugh had been pushing in past theplayers and as he reached her she sprang erect again. 

"This is entirely my doing, " he said to her. "These two good friendsmustn't urge you to sing. They're in danger, you know; greater dangerthan they'll believe. "

Gilmore broke in: "Now, Mr. Hugh, listen to me. "

But Ramsey put out a hand. "No, _you_ listen--to him, " and Hugh went on:

"Should it come to be known by--certain ones----"

"Certain twos, " said Ramsey, "go on. "

"It would double, or treble, that danger. "

"My dear boy--" began the actor again, but his wife restrained him, andRamsey whispered at him in turn:

"Tsh-sh!" Then she prompted Hugh: "And so----?"

"So you must sing without any urging but mine. "

Her lips parted in droll repudiation, but he went on. 

"And you'll give the encore. "

"Oh, when did you learn to talk? I--w-i-l-l--n-o-t!"

Once more the actor tried to break in, but his wife eagerly whispered:"Let them alone! Let--them--alone!"

"Success hangs on it, " persisted Hugh, "and success here means successall over the boat. It will mean their" (the Gilmores') "safety; whilefailure-- Think of it, Miss Ramsey. . . . Don't you see?"

She stared an instant and then with a sign of distress and aversiongasped: "Go away! Go away!" and dropping to the berth cast her face intoits pillow. With gentle speed Mrs. Gilmore pressed Hugh aside and tookhis place. The stamping and pounding, for a moment suspended, brokeforth afresh. "Send him away!" cried Ramsey, her voice muffled by thepillow, one eye fitfully glancing from it, and one arm waving backward. "All advice rejected! Send him away! Send them both. "

With such dignity as they could save, the two outcasts fled, meeting andturning back half the stage company while the actor's wife shut thedoor. 

"Is she ill?" asked the gaping girls. "Is she ill?"

"Not at all, " "No, " said the actor and Hugh, right and left, the onecomplacent, the other "ironer" than ever. "She is, eh--she, eh----"

Every head was lifted to hearken. The cabin's applause ceased abruptlyfor a second or two, or three. Then again there was a stillness brokenonly by the speeding of the boat; and then, like a perfume from somewilderness garden, came the untrained notes of a song, a maiden's songof her lost German home, and leaning elatedly from the reopened doorMrs. Gilmore loudly whispered:

"She's on!"

XL

RAMSEY AT THE FOOTLIGHTS

The actor stepped to his wife. "Will she do it all?" he inquired, andHugh, who had started to join the audience by a short cross passage, lingered to hear. 

"Heaven knows, " laughed the lady, shutting herself out, yet keeping thedoor; "I too am banished. " Her glance drew Hugh nearer. "Miss Ramseybegs us, all three----"

"For her to beg is to command, " said Gilmore playfully. 

"Yes, and so I've promised for all three----"

"Promised! What?"

Mrs. Gilmore whispered: "To pray for her. "

The smiling actor and the unsmiling youth looked at each other. "Why, that's, " said Gilmore, "entirely----"

"Practicable, " said Hugh. He moved on, and into the passage. Gilmore, following, stopped at its outer end. At the inner stood Hugh, waiting, in shadow and with downcast eyes, for the song to be done. What unvoicedsupplication, if any, may have been behind the lips of either was notfor the other to know. Yet it was an hour of formidable besetments andwe may pardon the actor if an actor's self-consciousness moved him toreflect that there were thousands of healthy men, some as raw as Hugh, some as ripe as himself, who, for the sake of a promise, a wife or amaiden, or even without them, standing thus, had prayed. 

He tiptoed to the youth's side and together they leaned in enough tolook down the dimmed cabin, over ranks of silhouetted heads, to thebright stage front and the singer. She was in the centre of its lightand the last notes of her simple song called for so little effort thatthey only helped the eye to give itself wholly and instantly to the merepicture of her, slender, golden, magnified by this sudden outburst intoblossom, and radiant with the tenderness of her words as a flower withmorning dew. The next moment she was bowing and withdrawing, aglow withgratitude for an applause that came in volume as though for the finishof a chariot-race, and Hugh saw as plainly as the experienced actor, ifnot with as clear a recognition of Mrs. Gilmore's attiring skill, thatthe tribute was at least as much to the singer as to the song. 

The same perception came to Ramsey in the stateroom to which she hadreturned and in which she stood alone, hearkening and trembling. Shenoiselessly laughed for joy to be, however unworthily, the daughter ofGideon Hayle, never doubting it was for his name, his blood, hislikeness, she stood thus approved. The conviction gave her better heartfor the task yet before her. She glided to the rear door, locked it, anddropped to her knees. 

"Oh, Lord 'a' mercy!" she murmured. "Oh, Basile, my brother! And oh, mom-a, dear, brave mom-a!" She did not name her father, though hisfigure was central in her imagination, broad, overtowering, intrepid, imperious. 

The applause persisted. Now it sank but at once it rose again, easyoverflow of a popular mind glad of all unrestraint and always ready--aseven she discerned--for the joy of exaggeration. She sprang up and movedtoward it, her eyes sparkling responsively. Yet her tremor was piteousand in mute thought she said again, at high speed:

"My brother, oh, my brother! I'll be back in a minute. This ain't for myown silly self, you know, honey. It's for them that need it; for all thepeople, up stairs and down, and for--for the boat!--as any ofher--owners--would do for any of our boats. You said you wished _you_could do some fine thing for somebody--in a fire--or explosion, and thisis just as awful only not so sudden, and I'm doing this in your place, honey boy; yes, I am, this is just as if you did it yourself!"

The applause was still summoning her as she ended. A hand, probably Mrs. Gilmore's, had tried the locked door. From the lower deck leaked up thesad "peck, peck" of the carpenter driving his nails, and close outsidethe door sounded sharp footsteps and the mingled voices of the pilot'scub and the actor calling with suppressed vehemence to one of thepantrymen: "Here, boy! Here! Go below like a shot and tell 'Chips' tostop that pounding this instant! He can saw if he must but he mustn'thammer!"

Then as if carried there by some force not her own she found herselfagain in the bewildering sheen of the footlights, smiling merrily to thehushed, half-seen assemblage, and suddenly aware of every throb of the_Votaress's_ bosom, every fall of her winged feet, every tinkle of hercabin's candelabra, and, most vivid of all, horribly out of time withall, the still insistent "rap, tap, tap" of the carpenter's hammer. 

At the same time, unconfessedly, the eager audience took note of quiteanother group of facts, emphasized by the appearance of Hugh in a backrow of seats, by the presence of Hayle's twins in the dusk of the frontrow, with war even in the back of their heads, and by the illuminatedform of the singer just drawing a last breath of preparation to exhaleit in melody. Hardly in the gathering was there one who had not by thistime learned the whole state of affairs between all Hayles, allCourteneys, and all those others whom its schemings, aggressions, discomfitures, tirades, and prophetic threats had entangled with them. Every one thought he knew precisely both Hugh's and Ramsey's variedrelations to each and all those persons, his and her effects upon them, and his and her ludicrously dissimilar ways of getting those effects. They knew this warfare was still on and was here before them now. Inevery phase of it in which Ramsey had taken part she had come off victorand in every instance had done so by the sheer power of what she, withfair accuracy, called nonsense. So now they were ready to see her, atany juncture the twins or accident might spring, show the same methodand win an even more lustrous triumph in keeping with her ownmetamorphosis. Nay, they were more than ready to lend a hand toward suchan outcome. Like Watson, they had sentimentally matched Hugh and Ramsey, prospectively, in their desire, and saw that such a union must sooner orlater be, if it was not already, a paramount issue in the strife. Insuch expectancy sat the throng, keenly aware of the twins at their frontand Hugh at their back, as Ramsey's indrawn breath began to return insong, its first notes as low as her voice could sink, its time slow, itsverbal inflections those of the freight-deck negro:

 "Do you belong toe Gideon's ban'?"

So far it got before it was drowned in a deluge of laughter andapplause. She had made, as Gilmore said to his wife behind the curtain, a "ten-strike. " Her hearers did not pause an instant to determinewhether the utterance was wit or humor or pure inanity. It fitted theirmood; fitted it better than the actor or Hugh had believed it could. Tothe company's notion it was good nonsense offsetting and overpowering anotherwise invincible bad nonsense and snatching from it all right ofargument, sympathy, or judicial appeal; laughing it out of court, toremain out at least until the completion of this voyage should give thisjury, these hearers, an honorable discharge. The shrewd good sense ofit, in their judgment, was the most fun of all, and while in her heartRamsey was gratefully giving the credit of that to the actor and Hugh, the people naturally gave it to her and laughed and clapped and poundedagain on second thought. 

Now abruptly they hushed and let her resume:

 "Do you belong toe Gideon's ban'? Here's my heart an' here's my han'. Do you belong toe Gideon's ban'? Fight'n faw yo' home!"

Again the audience broke in. 

"Fighting for your home!" they laughed to one another as they clapped. Home was the catchword of the times. Jenny Lind was singing nightly:

 "Midt bleasures undt balacess----"

and three fourths of all the songs not of the opera were of home and itsties. What the word might exactly signify in this case made littlematter; on her lips, from her breast, it meant human kindness, maideninnocence, young love; meant courage, fidelity, the right, the true, thebeautiful, the good; meant anything, everything, which she herself, shining there above the footlights like a star in the sunset, theirdarling of the hour, could be fancied to stand for; meant, anyhow, thetwins' war-song turned into a peace-and-joy song. 

"Tsh-sh-sh! let her go on!" And she went on: she, Noah's ark, and the_Votaress_, all three, together:

 "Den come de buck-ram and de ewe----"

"What? what's that?" They leaned and whispered right and left. "Newwords! new words!"

 "Den come de buck-ram and de ewe----"

"Why--she must 'a' made those words, herself!"

Not she. She knew no better than to believe them the improvisations ofthe Gilmores. 

 "Den come de buck-ram and de ewe De ole niroscenos and de gnu----"

Pun! a pun! a real pun!

 "Do you belong toe Gideon's ban'?"

Yes, verily! They clapped, ha-haed, leaned around one another to see thedark upturned heads of the twins, and stole backward glances on theimmovable features of the captain's son. At his side sat the Californianjust then gravely murmuring to him, but he remaining as motionless as aBuddha. The refrain pressed on to its close, and the applause redoubled, but stopped as she prepared for another verse. 

 "Nex' come de mule and den de quail----"

Laughter! Mule and quail! royal pair of the cotton field, rightly thriceheralded!

 "Nex' come de mule and den de quail, Nex' come de mule and den de quail, Nex' come de mule and den de quail, De monkey-wrench and de wiggletail. "

The senator clapped yea, the general thumped his cane. Half-a-dozenvoices began to chime with her, "Here's my heart and----" till Julianlooked round, when they stopped so short that the laugh swelled againand Julian resumed his seat. Only two or three saw Hugh and theCalifornian softly pass out together. 

"No, no, no!" cried several, but that was to Ramsey for trying to getaway. "No, you don't! Another verse! sing anoth'-- Tsh-sh-sh!". . . . Shesang:

 "Den come de man-drake and de moose, Den come de man-drake and de moose, Den come de man-drake and de moose, De hickory-pottamus and de goose. Do you belong----?"

Belong? How could they help but belong? Was ever anything such fun? Notitself, maybe, but she! And no more could Ramsey help belonging to them, though thoughts of the texas and of the immigrant deck--where thecarpenter's saw played an interlude to her every verse--pierced herheart at each throb of her pulse and of the boat's pulse and at everyglimpse of the scowling twins, dimly visible to her just beyond thefootlights. Silence fell once more as she moved a step forward with alight in her eyes, a life in her poise, that made her a pure joy, albeitan instinct warned her that her tide was at the flood and she must makeher exit on this wave. So with a light toss as if to say, "Positivelylast appearance, " she sang:

 "Den d'rattlesnake and de antidote, De rattlesnake and de antidote, De rattlesnake and de antidote, De rangitang and de billy-goat. Do you belong----?"

The applause was as lively as ever and increased with each step of herbowing retreat. Near the stateroom door, chancing to look across thecabin to the one opposite, she saw within two or three of the amateursclapping and the actor approvingly waving her off. Then finding herselfalone she threw open the rear door and was in Mrs. Gilmore's embrace. "How's Basile?" she demanded--"and the bishop--and Marburg's mother? Allthis time----"

"My dear, you've sung only six minutes. "

"It seems a week, " she laughed. Hugh appeared in the outer door. Shelistened to the insistent applause. "I can't go back, Mrs. Gilmore. Idon't need to, do I?"

"No. . . . Let go of me, dear!" The applause ceased. The curtain was aboutto "rise. " The servant who was to draw the near half of it reached infrom the cabin and closed their door. "No, dear, you won't sing againtill after this act, anyhow. "

"Oh, not even then! I just must stay with Basile. I've sung all theverses but one, you know. "

"We've got some more new ones, " replied the lady, smiling to Hugh, whowas moving to let her pass out. 

"Got them!" cried the girl. She turned to Hugh. "They've made them!Didn't you know Mr. And Mrs. Gilmore made every line I've sung? Oh, Mr. Hugh, what can't genius do?"

Hugh solemnly dissented. "Those lines, " he said, "could never have beenmade by mere genius!"

She stared at him a moment and then at Mrs. Gilmore, who was escaping bythe outer door and who replied: "My dear, every line made for you hasbeen made by Mr. Hugh. " She vanished while the two stood dumbly face toface, but on second thought was back again just in time to see and hearRamsey say, still gazing:

"Well, of--all--things! You! That frightful rubbish! You've got to singthe rest, yourself! Oh, Mrs. Gilmore, make him do it! It'll tickle 'emall to death--to hear _him_ sing Gideon's Band!--and I can stay withBasile. "

"Preposterous!" rumbled Hugh, and again, "preposterous!"

"Why--happy thought!" said Mrs. Gilmore. "Why, the very thing, Mr. Hugh, the very thing! Come. First we'll take this young lady up-stairs----" Asthey started the Californian appeared, laying a caressing hand on Hugh. 

XLI

QUITS

"Wait here, " slowly said Hugh in response to the gold-hunter's touch. "I'll--see you presently. "

The modest adventurer waved assent, yet looked so disappointed that Mrs. Gilmore, moving to take his arm, asked:

"Can't Mr. So-and-so go with us?"

Oh, kind, quick wit! Three is a crowd, four is only twice two!

"Certainly, " said Hugh, and to Ramsey added: "We'd better lead the way. "

As they led she softly inquired: "Does he want to know something aboutthe twins?"

What arrows were her questions, and how straight they struck home! Yetwith that low voice for their bowstring they gave him comfort. Herforays into his confidence not only relieved the loneliness of his toosecretive mind but often, as now, involved a sweet yielding of herconfidence to him. Yet now a straight answer was quite impossible. 

"He wants to know something about you, " was the reply. 

She let the palpable evasion pass. On the hurricane roof there was a newsight. The breeze was astern and moved so evenly with the boat as toenfold her in a calm. Looking up for the stars, one saw only the giantchimneys towering straight into the darkness and sending their smoke asstraight and as far again beyond, spangled with two firefly swarms ofsparks that fell at last in a perpetual, noiseless shower. 

"Why do we go this way?" she asked, meaning forward around the skylightroof instead of across it. 

"Because this way's longer. "

"Humph!" was the soft response. Presently she added, "We get more freshair this way, " and called back to their two followers: "This is to avoidthe sparks. "

"Um-hmm!" thought kind Mrs. Gilmore, and, "Oh, ho!" mused theCalifornian, not quite so unselfishly. 

Around in front of the bell both youth and maiden observed how palelythe derrick posts loomed against the spectral chimneys and their smoke, and silently recalled their first meeting, just here, in the long ago oftwo days earlier. The captain's chair was occupied. 

"Well, father, " said Hugh. 

"Good evening, " twittered Ramsey. 

"Good evening, Miss Ramsey. Be back this way, Hugh?"

"In a moment, sir. " They passed on. Ramsey looked behind at theCalifornian. 

"What does he want to know about me?" she asked. 

"He says, " said Hugh, "he's nursed this sickness at sea and at Panamaand hasn't the slightest fear of it. "

"Humph!. . . That's not about me. "

"Yes, it--was. He's taken a great fancy----"

"To Basile. "

"To several of us, including Basile. "

"Yes, because he and Basile played cards together. "

"Not entirely for that, " said Hugh, looking at her so squarely that shehad to smooth back her curls. "But he'd like to help take care of him ifyou--and your mother, of course--are willing. "

"Oh, how good--and brave! And he wants to ask me?"

"No, he's too bashful. I'm asking for him. "

"Too--!" Ramsey pondered. They stepped more slowly. The other pairturned back; the play demanded Mrs. Gilmore. The sick-room door was sonear that Ramsey knew her mother was inside it, by her shadow on itsglass. Suddenly, just as Hugh was about to say she need not hurryin--whereupon she would have vanished like a light blown out--she facedhim. "D'you ever suffer from bashfulness--diffidence?"

He answered on a droll, deep note: "All its horrors. "

She looked him over. He barely smiled. 

"You never show it, " she said. 

"No. " To the fanciful girl the monosyllable came like one toll from alow tower. She laughed. 

"Basile says there's another thing you suffer from. "

"'Suffer'? From what do I 'suffer'?"

"From everybody else on the boat having a better chance to dothings--big things--than you have. "

He smiled again. "If I did, no one should know it; least of all you. "

She ignored the last clause. "Aha! I said so. I told him--and mammy Joytold him--there's nothing bigger than to wait your turn and _then takeit_. And there ain't--there isn't, is there?"

"Well--even that can be small. Nothing a man is big enough for looks bigto him. "

"Hoh!--after he's done it, " laughed Ramsey. 

"True--" said Hugh reflectively, "or suffered it, " and both of thembegan to see that we can rarely lift more than our one corner of thewhole truth at a time. "In your way, " he added, still musing, "you'relarger than I. "

"Oh, I'm no--such--thing!" Her speech was soft, yet she looked up warilyto Watson's pilot-house window, but Watson too thoroughly approved to belooking down. "I'm not half or third or quarter as large. " She eagerlyturned his attention up the river. Visible only by the lights of hercabin and the sparks from her unseen chimneys, a boat was coming roundthe next bend. As she entered the reach and breasted the breeze which socalmly accompanied the _Votaress_, her two spangled plumes of smokeswept straight astern as if two comets raced with her, or----

"The Golden Locks of Berenice, " whispered Ramsey. 

"Come, " Hugh softly responded. The _Votaress_ had signalled the usualpassage to starboard and unless they went forward the shining spectaclewould at once be lost. As they gained the front of the texas the distantcraft, happening to open a fire-door, cast a long fan of red light aheadof her, suddenly showing every detail of her white forecastle, illumining her pathway on the yellow waters and revealing in theirdaylight green the willows of an island close beyond. Then the furnacewas shut and again her fair outlines were left to the imagination, except for the prismatic twinkle and glow of her cabin lights. 

"That was like you when you laugh, " murmured Hugh, and before she couldparry she was smitten again by an innocent random shot from the darknessround the bell. 

"Do you make her out, Mr. Watson?" asked Hugh's father, and she flinchedas if Watson were peering down on her. 

"Yes, sir, " said the pilot, "she's Hayle's _Wild Girl_. "

Not waiting to hear that she was known by her "front skylights standin'so fur aft of her chimbleys, " Ramsey wheeled to fly. But instantly sherecovered and went with severe decorum, saying quiet nothings to Hugh ashe followed, until at the sick-room door again she turned. 

"I'm willing he should help us, Mr. Hugh, if mom-a and Basile are. I'llsend him word by mammy Joy. Mr. Hugh--what is it he wants to know aboutthe twins?"

Hugh was taken aback. "Why, it's nothing--now. It was as pure nonsenseas those verses. Ask him. He can tell if he chooses; I can't. " There wasa pause. Her eyes gave him lively attention, but one ear was bent to thedoor. 

"I hope Basile is better, " he added. 

"I'm sure he is; he's so much quieter. " She felt a stir of conscience, loitering thus, yet--"Mr. Hugh, do you think diffidence is the same asmodesty?"

"Certainly not. "

"I'm--" She meditated. . . . "I'm glad of that. . . . I never was diffident amoment in my life. "

"You never had need to be, " said Hugh very quietly. 

"They go together, don't they, diffidence and modesty?"

"Not as often as diffidence and conceitedness. "

"Why, Mr. Hugh!"

"One thing that makes me so silent is my conceit. "

"Oh, you! you're not conceited at all! You're modest! You little knowhow great you are! You're a wonder!" Her tone was candor itself tillmaiden craft added, while she tinkled her softest and keenest: "You're apoet!"

With a gay wave, which dismissed him so easily that she resented hisgoing, she turned, stepped warily into the cramped room, and stoodtransfixed with remorse for her tardiness and appalled and heart-wrung. The foot of the berth was by the door. There old Joy stood silentlyweeping. At its head knelt her mother in prayer and on it lay herplaymate brother peacefully gasping out his life. A flash ofretrospection told her he must have had the malady long before he hadconfessed it and that something--something earlier than hersinging--yes, and later--not twins nor Gilmores nor river--oh, something, what was it?--had kept her--these two long, long days--blind. 

"Ah, you! _you_!" she dumbly cried, all at once aflame with the Haylegift for invective. "You stone image! 'To help you, ' indeed! _You_! Asif you--as if I--I won't, you born tyrant! 'Help you'--against my ownkin! I will not--ever again. We're _quits_ for good and all. "

XLII

AGAINST KIN

"Ramsey, " said the boy, his voice gone to a shred, "you're good--to comeback in--in time. Ain't you going--to laugh? It'd be all right. Oh, sis'"--the sunken eyes lighted up--"it's come to me, sissy, it's come. I've got religion, Ramsey. I'm going straight to the arms of Jesus. Sissy dear, I wish"--he waited for strength--"I could seethe--twins--just a minute or two----"

"Why, you shall, honey. I'll go bring 'em. "

"Wish you would--and Hugh Courteney. It's the last----"

"Honey boy, th'ain't room for so many at once. And it ain't your lastanything; you' going to get well. "

His eyes closed, his brows knit. The tearful mother rose and looked ather. The glance was kind, yet remorse tore the girl's heart again. "Go, "said her mother. "Joy, she'll go with you. Bring the three. "

"My last"--the boy whispered on--"last chance--to do some'--somethingworthy of"--he faintly smiled to his mother--"of Gideon's Band. "

The door opened and closed and the two were alone. At his sign sheknelt, took his clammy hand, and bent close that he might flutter outhis hurried words with least effort. 

"She sang it finely!" he whispered. "She'd 'a' known we heard it ifshe'd 'a' thought. Wish you'd sing a verse of it. It's a hymn, youknow--or was. The chorus is--yet. Anyhow, it's our song. Oh, I'd like tolive on and be a real true Hayle--a Gideon! I hope--hope HughCourteney'll--live. Just think! he was on the _Quakeress_ when UncleDan--. . . . He's going to do big things some day. Mother--want to tell yousomething. " She bent closer. He whispered on:

"I wish Hugh Courteney'd live and--marry sis'. "

His eyes reclosed and the mother drew back, but he whispered on withlids unlifted: "Sing--a verse or two--or just the chorus, won't you?"

As softly as to an infant fallen asleep she sang, in her Creole accent, with eyes streaming:

 "Do you billong to Gideon' ban'? Yere's my 'eart an' yere's my 'an'. "

Outside, meantime, before old Joy had quite left the closed door, another, the second aft of it, opened and the texas tender stepped out. A fellow servant within shut it, and he started for a near-by stair, butchecked up, amazed, to let Ramsey hasten on for the same point. 

But Ramsey halted. "How's the bishop?" she asked him. 

"Good Lawd!" he gasped, and then tittered at himself. "I ax yo' pahdon, miss, I _neveh_ know de Hayles twins 'uz _double_ twins, male 'n'female. You ax me----?"

"The bishop; how is he now?"

"Well, Miss Hayles--you is Miss Hayles, ain't you? Yit, my Lawd! miss, ain't I dess now see you down in de cabin a-playin' in de play, an' ahund'ed people sayin': '_'tis_ her, 'cose it is'?"

"Humph! no, I left as the curtain rose. How's the----?"

"Bishop? Oh, de bishop, he, eh--'bout five-six minute' ago--aw it mowtbe ten--whilse I 'uz down dah--de bishop--I'm bleeds to say--breave hislas'. "

"While I--!" She tossed both arms. 

"Ummmm, hmmmm!" droned old Joy; "gone to glory!"

"Yass, de good bishop gone to his good bishop!"

"Oh, who was with him?" cried the girl. 

"Why, eh"--the three moved on their way--"de doctoh, he 'uz dah, and debofe sis' o' charity; yass'm. "

"The commodore--wasn't?--Nor the senator--nor----?"

"Oh, yass'm, de commodo', he 'uz dah--faw a spell. He didn' stay tillde--finish. He couldn'. He git slightly indispose', hisseff, an' have togo to his own room. "

The nurse made a meek show of despair and Ramsey turned upon her. "Now, mammy, this is no time--_now--don't--cry_. "

The old woman braced up superbly. "Yass'm, " persisted the waiter, "hedah now, in bed; slightly indispose'. "

A rumble close below broke in upon the rhythm of the boat. "What'sthat?" demanded Ramsey. 

"Oh, dat's on'y de aujience a-stompin' de actohs. "

The next moment, a step or two down the stair, with the skylight roofstill in sight as much as hidden tears would let her see it, she stoppedagain, to stare anxiously at another trio, coming from the bell to thecaptain's room. 

"Da'--dat's all right, " the white-jacket reassured her. "Dat's dess decap'm, wid Mr. Hugh an' a passengeh. "

"Kentucky passenger?"

"Yass'm, 'zac'ly; f'om Ca'fawnia; dat's him. "

She sprang back to the deck, and the servant went his way down thestair. Hugh had left his father to proceed on the arm of the Californianand was approaching. He murmured only a preoccupied greeting and wouldhave taken the stair, but old Joy motioned eagerly to the girl. Shespoke. He stopped. "Yes, Miss Ramsey?"

"Go on, " she said, "we're going that way. "

Down on the cabin guards the two paused at the bottom step, the oldwoman lingering at the top. "Mr. Hugh, " said Ramsey, "mom-a's sending mefor the twins. " She drew a breath. "You know about the commodore?"

"Yes, Miss Ramsey. "

"And the--the bishop?"

"I know, Miss Ramsey. "

"Mr. Hugh, is your father--taken?"

"Yes, Miss Ramsey. "

"Where are you going?"

"To bring the first clerk. "

"The boat's command doesn't fall to him, does it?"

"It falls to the first mate. "

"I don't see why. Who'll it fall to next? You?"

"No, the first clerk. "

Double disappointment. "But you; you'll still look after us passengersand help him, too, won't you?"

"I may. "

She knew it! Somehow he was to share with the mate and the clerk thecommand of the boat!

"Mr. Hugh"--they moved on, with Joy at a discreet distance--"you're in ahurry--so am I; but I ought to tell you, though of course it's justridiculous for us--for me--to think I've ever helped you or can help youin any of these things or in anything--I--oh--I can't help you, or playhelp you, any more. "

Cruel word in a cruel moment. She felt it so and expected him to showthe same feeling. But instead he halted in the lamplight of a passagewayto the cabin and confronted her with the widest, most formidable gaze, not her father's, she had ever met. He seemed absolutely majestic. Itwas very absurd for one so young and--stumpy--to seem majestic, yetthere he stood, truly so. Partly for that reason she could not so muchas smile; but partly, too, it was because she felt herself so guiltilyfrivolous, having anything to say to him, or even standing in his gaze, gazing into it, while his father, her brother, and the bishop lay asthey were lying in their several rooms so close overhead. 

"You _can_ help me, " he said in his magisterial voice, so deep yet sosoft. "You will. You must. I cannot spare you. "

Did any one ever! She tossed a faint defiance: "I can't. No. Iwon't--can't--ever again, against my own kin. "

"There are things stronger than kin. "

"I'd like to know what!"

"Truth. Justice. Honor. Right. Public welfare. "

She waved them all away as wholly immaterial. "Hoh!"

With a kindness far too much like magnanimity to suit her, Hugh, drawingbackward, smiled, and replied, not as pressing the argument but asdropping it:

"One can be against one's kin, yet not against them. Basile knows that. He proved it to-day. "

"Basile--oh, Mr. Hugh, Basile wants to see you. Mom-a's sent me as muchfor you as for the twins. Basile's asked for you. But of course if yourfather----"

"I'll come, the moment I can be spared. Is your brother really better?"

Ramsey flinched as from pain. She leaned on the shoulder of thenurse--who had come close--and sadly shook her head. But then shestraightened smilingly and said: "If you're coming at all----"

She might have finished but for a faint sound that reached her fromdirectly underfoot, a sound of sawing. She faced sharply about, passedinto the cabin, and found the Gilmores and the amateurs in the midst oftheir play. 

XLIII

WHICH FROM WHICH

This world of tragic contrasts and cross-purposes, realities andfictions, this world where the many so largely find their inspiration inthe performances of the few, was startlingly typified to Ramsey as, outof the upper night and the darkness of her troubles, she came in uponthe show; the audience sitting in their self-imposed twilight of a fewdimmed lamps, designedly forgetful of the voyage for which all werethere, and the players playing their parts as though the play were theonly thing real. 

If the prefigurement was at any point vague it was none the lessarresting. As the _Votaress_--or Gideon Hayle's _Wild Girl_--might, infull career, strike on hidden sands, so Ramsey struck on the thought--orcall it the unformulated perception--that whoever would really livemust, by clear choice and force of will, keep himself--herself--adjustedto this world as a whole; as one great multitudinous entity with astronger, higher claim on each mere part's sympathy, service, sacrifice, than any mere part can ever hold on it. 

In a word, Hugh Courteney, baby elephant, born tyrant, egotist--oregoist, whichever it was--self-confessed egotist, stone-facedegoist--with his big-wig airs and big-fiddle voice--was nearer rightthan she would _ever_ submit to confess to him: there _were_ thingsstronger than kin, bigger every way; and other things bigger than thosebigger things, and yet others still bigger than those, and so on and onto the world's circumference. Staggering discovery. Yet how infinitelyold it looked the moment she clearly saw it: old, obvious, beautiful, and ugly as the man in the moon. It chanced that right there and thenshe was forced to accept its practical application. A white-jacket saidto her in a muffled voice:

"Ef you please--to not to move up to'a'ds de stage whilse de playa-goin' on. "

"Oh, but I must, " she explained. "I'm on business; business that can'twait any longer. I've already been delayed--" Her last word faltered. Something occurring on the stage held her eyes, while two or threeauditors who had turned on her a glance of annoyance changed it to agaze of astonishment. The cub pilot came to her on tiptoe. 

"Oh, Mr. So-and-so, " she smilingly whispered as she edged on, "I want mytwin brothers. Mom-a wants them, right away, up-stairs. "

He nodded at each word and began softly to say that this act would befinished in a minute; but she broke in, still inching along: "I can'twait a minute. I've no right to be this late. Basile wants the twins andhe's so sick that--that he can't, he mustn't wait. "

"Missy, " pleadingly whispered old Joy at their backs, "missy!" Butneither she nor the cub pilot could stop the messenger. Nor did she heedthe growing number of those seated all about her whose attention sheattracted, though now they were a dozen, a score, glancing, in asuppressed flutter, from her to the stage and from the stage to her andone another. 

Yet she stopped. For on the stage, in the play, in the part that was tohave been hers, she beheld "Harriet" doing that part so well, andwinning such lively approval, that doing it better would have distortedthe play. Rouged and coifed to reduce her apparent age as much asRamsey's was to have been increased, she was at all points so like whatRamsey would have been that the bulk of the audience had mistaken herfor Ramsey and had made her more and more a favorite at each briefreappearance. 

Fearful moment. Beyond sight only to the outer eye, the bishop, whom sheherself had pushed into the grapple of the pestilence, lay dead. Basilewas dying. Two of the Courteneys were plague stricken, and the third, for whom she felt a special, inexplicable accountability, was, withGilmore and Watson, in constant mortal peril from her twin brothers, andthe twins therefore from them. Before her eyes, so near she could havetossed a flower to her, was Phyllis, a spectre from an awful past, thedestroyer of the _Quakeress_, liable herself, within any hour, shouldthe truth be discovered, to be burned like a witch. There she was, "theslave girl Phyllis, " as the runaway advertisement would have had it, aculprit, and a property no way superior, in popular regard, to theblackest African, yet by Hayle blood so near of kin--kin! kin toher!--that with no other aid than a few touches of paint and pencil shewas being enthusiastically acclaimed as Ramsey Hayle by an assemblagewhich has just applauded her, Ramsey, in the blaze of those samefootlights. Fearful moment! that aged her as no earlier moment ever had;yes, and for the instant, at least, threw into her face a maturity thatheightened the unhappy resemblance. 

She stopped because her presence seemed about to precipitate a terriblemischief, and she stood because flight would but leave that mischief todo its worst. Through this glaring show of likeness she seemed to be inthe keenest danger of betraying back into slavery on the spot this poor, intrepid "Harriet, " identified as the Phyllis supposed these ten yearsto be under the floods of the Mississippi. At that moment, on the stage, in Ramsey's rôle of a housemaid, the rôle from which Ramsey bitterlyremembered she had been excused through Hugh Courteney's urging, "Harriet" chanced to be acting a ludicrous dismay before a transientdilemma in which, as in Ramsey's, staying threatened disaster yet goodfaith said stay--Ramsey's own present actual case except that Harriet'swas comic. A hundred beholders laughed, and then turning and peering atthe dim, central figure of Ramsey suddenly redoubled the laugh andpresently redoubled it again. 

Yet it yielded a certain relief. While there is mirth there is hope. Even now the player of the part was recognized only as Mrs. Gilmore'smaid. Her resemblance to Ramsey was passing for pure accident. That thewhole thing was visibly offensive to Hayle's twins made it all the moreamusing, and Ramsey's pause in the aisle seemed the most natural thingshe could do on finding herself in two places at the same time. So for amoment, in which she rejoiced that at any rate the twins had never seenPhyllis as Phyllis. But then the demonstration broke short off. Atdifferent points three men stood up at once. In the front row appearedJulian. A few seats behind him loomed the exhorter. The third rose justat Ramsey's elbow, offering her his seat, yet counting it but courtesystill to keep his attention mainly on the play. It was the first clerk, he who had once been clerk on the _Quakeress_, where he had knownPhyllis as Hugh's nurse, and whose scrutiny "Harriet" had until nowsomehow escaped. Whether in thanking him Ramsey accepted or declined shehardly knew, for just then the gaze he still bent on "Harriet" showed agleam of recognition. Ramsey's heart rose into her throat. She murmureda hurried word, which she had to go over a second time before it tookeffect on him:

"Mr. Hugh's looking for you, out forward. The commodore and the captainare both sick. "

As the announcement drew his quick glance she almost waved him to go. Yet what was done was done; with Phyllis recognized, it might be farbetter for him to remain, and she turned her dismissing gesture into oneof detention. 

"I'm Miss Hayle, " she whispered, while both looked again toward Julianand "Harriet. " "That's my old mammy back yonder. I want my twinbrothers. Mom-a wants them, up in the texas, as quick as--never mind, here they come. "

XLIV

FORBEARANCE

Ramsey was mistaken--her brothers were staying. The play's first act wasdone, there was great clapping and thumping and the curtain wasfalling--or closing, in two parts from opposite sides, eased oversticking-points by nimble efforts behind it; but though Julian--whoevidently had been getting through the general's courtesy the indulgencedenied him at the bar--had moved a step or so from his chair, Lucianremained seated. Next them sat the general and the senator, and the fourwere debating together. Oddly enough, the twins were in disaccord, andwhile Lucian had the senator's approval the general's went to hisbrother. The applause died out prematurely and the whole company gaveits attention to the debate, Ramsey sinking into the clerk's seat andlaughing merrily--since it was laugh or perish. 

"No, gentlemen, " she heard Julian say, "this is the last-st st-straw. Anigger wench made up to counterfeit a member of our family, and the partgiven her which that member of our family was to have played! . . . Overlook--oh, good God, sir, we've done nothing but overlook, every hourof day and night since we started. "

From the other three came responses too quiet to be understood. Ramseyhalf rose toward the clerk and sank again, begging him to carry hererrand on to the brothers, and he had softly moved forward as far as tothe exhorter when that person, still on his feet, called to Julian:

"Yass! an' thah ah cause to believe said niggeh----"

Two small interruptions came at once, provoking a general laugh: Julian, staring at him in heavy abstraction, said dreamily, "Ho--ho--hold yourtongue, " while the clerk, at "John the Baptist's" side, gently graspedbetween the shoulders a fold of his coat, mildly suggested, "Have aseat, " and put him so suddenly off his balance that he plumped heavilyinto his chair--quite enough to rouse the mirth of a company already atrifle nervous. And now Julian was heard again:

"No, Luce, you can stay, I'll go alone--or with--thank you, general! Oh, senator, we are not blind, sir, though every time we overlook someinsult they think we are. Good Lord! do you reckon we don't see that allthis laugh is at us, got up at our expense, and has been at us since thefirst turn of this boat's wheels at Canal Street? We saw--_and_overlooked--that vile attempt to take our two ladies up the riverwithout us, starting the instant they got aboard and leaving us at thewater's edge a laughing-stock for passengers, crew, and pantry boys!"

Both senator and general coaxed him to sit down, but the most he wouldconcede was to drop his voice as he continued: "You know, gentlemen, andthey know, that any true man would as soon be slapped in the face andspit upon as to be laughed at. . . . No, I--" His words becameindistinguishable. 

Ramsey was in anguish. She would have glided forward with her tidingsand summons but for the clerk blocking the path half-way. A stir ofannoyance ran through the gathering, here grave, there facetious, but itstopped short as a new figure moved quietly past Ramsey and stood besidethe clerk. It was Hugh, and the general interest revived. He exchanged aword or two with the clerk, who turned and left the cabin while Hughstayed with the exhorter. 

Julian, without seeing the newcomer, once more broke forth, this timeplainly intending to make every one his listener: "No, we don'tinterrupt and we shall not. "

"Oh, no, " daringly put in an ironical hearer, "Hayle's twins, they neverinterrupt an innocent pleasure!"

"How air it innercent?" called John the Baptist, at Hugh's side, risingagain and gesticulating. "No theayter play kin be innercent an' muchless this-yeh one, by reason 'at they ah cause to believe that-ahservant-gal----"

He was pulled down again with even less ceremony than before, though byfriendlier hands, hands of the two lenders of the sword-canes, who fellto counselling him in crafty undertones. But Julian was talking deadahead, ignoring all distractions and not even yet discovering Hugh:

"We didn't more than whisper, general, till the curtain fell. Now, didwe? When it rises again--what, sir?. . . My dear senator! it's our fellowpassengers who don't see--that their kind intentions are being made partof a put-up game to torment us to leave the boat. . . . Oh, no, they--why, sir, the dastards set it a-going the moment they'd persuaded our ladiesto stay and risk their priceless lives nursing those damned Dutch on thelower deck. "

The senator ached to be the steamer's length removed but saw no way ofdignified escape. Several listeners, remembering Ramsey's tactics andtheir success, gayly laughed, but two or three gasped an audible dismay;two or three men said, "Sh-sh-sh!" two or three said, "Ladies present, ""Remember the ladies, " and some one droned out in a mock voice: "Thestage waits. "

And plainly it did so; waited on the audience, with Mrs. Gilmore peepingthrough the curtain, whose rise would reveal "Harriet" alone; a terriblerisk if the exhorter should get in the bolt he was trying to launch. 

"Oh, where is Mr. Gilmore?" thought Ramsey, and, "Why don't they callagain for 'Gideon's Band'? Yet who would sing it?" Her distressed lipswere silently asking many such questions when she sprang up and haltedthe Californian, who had come in at her back on his way to Hugh. 

"How's the captain?" she whispered in smiling agitation. 

With low affirmative bows, so enraptured to be speaking with her as tobe all but speechless, he murmured: "Get'--getting on--so far. " He wavedan oddly delicate hand--backward from the wrist, girlishly--"He'sall--hunkadory. "

"And Basile?" Anxious as she was, she yet saw while she spoke--and hesaw--that Julian had at length sighted Hugh and that at leastthree-fourths of the audience, the whole male portion, was eying thatpair with the alertness of man's primitive interest in man-to-manencounter. At her mention of the sick boy the gold hunter ceased to nod. His countenance fell. 

"Oh, " she whispered, "won't _you_ go and tell them, all three, Mr. Courteney and both twins, how bad off he is, and that he sent me, andmom-a says come quick?"

He went. Forgetting to sit down, she watched him go and let Gilmore passher as Hugh had done. Now, what was his errand? The actor and theCalifornian reached Hugh together. The three drew a step back from theexhorter and his advisers and conferred in the aisle while Julian'stirade went straight on as completely ignored by them as though it werethe most normal sound of the boat's machinery. The sight so amused theaudience that laughter came again and then clapping and pounding, in asuccession of outbreaks, each coming so close after one of Julian'sutterances that his dizzy head took it for approval, though to every oneelse, and especially to Ramsey, the meaning was weariness of him andimpatience of Gilmore's delay. 

He spoke with his face to his associates but with his voice addressed tothose other three in the aisle: "We were invited on this boat in purecowardly malice. " (Applause. ) "To have our weapons stolen from us byservants and locked up by underlings and to have the boat's ordinaryrefreshments forbidden us. " (Laughter and applause. ) "To be thrust intocontact with a deadly pestilence and to be insulted or assaulted byhired blackguards on one or another of every deck from forecastlegangway to pilot-house. " (Long and loud applause. ) "And all this, sirs, we have overlooked; but to be made a public laughing-stock we will notendure if I have to pull every Courteney's nose to stop it!" (Loudlaughter and prolonged applause. ) Amid the din Ramsey recognized thevoice of old Joy moaning with grief and consternation in the gloombehind her, and caught the words of the cub pilot, said for his soul'srelief, not dreaming she would hear: "If you two ornery cusses wa'n'tGid Hayle's boys we'd clap you in irons quicker'n you could lick outyour tongue. "

But amid the same din what, she laughingly, painfully wondered, were thethree standers in the aisle so privately, calmly saying together--withthe actor as chief speaker, Hugh grim, and the Californian mostly anodding listener? Was Hugh--whose big eyes and stone visage so drollyfitted each other yet seemed so sadly unfitted to this bigemergency--was he insisting that it would be idle for him to go toBasile without the twins, as was only too true? Or that John the Baptistand his two disciples must first be disposed of? Or was it his word thatthe most pressing need was for the actor, long trained to perceive justwhat would capture an audience in such a stress, to step betweenfootlights and curtain, tell the people that honest facts had never beenmore crazily twisted into falsehood and slander, and explain the truesituation in a brief, apt speech, dignified and amusing? Certainlysomething had to be done and done this instant. But not that, ah, no!Or if that, not done by him, the actor. She could never imagine sucha manoeuvre attempted on a boat of her father's, whose sole way ofmastery was by pure lordship and main force. Yet here, with theseCourteneys, who, he had always said, outmastered him by their clevergraciousness, and dealing here not with subordinates but withpassengers--a living nerve of the river's whole public--talk treatmentmight be the cleverest, wisest kind to give, if only Hugh--oh, if onlyHugh!--could give it. But of course he could not, with that face, thatvisage, so much _too_ lordly and forceful--and hard--and glum--for aclever task. 

Julian ceased. His high head went a shade higher; the Californian wasadvancing straight upon him. With a pang Ramsey remembered that she hadfailed to charge the gold hunter not to let the twins know that theirbrother's summons included Hugh, lest that should keep them away. Butsurely he would see that necessity; and in fact he did. Hugh stoodstill, looking in the opposite, her, Ramsey's, direction, where theactor was coming toward her. The old nurse had stolen to her side. Theplayer went by without a glance at her. It was so much like asking whyshe stood there doing nothing that she granted the old woman's whisperedprayer and sat down. Behind her he spoke busily for a second to the cubpilot and passed out by a side exit. The pilot's cub came by, had a wordor two with the exhorter, and stayed there as if on guard. 

Now, for all these small things to happen in the one moment and tohappen in the midst of a waiting audience made its show of suspense morevivid than ever; excitement was in all eyes; every chin was lifted. TheCalifornian seemed to tell Julian a startling thing or two. The generalrose, the senator helped Lucian to his feet. The four came close aboutthe news bearer and he told more. Ramsey could almost feel his mentionof the bishop and then of Basile. Lucian asked a question or two and thefive came down the aisle, one pair leading, the other following, andJulian between, alone, overpeering all sitters, with a splendid air ofbeing commander and in the saddle. 

XLV

APPLAUSE

Diffidence! Hugh had spoken of diffidence--in himself--in the twins. Could Julian really be hiding such a thing behind such a mask? Ramseywondered. 

Every eye was on him and again the floor thundered, shaming her, flattering him. As he came on, the exhorter began to put out an arm, tospeak and to rise, but the cub pilot blandly intervened and Julianignored him. For there both brothers came face to face with the firstmate. He had entered where Gilmore went out, and now passed them with astare like their own, fire for fire, and at close quarters began toaccost the exhorter and his two adherents. 

They rose, and with evident change of meaning thunder came again, thoughnot for them. The departing twins and their triple escort; the exhorterand the four about him; Ramsey, Joy, and the returned Gilmore, who justthen touched her shoulder and whispered something to which she repliedwith quick nods of consent--all these groups lifted their gaze, with thewhole company's, to the curtained stage. 

Diffidence! oh, where _was_ diffidence? Hugh had stepped in behind thefootlights and was standing and looking out across them as foursquareand unsmiling as a gravestone. 

Their light was on his brow, whose frown smote her with foreboding. Halffolded he held a slip of paper as if about to give official notice ofsome grave matter, and his aggressive eyes, that seemed to her to look agreater distance away from a greater distance within than ever before, were fixed on one man. Absolute silence fell. And thereupon, to theopen-mouthed amazement of the audience, with his stare yet on that oneface, and in a voice that seemed octaves below hers, he began to singstraight at the exhorter:

 "Do you belong to Gideon's ban'?"

A shout of laughter, a rain of clappings, a thunder of canes and feet. Sitters bumped up and down. They were safe home again in nonsense andwere glad. Ramsey's laugh was like a dancer's bells though under coverof the dusk she let the tears roll down. Old Joy moaned and shook herhead. John the Baptist had begun to retort but withered before aferocious muffled threat from the mate while following him into theaisle. "Bucked and gagged, " was the mate's odd phrase, at which a dozenor so nearest him laughed again, a bit nervously. They looked back tosee if the twins had heard it, and were just in time to catch fromJulian and the general a last glare of scorn as the group of five leftthe cabin. Then again came silence, except behind the footlights, wherethe sphinx-like singer bore straight on through the refrain and came tothe new lines. Sing them out, sphinx; the more senseless the better. 

 "Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, De hawg and de whoopdedoodendoo. Do you belong----?"

The inquiry was drowned in applause, which swelled as the mate and theexhorter went out with the latter's two backers--more eagle-eyed andstallion-eyed than ever--and with Watson's cub at the rear. A numberstretched up for a glimpse of Ramsey but she too--and the actor--andJoy--were gone. There was another waiting hush, and the droll singer, sodroll because so granite solemn, resumed:

 "Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, De merry-go-roun' and de hullabaloo. Do you belong----?"

Applause! Was that the end? Not if the applauders could help it! The daywas coming when a boiler-deck and pilot-house tradition, heard by manywith hearty enjoyment, by many with silent disdain, would be this: thataboard the old _Votaress_ on her first up trip--late spring of'52--cholera on every deck--mutiny hotly smouldering--the unreason offear and of wrath were beaten in fair fight by the unreason of mirth, and men's, women's, children's lives--no telling how many--were saved, through the cleverness of some play-actors and first the youngest of allthe Hayles and then the youngest of all the Courteneys singing anonsense song! Sing it! sing on!

He sang on:

 "Den de grizzly-b'ah and den de mole, De grizzly-b'ah and den de mole, De grizzly-b'ah and den de mole, De terrapintime and de wrigglemarole. Do you belong----?"

The plaudits were at their height and Hugh still on the interrogativeline when there came from behind the curtain a voice skilfully thrown toreach only him:

"Give them one verse more and we'll be ready!"

He gave it:

 "Las' de cattlemaran and de curlicue, De cattlemaran and de curlicue, De cattlemaran and de curlicue, De daddy-long-legs and de buggaboo. Do you belong----?"

He stepped quickly from the "stage. " The curtains drew apart. The scenerevealed was a drawing-room. In it stood alone, as if playfullylistening for something, the housemaid; not "Harriet" but Ramsey. (Laughter and applause. )

XLVI

AFTER THE PLAY

Neither Hugh nor Ramsey slept a moment that night. And no more did theGilmores or "Harriet" or John the Baptist or even the senator or theCalifornian. The play, second act, was cut without mercy and rushed to aclose to let its hero and heroine off at Napoleon, which Ned called a"future city" but which, some years later, became a former city, bymelting into thin air, or thick water, and leaving not so much behind asa candle-end or a broken bottle. 

It was not far above there that these unsleeping passengers began toremark a fresh rise in the river's flood, which her "family" and crewhad noticed much earlier by a difference in the nature and quantity ofits driftwood. Near the mouth of White River, about an hour's run aboveNapoleon, a great floating tree stump, with all its roots, was caught onthe buckets of the "labboard" wheel--"like a cur on a cow's horn, " saidGilmore--and carried clear over it with a sudden hubbub in thepaddle-box, tenfold what ten curs could have made, bringing to his feetevery passenger not abed, and scaring awake every sleeping one. NeitherRamsey nor Hugh ever forgot it, for it evoked the last stir in thesupine form of Basile, and a faint spasm in his cold grasp on Hugh'sfingers. Under his freer hand, on his all but motionless breast, lay hismother's crucifix. Shortly before, while waiting for Hugh's tardycoming, he had held a hand of his sister, whose other held her mother's. On the edge of the berth, at his feet, sat Lucian, very pale, withJulian standing by him. Both betrayed deep feeling yet kept a brave lookthat was good to see even with eyes as prejudiced as Hugh's. Only Basilehimself was without tears. 

How fashions change! There are styles even in death-bed scenes. This onewas of the old fashion, bearing a strong tinge of fatalism; no hopefulmake-believe to the dying that death was other than death; no covert, diligent, desperate economies of the vital spark; but a frank, helplessreception of the dread angel as a royal guest, and a pious, inertconsent to let the dying die. Before either Hugh or Ramsey could comefrom the cabin the twins had reached the bedside and had been receivedwith a final lighting up of the boy's spent powers, which his mothermade no effort to restrain. In a feeble, altered voice, without heat, scorn, or petulance, with a mind stripped of all its puerilities andfull of fraternal care and faithfulness, and with a magisterial dignityfar beyond his years, he slowly poured out a measured stream ofarraignment and appeal which their hardened hearts were still too youngto withstand unmoved. 

His conversion, he told them, had come to him with a great light, "onthe road to Damascus, " and by that light he saw, as he implored them tosee, the hideous deformity of the life he and they and the young fellowsof their usual companionship had been living. Even Ramsey knew, hecontinued as she and their old nurse silently reappeared, that by theplainest laws of the land, they were not too good for the penitentiary. An overweening pride in their lawlessness did not justify or excuse it;the devils had that, in hell. They, the twins, were not Christiangentlemen. They were _not gentlemen at all_. They'd shoot a man down inhis tracks for saying so, or for calling them liars, yet they'd turn thetruth wrong side out every day in the year. These last two days they'ddone it right along. At this moment they had a fixed design to kill HughCourteney on the first good chance and didn't care a continental whetherthey did it in face-to-face murder or from behind a bush. Lying atdeath's door, he said, and in jealousy for the same Hayle name theyprofessed to be so jealous for, he demanded their oath to abandon thatdesign; to stop it, drop it, "right here and now, " and never to seek thelife of any Courteney but in clear defence of some other life. His ownseemed almost to fade out at that point, yet presently:

"Hold up your right hands, " he gasped, trying to raise his. The motherlifted it for him while giving the twins a tearful flash of command. Unconsciously Ramsey put up hers as Lucian's left suddenly caughtJulian's right and he held up both it and his own. 

But neither the boy nor Ramsey nor the old nurse felt assured, and allthree were glad when the mother asked:

"You swear?"

Julian stood mute but, "With that provision, " said Lucian, "we swear. "

"So help you God?" insisted the mother, and while she spoke and thetwins bowed, the narrow door let some one in. 

"Is that Hugh Courteney?" asked the boy. "You're just in time, Hugh. Thefeud's off. "

"Oh, there's no feud, Basile, " tenderly murmured Hugh. 

"No, it's off, thank God. I got it off. The twins have just sworn itoff. Shake hands, boys. Come, you first, Jule. "

But Lucian led, with a certain alacrity, Julian following with less. 

"Now take my hand, Hugh. " The voice was failing but once more itrallied. "Give it to him, sis'. . . . Thank you. . . . Keep it, HughCourteney. I love a brave man's hand. We heard you singing, Hugh. My!but you've got grit. I wish you belonged to Gideon's band yourself. You're braver than most men, though most men'll always think they'rebraver than you. "

Hugh could only dry the damp from the cold brow. He grew fiercelyashamed not so much of his tears, which those around him were tootearful to observe, as of the boy's praises, before which he could onlystand dumb. 

"He's brave, sis', " Basile went on, "and he's clean, and he's square, mother, boys. You were on the _Quakeress_ when she burned, wa'n't you?Ah, me!--wish I'd known you then. I'd be a different man now. I don'tbelieve I'd be dying. My heavenly Father wouldn't 'a' had to call me inout of the storm. "

[Illustration: "My heavenly Father wouldn't 'a' had to call me in out ofthe storm"]

His mother sank to her knees against the berth's side, covered her face, and shook with grief. The daughter sank too, weepingly caressing her, yet was still able so to divide her thought as yearningly to wish Hugh, for his own sake, well away, as she saw his hand softly endeavor to drawfree from Basile's. But it was on that instant that the great tree rootcame thundering up through the wheel-house and the dying clasptightened. The shock of surprise revived him. "Hugh--do something forme?. . . Thank you. Bishop's gone, you know. Read my burial service. Idon't want the--play-actor--though he's fine; nor the priest, thoughhe's fine, too. Mom-a'd be a saint in any--persuasion, and pop and usboys are Methodists, if anything, and I--I didn't get religion in Latinand I don't want to be buried in it. " He waited. Hugh was silent. 

The Creole mother, still kneeling, drew closer. "Yass, " she said, "heshall read that. "

But plainly there was one thing more though the tired eyelids sank. "Letdown your ear, " murmured the lips. 

Hugh knelt, bent, waited. The distressed twins watched them. The hold onhis hand relaxed. He lifted and looked. 

"What do he say?" tearfully asked old Joy, pressing in. 

"Nothing, " said Hugh; and then to the twins: "He's gone. "

 * * * * *

Out in the benign starlight and caressing breeze Hugh hastened to hisfather's door. 

XLVII

INSOMNIA

Down in the cabin, in one of its best staterooms, where all were choice, the senator wooed slumber. 

In vain. Sounds were no obstacle. They abounded but they were normal. Except--"Peck-peck-peck" and so on, which the steady pulse of normalsounds practically obliterated. The peck-pecking was not for him. 

An unwelcome odor may keep one awake, but the senator's berth wasfragrant of fresh mattresses and new linen, the wash-stand of jasminesoap, and the room at large of its immaculate zinc-white walls and doorsand their gilt trimmings. Nor could the cause be his supper of beefsteakand onions, black coffee, hot rolls, and bananas, for every one abouthim had had those, and every one about him was sound asleep. It couldnot be for lack of the bath; he had already slept well without it toomany nights hand-running. Nor could it be a want of specialnightclothes; he had won his election over a nightshirt aristocrat, asbeing not too pampered to sleep, like the sons of toil, in the shirt hehad worn all day and would wear again to-morrow. Nor yet was it nicotineor alcohol, the putting of which into him was like feeding cottonwood toHayle's old _Huntress_. Such, at least, was his private conviction. Oh, he knew the cause! He believed he could drop into sleep as this boat'ssounding-lead could drop to the river's bottom, if for one minute hecould get his mind off that singularly old, contemptibly youngpoker-face. 

Recalling that face and the grandfather's as he had confronted themtogether earlier in the journey, they were a double reminder of theFranklinian maxim--he kept a store of such things for stump use--that anold young man makes a young old man. But maxims didn't bring sleep; heturned the pillow and damned the maxim and the men, with BenjaminFranklin to boot. 

It tossed him from his right side to his left, to think of his own partin this two days' episode, and of the flocks of passengers steppingashore at various landings who, as sure as--hmm!--would at every stepdrop that story into the public ear as corn is dropped into the furrow. It tossed him back again, to think how his adversaries in the politicalgame, where cunning was always trumps, would light down on that storylike crows behind the plough. He mixed his metaphors by habit; thepeople loved them mixed. Another maxim, his own invention, was, Takecare of your character and your reputation will take care of itself. The---- it will! You've got to take _at least_ as much care of reputation. But here both were concerned. He could not, for the sake either of hischaracter _or_ his reputation, let himself be made a fool of by any one, however small, anywhere. He had got to recover a personal importancesolemnly pilfered from him by a half-grown Shanghai still in hispin-feathers. Against Hayle's girl he was excusably helpless, but him hehad got to get the upper hand of and get it quick. Memphis in themorning! More passengers to be dropped there and the whole town'sattention to be attracted by the burial of the bishop. Good Lord! That"verbatim report for the newspapers"! And of all papers the Memphispapers! _Avalanche_--_Appeal_--it was all one, he happening to be at themoment equally at odds with both. It, the "report, " would not take adefensive attitude. Poker-face was too sharp for that. It would take theoffensive from the start and it would take the start. Gentlemen of thejury, in a war of words there's just one word better than the last, andthat's the first! And moreover! the brief "report's" main theme wouldnot be he, the senator, nor his vanished committee of seven. No, sir-ee, it would be the cholera, and he would be dished up in a purely casualway; as the French say "on, pass on. "

He rubbed his head and sat up. There was a chance that he might findHugh awake and on duty. If so his cast-iron lordship might yet bebrowbeaten, or wheedled, into inaction. Or if sleeping he might yet becircumvented. Was he worth circumventing? How absurdly troubles magnifyon a waking pillow. Despise your enemy and sleep! Well--hardly. Let_him_ do that, especially when _you can't_. 

He threw off the light cover, rose, and dressed. He began to see a wayto win. He would countermine. He would raise a counter-issue--"Harriet. "Loitering by the twins' door he listened and rightly judged they wereasleep, Lucian being so feeble and Julian so full. The office was openbut empty. Its clock read two. The card-tables were vacant. The bar wasclosed. Out on the dim boiler deck he found only the two who had fleecedBasile. They sat at the very front, elbow to elbow, with their feet upon the rail. Their quiet talk ceased as he came near and stood lookingout over the gliding bow and the waters beyond, which were out of theirbanks and stretched everywhere off into the night, a veritable deluge. 

"A good forty miles wide, no doubt, " he remarked to the pair, and theyassured him he was right. 

"What piece of river is this?" he inquired, and was told that they werein the long, winding, desolate sixty-mile stretch between White Riverand Horseshoe Bend; that they had just put Islands Sixty-two andSixty-three astern and would be more than two hours yet in reachingHelena. 

"Arkansas your State?" he asked. "Helena your town?"

"No, " they said, they were of the "hoop-pole State, " meaning Indiana. Heknew better but changed the subject. "The Ohio, " he remarked, "must beup on her hind legs. "

"Yes, everything was up: the Saint Francis, the Tennessee, Cumberland, Illinois, Wabash, Kentucky, Miami, Scioto--" The pair did not talk likemen narrowly of the hoop-pole commonwealth. Modestly speaking on, theyseemed to know the whole great valley quite by heart. 

So the senator, to show how quite by heart he knew this whole littleworld, said affably: "The pan-fish ain't biting so very lively thistrip. "

The reply was as flawless for candor as though they had the same hope touse him which he had to use them. Said one:

"No, we ain't paying expenses. "

And his mate: "We've caught a few little flappers. "

"Captain's son make it hard to do business?"

"Oh, he--we've all got our prejudices, you know. "

"Yes, you ought to have some against him by now. "

"Maybe so. You've got yourn, senator, we've noticed. "

"I? No! I admire him. The way he runs this cabin----"

"Makes her keep up with the boat, " they admitted. 

"I never saw his like, " laughed the statesman. 

"Wouldn't want to, would you?"

"N-no, he makes big mistakes. But--he's got a future!"

"So mind his heels, " said one of the pair. They were enjoying theirpolitician. He saw that by their gravity. In their world men lookedgravest when amused, and saved their smiles for emergencies. While heoffered, and they accepted, cigars he spoke absently:

"The young gentleman's making a mistake right now that he ought to besaved from. "

"Another?" they dryly asked as they used his cigar for a light. So farhad he fallen in the general esteem. 

He chose not to hear. "I wish, " he insisted, "we could save him fromit. "

"Why, yes!--wish you could. But 'we' ain't us. We sporting men, we'remighty bashful, you know. "

"Naturally, " admitted the senator. 

"Yes, glass, with care. But there's another mistake maker we wish youwished you could save. We ev'm might help. "

"Aha!" thought the senator. He was right, after all. He had feltconfident that these men, treated by Hugh as they had been, wouldprivately "have it in for him"; that they would be glad of any safechance to "get away with him"--not so utterly as to imperil their necks, yet not too lightly for their spiritual comfort the rest of theirdays--and that they saw their chance just where he saw his. 

"Ye-es?" He mused. They let him muse. The exhorter, he reflected, havingpicked up the trail and opened the cry--trail which the headlong twinshad so witlessly overrun--these older dogs were on it hot; trail of theGilmores and "Harriet. " Somewhere on that trail the captain's son wouldshow up, and when the game should be treed they would be able, in thegeneral mix-up, to "go and see Hugh" and "cook his goose. "

The musing ceased. "You mean the actor?"

The pair warmed up. "Yes, sir-ee, him. _That_ fellow's making a mistakewe might help you to handle. God! sir, he's a nigger-stealer. His wifehas got a stolen nigger wench with her now. Had her these ten years. Save _him_. Save _them_. "

"Our friend John the Baptist suggests that, " began the senator. 

"Adzac'ly!" was the facetious affirmation. "Smelt 'em out at the show. That's how come the mate has locked him up. "

The senator stiffened. "Oh, you must be mistaken!"

"Want to bet? Pull out. Go you a thousand they've jugged him and themtwo Arkansas killers. Yes, sir, to stay jugged till they leave us, atHelena. "

"Who!--have done that?"

"Same as you're thinking; they; them; him; that believes he's bossingthe boat--which maybe he is. "

"Where is he?"

"Up on the roof, with a select few, both sexes. "

"Gentlemen, he must let them go at once!"

"Senator, not with money, but just on your word, you sort o' bail 'emout. If they cut up, nobody'll blame you. "

"I'll do it! We don't want an owner of the finest boat on Southernwaters to have any part in _that sort_ of mistake, whatever his youth. "

"Youth!" (Profanity. ) "That boy's forty year' old. Oh, he's all right;if he thinks he'd ought to protect every galoot on his boat, why, maybehe'd ought. What you know is that that white nigger's _got_ to be tookaway from them two barnstormers instanter and restored back to her ownHayle folks. That's a mistake you ain't never got to ask nobody's leavesto save nobody from. "

"You don't mean to-night?" Capital disguise for eagerness--the cigar. The senator puffed. The pair puffed. 

"We mean now; when the right men can be woke up and the others--and theladies--sleep on. Now, straightaway, while the shouter's stillaboard--and the two shooters. If we wa'n't sporting men we'd like to sitinto that game ourselves. Maybe we can if it's kept--dignified. "

"Even if there's resistance?"

"Who'll resist? The boat's people? Only thing they dassen't resist. Couldn't never run another trip on this river. Resist! Couldn't everresist, any time; but now? Look at their fix. Sweet time to seteverybody a-kicking like steers. Bishop dead, chief Dutch woman ditto, that nice young Hayle boy that they took away from us when he wanted tostay like a man, ditto----"

"Oh, not dead? My God! I hadn't heard that. "

"No, it ain't been properly advertised. But Hamlet knows it--I mean youractor. The way him and his wife--or lady--are buzzing around, you'dthink they was the undertakers. Maybe they are. _He_ won't resist. Heknows how well resistance would suit you--oh, not yourself, no more'nus, but--the crowd; men like them three that's locked up and must beturned loose first thing. He knows if he lifts a finger, or so much asgives anybody any of his lip--and maybe anyhow--he'll be took ashore andlost in the woods, first time we stop to bury some more Dutch; saydaybreak. "

"Ah, but we mustn't let that happen, either. "

"Oh, no! we mustn't let that happen, either. "

"Well"--the senator put on a bustling frown--"I'll see Hugh. I wish--Iwonder if that Californian has----"

"Put up his shutters? No, he's on the roof. Why?"

"He might help wake up the right men, as you say. "

One of the pair, without rising, tapped the senator caressingly. "You--let--California--sweat. Trust in Providence. The right men'll getwoke up somehow, beginning with the general. That right?. . . All gay, butdon't you take no California in yourn to-night. "

"No? Very well. But--I wonder if you gentlemen really recognize theseriousness of this affair. "

"Look a-here, senator, you go up-stairs and save Mr. Innocence fromrunning his boat into this mistake. " The sleek pair rose, evidently tobegin their part. 

The senator rummaged his mind for a word that would give him creditableexit but had to hurry off without it. Turning, the two exchanged a calmgaze and one luxurious puff, which meant that the "old sucker's" use ofthem would suit them exactly. They rummaged for no words; had no moreneed for words than two leopards. 

Before falling to work they glanced out over the flood. This wasHorseshoe Cut-off. Kangaroo Point was just astern in the west. Yonderahead, under the old moon, came Friar's Point. In these hundred milesbetween Napoleon and Helena they were meeting one by one the Saturdayevening boats out of Saint Louis. Now one came round the upper bend, four days from Cincinnati. They knew her; the Courteneys' fine old_Marchioness_. The young _Votaress_ swept by her saluting and salutedlike the belle of a ball, a flying vision of luxury, innocence, and joy. 

XLVIII

"CALIFORNIA"

Under the benign stars, as we have said, Hugh hastened from Basile tohis father. 

Those were the same heavenly lights with which only two nights earlierhe and that father had so tranquilly--and the dead boy's sister soairily--communed. With a hand yet on the door that he was leaving, andwhile his distress for what had befallen in this room brought aforeboding of what might impend in the other, he felt the chiding ofthat celestial benignity and was dimly made to see its illimitable spanand the smallness of magnifying the things we call trouble. 

All the more, then, a melting heart for the tearful mother and sister, to whom no word of this could be said; but a stout heart, stouter thanhe knew where to find, for whatever was yet in store. Also a preoccupiedgood-by to sweet companionship. Nay, a mind too preoccupied for anygood-by to any companionship for the remainder of this voyage, if notforever. It was humiliating to have even so much thought of such a kindat such a time; yet suppress it as he might, he could not wholly stifleit, even at his father's door. 

Three hours later the senator, coming up in search of him, graduallydiscovered the presence of more people than he was looking for or caredeven to find awake--being who they were. At the top of the steps he toldthe watchman sleeplessness had driven him up here for fresh air. It isbut human to explain to a watchman. 

But how was the captain? And how was the commodore?

The commodore was doing well enough, but the captain--the watchman shookhis head with the wisdom of a doctor. 

The seeker after fresh air, eager to move on, yet loath to imply thatthe air about a watchman was stale, said, with a glance at the stars, that here was quiet. 

But the watchman begged to differ. Never by starlight had he seen sobusy a hurricane-deck. Just now there was a lull but it was the first inthree hours. Preparations here, preparations there, for the dead, forthe living, the sick, the well; such a going and coming of cabin-boys, of chambermaids, of the immigrant they called Marburg, the Hayles' oldblack woman, the texas tender, the mud clerk, the actor and his wife, her servant girl----

"And others, " prompted the senator. "What doing?"

A hundred things. The actor's wife had got Miss Hayle into funeral blackfrom her own stage "warrobe, " and the young man Marburg had brought up, for Madame Hayle, one of his deceased mother's mourning gowns, "aprodigious fine one. " It did not fit but the actor's wife and her maidwere altering it while they kept watch where Basile lay and while MadameHayle resumed her cares on the lower deck. 

And who was caring for the commodore?

Second clerk and mud clerk answered his few needs. 

But the captain----?

Ah, that was another matter. The actor was with him. 

Mr. Gilmore; um-hmm. A step or so forward of the captain's room, as thesenator moved toward the bell, two male figures seated on the edge ofthe skylight roof spoke his name in a mild greeting, and, lookingclosely, he found them to be Watson's cub and the Kentuckian whom thepair down on the boiler deck had just called "California. "

The senator expressed surprise that these two were not abed, where hehimself ought to be but--sleeplessness had driven him up here for freshair. 

"Well, here the fresh air is, " said California. "Senator, we've justbeen wishing we could see you. "

"Ah!" said the senator, grateful yet wary. "I'll just take a turn or twoup forward and be right back. "

"But--hold on, senator; just one question. "

The three stood. "Now, this first question ain't it; this is just thecut and deal. Hayle's twins have offered to fight Hugh Courteney--anyway open to gentlemen, as they say--haven't they?"

"Oh--night before last, I--believe so. "

"Ancient history, yes; but it's a standing invitation and they've calledhim names: poltroon, coward----"

"Well, really, Mr. So-and-so, while we can't justify the names, nor theinvitation, we can't wonder at the givers. "

"Why--I can. I think they're pretty tol'able wonderful. But so's he--tolet 'em do it. Now, this ain't the question, either, but--why does heallow it? It ain't for lack of pluck, senator. I know a coward'searmarks and he ain't got 'em. It ain't for religion; less'n two hoursout of Orleans he'd offered them twins, I'm told, to take 'em down tothe freight deck and dish up the brace of 'em at one fell scoop. And nomore is it because his people won't let him alone to do his own way. He's about the let-alone-dest fellow I ever see, for his age, if he isany particular age. No, sir, I've studied out what it's for. "

"Hmm. But what's your question? What's _it_ about?"

"Why, it's about this--and your friend the general. For I'll tell you, senator, why Mr. Hugh don't fight. It's for--can I tell you inconfidence, strict, air-tight?"

"Certainly, strict, air-tight. "

"Well, then, it's for love. He's in love with their sister. Now, _that's_ something I _don't_ wonder at. I am, too. So are a lot of us. "He smiled at the cub, who frowned away. "Now, by natural fitness, he'sgot ground for hope. I ain't got a square inch. She ain't on my claim. Next week my face'll be to the setting sun. So what do I do but go tohim--this was before her young brother died--which I almost loved thebrother too--and s'I, 'Mr. Courteney, I've saw the sun go down and mooncome up on this thing three times running, and every time and allbetween I've stood it, seeing you stand it. And I've studied it. And Isee your fix. But most of us don't; so somebody's got to indorse you. Now, being a Kentuckian, not blue-grass but next door, I feel like doingit. You've _got_ to play two hands and you _can't_ play but one. Well, I'll play the one you can't. I'll fight them twins. '"

"Well, of all--and he accepted?"

"Now, you know he didn't. He said it would be absolutely impossible. Buthe said it the funniest way--! It made me see the size of him for thefirst time. And, senator, he's life-size. But I reckon you knowed thatbefore I did. He took me by the button-hole, just as I'm holding younow, and talked to me as majestic as a father sending his boy off toschool, and at the very same time and in the very same words as sweet asa girl sending her soldier to war. "

"And he convinced you?"

"No, we was interrupted and couldn't talk it out. Well, I can't go backto him and resume, no more'n a wildcat bank. For one thing, I wouldn'ttake him from her. "

"You don't mean they're together now?"

"Now, no, but by spells, yes. Bound to happen--so many of us so willing. I'd try to talk the thing out with this young man and Mr. Watson, butthey all feel alike. Reckon it does 'em credit, but--well--I'd like totalk it out with you and the general. I think we can dispense with theboat's consent. Don't you?"

"Oh, Lord, man, what have I got to do with that?"

"Hold your horses, senator. I look at it this way: If the twins hadn'tbeen too busy pecking at Mr. Hugh I'm just the sort o' man they'd 'a'pecked at, and hence I have a good moral right to waive their not doingit and take the will for the deed. "

"Nonsense, my good friend; good joke, nothingmore. "

"Hold on; there's this anyhow: If Mr. Hugh _could_ accept theirinvitation maybe he'd take me for his second; and what does second meanif it don't mean that if, after all, something should force him to dropout I could drop in?"

"Oh, " laughed the senator, freeing his buttonhole by gentle force andedging away, "very well; but the twins! They're out! Look at _their_fix; _they_ can't fight now. "

"Senator, just so. But the general, all along he's sort o' been theirsecond; indorsed for 'em same's I'd like to for Mr. Hugh. He'd be theirsecond now if they could fight--as we know they'd be glad to. So, whyain't he honor bound to take their place if I take Mr. Hugh's? Thisyoung gentleman'll act for me--won't you?--yes, and the senator can actfor the general. Then, senator, the first time we can get ashore we cansettle the whole thing without involving Mr. Hugh and without everletting the ladies know--or the crowd either--that it ain't just our ownaffair. I can easily give the general cause, you know. "

"My friend, " said the cunning senator, who knew his ruling sin wastardiness and that he was tardy now, "I don't say anything could befairer--in its right time. If you'll go to bed and to sleep----"

"Senator, delays are dangerous. I might get the cholera. The generalmight get it. Or some other trouble might crop up and sort o' separateus. "

Ah! It flashed into the senator's mind that California, though meaningall he said, had in full view the Gilmore-Harriet affair and that thiswas a move in that, a move to checkmate. His countermove had to beprompt; some one was coming up the nearest steps. "My dear sir, there_is_ another trouble; serious, imminent, and almost sure to involve ourfriend Hugh in a vital mistake--Why, general, I thought you, at least, was asleep. "

"Sss-enator, I was. I mmm-erely had not und-ressed. Have you fff-oundthat young man?"

"Not yet, general. Let's go see him together. I want to see you, too, for just a moment, if these gentlemen will excuse me that long. "

"Mr. Hugh's with the first clerk, yonder by the bell, " said the goldhunter. "We'll wait here, eh?"

The general wanted to reply, but "I wish you would, " responded thesenator and hurried him away. 

XLIX

KANGAROO POINT

Aboard the _Votaress_ was a gentle, retiring lady, large and fair, whomboth Hugh and Ramsey had liked from the first, yet whose acquaintancethey had made very slowly and quite separately. She was a parson's wife, who had never seen a play, a game of cards, or a ball, danced a dance, read a novel, tasted wine, or worn a jewel. She had four handsome, decorous, well-freckled children, two boys, two girls. 

At table, until the married pairs of Vicksburg, Yazoo, and Milliken'sBend had gone ashore, she had not sat with the foremost dozen, althoughshe and the bishop spoke often together and were always "sister" and"brother. " Her near neighbors at the board had been the Carthaginiansand Napoleonites, and it was through them that she had met the Gilmores. To Ramsey and Hugh she had been made known by her children, one boy andgirl having fallen wildly in love with the young lady's red curls, andthe other two with Hugh and his frown. 

The Gilmores' hearts she had won largely by the way in which her talkswith them revealed the sweet charities of a soul unwarped by thetyrannous prohibitions under which she had been "born and raised" and towhich she was still loyal; and she had crowned the conquest by a gentle, inflexible refusal to "brother" John the Baptist. In their lively mindsshe reawakened the age-old issue between artist and pietist. Said theamused Gilmore:

"Humiliate me? Not in the least. She only humbles me; she's such abeautiful example of----"

"Yes, but, goodness, don't say it here!" said his wife. "Harriet" andthe exhorter were already trouble enough. 

Nevertheless, "What lovely types of character, " insisted Gilmore, "comeoften, _so_ often, from ugly types of faith!"

The wife flinched and looked about but he persisted: "So much better, mylove--this is only my humble tribute to her--so _much_ better isreligion, even her religion, without the liberal arts than the liberalarts without religion. Faith is the foundation, they are the upperworks. "

"Dear, you should have been a preacher!"

"No, I'd always be preaching that one sermon. If I didn't tell it toyou, I'd have to tell it to her, or make you tell her. "

Mrs. Gilmore had not told her, but between the two women, across thegulf between them, there had grown such a commerce of silent esteem thatneither Hugh nor Ramsey knew which one's modest liberalism to admiremost. To Ramsey it was nothing against the matron that she was notnursing the immigrant sick. Only Madame Hayle was allowed to do that, and the parson's wife, being quite without madame's art of doing as shepleased, had had to submit conscience and compassions to the captain'sforbiddal, repeated by the commodore and Hugh. But after the play shehad insisted, "strict orders or none, and whether her children were fouror forty-four, " on entering the service of the busy Gilmores, "no matterhow, " and was now, with old Joy, in the pilot-house, a most timelysuccessor to the actor's wife in the social care of Ramsey. 

For to Ramsey, in this first bereavement of her life, sleep was asabhorrent as if her brother's burial were already at hand. Grief wasgood, for grief was love. Sleep was heartlessness. Moreover, in sleep, only in sleep, there was no growth. Of course, that was not true; onlyyesterday and the day before she had grown consciously between eveningand morning, grown wonderfully. But she had forgotten that and in everyfibre of her being felt a frenzy for growth, for getting on, like thefrenzy of a bird left behind by the flock. All the boat's human life, all its majestic going--led on by the stars--and especially all those bywhose command or guidance it went, made for growth. So, too, did thisdear Mrs. So-and-so, who could so kindly understand how one in deepsorrow may go on seeing the drollery of things. Grief, love, solace, growth, she was all of them in one. If she, Ramsey, might neither nursethe sick with her mother nor watch with Mrs. Gilmore and "Harriet, " herewas this dear, fair lady with the tenderest, most enlightening words offaith and comfort that ever had fallen on her ears; words never tooeager or too many, but always just in time and volume to satisfy grief'sfitful questionings. 

For refuge they had tried every quarter of these upper decks; now pacedthem, now stood, now sat, and had found each best in its turn; but suchopen-air seclusion itself drew notice, made notice more felt, and so thedusk of the pilot-house had soon been found best of all. It remained sonow--while the great chimneys out forward breathed soothingly, and amile astern glimmered the _Westwood_, and a mile ahead glimmered the_Antelope_, and here among the few occupants of the visitors' benchthere drifted a soft, alluring gossip about each newly turned bend ofthe most marvellous of rivers. To nestle back in its larboard cornerwhile now some one came up and in and now some one slipped down and out, and while ever the pilot's head and shoulders and the upper spokes ofhis vigilant wheel stood outlined against the twinkling sky and ripplingair, was like resting one's head on the _Votaress's_ bosom. 

And yet another reason made sleep unthinkable. He who had said, "I needyou, " was awake, was on watch. Now that the feud, blessed thought, wasall off, sworn off, and a lingering mistrust of the twins seemed quiteunsisterly, probably that need of her, or illusion of need, had passed. Well, if so he ought to say so! For here were great cares and dangersyet. The river was out of all its bounds. Most of those boundsthemselves and the great plantations behind them were under the swirlingdeluge. The waters of Scrubgrass Bend, for instance, were crosscuttingover Scrubgrass Towhead in one league-wide sheet, and IslandsSeventy-this-and-that and Islands Sixty-that-and-this were under them totheir tree-tops. These things might be less fearful in fact than inshow, or might be a matter wherein it was only a trifle more imbecile tothink of her helping than in some others. Yet here were officers andservants of the boat busy out of turn and omitting routine dutiesunfortunate to omit and which she might perform if they would but lether. She noticed the presence of both pilots at once--Watson at thewheel, Ned on the bench. No wonder, with so awesome a charge; guiding aboat like this, teeming with human souls and driven pell-mell throughsuch a war of elemental forces in desert darkness, with never a beaconlight from point to point, from hour to hour; running every chute, witha chute behind nearly every point or island, and the vast bends loopingon each other like the folds of a python and but little more to betrusted. 

And here was this "Harriet" affair, a care and danger that as yetsmouldered, but at any moment, with or without aid of the twins, mightblaze. No one mentioned it, but you could smell it like smoke. And herewas that supreme care and danger, the plague, with all the earlierprecautions against it dropped, and with its constant triple question:Who next of the sick? Who next of the well? Who next on either of thedecks below?

Two or three times Hugh came, sat awhile, spoke rarely, and went out. What a spontaneous new deference every one accorded him and with what asimple air of habitude he received it, though it seemed to mark him forbereavement as well as for command! Why did he come? Why did he go?wondered Ramsey. Not that she would hinder him, coming or going. Shecould not guess that one chief object was care of her. She could onlyrecall how lately they two had stood behind the footlights and sungtheir nonsense rhymes, partners in, and justified by, one brave, merciful purpose. Ought he to let care, danger, and grief, as soon asthey had become acutely hers and his, drive him and her apart and strikehim dumb to her, as dumb as a big ship dropping her on a desert shoreand sailing away? Various subtleties of manner in others on the benchconvinced her that they were thinking of him and her and thinking thesesame questions. What right had he to bring that upon her? Once, as hewent out, somebody unwittingly stung her keenly by remarking, to no onein particular, that it was hard to see what should keep him so busy. 

"D'you know, " retorted Ned, "what running a boat is?"

"Why, yes, it's making things spin so smooth you can't see 'em spin, ain't it?"

"Right. Ever fly a kite? Not with yo' eyes shet, hey? Well, a boat's ahundred kites. Ain't she, Watsy?"

"Two hundred, " said Watson, at the wheel. 

"But Mr. Hugh ain't actually running this boat, is he?"

"I ain't said he wuz, " replied Ned, and----

"He ain't a-runnin' no other, " said Watson. 

For an instant Ramsey was all pride for him they exalted; but in thenext instant a wave of resentment went through her as if their vauntingwere his; as if her pride were his own confessed, colossal vanity; as ifthe price of his uplift were her belittlement. Never mind, he shouldpay! Absurd, absurd; but she was harrowingly tired, lonely, idle, grief-burdened, and desolate, and absurdity itself was relief. He shouldpay, let his paying cost her double. Somehow, in some feminine, minute, pinhole way, she would deflate him, wing him, bring him down, before heshould soar another round. With old Joy at her feet, in the dusk of hercorner beyond Mrs. So-and-so, the parson's wife; she allowed herself apoor, bitter-sweet smile. 

Each time when Hugh had come back to the bench, room had been hurriedlymade for him next the parson's wife--"stabboard side"--who, speaking forall, promptly began to interrogate him, her first question always beingas to his father's condition, which did not improve. Making room on thebench made room in the conversation--decoying pauses hopefully designedto lure him into saying something, anything, to Ramsey, or her to him;but always the kind trap had gone unsprung. Two or three times, obviously, Mrs. So-and-so's inquiries had first been Ramsey's to her; aswhen one of them elicited the fact that the next turn would be HorseshoeCut-off and Kangaroo Point; and once, at length, after twice failing tobelieve the ear she bent to Ramsey's murmur, she said audibly:

"Ask him, dear; ask him yourself. "

Every one waited and presently Hugh remarked:

"I'll answer if I can. "

"I'd rather, " faltered Ramsey, "ask John the Baptist. "

The unlucky mention took no evident effect on any one. If that was thesnub she would have to try again. 

"I can ask him for you, " said Hugh. "He's up, expecting to leave us atHelena. "

"No, thank you, " she sighed, "you're too awfully busy. It won't make anyreal difference if I never find out. "

"Won't sink the boat to ask, " drawled Watson; but she remained silenttill Hugh inquired:

"Are you sure I can't tell you?"

"Oh, you can!" came from Ramsey's dark corner. "But--with the whole boatin your care--we oughtn't to ask you things we don't have to know. "

"Lard! belch it out, " urged the innocent Ned, taking her in earnest; butagain she was silent. 

"Well?" said Hugh. 

"Oh, well, are there many--? Oh, it ain't important. "

"Why, missy, " muttered old Joy, "you's dess natchiully bleeds to ax itnow. "

"Yes, dear, " said the parson's wife, "let's have it. "

"Well--are there many--? Oh, it's not--are there--are there manykangaroos on Kangaroo Point?"

At any outer edge of civilization a joke may be as hard and practical asship's bread, yet pass. Amid the general mirth and while Hugh pulled abell cord which made no jingle down in the engine-room and had neverbefore been observed by Ramsey, his reply was prompt and brief but toogently solemn for her ear; and when she got Mrs. So-and-so to repeat itto her it was merely to the effect that, though kangaroos were few onKangaroo Point, she ought to see the wealth of horseshoes in HorseshoeCut-off. 

Oh, kind answer! that excused her frivolity by sharing it. Kind beyondher utmost merit. She did not say so, but she thought it, sitting dumb, in sudden tears, and burning with shame for her blindness to the hour'sfearful realities. While Ned stepped to Watson's side to speakcritically of the _Antelope_, now shining on their starboard bow, Hugh, near the door, dropped a quiet request to the two or three otheroccupants of the bench and they followed him out. 

"Why do they go?" she asked, fancying them as much appalled at her asshe herself was, and when the sweet lady could not enlighten her thepilots offered a guess that two had gone to relieve Mrs. Gilmore and hermaid and that Hugh would presently join the first clerk by the bell. 

"There he is now, " said Ned, actually expecting her to rise and lookdown. But she sat still and watched the _Antelope_, wishing her farbetter speed in view of the letters she carried. So came thoughts of thelong telegraphic despatch to her father which Hugh must by this timehave written for her mother, as agreed between them, and which was to besent, in the morning, from Memphis. 

The door opened and Mrs. Gilmore and "Harriet" came in. 

"Well, " softly inquired the actor's wife, "how do we come on?" andRamsey answered as softly, yet taking pains that Ned and Watson shouldoverhear:

"I've disgraced myself. "

"Mmm!" mumbled old Joy in corroboration. 

"What have you done now?"

"Nothing. I don't _do_ anything. Only said something, something so sillyI can't even apologize. "

"To whom?"

"The baby elephant, " said Ramsey and laughed a note or two. The dooropened again and Hugh's bell call was explained by the entrance of thetexas tender and another white-jacket, each bearing a large tray of cupsand plates, hot coffee, and hot toasted rolls and butter. She hadn'tdreamed she was so hungry. 

Watson stared back from the wheel with grim pretence of surprise. "Whosent that here?"

"Mr. Hugh Co'teney sawnt it, suh, " said the tender, arranging the cupson the bench. "Yass'm, " he repeated to the grateful ladies, "Mr. Hugh, yass'm. "

"Oh! Mr. Hugh, " replied Watson. "He must 'a' gave you the order beforehe come up here this last time. "

"Yass, suh, but say don't fetch it tell he ring. "

"Six cups, " counted the pilot, "six--You go down with Miss Hayle'scompliments to Mr. Courteney, and----"

"No-o-o-o!" sang Ramsey, running up the scale. 

But Watson was firm. "Boy, you heard me, didn't you?"

Ned, with his eyes down on the bell, interposed: "Hold on, Wats', threeinto one you can't. Hugh's in a confab with the senator and thegeneral. "

Ramsey, eating like a hunter come home, suddenly stood. "Now look, everybody, at the _Antelope_. She's right abeam. Ain't she abeam, Mr. Watson?"

Watson drawled that she wasn't anything else, and Ramsey failed to seethat he saw her cast an anxious glance down to the bell and thecaptain's chair beyond it. 

L

"DELTA WILL DO"

In Horseshoe Cut-off the course was east. When Ned directed Ramsey'ssight to its upper end, where the flood came into view from the north, she feared he would name the point it turned; but he forbore and shegazed on the thin old moon off in the southeast. 

"Make out yan bunch o' sycamores?" was his nearest venture. Thesycamores were on the point. Across the river where it ran concealedbeyond those sycamores--he went on to tell--at the up-stream end of alow pencil stroke of forest between the head of the cut-off and theeastern stars, was another turn, Friar's Point. But her interest inpoints had faded, and whether friars abounded on that one or not shetook pains not to inquire. 

Instead, she was about to ask the cause of a strange silvering in thesky close over the black pencil stroke, when, as on Sunday, the morningstar sprang into view and cast its tremulous beam on the waters. Shegazed on the white splendor as genuinely enthralled as ever, though atthe same time her eye easily, eagerly took in the first clerk, thesenator, the general, and Hugh, standing about the captain's emptychair. They loomed as dimly as the sycamores, yet when a fifth figuredrew near them she knew by his fine gait that it was the actor, relievedfrom the captain's sick-room by "California" and the cub pilot. Agesture from Hugh stopped him some yards off and he stood leaning on thebell. 

For the actor was their theme. This was plain to every one in thepilot-house, the two waiters being gone. A remnant of the food was beingconsumed by "Harriet" and Joy. All the others were observing, likeRamsey, the morning star and the five men under it. Among her own andMrs. Gilmore's draperies Ramsey found that lady's hand. Except a few lowwords between the pilots, conversation failed. Without leave-taking Nedleft. Presently here he was beneath, on the skylight roof, and now hejoined the actor. Ramsey let go the caressed hand and moved nearer toWatson. While he and she gazed far up the stream, yet watched the sixmen below, he repeated Ned's question. 

"See that clump o' big sycamores a mite to lab-board o' where we'rep'inted?"

She didn't believe she did. 

"Well, " he persisted, "that's it. "

"That's what?"

"Why, " said Watson, whose only aim was to set her once more at ease, "that's the p'int you----"

"Humph. " She turned to the two ladies, who, with their eyes franklybelow, were counselling together. "Let's go down there ourselves, " shesaid, but they whispered on. 

"Better not, " put in Watson; "you can't help. "

His kind intent did not keep the words from hurting. With a faint tossshe said:

"I hoped we might be some hindrance. "

She laughed in her old manner, dropped her glance again on the two menand the four, and hearkened. So did the two ladies beside her. Theycould all see who spoke below and could hear each voice in turn, thoughthey could not catch what was said. The only sustained speeches were thesenator's. The general's interpellations were little regarded. Thesilent pair at the bell heard everything of essential bearing. 

The consciously belated senator had begun with rhetorical regrets forthe captain's and the commodore's illness and with paternal enthusiasmfor those on whom it had brought such grave new cares. His ownsympathetic share in their anxieties, he had hurried on to say, hadrobbed him of sleep and driven him up here solely for this interview. Onthe way he had chanced upon the general in the----

"Sssame ffframe of mind, " the general had said, while the senatorpressed as straight on as the _Votaress_. 

As far as the interests involved were private to this boat, he said, herofficers and owners were entitled to keep them so and to be let alone inthe management of them. But when that management became by its nature avital part of an acute public problem--a national political issue--hefelt bound, both as the Courteneys' private well-wisher and as a publicservant, to urge such treatment of the matter as its national importancedemanded. A spark, he said, might burn a city! A question of privateownership not worth a garnishee might set a whole nation afire! Thearrival of Gilmore at the bell threw him into a sudden heat:

"My God! Mr. Courteney--Mr. Clerk--_I_ shan't offer to lay hands on_any_ man; not I. All _I_ ask is that you take yours off--of three. Mydear sirs, equally as your true friend and as a lover of our troubledcountry I _beg_ you to liberate those citizens of the sovereign State ofArkansas whom you hold in unlawful duress, and to hear before witnessesthe plea they regard as righteous and of national concern. "

The sight of Ned joining Gilmore heated him again: "Gentlemen, if youwill do that, now, at once, you will save the fortunes of this superbboat, her honored owners, and their fleet. If you don't you wreck themforever before this day dawns. And you may--great heavens, gentlemen, you _may_ see the first bloodshed of sectional strife. "

"K-'tional ssstrife!" growled the general. 

The clerk smiled. "Why, senator, those men don't go beyond Helena. Theyleave us there, before sun-up. "

"Precisely, sir! And if they're not set free before you enter HelenaReach, or even pass Friar's Point, you may as well not free them atall. "

Hugh glanced at the clerk as if to speak. The clerk nodded and in thepilot-house they saw Hugh begin:

"Mr. Senator, suppose we do that?"

"You would do me honor, sir, and yourselves more. "

"Of course the watchmen of this boat watch. "

As Hugh said this the cub pilot came from the captain's room with someword to Gilmore, who, though yearning to stay, left him and Ned andhastened back to the texas. 

Meantime the senator: "I should hope so, sir. I hope every one on watchwatches, sir. "

"They do. And so we know that you and the general know, perfectly, thatthe same men who want those three released want Mr. Gilmore put ashore. Is that your wish, too?"

"It is, sssir, " put in the general while the senator did some rapidthinking. Now he too replied:

"Mm--no, sir, it is not. And yet--yes, sir, it is. "

"Then you would advise us to do that also?"

"I would advise you to do that also. "

"Why?"

"Good Lord! my young friend, to save you! you, your father, grandfather, boats, all, and Mr. Gilmore himself!"

"How about his wife?"

"And his wife. For her to be with him may help him if he goes. It can'tif he stays. " The speaker had let his voice rise. The pilot-house groupcaught his words. Also they saw the cub pilot detain Ned when he startedforward. 

"Let's go down there ourselves, " repeated Ramsey; but the parson's wifehad whisperingly laid both hands on the wife of the actor, and Ramseychafed to no avail. 

The senator's voice dropped again. "Good God, sir, you know the longerthey're aboard the worse it will be for them, and they've got to go sometime or at Louisville a mob will burn the _Votaress_ to the water's edgewith them on her. "

The two stared at each other, the senator's mind bewailing the loss ofeach golden moment. The night was not too dark to show him the pokerface fitting its nickname insufferably. But not until its owner spokeagain did he frown--to hide an exultant surprise. 

"They could leave their maid, you think, with Madame Hayle?" was Hugh'sastonishing inquiry. The senator had expected of him nothing short of agrim defiance. 

"They could--they can, " replied both he and the soldier. "That'llsatisfy everybody. " The general saw only the surface of the propositionbut the senator perceived in it all the opportunity their two modestaccomplices of the boiler deck asked. That pair and their adherents--notfollowers--you wouldn't catch them leading--they and their gatheringadherents would construe the landing of the players as an attempt todeliver them out of their hands and would undertake to seize andmaltreat the actor, at least, the moment he should be off the boat. Thatthey were likely to fail was little to the senator; there would be atumult, so managed as to bring Hugh to the actor's rescue, and in thefracas Hugh was sure of a hammering he would not only never forget butwould discern that he owed, first and last, to him, the senator. 

Hugh glanced at the clerk. "You had just recommended Delta Landing. " Theclerk nodded and he turned back to the senator. "We'll be there insideof half an hour. "

"Delta will do, " said the senator, his frown growing. 

Hugh nodded to the clerk. The clerk looked over to Ned. 

"Think Delta's above water?"

"Oh--eyes and nose out, Watson allows. "

"Delta'll be all right, " persisted the senator. 

The clerk glanced up to the pilot-house. "Mr. Watson, we'll stop atDelta, to put off a couple o' passengers. "

"Yes, sir. " The group at the pilot's back gasped at each other. ThenRamsey gasped at him. 

"Oh, what does that mean?" she demanded. But his gaze remained up theriver as he kindly replied:

"What it says, I reckon. Don't fret, ladies--when you don't know what todo, don't do it. "

"Ho-o-oh!" cried Ramsey, whisking away, "I will!"

"Lawd 'a' massy!" Old Joy sprang for the door, but Ramsey was alreadyout on the steps and scurrying down them. On the texas roof, however, she took a wrong direction and lost time; slipped forward round thepilot-house counting on steps which were not, and never had been, outthere. Returning she lost more by meeting old Joy in the narrow waybetween the house and the edge of the texas roof, and when at length shesprang away for the after end of the texas and the only stair she wasnow sure of, whom should she espy bound thither ahead of her but Mrs. Gilmore. In that order the three hurried down to the guards of the texasand forward along them by its stateroom doors. 

Meantime, out at the bell the clerk had left Hugh and privately sent Nedand the cub pilot different ways. Hugh moved a pace or two aside toobserve the _Antelope_ out on their larboard quarter. The senator andthe general moved with him. 

"She'll pass you again at Delta, " remarked the senator. "You see, general--you see, Mr. Courteney, --at Delta they" (the players) "can veryplausibly explain--there won't be more than two or three, if any, toexplain to--that they're running from the cholera and want to hail the_Westwood_, which they won't more than just have time to do. 

"She won't mind taking them, " he babbled on, "already having the choleraherself. Not many up-river boats would answer a hail from Delta, but shewill, for she'll see they're from this boat and that it's your wish. There she comes round the bend now. Yes, Delta's a lot safer for 'emthan Helena with its wharf-boat and daylight crowd and those threered-hots going ashore with 'em. On the _Westwood_ they can put up withany yarn that'll carry 'em through. They're actors and used to that sorto' thing. "

Musingly Hugh broke in: "Counting all the chances, isn't there a touchof cruelty in this, to the lady at least?"

"Oh, now, my young friend--" the senator began to rejoin, but two menlounging by stopped to ask after the father and grandfather. They werethe second engineer and his striker, presently to go on watch. 

Mrs. Gilmore, coming along the texas guards, met the cub pilot. Heperched on the railing to let her pass and a few strides farther onbegan to do the same for Ramsey. 

LI

LOVING-KINDNESS

Ramsey stopped and the boy's heart rose into his throat. 

"Whe're you going?" she asked. 

He pointed to a lighted door she had just come by. 

"First mate's room, " he said. 

"To tell him what to do?"

"Yes'm. " He slid along the rail to get by her, though hungry to linger. 

"To do what?" she asked. "I know; to bring out John the Baptist andthose other two men?"

"Yes'm. " He backed off, but the compelling power of interrogatory, especially of hers, retarded him. 

"To turn 'em loose?" she asked. 

He smiled ruefully. "It looks like it. "

"Not with their pistols on them?"

"Oh, no, he's got their pistols. "

"How'd he get 'em?"

"Oh--friendly persuasion. He's fine at that. They'll get 'emback--unloaded--when they land. "

She glanced forward after Mrs. Gilmore, and he sprang away. As theactor's wife neared the captain's door it opened and Gilmore himselfcame out, closing it after him warily. Either the captain was worse, Ramsey guessed, or the actor had received some startling message, sograve and hurried were the players. They moved several paces away andstepped down to the hurricane-deck. She let them converse a momentalone. At the same time the second engineer, his striker, and Ned passedclose and went below. Now Ramsey advanced, addressing the pair in asmothered voice:

"It's monstrous! It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't go!" Thesignal for landing tolled. She stopped short. 

But the cause of her silence was Hugh Courteney, close before her. Mrs. Gilmore tried to draw her back but she stood fast, repeating to himsavagely: "It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't do it!"

Again she ceased, as the senator and the general appeared, not with Hughthough from his direction, but, like Ned and his fellows, bound below. With a side step she brought them to a stand, saying once more to them:

"It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't----"

Both Hugh and Gilmore lifted a hand. There was a reply on the lips ofeach, but Hugh's remained unuttered. He glanced to the actor, saying:"Tell it. "

The actor told. "It is not going to be done, " he said. "No owner of thisboat, no officer, has ever promised, ordered, or intended it. "

Ludicrously, from the well of the neighboring stair, the heads ofHayle's twins rose and remained gazing. Fortunately for the dignity ofthe moment they escaped the eye of Ramsey, who, on highest tiptoe, whilethe actor still spoke, was piping incredulously:

"The clerk said it!--two passengers!--to go ashore!"

"He might have said five, " Hugh gravely answered, while the senator andthe general blazed with astonishment. 

"Five, " he repeated directly to the senator; "the three whose releaseyou demanded and those two scamps you made league with a bit ago on theboiler deck. "

The senator was a conflagration. "Sir, I cannot find----!"

"Words?" Hugh softly interrupted. "That's fortunate. If you do you'll belanded on the next island. "

He turned away and moved to the edge of the roof. Ramsey stared at thethree and fell back to the Gilmores, whose manner, as they returnedhalf-way to the sick-room, was more grave and hurried than before. Theengine bells were jingling, the wheels stopped. At the roof's edge, wellforward of Hugh, appeared the first clerk, giving commands. The shoretrees glided spectrally into the firelight of the steamer's torchbaskets. A solitary man stood on the bank. The morning star was fadinginto the daybreak. In the pilot-house Watson pulled his bell-ropes toback and to stop again, while veiled in its lingering dusk between himand the parson's wife "Harriet" stood at a closed window, a vigilantwatcher of every movement below. 

With the usual deck-hand on its outer end the stage hung half its lengthover the narrowing water. On its inboard half, attended at one side bythe first mate and at their backs by a knot of white-jackets with handsand arms full of baggage, waited the exhorter, his two champions, andthe sporting pair, outwardly well content, however large or dark theretributions they were inwardly promising themselves. The twins had comeup from the stair, meeting the senator and the general and holding themin a close counsel that kept the four scowling. These things the maid atWatson's side noted so intently as almost to forget him and the ladynext her. She marked the actor go once more into the captain's room, theCalifornian come out to Mrs. Gilmore and Ramsey, and the three movetoward Hugh with old Joy in their wake. Before they had quite reachedhim he turned and addressed the actor's wife. She drew backapologetically, the Californian doing the same, but by word and signseemed to bid Ramsey stay and speak for her. 

As if to himself, but really to the two beside him, Watson murmured:"Right you air, Mr. Hugh Courteney. "

"How is he right?" asked the lady, though she most likely, and the maidcertainly, understood. 

"He's telling her, " said the pilot, "that it'll simplify matters for herand her husband and this girl here to sort o' keep out o' the limelighta spell. "

The surmise seemed good, for Mrs. Gilmore and "California" took standwhere the great chimney on that side hid them from forecastle and shore, while they still could see Hugh and Ramsey conversing, she pleadingly, he with few words, mostly negatives. Ned came back into the pilot-house. The parson's wife moved from Watson toward him to ask in undertone whythe landing was being made so slowly. The boat seemed to hover andhesitate. Watson, at the wheel, talked on, pretending not to notice thatthe maid was his only listener. 

"A man, " he drawled, "gets to hear a right smart chance with his eyes, in a pilot-house. Puts two an' two together a lot more'n he does whenhe's a-usin' his y-ears. Now she's a-beggin' him"--meaning Ramsey andHugh--"not to drop them fellows ashore. Partly that's for the fellows'own sakes, but likewise it's also for the play-actors, because they'regenerous, like her, and because, no less, it's a-putt'n' the play-actorsthemselves in a right funny fix with the rest o' this vain world, tomake five Jonahs on their account. But she's a-barkin' up the wrongstump an' she knows it. She knows there's somebody else's accountthey're bein' put off for; somebody she's as friendly to as what he is, and which for their sakes--his and hern--if for no other--I'm asfriendly to as what they air. Provid'n', however, that that somebody isas friendly to them, every way, as what I am. " He turned sharply. "Isshe?"

And "Harriet" looked straight into his eyes and said inaudibly: "Yes. "

As the glance of both returned to the scene below she was mindful thatNed had not yet quite satisfied the query of the lady at his elbow, whythe wheels of the _Votaress_ were turning barely enough to keep her fromdrifting. 

"You see the _Antelope_?" he asked. 

She saw the _Antelope_, once more ahead, swan-white in the new daylighton a great breadth of water which she had earlier heard him tell Ramseywas Montezuma Bend. 

"And you see the _Westwood_ down yonder. Well, when she gets up therewe'll stop killin' time. But why we're killin' it--ask the clerk--orguess. It's dead easy. "

Not given to guessing, she dropped her eyes again on the various groupsbeneath with Hugh and Ramsey central among them and did not even seethat Hugh was answering the same riddle from Ramsey. 

"Because if we keep these men aboard a few minutes longer, " he wassaying, "there'll be no way for them to reach Helena before noonto-morrow, when we'll be----"

"'Way beyond Memphis, " said the river-wise Ramsey. 

"Yes. "

"And they can't send any troublesome word up the river that can overtakeus, " she ventured on, and he assented. 

"And may I tell the Gilmores that's as much for Phyllis as for them?"

"I wish you would--and then would go to your rest. "

"Humph, " she faintly soliloquized and with no other rejoinder remainedlooking down on the stage, as he did. It was so near the bank at lastthat the men waiting on its inner end moved a step or two forward. 

"Why are all those five put off together?" she asked. 

"Because, " he replied in his absent manner, "the gamblers will try tokeep the other three quiet. "

"Mr. Hugh, you'll be off watch now soon, won't you?"

"Yes. " (Still no lifting of eyes by either. )

"And then you'll nurse your father, won't you?"

"I cannot! I'm too ignorant. "

"Then what will you--shall you--do?"

"Just stay--on watch. "

She stood a moment more, comforted to be on watch with him and thinkingsadly of all there was to be on watch for. Then she heard Julian softlycall her name. Without looking his way she started back for Mrs. Gilmoreand the gold hunter, but the brother overtook her. 

"Ramsey. " She faced him. "Ramsey"--his tone was thin--"when you weretalking just now with that pusillanimous whelp, and neither of youlooking at the other, did he say anything of a confidential nature?"

His scrutiny read confirmation in her fearless eyes. When she would havespoken her utterance failed and, unable to do anything else half sowell, she laughed. 

"You can still do that!" His hint was of Basile. 

"A little, " she tinkled again, though her eyes ran full. 

"Ramsey, did he--over there--just now--that reptile--sayanything--tender?"

She flared rose-red, gazed down ashore, dropped her voice to a key hehad never heard, and said, wondering why she said it: "Mr. Courteney isa gentleman. "

She tried to lift her eyes to the inquisitor, but her irrepressibletwitter came again and she had to turn away to the big chimney. Heclinched his teeth. 

"Sis, " he half whispered as she began to go, "listen. " She glanced back. "Sis, you may snigger at us all day or ten days; you may listen to himfor a year or for ten; but, no matter what we swore to last night, theday you accept Hugh Courteney's hand we'll kill him if we're alive. "

Old Joy flinched and moaned but Ramsey stared at him benumbed. Shecaught no rational grasp of his meaning; only stood and withimmeasurable speed and a kind of earthquake sickness, in the space ofone long breath, dreamed his words over and over. She felt neitherfright nor horror, as she would as soon as thought could clear. Yet oneword shed light, quickened her inner vision and gave it a reach, aforward range, it had never known. "Ten years, " he had said, and for thefirst time in her life, as one might come suddenly into some vastpossession, she took the future into her present by years instead ofdays. 

"Jule, " called Lucian, from between the senator and the general. Julianglanced back and Ramsey started off. But she stopped again with a freshshock as a high-pitched yell rose from the shore below. There theexhorter, stepping from the stage to the ground, had poured his voiceinto the woods and now turned to the boat and let loose his tongue:

"I'm the hewolf an' wilecat o' th' 'Azoo Delta! I'm the alligatoh an'snappin' turkle o' the Arkansass! I'm the horn-ed an' yalleh-bellycatfish o' the Mississip'! Glory, hallelu'! the sunburnt, chill-an'-feveh, rip-saw, camp-meetin', buckshot, kickin'-mulecivilization whah-in I got my religion is good enough fo' me, allhigh-steppin', niggeh-stealin' play-actohs an' flounced and friskin', beau-ketchered Natchez brick-tops to the contrary notwithstayndin'! ForI'm a meek an' humble follower o' the Lawd Gawd A'mighty, which may thesame eternally an' _ee_-sentially damn yo' cowa'dly soul, youstump-tail' little Hugh Co'teney up yandeh with yo' Gawd-fo'sakened, punkin face an' yo' sawed-off statu'e!"

The gamblers sprang to hush him but the two "Arkansas killers" steppedbetween and while the _Votaress_, backing out into the wake of the_Westwood_, left the one pair insisting and the other protesting, theexhorter settled the issue by breaking into song:

 "'Though num'r-ous hosts uv migh-tye foes, Though airth an' hell, my way op-pose, He safe-lye leadns my soudl aa-logn: His lov-ign-kide-ness, oh, how strogn! His lov-ign-kide-ness! lov-ign-kide-ness! His lov-ign-ki-i-i-ide-ness, oh, how strogn!'"

LII

LOVE RUNS ROUGH BUT RUNS ON

Turning east in the upper arm of Saint Francis Bend, with the mouth ofSaint Francis River just swinging out of sight astern and Helena anhour's run behind, the _Votaress_ faced the rising sun. 

Before the eyes of Hugh and Ramsey it soared gloriously into a skyreddened not by presage of rain but by the smoke of the _Antelope_ and_Westwood_. The intervening shore and waters glowed and quivered inexquisite tints that renewed the world's youth and quite ignored allhuman, especially all young human, troubles. Suddenly it lighted up theblack chimneys and scapes and white pilot-houses of the two boats ahead, as, a league or so apart, they came doubling back northwest, up WalnutBend, to save in Bordeaux Chute the wide circuit of Bordeaux and WhiskeyIslands, to hurry on round the long north-and-south loop of Council Bendand so have done with one of the most tortuous forty miles of theMississippi. 

We mention these things because Hugh and Ramsey were students of them, now and then together but never quite comfortable so, and now and thenapart but never quite comfortable so. Everywhere the boat's people wereawake. On the freight deck the crew squatted in circles, eating fromtubs. Away aft on the roof, from their quarters in the far end of thetexas, the whole flock of white-jackets had risen like gulls and weredown in the cook-house, pantry, and cabin rattling the crockery till itechoed in every waking stomach. Already the _Votaress's_ divine breathsmelt of coffee, real coffee--_chaud comme l'enfer et noir comme lediable--smelt_ of it, as, we fear, we shall never smell it again in thistrust-ridden world. It was Ned's watch at the wheel. Watson and his cubhad turned in. So had the first clerk. So had the twins, the senator, the general. Few of us, at that hour, not having slept, are skylarks. 

Yet the actor and the Californian still held vigil by the captain's bed. Joy still hovered after her "young missy, " and "Harriet" after Mrs. Gilmore and the parson's wife. Ramsey and "Harriet" betrayed a vividinterest in each other, a wonderfully generous thing on the maid's part, Ramsey thought, the two being who they were. The commodore was better, but the captain was not, and together or apart Hugh and Ramsey were moreconsciously the prisoners, albeit the undaunted prisoners, of care andsorrow than of anything else. When their feeling for the river's loredrew them, by a spiritual gravitation, to a common centre--to learn, forinstance, that Council Bend and Council Island were named for one ofthose historic "confabs" between the white man and the red whichshouldered the red brother once and forever away from the sunrise andacross the great river--that centre of gravity was the captain's chair, their tutor the first mate. 

Under the circumstances we hardly need begrudge a line or two more totell how, as far back as Delta, the _Votaress_ had begun to meet theLouisville Saturday evening packets and to receive and return theirspecial salutes. One was a Hayle boat and one a Courteney. Such momentswere refreshing. Inquiry and information flowed through them asnaturally and beguilingly as a brook through a meadow and gave Hughopportunity to contemplate incidentally the play of air and light inRamsey's curls without her having the slightest suspicion of him!--gaveher chances to ply him with questions in autobiography and socialcasuistry and to enjoy keenly the ridiculous majesty of his eyes andvoice, while the two dear chaperons talked apart as obliviously as ifshe were merely asking him how deep the whiskey was in Whiskey Chute. 

In the long run from Commerce to Norfolk came breakfast. Commerce wasanother case of infant-city still-birth, Norfolk was less. Breakfast, double-ranked, stoop-shouldered, mute: beefsteak and fried onions itssolar centre, with hot rolls for planets; Hugh at the ladies' table, thefirst clerk at the gentlemen's. Then the boiler deck, toothpicks, cigars, breezes, armchairs, spittoons, the sad news of the two deathsup-stairs, the ugly news of the five passengers set ashore and thereason thereof. Men spat straight and hard as they heard or told thelatter item, yet with tacit unanimity awaited the re-emergence of thestill secluded senator, general, and twins. 

By Hugh's unsmiling forethought Madame Hayle, Ramsey, and the Gilmoresbreakfasted in the pilot-house. With "Harriet" close to her elbow, Ramsey ate at a window, standing, to watch the gliding shores and floodsand privily cross-examine, again in autobiography and at printing-pressspeed, the willing maid-servant. At Island Fifty-Two another boat, the_Shooting Star_, streamed by. At a plantation and wood-yard the_Votaress_ paused to restock with dairy and kitchen-garden supplies andto lash to her either side a thirty-cord wood flat, and now swept onwith the foam twenty feet broad at the square front of each while thedeck-hands trotted aboard under their great shoulder loads by one narrowhook plank and came leaping back for more, and the loaders and pilerschanted and chorussed:

 "Oh, Shan-a-do'e, I loves yo' daught-eh-- Ah! ha! roll-in' riveh!-- Oh, ef she don't love me she'd ought teh-- Ah! ha!. . . Bound away!. . . Faw de wile . . . Mis-'ou-ree!"

The foam and the swift wooding-up gave an illusion of speed to the boatherself, and in what seemed no time at all the empty scows were droppingaway astern; but it was farewell for good and all to the _Westwood_, the_Antelope_. And now Cat Island, its bend, its chute; Cow Island, itsbend, its chute; Horn Lake, a prehistoric loop of twelve miles, reducedto three by Horn Lake Bend----

"Come, Ramsey. " The call smote like a buffet. Memphis was almost insight. In the southwestern corner of Tennessee, just above TennesseeChute and the northwestern corner of Mississippi, was the fourth of theChickasaw Bluffs. On it sat Memphis, a city with churches, banks, andthe "electromagnetic telegraph. " Its twelve thousand people of that dayare a hundred and thirty-five thousand now and have taken in almost outof remembrance the small settlement of Pickering, or Fort Pickering, onthe down-stream end of the bluff, where the _Votaress_ that beautifulmorning landed and laid to rest Madame Marburg, the bishop, and Basile. 

Aboard the _Votaress_, as in Tennessee Chute she faced again the morningsun, two scenes were enacted at the same time. One took place below, onthe fore-castle; the other above and just aft of it, on the boiler deck. In the lower there was but a single pine box, in the upper there weretwo. In the lower stood the black-gowned priest, the two white-bonneted, gray-robed sisters, Otto Marburg alone, and here a mass of immigrantsand there a majority of the crew. The upper scene included all the cabinpassengers--ladies seated--and half the boat's family. In fulfilment ofBasile's wish Hugh read: "I am the resurrection and the life. " By Hugh'sinvitation, given beforehand, the senator delivered a eulogy on thebishop and added such tender praises of the boy, whom every one hadliked so early and so well, and gilded them with such delicate allusionsto the heroism of his mother, that few eyes were dry. The very twinswept, though there was a touch of rage in their tears. By choice of theparson's wife and sweetly led by her, they sang: "I would not livealway. " With streaming eyes Ramsey remembered how yearningly the poorlad had clung to this dear earth, and she could only sit silent andmodestly wonder how anybody, under any fate that left them power to singat all, could sit there--stand there--on that boat, that river, in thesplendor of that sun, the beauty of that landscape, and call life a "fewlurid mornings. "

A third scene occurred as the boat, facing westward, reached the head ofPresident's Island, fairest island in all the river, and coming intofull view of Memphis, a short league beyond, tolled her solemn bell andlanded at Pickering. Others on the lower deck besides Madame Marburg hadpassed away in the night but had either been laid under the wet sands ofthe water's edge in some wild grove down-stream or were not quite intime, so to speak, for this landing. Contemplated from each deck by anumerous gathering and from the pilot-house by Watson, Mrs. Gilmore, and"Harriet, " a small procession followed the priest and the threeboxes--borne by white-jackets--ashore and out of sight where a smallwooden church spire, inland behind the bluff, peered over its crest. Madame Hayle leaned on Julian's arm, Ramsey on Lucian's, Hugh walkedwith Marburg, the senator with the general, the first clerk with Ned, the Californian with the cub pilot. By and by they returned, outwardlyunburdened, and the moment the last tread, the Californian's, was on thestage, Watson's bells jingled and the _Votaress_ swung out and moved upto the Memphis wharf-boat. But there Hugh, the first clerk, the steward, and the doctor went up into town, and it was a long hour before theyreappeared and the black smoke billowed again from her chimneys and shebacked out and started up and away around "Paddy's Hen and Chickens. "

The "family of that name"--to quote Watson--were a group of four islandsso entitled from earliest flatboat days, clustered in the river, justabove the town. Since that day two of the chicks have flown, or grown, to the mainland, and the mother bird is now merely the "Old Hen" withone "Chicken Island, " while "Poor Paddy, " we are told, "works on therailway. "

In its first forty leagues above Memphis the river went--has gone--stillgoes--through more violent writhings than in any like part of its wholecourse, running almost twenty crazy miles to make two sane ones--madefinally, in the republic's hundredth year, by Centennial Cut-off. On anaverage there was an island for every four miles of river, or, say, three for every hour of the _Votaress's_ progress, and in this highwater she was running all their chutes. A great resource such incidentswere, on that particular day, to Ramsey. At any moment when conversationneeded to be started, stopped, or turned, here was her chance. Some ofthe islands covered many square miles, contained large plantations, andhad names as well as numbers. Island Forty, reached about ten o'clock, was also Beef Island. Number Thirty-eight, which they began to pass halfan hour later, was Brandywine Island. To pass Island Thirty-five on itsshort side at full speed took half an hour, and Forked-Deer Island, which kept the boat flying up a narrow chute from half-past two tillthree o'clock, was old Twenty-seven and Twenty-six grown together. 

Now, these things are geography rather than history. But for at leasttwo souls aboard the _Votaress_ they were more history than geography. History--they were life! the outer frame of life so really lived thatfor those two souls it would be history thenceforth to life's end. Andhere comes in some pure philosophy from the two pilots: to wit, that ifyou turn any old maxim over you will always find another truth on itsother side. They reached this conclusion, through Ned's remarking thatthe course of true love never runs smooth. 

"That, " said Watson, "depends. It depends a lot on who they air that'sa-takin' the course. Ef they're the right ones, a real for-true pair, sech as the wayfarin' man though a pilot kin see _air_ a pair, like----"

"Two gloves, " said Ned. 

"Yass, or galluses--I misdoubt ef there's anything in the world that'llrun so smooth through and over and around and under so much cussedroughness as what true love will. "

The remark was justified before their eyes. The two whom theycontemplated, outwardly so unlike, were in their essence so of a kindthat they belonged each to each as simply and patently as the firsthuman pair. They saw it so themselves. Society about them was strangelyprimitive--a "clapboard civilization, " the actor named it to his wife attheir pilot-house point of view--and the "for-true" pair in sight belowthem took frank advantage of its conditions to appropriate and accepteach other as simply and completely as if these weird conditions--withtheir Devil's Elbow, Race-ground, Island, Tea-table, and Back-oven--werea veritable Eden as Eden was before the devil got in. Without a note ofcourtship or coquetry love ran ever more and more smoothly, growinghourly and receiving each accession as we have seen the Mississippireceive Red River--merely by deepening its own flow--but, unlike theMississippi, gaining in transparency as it gained in depth and power. 

Since leaving Memphis this love without courtship or coquetry had grownunder the effulgence of Madame Hayle's immediate presence like agrain-field in sunshine. On her return from the triple burial, throughsheer exhaustion, she had fainted away. Borne upstairs by thephysician's command and allowed the roof but forbidden the lower deckfor twenty-four hours, she had let Mrs. Gilmore and "Harriet" assume herpious task turn about, going and coming by after stairs. And so lovegrew on. But so did hate, so did craft, all three, to borrow the figure, going and coming by the after stairs of general intercourse. 

LIII

TRADING FOR PHYLLIS

This afternoon was cooler than any of the three before it. 

Change of latitude, assuredly; but also a sky half blue, half gray, anda brisker air. Yet for that small minority of the ladies, who rathercraved than feared the sunlight, the boat's roofs--since custom debarredthem from the boiler deck--were still its most inviting part. After afew modifications of dress a very pleasant refuge those roofs were, although when the boat's course led her into the wind it was good toshut a sash or two if you were in the pilot-house, or to draw yourchairs into the lee of something if on the open deck. Madame Hayle, urged by all to seek repose in her stateroom, said to Hugh and theCalifornian, behind one of the chimneys:

"Me, I fine it mo' betteh to breathe on that deck than to bleach in thatcabin. "

Her presence was to the Californian's advantage also, in his desire tobe near Ramsey, and indeed the same was true of the two younger clerksand the cub pilot. And this advantage was heightened by the fact thatthere were such definite things to be considered wherever two or threecame together. The need to keep up the passengers' spirits was as realas ever and a number of resources for doing it required to be discussed. Ramsey mentioned the unidentified man with the cornet but found noseconder. His "Life on the Ocean Wave" was thought hardly convincing andhis "Bounding Billow, Cease thy Motion" seemed to clash with thesentiment for an ocean life and to suggest uncomfortable symptoms. Undaunted, she tried again. Through Basile she had early discoveredthree striplings of the circus ring, the "Brothers Ambrosia. " Their truename, her cross-examination had revealed, was Vinegar. In star-spangledtights they would give some real "acrobatics, " then some "aerial globedancing, " equally star-spangled and even more up-side-down, and finallya bit of "miraculous walking" on champagne bottles set upright on thedining-table. This proposition was accepted without audible dissent, only the parson's wife not voting. Then the Californian spoke for aself-styled "young gent" and "amateur professor" who had eagerlyvolunteered to "take everybody's breath away" by the magic of his trickswith hats, handkerchiefs, and cards, and to "throw them intoconvulsions" with his "evening cat fight among the chimney-pots. " But"Beware the laugh that sours overnight, " Mrs. Gilmore said, and thedecision was prompt, Madame Hayle voicing it, that as convulsions couldbe brought on and breath taken away by the cholera itself the younggent, through "California, " be gratefully requested to await a situationeither less desperate or more so. 

The gold hunter admitted the wisdom of this action, though his humblespirit felt acutely its discrediting reflection on himself, especiallywhen--with only the kindest meaning--Ramsey laughed. He bravely kept hispain to himself and said nothing to disown the "amateur professor. " Witha brief aside to Hugh, to which Hugh nodded, he slipped away to thelower deck and for nearly two hours made his nursing skill so valuableto "Harriet" among the immigrants that her fearless mind overlooked themain object of his stay; which was to defend her from any stratagem ofthe twins and others, that Marburg might not detect in time or might beunable to cope with. At length, puzzled to know why Mrs. Gilmore did notappear, he was leaving, when at the foot of the narrow stair under thekitchen he met Lucian coming down. They stopped. He smiled. "Howdy!" hesaid. 

Lucian stood silent. 

"Can't come down here, you know, " said the gold hunter, and instantlyLucian was white hot. 

"Who tells you, " he drawled, "what I may or may not do?"

"Who? oh--just a little black dog. "

"Black--_what?_"

"You heard. He's a funny little cuss; like you, a trifle puny. Hascoughin' fits. Coughs six times each fit. Spits up a chunk o' lead ev'ytime he coughs. Want to see him?"

Lucian's unaffrighted eyes blazed down, though his reply was as if tohimself. "Great God! if my brother----"

"Oh, " kindly said the Californian, "he ain't fur off. Go, get him. I'llfollow you, lock-step. "

Lucian turned and went, the speaker adding as he followed close:

"Ladder's no place for scienced fighting, you know. "

They found Julian, evidently waiting, on the passenger guards justforward of the pantry gangway. But before words could be exchanged thecub pilot came along by way of the main staircase, escorting thephysician from the lower deck. The latter passed on up the wheel-housesteps to the roof, but the "cub" hung back. "California" faced him. 

"What's the fraction? The captain?"

The youth nodded. His inquirer waved him away. 

"All right. I'll come. You go on. " The boy complied. 

Julian had swelled for encounter, but a warning look from Lucian checkedhim and he let the Californian speak first. 

"Here, " said the gold-digger, "I'm fixed. You're not. True, I could loanyou the twin to mine, but----"

Julian's lip curled. "'But'--you're not hungry to fight. "

"Oh, other things being equal, I have an appetite! Yes, sir-ee, BobHoss-Fly, and a red dog under the wheelbarrow! But"--smilingagain--"let's do things in scientific order. You two claim that youHayle folks own that forty-year-old white gal down-stairs which you calla runaway niggeh, and which we'll allow she is one. Well, I'll buy youtwo's share in her--providing I can buy the rest of her from your twoladies up-stairs--and fight you afterward or not as the case mayrequire. Now, what'll you take for your said two shares, right here, cash down, gold; not dust but coin, New Orleans Branch Mint? Goingat--what do I hear?"

The spendthrift pair stared on each other, thinking with all theirmight. But they failed to think that on the deck above them, in groupwith Mrs. Gilmore, Hugh, the parson's wife, Ramsey, and old Joy, theownership of Phyllis was being fully set forth by their mother to theirown whilom champions the senator and the general, or that Ramsey wasabout to be sent down to the stateroom of the mother and daughter fordocumentary evidence. 

"What do I hear?" repeated the Californian, watching his own hands asthe right drew double-eagles from his belt and stacked them in the left. 

Eagerly asking themselves what might be their tempter's motive, the pairthought primarily of the white slave's well-preserved beauty and therarity of women in the far West. With that came a stinging remembranceof her glaring Hayle likeness and then of their father's oldscheme--averted by their mother--to sell the girl forever out of sightand reach. And then came the pleasanter thought that at any rate herewas a chance to put this daredevil at odds with the hated Gilmores aswell as with their own mother and sister, the Courteneys, and all theCourteney clan. Till now they had felt that, if only for self-respectand good standing, they must recover their property, seize Phyllis onthe spot, if they could possibly command the backing to do it. But thiswas now very doubtful. Something had happened to the senator's mind, while the general was but his echo and the element called "others" wasstrangely sluggish. And, finally, or rather, first and last, thebrothers were thrilled with the prodigal's lust for ready money. So farthey saw and no farther, but so far so good; here seemed to be anunguarded opening in the enemy's line--to use a phrase the great valleywas one day to know by heart--and the warier of the pair ventured in. Said Lucian:

"We're Uncle Dan's sole legatees. "

"Then name your price for her, lock, stock, and barrel. "

"Want to take her only to Kentucky, or to California?"

"Californy--maybe Oregon. "

"To keep house for you--single gentleman?"

"Yes, sir. "

"When do you expect to come back?"

"Never. "

The questioner glanced back to his brother. Both were gratified to notethat the bargain would work no relief to Hugh or the Gilmores, butJulian wanted better assurance that it would not free a runaway slave ormake her a lawful wife. He turned abruptly, and so it happened that allthree failed to see Ramsey, in dark attire and with Joy close behind, emerge an instant from the pantry gangway and shrink again into it. Onthe return from her stateroom to the roof, for mere variety, she hadtaken this direction. Said Julian as he turned:

"You're a Kentuckian, sir. Henry Clay man?"

"No. Only don't allow anything said again' him. "

"Abolitionist?"

"No, sir-ee. " The emphasis was sprightly. 

The twins looked at each other once more. Julian nodded. 

"One thousand dollars, " said Lucian. . . . 

Let us go back a step or so and up to the hurricane-deck. We have namedHugh as in the group about Madame Hayle; but he went and came. In hisabsences the matrons debated the Phyllis matter as it involved theGilmores, trying to find some way not to leave it an undivided burden onHugh and the _Votaress_. It was on one of his quiet reappearances, reporting his father "easier, " that Ramsey put in:

"Mom-a, the senator's a lawyer. Send for him--and the general--and talkthem over to our side. You can do it. You can talk anybody intoanything! You always could!"

Madame Hayle and Hugh looked at each other very much as the twins weredoing about that time on the guards next below, and Hugh said:

"I will go bring them. "

"Ah, if you please, yass, go. "

He brought them and they were among madame's auditors when later shesaid, addressing her words wherever they fitted best, so that even oldJoy got her share:

"Had it not have been for Phylliz, Dan Hayle, he wouldn' neveh took thattroub' to wride that will. But I insiz' he shall wride it, biccause--Phylliz. Tha'z all. An' biccause Phylliz he wrode it. But hesay to me----"

"When was this?" inquired the senator. 

"Tha'z when those twin' make him thad visit, Walnut Hill'. He say: 'W'aduze to you if I make my laz' will? I give any'ow everything to thosetwin'. ' An' tha'z biccause" (to old Joy) "thad chile w'ad die----"

"Drownded, " murmured the nurse. "Ayfteh dat transpiah he take a shine toev'y man-chile he git his ahm aroun'. "

Madame resumed: "An' I say to him: 'Give all the rez' to who' you want, but Phylliz--to me. ' 'No!' he say, 'you, you'll put her free!'"

"Why didn't he want her set free?" asked Ramsey. 

"An' you are there--an' silend! I forgod you!"

"Why didn't he want her set free?" insisted the forgotten. 

"Ah!" said the mother to the senator as though the inquiry were his, "Dan, he seem' to thing tha'z a caztigation on him. An' he say: 'Nevehmine, I figs thad so she can'd be free pretty soon. ' An' me, I thoughdhe leave her to those twin' till I'm reading the will. "

Ramsey stood up elatedly. "I know what he did! I see it!"

But as her mother chidingly murmured her name she reflected the maternaldignity and accepted a bunch of keys. 

"Go, if you please, ad my room, " said madame, "open----"

"Your little trunk, and pop-a's tin box inside, " the girl interrupted, but deferentially caught herself again and with the corner of an eyefelt about for Hugh. But Hugh had gone back to his father and thence tothe deck next below. 

"Yass. You fine there manny pape'. One is mark'--you'll see. Fedge methad. 'Tis the h-only tha'z blue. "

Ramsey sped away over skylights and down a back stair. 

The senator spoke: "Who were that will's executors?"

"Ah, of co'se, my 'usban', Capitan Hayle, al-lone. "

"The heirs, I dare say, have seen it?"

The lady smiled. "Not at all. Biccause h-anybody can see it if he want, nobody eveh want, an' leaz' of all those twin' when they are gettingeverything. Nobody speak abbout Phylliz, biccause Phylliz is su'posedrown', an' drown' peop' they don' count. "

In the stateroom Ramsey knelt, opened the trunk, then the tin box, andthen, despite old Joy's reprehending moan, the document itself. 

"I knew it!" she whispered elatedly, relocking the box and trunk. "Iguessed right!"

When at the forward end of the pantry gangway she came upon the twinsand "California" and shrank back into hiding, the will was in her hand. In a tremble between staying and fleeing she heard the gold hunter, ashe stood with his hands full of yellow coin, declare himself aKentuckian and no abolitionist, and therefore understood instantly thesignificance of Lucian's response:

"One thousand dollars. "

Too eager for speech, she glided forth and at the Californian's backhalted before her brothers. But he had already smitten a fist into thehungry palm of either twin and was saying as he unburdened it there:

"A hundred on account to you--same to you--balance when you showtitle--she's mine!"

"She's mine!" cried the laughing girl. 

The three men stared, but the twins hurried the gold into their pocketswhile she laughed on to them: "Hand that back. You've got no title. Thisis Uncle Dan's will and she's been mine for eleven years. " On the stairclose by them she began to step up backward but stopped to add to theCalifornian: "Take back your money and come trade with mom-a. "

The twins showed instant conviction, but to them all dispossession wasrobbery and Lucian broke out, first on Ramsey, "We don't give back onedime!" then to the Californian, "You pushed it on us and we'll keep it!"then to Julian, "He hasn't the faintest right to it now in law, morals, or custom!" and then back to the Californian: "You sha'n't ever see acopper of it!"

Ramsey was quick-witted again. She threw the gold hunter a glance whichconveyed to him the realization that to leave the money with the twinswas to put them at a hopeless disadvantage. Almost as quickly Lucian sawthe same thing and flashed it to Julian; but in that brief intervaltheir sister disappeared on the deck above, old Joy following, and whilethe brothers lost another moment in a motionless contest of impulses theCalifornian vanished after her. Lucian, with his breath drawn to call upthe empty stair, started forward but struck his knee-cap on a light, gilded chair left there by some child. Burning with rage and tremblingwith nervous exhaustion, he barely saved himself from lunging into twomen of slight stature who had just come from a neighboring state-room: aslender old man leaning feebly on a thick-set youth, whom one flash ofhis eye identified as the commodore and Hugh, though as they passedtoward the stair they betrayed no sign that they had observed him. 

He gave his speechless brother a single look, caught the chair by itsback, lifted it over his head, and with a long, smothered cry, halfmoan, half whine, crashed it down upon the balustrade--once--twice--andagain, again, hurled the last fragment underfoot, and with eyesstreaming stamped, stamped, and stamped, while the commodore and hissupporter went on up to the roof and beyond view without a glancebehind. 

LIV

"CAN'T!"

On handing the will to her mother, Ramsey found her no longer leadingthe conversation. The senator had the floor, the deck, and, as Ned orWatson might have said, was "drawing all the water in the river. " Hisdiscourse was to madame and the general alternately, though now and thenhe included the parson's wife and Mrs. Gilmore. 

Ramsey's talent for taking in everything at once was taxed to its limitwhen at the same time that she attended to him she watched an elegantsteamer, one of the Saturday-evening boats out of Cincinnati, passremotely on the Arkansas side behind Island Thirty-six; marked thereturn of the Californian as he followed her from his conference withthe twins; noted the slow, preoccupied passing of Hugh and hisgrandfather to the captain's room; measured every winged stride of the_Votaress's_ approach toward the Third Chickasaw Bluff; observed--asearlier bidden by the actor--the strange pink and yellow stripes of thebluff's clay face, and recognized in the great bell's landing signal thesad business which had become so half-conscious a habit in the boat'sroutine. Yet she caught the senator's every word. 

Whether a person born in slavery, although seven eighths white, he wassaying, was free by law was hardly a practical question, the matterbeing so nearly independent of any mere statute. For if such a slavesought liberty of an owner inclined to grant it there certainly was nolaw to prevent its bestowal, whereas if the owner was unwilling theburden of proof would naturally fall upon the slave, who, of course----

"No, " said Ramsey, drawing his and every eye and interesting everybodyby a sweet maturity of tone to which her mourning dress lent emphasis. "No, it would not. The judge told me about that on Sunday. "

Madame started and smiled. "You h-asked? An' fo' w'at?"

The transient air of maturity failed, and Ramsey's shoulders went up inher more usual manner. 

The senator had his question: "What did the judge say?"

"The judge says, where the slave seems to be white the owner must proveshe ain't--prove she isn't; but the burden, he says, of getting the caseinto court----"

"Ah!" The senator was relieved. "Practically the same thing. For noslave can get a case into court without white help, and no decent whiteman will step between an owner and a slave who confesses to any Africanblood. "

"No-c'ommunity would ssstand it, " said the general. 

"Now, " pursued the senator, "a claim based on pure white blood andcharging some palpable mistake or fraud would be different. That wouldinvite a community's sympathy and support. I've heard of such cases. " Hefaced Ramsey again, whose smile implied a query in waiting. 

Madame had handed the document to the senator. It was short. He read itin a glance or two and, refolding it, addressed Ramsey again: "Thisslave girl can neither be set free nor sold, for she's yours, and you'rea minor. She seems to have been left to you just for that. "

Until her mother spoke, Ramsey was mystified by her gracious bows ofsatisfaction to the senator and the general, but then she understood andwas glad. "Verrie well, " said madame, "iv Phylliz be satizfi' to billongto Ramzee----"

"She is, " said Mrs. Gilmore. "She's told me so. "

"Verrie well, she'll juz' billong. An'"--to the senator--"you'll tellh-all those passenger' you h-are the fran' of my 'usban' an' fran' ofthe pewblic an' you 'ave seen thad will, an' Phylliz she's h-all thoseyear' billong to Ramzee, an' tha'z h-all arrange' and h-every-boddiesatizfi', ondly those twin' they 'ave not hear' abboud that yet, butyou'll see them an' make them satizfi'----"

"They know, " called Ramsey and "California, " and the latter added to thesenator: "They've sold all claim to her, sight unseen, and have got themoney; took it from me, before witnesses. " Then to the astonished matronhe added: "We can fix that in a jiffy, as slick as glass. "

But there the immediate scene diverted every one; the whole group movedto the roof's edge to see the boat land. Then, while her bells stilljingled and her wheels yeasted, the company, heart-sick of burials, fellapart. The senator and the general, promising zealous action and thebest results, returned to the boiler deck, the parson's wife sought herchildren, Mrs. Gilmore went down to "Harriet. " To shield madame from thefull force of the breeze "California" moved her chair, Joy followingwith Ramsey's, to the shelter of the great chimney nearest the captain'sdoor, where sympathy itself tended to draw them, and by the time thiswas done the commodore, again on Hugh's arm, reissued from the captain'sroom and, at sight of this quartet, paused, turned, and accepted a seatamong them. 

The first word was Ramsey's: How was the captain?

The best that could be said was that he was "holding out"--or "up"--or"on"--the commodore's voice was weak. He had come away from thecaptain's bed-side because a convalescent was "only in the way, " hesaid, and because Hugh felt that he belonged on deck if anywhere, thoughthat, the old man fondly added, was less important than Hugh chose toregard it. This unimportance Ramsey recognized by diverting theconversation so far as to announce that "mom-a" had just settled thewhole Phyllis business. 

"Mighty nigh, " the Californian admitted, answering Hugh's quiet glance, while his heart praised the daughter's failure to credit him with hisshare in the achievement, that being a thing still in progress, whosedesign he had not fully revealed. The omission seemed to him mostmaidenly and daughterly. He spoke on, to the two ladies:

"There's a thing or two more----"

"Oh, I'll pay that two hundred dollars!" cried Ramsey. 

In animated approval her mother nodded to both. 

"Not if the court knows itself, " said the modest man, with so winsome asmile that every one noticed how blue were his eyes. "I can trump that, "he added, musingly. 

"What's the other thing? You said a thing or two, " asked Ramsey. 

"Her wages, ain't it, for eleven years?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed madame in amiable scorn, while----

"Paid!" cried Ramsey. "Mrs. Gilmore's always paid her!"

"Knowin' she was a runaway? and who' from?"

Madame bowed sweetly, yet with an aroused sparkle. 

"Humph!" said Ramsey, watching the boat back out and lay her course forIsland Thirty-five, "I'd have done as they did, either of them. " Shestepped into the freshening breeze. 

The inquirer's eyes rested on her, bluer than ever. 

"Don't you propose to collect?" he asked. 

"Most certainly not!" sang Ramsey at full height. 

"Not a sou, " said madame, looking about in grand amusement. "Not apic-ah-yune--hoh!"

"But she's going back into yo' hands?"

"My 'an's, " said madame. 

"And you'll never sell her?"

"Can't!" laughed Ramsey, with eyes ahead. 

"You can hire her. "

"Yes, " said Ramsey, turning. "Oh, yes. "

"Well, what'll you take, from the right bidder, for that girl's freepapers dated ahead to when you come of age, bidder takin' all theresks?"

"You said down-stairs you wasn't an abolitionist!"

He twinkled. "Well, down-stairs I wa'n't, and in general I ain't. I'm a Kentuckian. But I've got an offer to make. " He turned to theCourteneys: "I allowed to make it to this young gentleman first, alone, an' get his advice--an' the commodo's if he'd give it; but the' ain'tanybody in this small crowd but what's welcome to hear it, even thisyoung lady, considerin' that she's jest heard so much worse again'me--insinuated--down-stairs. "

There was a pause. Old Joy murmured and Madame spoke the daughter'sname, adding something in French. 

"_Moi_, " replied Ramsey, planting herself and gazing up the river, "_jepréfére_ to stay right here. "

The mother's smile to the Kentuckian bade him proceed, but he stilladdressed Hugh and the grandfather:

"You see, that girl down-stairs, 'Harriet, ' 'Phyllis, ' has beenfree--Lawdy, free's nothin', she's been white!--fo' ten years. Now, ifshe goes back home, there may be no place like it, but she's got to beblack again. Well, think what that is. I've been weighin' that factwhile I looked into her eyes and listened to her voice, an' thinks I tomyself: 'If I was this girl, this goin' back to be black would mean oneof two things: I'd either die myself, aw I'd kill some one, maybesev'l. ' True, I'm pyo' white an' she ain't, quite, but I don't believeher po' little drop o' low blood makes her any mo' bridlewise 'n whatI'd be. "

While the speaker's smile drew smiles from madame and the commodore, Ramsey turned to him a severe face and in the same glance managed to seeHugh's, but Hugh's might as well have been, to her mind, the face of aChickasaw bluff. 

"Well, what then?" she asked the gold hunter. 

"Same time, " said "California, " still to the Courteneys, while madamepromptly discerned his covert argument and Ramsey suddenly busiedherself talking up to the pilot-house, "I noticed, more'n eveh, how muchshe, Phyllis, favoh'd somebody I was once 'pon a time pow'ful soft on, but whose image"--his smile won smiles again--"I to'e out o' myheart--aw buried in thah--aw both--it bein' too ridiculous fo' me toaspiah that high. An' so here looked to me like a substitute, gentlemen, that ought to satisfy all concerned. " His eye turned to madame but lostcourage and escaped back to Hugh. 

"Now, Mr. Hugh, I've got money a-plenty. It's all I have got excep'maybe a good tempeh, an' I'm goin' back to the diggin's anyhow; one manto the squa' mile is too crowded fo' me. Meantime, madam"--he turnedagain and this time he was invincible, although madame straightened andsparkled and Ramsey gave a staring attention, having throughout all herpilot-house talk heard everything----"Meantime, madam, with a priestright here on boa'd, if I can buy, at any price, Phyllis's freepapehs----"

"You can't!" chanted Ramsey. "She can have 'em for nothing but nobodycan buy 'em. "

"Pries'?" asked madame, "an' free pape'! W'at you pro-ose do with thosepries' an' free pape'?"

"I'll marry her; marry her an' take her to whah a woman's a woman fo' a'that an' can clean house aw cook dinneh whilst I gatheh the honeycombbright as gold and drive the wolf to his secret hold. " He cast aroundthe group a glance of bright inquiry, but except old Joy every onesilently looked at every one else. The old woman softly closed her eyesand shook her head. 

"Vote!" cried Ramsey, remembering Sunday's victory. "Let's vote on it!"

LV

LOVE MAKES A CUT-OFF

But the grandfather addressed the adventurer. "You'd rather not, Ifancy. "

"Rather not; looks too unanimous the wrong way. "

"Would you still like to have Hugh's advice?"

"I would! I'd like to hear yo'-all's argument. "

Ramsey dropped into her chair with a tired sigh and up-stream gazethough with an inner ear of keenest attention. 

Hugh glanced toward his father's door, whence at any moment, as everyone realized, the actor might beckon. 

"I have no argument, " he began. 

"You have, " breathed a voice, unmistakably Ramsey's; "you always have. "

"You know, " he continued to the Kentuckian, "there's something in all ofus, I don't say what, or whether wise or foolish, that says: 'Don't doit. ' You feel it, don't you?"

Madame interrupted: "_Mais_ don't do w'at?"

Ramsey faced the group as if to answer just that question. "Now we passbetween Cedar Point and Pecan Point and head for the Second ChickasawBluffs!"

"Ah bah, _les_ bloff', " murmured madame and repeated to Hugh: "Somethingsay, 'Don' do it'? _Mais_ w'at it say don' do?"

"Don't mix the great races we know apart by their color. "

"Umph! An' w'at is thad something w'at tell uz that?"

"Grandfather calls it race conscience. "

"Grandfather!" whimpered Ramsey, while madame asked:

"Of w'at race has Phylliz the conscien'? An' you would know Phylliz'race--ad sight--by the color?"

"I'd know it!" put in the Kentuckian. "She's white, to all intents andpurposes. "

"No, " said Hugh, "not quite to all. Not to all as organized society, inits----"

Ramsey, with eyes up the river, sighed: "Mrs. Grundy?"

"Yes, but Mrs. Grundy in her best intents and purposes. "

"In her race conscience, " wailed Ramsey to the breeze. 

"In her race conscience, " assented Hugh. 

Ramsey whipped around. "Thought you had no argument. "

"I'm giving grandfather's, " said the grandson. 

"Humph! it's yours. I'd know it at sight--by the color. "

"Miss Ramsey, " said the old man, toying with his cane, "Hugh and I havebeen finding that, right or wrong, Mrs. Grundy or Mr. Grundy, raceconscience is a wonderful, unaccountable thing for which men will givetheir life-blood by thousands. " His voice failed. He waved smilingly toHugh. 

"And when, " broke in Hugh to Ramsey, "when Mrs. Grundy, in her raceconscience, says Phyllis is not white no one ought to snap his fingersin even Mrs. Grundy's face merely to please himself or to relieve someprivate situation. "

Ramsey stood up, flashing first on him and then to her mother, droppedagain, and with her face in her elbow on the chair's back reciteddrearily--from her third reader:

 "You can hear him swing his heavy sledge With measured beat and slow, Like the sexton ringing the village bell When the evening sun----"

"Ramzee!" exclaimed madame, while the old nurse groaned: "Oh, Lawd 'a'massy!"

The girl rose, laughed, and flashed again: "Well, if Phyllis ain't whitewhat is she? She's got to be something!"

"Yes, " said the youth, "but not everything. I know her wrongs. But noneof us, with whatever rights and wrongs, can have, or do, or be----"

"Oh, don't we know all that?" Ramsey turned to the grandfather and withsudden deference sprang to help him rise. He faced her and theCalifornian together. 

"Miss Ramsey, Hugh has all your feelings in this matter. "

Madame, "California, " and old Joy eagerly assented. 

"But poor, blundering old Mrs. Grundy, always wronging some one, " theold man smilingly continued, "is really fighting hard for a better humanrace. That's the greatest battle she can fight, my dear young lady, andwhen----"

"Well, " rejoined Ramsey with eyes frankly tearful, "she fights it mightybadly. "

"Ah, a hundred times worse than you think. Yet we who presume to fightthe blunders of that battle must fight them unselfishly and to help herwin. "

Old Joy groaned so approvingly that he turned to her. 

"What do you think, old mammy?"

"Who, me? Lawd, I thinks mighty little an' I knows less. Yit one thing Idoes know: Phyllis ain' gwine. She know' you cayn't make her white bytakin' her to whah it make' no odds ef she ain't white. Phyllis love'folks. She love' de quality, she love' de crowd. White aw black awoctoroom free niggeh, Phyllis gwine to choose de old Hayle home and degreat riveh--full o' steamboat'--sooneh'n any lan' whah de ain't mo'none 'oman to de mile. Phyllis ain't gwine. "

The closing words faded to soliloquy. For every one stood up, and eventhe old woman's attention was diverted to Watson's apprenticeapproaching from the captain's room. On his way below for the doctor hecame, in the actor's behalf, to ask if he might bring up also Mrs. Gilmore. 

Assuredly he might. How was the patient?

"Very quiet, " the boy hopefully replied. Whereupon madame begged leaveto repair at once to the sick-room, but neither of the Courteneys wouldconsent nor either of them allow the other to go. The steersman passedon down. 

From enviously watching him do so, "California" turned to the companyand in open abandonment of his amazing proposition said drolly thatnever before had he failed, in so many ways "hand-running, " to makehimself useful. He reseated Madame Hayle and would have set the daughterbeside her, but the mother bade Ramsey give Joy the chair and leanedwearily on the old woman's shoulder. Both Courteneys urged their seatson the girl, and when she would not accept while either of them stoodfor her servant to sit, the grandfather left Hugh debating with her, took "California's" arm, found other chairs a few paces away, andengaged him in a gentle parley which any one might see was an appeal tohis sober second thought. It was Ned's shift up at the wheel, but thechange of watch was near; his partner stood at his elbow. Their gaze wasup a reach between the two most northern of those four groups of bluffswhose mention even Ramsey was for the moment tired of, yet they studiedthe three couples on the roof below. 

"Runs smooth at the present writing, " said Watson. 

"Clair chann'l ef noth'n' else, " responded Ned. The allusion was neitherto boat nor stream but to a certain opportuneness of things, whoseobviousness to them, looking down, was mainly what kept Ramsey standing. While she stood beside the two empty chairs cross-questioning Hugh witha fresh show of her maturer mildness and he stood inwardly taking backhis late farewell to sweet companionship and softly answering in hisincongruous pomp of voice with a new tenderness, and while the worn-outmother gradually let her full weight sink on the tired slave, thisobvious propitiousness was embarrassingly increased by the two wearyones falling asleep. 

True, the clearness of channel--this channel in the upper air--was notabsolute, but its obstacles nettled mostly the pilots. To Ramsey, evento Hugh, obstacles were almost welcome, as enabling them to show to aprying world that nothing beyond the grayest commonplace was occurringbetween them. One such interruption was the upcoming and passing of Mrs. Gilmore and the physician to the sick-room and the cub pilot's partingwith them to join the younger pair. The boy found Hugh confessing thathe should not know exactly how to word Phyllis's "free papers" butadding that the first clerk would be pleased to make them out at once ifRamsey's eagerness so dictated. It did, and presently the modestintruder was hurrying away on a double errand: to bear this confidentialrequest to the clerk and then to seek the Brothers Ambrosia and withthem and the two under-clerks arrange for the evening performance, thegiving of which, however, Ramsey insisted, must depend on the captain'scondition when evening should come. 

"Wish it were here now, " she said as they watched the messenger go. "Don't you?"

"I could, " he replied, "but it will be here soon enough. "

The conversation which followed remained in their memory through yearsof separation. 

She spoke again in her new tone: "You think your father will get well, don't you?"

"No, Ramsey. "

At those words her heart did two things at once: stopped on the first, rebounded on the second. But it fell again as he added: "I fear I mustlose my father to-night. "

She stood mute, looking into his eyes and pondering every light andshadow of the severe young face that to her seemed so imperially unlikeall others. "He's great, " she said in her heart. "And he loves with hisgreatness. Loves even his father that way; not as I love mine or loveanybody, or ever shall or can, or could wish to, unless I were a man andas great as him--he. I never could have dreamt of any one loving me thatway, but if any ever should I'd worship him. " Suddenly her sympathy rosehigh. 

"Oh, why not just think to yourself: 'He _will_ live'?"

"Why should I? Should I be fit to live myself if I were not true tomyself?"

"You are! You always are!"

"No one can be who isn't truthful to himself. "

Ramsey gazed again. A sense of his suffering benumbed her, and forrelief she asked: "Is that why you don't wish it were evening, whenreally you do?"

He smiled. "I can't wish the sun to get out of my way. That's what itwould mean, isn't it?"

She fell to thinking what it meant. All at once she pointed: "That's theFirst Chickasaw Bluff. . . . Yes, I s'pose it does mean that. . . . It'sterrible how thoughtless I am. "

"It doesn't terrify me. I promise you it never shall. "

Was he making game of her? She narrowed her lids and looked at himsidewise. No, plainly he was not; so plainly that she took refuge inanother question. "Don't you like night better than day sometimes?"

"I do, often. "

"Why?"

"For one thing, we can see so much farther. "

"Oh, ridiculous! we can't see nearly so far!"

"We can see so much farther and wider, deeper, clearer. The day blindsus. Spoils our sense of proportion. At night we see more of whatcreation really is. Our sun becomes one little star among thousands ofgreater ones, and we are humbled into a reasonableness which is veryhard not to lose in the bewilderments of daylight. "

Ramsey sank to the arm of a chair, but when he remained standing shestood again. "Wasn't you saying something like that the evening we leftNew Orleans?" she asked. 

"To my father, yes. I couldn't have said it in daylight then. I couldn'tsay it in daylight now to any one but you, Ramsey. "

Her heart leaped again. Her eyes looked straight into his; could notlook away. He spoke on:

"You're a kind of evening to me, yourself; evening star. "

Her bosom pounded. She glanced up behind to the pilots. Watson had thewheel. As she strenuously pushed back her curls she felt her templesburn. She could have cried aloud for Hugh to cease, yet was mad for himto go on. 

And so he did. "You are my evening star in this nightfall of affliction. I tell you so not in weakness but in strength and in defiance: in thestrength I summon for the hour before me; in the defiance I fling toyour brothers. I may never have another chance. If ours were theordinary chances of ordinary life I should say nothing now. I shouldwait; wait and give love time; time to prove itself in me--in both ofus. I _ask_ nothing. I am too new to you, life is too new--to you--forpledges. "

She flashed him a glance and then, looking up the river, said, with theghost of a toss: "I'm older than you think. "

He ignored the revelation. "But I will say, " he went on, "--for thesethree days and nights have been three years to me and I feel a threeyears' right to say--I love you; love you for life; am yours for lifethough we never meet again. For I believe that we belong to each otherfrom the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes ofyour brothers. "

[Illustration: "For I believe that we belong to each other from thecentre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of yourbrothers"]

Still looking up the flood and red from brow to throat, Ramsey murmuredtwo or three words which she saw he did not hear. Yet he stood withoutsound or look to ask what she had said, and presently repeated:

"I believe in God's sight we belong to each other. "

"So do I, " said Ramsey again, with clearer voice and with her brimmingeyes looking straight into his. A footfall turned her and she faced therelieved pilot. 

"Isn't this Island Thirty-three, " she asked, "right here on ourstarboard bow?"

"Thirty-three, " assented Ned. "Alias Flour Island; but _not_ Flow-erIsland. Flour-ladened flatboats wrecked there in the days o' yo'grandfather, Eliphalet Hayle, whose own boats they might 'a' been, onlyHayles ain't never been good at losin' boats. But his'n or not, _can_you suspicion they wuz flow-er-ladened? Shucks! them that spell itthat-a-way air jest as bad an' no wuss than them that stick _b_ ontoPlum in Plum P'int an' pull the _y_ out o' Hayle fo' Hayle's P'int! Theyjest a-airin' they ignorance. Some fellers love to air they ignorance. Ido, myself. "

He gave these facts of topography in reward of the grave interest thatHugh--elated interest that Ramsey--still seemed to take in all suchitems, as well as to allow them to infer that he had not noticed thembetraying interest in anything more personal. 

"Hayle's P'int--" he resumed, and when Madame Hayle and old Joy rousedand glanced around on him, while the senator and the general reappearedclose by, looking back down the steamer's wake with military comments onthe First Chickasaw Bluff, just left behind, he addressed them all asone. Hayle's Point, he persisted, was miles away yet and comparativelyunimportant "considerin' its name, " but the small cluster of houses onthe Arkansas side up in the next bend was Osceola, where Plum Point Barsmade the "wickedest" bit of river between Saint Louis and the Gulf; abit that "killed" at least one steamboat every year. He said they werethen passing a sand-bar, under water at this stage, which had beenIsland Thirty-two until "swallered whole" by the "big earthquake" of1811. 

"Better'n forty year' ago, that was. Only quake ever felt in theseparts, but so big that, right in the middle of all the b'ilin' an'staggerin' an' sinkin' down to Chiny, the Mis'sippi River give birth toher fust steamboat--an' saved it!" So he continued, egged on by theconviction that, over and above the intrinsic value of the facts, theseconversational eddies outside the current of incident "a-happ'min' to'em yit" helped forward his two most deeply interested hearers on thatcourse erroneously supposed never to run smooth. 

Be that as it may, the two pilots' joint theory of maxims working aswell backward as forward worked here; deep waters ran still. Love, thatis, having broken intolerable bounds in one short fierce "chute" ofdeclaration, was content to run deep and still and to give broadprecedence to duties, sorrows, and courtesies. The pair noticeablydrifted apart and conversed with others when others were quite willingthey should drift together. Madame Hayle needed but a glance or so toperceive that something beautiful had happened in the spiritualexperience of her daughter. By and by when the commodore and theCalifornian rejoined the group, Hugh and his grandfather spent a stillmoment looking into each other's eyes and when both gazes relaxed atonce the story had been told and understood. 

They turned to hear what was passing between the general, senator, andCalifornian. Said the soldier:

"Sssirs, I only insssist that _if_ this region ever sees war PortHudson, Grand Gulf, Vvvicksburg, these fffour Chickasaw Bluffs, andIsland Ten up here above us will be imp-regnably fffortified. "

Ramsey turned to the actor's wife as she came from the texas. 

"How's the captain?" asked both she and her mother. But Mrs. Gilmore wastoo overcome to reply. 

Ramsey saw the actor at the stateroom door. He had beckoned. Hugh andthe grandfather were on their way. At a quieter pace the four womenfollowed and more slowly still the other four men. Reaching Gilmore, theCourteneys paused and spoke, then looked back to Ramsey and madame, andbeckoned--Hugh to the mother, the commodore to Ramsey. Gilmore repeatedthe gesture and they glided forward. At the same time the playeradvanced to meet his wife, and, as if some intuition had rung the call, the scene-loving twins appeared in the senator's halted group and stoodwith them gazing, while Madame Hayle, the commodore, Ramsey, and Hughentered the captain's room. 

LVI

EIGHT YEARS AFTER

"A hundred months, " says the love-song that beguiled so many thousandsof hearts throughout the Mississippi Valley in those old "Lily Dale, ""Nellie Gray, " "What is Home Without a Mother?" days, when thelugubrious was so blithely enjoyed at the piano. Its first wails datenearly or quite back to October, 1860. 

"A hundred months had passed" since that first up-stream voyage of the_Votaress_, or, to be punctilious, something under a hundred and two. Itwas the opening week of that mid-autumn month in which it became evidentthat Abraham Lincoln would be the next president. Another new boat, newpride of the great river, the fairest yet, still in the hands of hercontractors, and on her trial trip from Louisville to New Orleans, wasrounding, one after another, now far in the east, now as far in thewest, the bends nearest below Memphis: Cow Island, Cat Island, St. Francis, Delta--so on. 

The river was low. You would hardly have known a reach, a cut-off, apoint of it by any aspect remembered from that journey of April, '52. Scantness of waters appeared to contract distances. "Paddy's Hen andChickens, " just above Memphis, were all out on dry sands and seemedcloser under the "Devil's Elbow" than eight years before. Every towheadand bar and hundreds of snags were above water and as ugly as mud, age, sun bleach, and turkey-buzzards could make them. Many a chutecomfortably run by the _Votaress_ was now "closed for repairs, " said oneof the pilots of the _Enchantress_. He was the whilom steersman we knewas Watson's cub; a very capable-looking man now. At the moment, he wasoff watch and had come out from the bar to the boiler deck with a trim, supple man of forty, whose shirt of fine white flannel was open at thethroat, where a soft neckerchief of red silk matched the sash at hiswaist: "California, " eight years older and out of the West again despitehis "never" to Hayle's twins. 

"I like to change my mind sometimes, " he explained. "It shows me I'vegot one. "

A towering, massive, grizzly man several years older than theCalifornian, with a short, stiff, throat-latch beard and a great bush ofdense, short curls, stood by the forward guards, a picture of rude forceand high efficiency. At every moment, from some direction among thedeck's loungers a light scrutiny ventured to rest on him, to which heseemed habituated, and the lightest was enough to reveal in him astriking union of traits coarse and fine. He wore a big cluster diamondpin, a sort of hen-and-chickens of his own, secured by a minuteguard-chain on a ruffled shirt-front of snowiest linen, where clung drycrumbs of the "fine-cut" which puffed the lower side pockets of his grayalpaca sack coat. His gold-headed cane was almost a bludgeon. He hadcome aboard at Memphis, having reached that city but a few hours earlierby rail-way train from White Sulphur Springs, Va. , where he had had thegood fortune to find great relief from rheumatism. The young lady in hiscompany, now back in the ladies' cabin, was his daughter, they said, beautiful and all of twenty-two, yet unmarried! This man the pilot andthe Californian approached and waited for his attention. When he gave itthe pilot spoke. 

"Commodore, " he said, "welcome back to the river. "

The big man grew bigger and his shaggy brows more severe. 

"I feel welcome, " he said. "Only place under God's canopy where I canbreathe down into my boots. "

"And you want the roof for it here, don't you? I do. Roof or wheel. Commodore Hayle, my friend Mr. So-and-so, from California. He's yourbrand; Kentuck' born and raised. "

The two shook hands, scanning each other's countenances. The eyes ofboth were equally blue, equally intrepid. 

"Are you the man--?" Hayle began to ask with grim humor. 

"I think so. "

"Well, my boy, I've been wanting to see you for better than eightyears. " The speaker glanced around for privacy. 

"Come up, " said the pilot; "I'm just going on watch. " They followed him. On the roof he continued:

"Seen Captain Hugh yet, commodore? He's sure enough captain now, youknow; youngest on the river. He was looking for you a bit ago. This is abeautiful boat he's going to have, eh?"

"Humph, yes. _Votaress_ over again. " The critic gave her a freshscrutiny from cutwater to stern rail, from freight guards to theoak-leaf crown on either chimney-top. 

"Why, commodore, she knocks the hindsights off the old _Votaress_ everyway. You'll see that mighty quick. "

"Humph, yes; best yet, of the Courteney type. Ridiculous, how they hangto that. I'll build a boat to beat her inside a year if old Abe ain'telected. If he is, we'll just build gunboats and raise particular hell. "On the skylight the speaker amiably declined to climb any higher. 

"No, us two Kentuck's will try it here. " The pair found seats together, and soon the Californian was making the best of an opportunity he, noless than Gideon Hayle, had coveted for eight years. It interested himkeenly, as affording a glimpse into the famous boatman's character, thatthe latter showed a grasp of the dreadful voyage's story as vivid andclear in each of its two versions--the mother and daughter's and thetwins'--as though the intervening months had been one instead of ahundred--and two. 

They rehearsed together the arrival of the _Votaress_ at Louisville inthe dead of night; confessed the folly of any "outsider" seeking thegrief-burdened Gideon's ear in that first hour of reunion with hisfamily, and the equal unwisdom of his pressing, in such an hour, anacute personal question upon Hugh and his grandfather who, at Paducah, had just buried John Courteney. 

"And you've never pressed it sence?" asked "California. "

"Mm-no. "

"Nor let either o' them press it?"

"No!"--a sturdy oath--"nor you nor anybody alive. Go on with yourstory. "

The gold hunter went on unruffled; told it as he had seen it occur;recounted, among other things, how, on the final landing of theimmigrants, at Cairo, Marburg and not a few besides had covered MadameHayle's hands with kisses and tears and would have done Hugh Courteney'sso could they have got at him. His hearer frowned and set his big jaw, but the narrative flowed on, describing how, like Marburg, many hadwaved affectionate farewells to Hugh and to Ramsey which she could guessno reason for in her case except her own wet eyes, but which"California" saw was because, through himself and Phyllis, theimmigrants had found her out as another who believed in letting theoppressed go free and come free. He told even those irrelevant thingsabout himself which had made him ludicrous. They imparted a neededlightness and kindled the big commodore's smile. 

"They never found out, " said "California, " "that the fellow who played'Bounding Billow' and 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' was me--I--myself. "

He told all as honestly, fearlessly as we might know he would. When hishuge listener tried to say off-handedly that every man who knew anythingknew that women and men never see things alike and that differentwitnesses could, quite honestly, give irreconcilable accounts of thesame thing, the Californian serenely waved away all such gloss and withthe seated giant hanging over him like a thunder-cloud said that thetwins could never see anything straight enough to tell the truth aboutit if they wanted to and that just as certainly they often didn't wantto. Pausing there and getting no retort, he ventured another step. Saidhe:

"And there you've hung the case up for eight years. "

"That's my business!" Gideon smote the arm of his chair. 

"California" laughed a moment like a girl, with drooping head. Then--oh, the twins had their good points, yes. One was the way they stuck to eachother. And their biggest virtue, their "best holt, " the one their worstenemy couldn't help liking them for, was their invincible sand. 

"The devil couldn't scare 'em with his tail red-hot. "

At that the father laughed gratefully. 

"They'd ought to be in some trade where pluck, " the Californian went on, "is the whole show. They'd ought to be soldiers. As plain up-and-downfighters for fight'n's sake, commodore, they'd hit it off as sweet asblackstrap!"

The truth smote hard but the parent feigned a jovial inappreciation. Ifthat was so they had made a "most damnable misdeal, " he laughed, havingsettled down in Natchez together, "too soft on each other to marry andas tame as parrakeets"; Julian as county sheriff, his brother aphysician. 

The Californian silently doubted the tameness. Abruptly, though in tonesof worship, he inquired after Madame Hayle. 

Madame just then was at home, on the plantation at Natchez. Yes, she andRamsey often made trips with Gideon on that _Paragon_ which they hadgone up the river to come down on, in '52. The _Paragon_, wonderfullypreserved, was still in the "Vicksburg and Bends" trade and happenedthen to be some forty-eight hours ahead of the _Enchantress_ and nearingNew Orleans. Madame and her daughter now and then spent part of thesocial season in the great river's great seaport, which was--"bound tobe the greatest in the world, my boy, " said Gideon. But Ramsey----

When Ramsey became the topic, even "California, " while the fatherboasted, had to hold on, as he would have said, with his teeth to keepfrom being blown away. Her "one and only love" was the river! She "knewit like a pilot" and loved it and the whole life on it not merely forits excitements, variety, and outlook on the big world. 

"That is to say----for its poetry, " prompted "California. "

"Yes, not for that only but just as much for its prose, by Mike! Why, myboy, that's all that's kept her single!"

"Except!" said the Californian softly, but Gideon pressed on. "Andsingle, now, I reckon, she'll always be. Why, sir, not a day breaks butshe knows, within an hour's run, the whereabouts of every Hayle boatalive. "

"Some Courteney boats too, hmm?"

"Why, eh"--a stare--"I shouldn't wonder. Yes. Humph! 'youngest captainon the river'--fact is, that's _her_. Lady as she is, and lovely as sheis, she's a better steamboatman to-day than--than many a first-classone. She's nearer being my business partner than any man I ever hired. "

"Partner's share of the swag?"

"No, " laughed the giant, "but I'm leaving her the boats. "

"Well, " said "California, " "all that's good preparation. "

The huge man shot him a glance and the two pairs of blue eyes held eachother. Then "California" smiled his winsomest and said: "Did you evernotice how much easier you can see through the ends of an iron pipe thanthrough its sides?"

Gideon stared. "Humph! Any fool that wants to see through me may see andbe--joyful. What do you think you see?"

"Oh, things you'd ought to thought of and never have. "

"Why, you in'--Well, I'll be damned. "

"Shouldn't wonder a bit, " said "California" so amiably that the big manlaughed. 

"Maybe you'll tell me my oversights!"

"No, but you'll be told, shortly, if the man I think I know is the manI--think I know. Let's pass that now, commodore. Oh, I wish you'd beenwith us on the _Votaress_. How different things might 'a' turned out. You know? I don't believe any other trip on all this big river, barringthe first steamboat's first, ever made so big a turning-point in so manylives. Why, jest two or three things in it, things and people, made meanother man. "

"One not so need'n' to be hanged?"

"Yes, and not so hungry to hang other fellers. I hadn't ever met up withsuch aristocratic stock as I did then but I tchuned right up to 'em andI've mighty nigh held their pitch ever sence. Fo'most of all was thisHugh Courteney. Fo'most because, he being a man, I wa'n't afraid of him. But a close second was yo' daughter; second because, she being a woman, I was afraid of her. Why, even Phyllis, that's now chambermaid on thisboat----"

"By Jupiter!" Gideon Hayle half started from his seat. "On this boat?our Phyllis? that Ramsey set free?"

"Yes. Captain Hugh's nurse that was. "

"Look here, my boy, is that why you're aboard?"

"No, sir-ee! Don't you fret. That trip, I tell you, made another man ofme. It lifted; why, commodore, it made me a poet. "

"Made you a--Oh, go 'long off!"

"Yes, sir. Writ poetry ever sence. Dropped prose; too easy. It's realpoetry, commodore; rhymes as slick as grease. Show you some of itlater. "

"George! if you do I'll jump into the river. "

"Agreed! I've got some that'll make you do that. "

"You haven't got any that wouldn't. "

Neither smiled, neither frowned. Obviously each knew how to like anadversary and when "California" rose and the two, glancing aft, sawanother two approaching from the pilot-house, one of whom was Watson, Hayle touched the poet detainingly and said:

"Don't go 'way, I want some more of your prose. "

"Want to know why I'm here? Not countin' the fun o' seein' Captain Hugh, half the reason's that gentleman yonder comin' with Mr. Watson, and theother half's his lady, down below a-powwowin' with yo' daughter. Fact isI'd struck it rich again out West and got restless and come East, and atSaint Louis I see by a newspaper that them two was allowin' to go downto Orleans on this boat this trip, and ree-collect-in' the pinch theygot into of old on the _Votaress_, s'I to myself, 'me too!'"

Here the other men drew near and, while "California" ran on, silentlypressed the big hand offered sidewise by Hayle. 

"And with that I set down and writ a poem--took me a whole night--to thebest half dozen o' them that was on the other trip, invitin' 'em, at myexpense, to jump on when we come by--at New Carthage--Milliken'sBend--Vicksburg--and trustin' to luck and fresh post stamps to find 'em. But little did we dream o' seein' you walk aboard, at Memphis, and stillless yo' daughter and her old Joy; did we, Mr. Gilmore?"

LVII

FAREWELL, "VOTARESS"

Montezuma Bend . . . Delta . . . Delta Bend . . . Friar's Point . . . KangarooPoint . . . Horseshoe Bend and Cut-off. Some, at least, of these weremember. At mention of them the Gilmores and "California"smiled--behind Ramsey: such a different, surpassingly different Ramsey!

Near the _Enchantress's_ bell these four and old Joy were gathered aboutGideon Hayle, Watson, and Hugh Courteney--such an inspiringly differentHugh! Two or three showed a divided attention, letting an occasionalglance stray down the waters ahead, where Old Town Bend swung from westto south. 

At the same moment, in Horseshoe Cut-off, some twelve or fifteen milesbelow, another swift, handsome steamer, upward bound--the great rivercould hardly yet show more than one handsomer--swept into the north froman easterly course under Island Sixty-four and pointed up the middle ofthe stream to pass between Sixty-three and Sixty-two where, at the headof the reach, they parted the river into three channels and widened itto more than a league. She would have been an animating sight if onlyfor the fact that every soul aboard who was not just then engaged inrunning her was at the guards of one or another of her graceful decks. The forecastle was darkened by her crew standing in a half circle aboutthe capstan, her larboard pantry guards were crowded with white-jackets, her roofs were gay with ladies and children. In elated oblivion of thecharming picture presented by their own boat and themselves, all wereawaiting a spectacle which their pilots and captain had said wouldsurely be met within the next hour's run. 

Although behind them was a tortuous fifty miles in which hardly moresigns of human life had been seen or heard than if their way had been onthe open Atlantic, the beauty of the wilderness alone, transfigured inthe lights of the declining day, might well have satisfied the eye. Ared sun was just touching the horizon. Its beams and the blue shadowsthat divided them lay level, miles long, athwart the glassy stream andits green and gray forests and tapered and vanished in a low easternhaze. The tints of autumn already prevailed along the shores, and theindolent waters mirrored the reversed images of the two islands inoutlines clearer than their own and from bank to bank took on inenriched hues the many colors of the sky. At the far end of the reach, between and somewhat beyond the islands, stood well out of the shrunkenflood a sand-bar, its middle crested green and gold with young poplarsand willows, all its ill favor made picturesque and the whole massglorified by the sunset. By this bar the waters of the central channelwere again divided, north and south, and the steamer, with anothereastward turn, straightened up for the southern passage between the barand Sixty-three. 

"We'll pass her close, " said one of the boat's family to those who hungon his words. "In this low water she's got to come round the bar andwell over to the left bank, same as us. "

On the boiler deck and on the roof passengers of the kind that see forthemselves pointed out to the kind that see only what they are shown thesmoke of another boat, across the forests on the Arkansas side, in OldTown Bend. There were ways for some to know even at that distance thatshe was a craft they had never yet seen, but every two minutes thedistance grew less by a mile. Presently, as the nearer boat, giving thebar's eastern head a wide berth, swung once more into the north, the_Enchantress_ glided into view on the larboard bow hardly two milesaway. But before the _Enchantress_ as well, looking south across thesame interval, gleamed a picture worthy of her delight. For there camethe _Votaress_, curling white ribbons from her cutwater, her peoplewaving and cheering, a swivel barking from her prow, and the whistleshigh up between her chimneys roaring in long salute. 

By no premeditation could the unpremeditated scene have been finer. The_Votaress_, as she took the wider circuit against the Mississippi shore, caught the whole power of the setting sun on all her nearer side whileshe swept close along an undivided curtain of autumn forest drenched inthe same sunlight and quaking to her sudden breeze. North and west ofher, where the sand-bar lay bare of trees, the _Enchantress_, larger, stronger, swifter, moved in her own shade but was set against the farsplendor of a saffron, green, and crimson sky in which the fiery sunshowed only its upper half sinking beneath the landscape. The lights ofall her decks, just lit, gave no vivid ray but glinted like gems on acourt lady. Her bridal whiteness was as pure hid from the sunbeams asher sister's bathed in them. From both the high black smoke streamedaway through the evening calm and from their twinkling wheels the foamswept after them like trains of lace. We speak for our poet, who, lacking fit imagery of his own, recalled one of Jenny Lind's songs:

 "I see afar thy robe of snow, I see thy dark hair wildly flow, I hear thy airy step so light, Thou com'st to wish thy love good night. Good night, my love, good night. "

Good night, _Votaress_! He could not know, nor Ramsey, nor any of thoseamong whom they stood, that these bends were never again to see you inyour beauty--though in tragedy, yes! yes! They knew that in theshipyards of the Ohio you were to receive a beautiful rejuvenation; butknew not that then, as a dove may be caught by a lynx, you were to becaught by a great war, a war greater than the great river, and shouldreturn to these scenes a transport; a poor, scarred, bedraggled consortto gunboats; slow reptilian monsters of iron ugliness and bellowingferocity. They knew not of days when you must swarm with bluesoldiers--including Marburg--sometimes hot and merry for battle, sometimes shot-torn, fever-wasted, yellow-eyed, a human rubbish of campand siege, lighter part of the deadly price of conquered strongholds andfallen cities--Forts Henry and Donelson, Columbus, Island Ten, FortPillow, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Memphis; or that, after all, inrecovered decency, honored poverty, you should wear out a gentle old ageas a wharf-boat to your unspeakable inferiors. And neither could they, those voyagers on the new steamer, foresee the happier vision of their_Enchantress_ living through the war charmedly unscathed, sharing thepalmiest days of the Mississippi's navigation without ever beingsurpassed in speed or beauty, even by younger Courteney boats, and atlast falling asleep peaceably at her moorings hard by the vast riversiderailway warehouses on the outskirts of a greater New Orleans. 

All this forces its way through the mind while we see the meeting boatscover half the run between them. On the _Enchantress_ a deck-handmounted the capstan. 

"They're going to sing, " hurriedly said Ramsey to Hugh. "I wish they'dsing ''Lindy Lowe' that I've heard about!"

And whether by happy chance or on some signal dropped down from him orbecause the chantey was a new one and the crew were glad to show it off, it was chosen. The two steamers passed close with a happy commotionthroughout both and the song swelled. Then the wooded crest of the barhid each from each, and Hugh turned to Gideon: "Now, commodore, if MissHayle is willing I'd like to take you both below and show you over theboat--before supper. "

When their descent brought them to the boiler deck the song was yet infull swing. When, passing on down, they reached the engine room the factwas amusingly clear to many on all decks, among them the Gilmores, theCalifornian, and Watson, that the singers had lit on a new bearing fortheir lines and were singing them now in compliment to a certain twowhose story was by this time known to all on board. Whether, backbetween the sweeping cranks and shafts of the two great engines andwheels, behind the "doctor" and the "donkey" and with Hugh and Ramsey athis elbows, the alert Gideon heard the song at all was doubtful; so deepin debate were the two men, the quiet and the loud, on dimensions andpowers: length, beam, hold, stroke, diameters of cylinders and ofwheels, in such noted cases as the _Chevalier_, the _Eclipse_, the _J. M. White_, the _Natchez_, _Antelope_, _Paragon_, _Quakeress_, and_Autocrat_. The three were there yet when the song's last echo died, with Island Sixty-four eastward astern, Sixty-five southward ahead, thebrief twilight failing and the supper bell ringadang-dinging. 

At table a far-away whistle softly roared and the _Enchantress_sonorously responded. 

"A Hayle boat, " said Ramsey to Hugh; "the _Regent_. "

"And we're singing 'Lindy' again!" said Mrs. Gilmore. 

Gideon, busy talking a few seats away, talked straight on, but a cloudon his brow showed now that he had heard the song the earlier time. Every one tried hard to listen to him and the melody with the same ears. Under the table somebody's toe had no better manners than gently to beattime. 

LVIII

'LINDY LOWE

[Music: Come, smil-in' 'Lind-y Lowe, . . . De pooti-ess gal I know, . . . On de fin-ess boat dat ev-eh float, In de O-hi-o, De Mas-sis-sip-pi awde O-hi-o. ]

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, teef whiteh dan de snow, On de finess boat dat eveh float, In de O--hi--o, De Mas--sis--sip--pi aw de O--hi--o. 

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de Lou'siana sho', (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, by de Gu'f o' Mexico, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de bayous deep an' slow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de moss wave, to an' fro, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de bell done ring to go, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de muscadimons grow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, befo' de whistle blow', (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de pride o' Lake St. Jo', (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I love' you long ago, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I'll love you mo' an' mo', (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, how kin you treat me so? (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet pussimmon grow (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de steam-kyahs runs too slow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de blue pon'-lily grow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, O don't you tell me no! (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I's bound to be yo' beau, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de wile white roses grow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de fust of all de row, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, eyes sweeteh dan de doe, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de white magnonia blow', (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, an' awake up, fiddle an' bow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, we'll a-dance de heel an' toe, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de tchune o' Jump, Jim Crow, (Chorus)

 Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, come, de pootiess gal I know, On de finess boat dat eveh float' In de O--hi--o, De Mas--sis--sip--pi aw de O--hi--o. 

LIX

"CONCLUSIVELY"

Alone in the wide light of a harvest-moon that wrapped all shores indeep shadow and turned the mid-channel to silver, Hugh and Ramsey stoodat the low front rail of the texas roof. 

There were but few to see them, but every eye in range was aware of herand of a refined simplicity of dress adorning a figure whose pliantgrace was the finishing touch to her joyous erectness. Hugh's gaze wasfrankly on her, and his mind on the first night he had ever seen her, when, with her hair wind-tossed in loose curls, she had stood at thisspot on the _Votaress_ and in carelessness of a whole world had sung"The Lone Starry Hours. "

Equally distant from them were the pilot-house behind and above and thebell down forward on the skylight. To right and left on a thwartshipline just back of them towered the chimneys softly giving out theirtitanic respirations. Watson, though off watch, was up at the wheelbeside his partner, pretending not to see the two beneath. In otherwords, he was still, after eight and a half years, "in the game. " TheGilmores were with him, both in body and spirit. 

Out forward of the bell, below it on the main roof, one of the boat'sbuilders, responsible for her till she should reach New Orleans, sat inthe captain's chair. 

"After eight years and a half, " Hugh himself had gravely begun to say toRamsey, when two men, "California" and a fellow smoker, sauntered acrossthe skylight roof close below. Gilmore, up in the pilot-house, wasannoyed. 

"Our poet, " he murmured to his wife, "will spill the fat into the fireyet, if we don't stop him. "

But the Californian had purposely encumbered himself with this strangerto make it plain that, hover as he might, he waived all claim to herattention. What better could a man do? And now he forbore even to lookher way. The abstention was as marked as any look could have been. Asthey passed, Hugh was silent, but Ramsey spoke, her speech a light blendof response and evasion. 

"On the _Votaress_, " she said, "the front of the texas didn't stand outforward of the chimneys, like this. "

"Doesn't this make a handsomer boat, " the lover asked, "seen eitheraboard or from the shore?"

Ramsey said yes, she had noticed the improvement from the Memphiswharf-boat. "She was a splendid sight; yes, out in the stream, justbefore her wheels first stopped. At least she was to any one lovingboats and the river. "

"Then you haven't changed?" asked Hugh, not for information but in thetone that always meant so much beneath the speech. 

Her answer was merely to meet his gaze with a gentle steadfastness, eachknowing that the other's mind was overcircling all the years that haddivided them. Through those years they had exchanged no spoken orwritten word. Yet according to Watson true love finds ways, large lovelarge ways, pure love pure ways. Sometimes love's friends really help;help find ways, or keep ways found; even make chutes and cut-offs. Gilmore, Watson, and the Vicksburg merchant happened to be Odd Fellows, and the Gilmores, to whom letter-writing was, next to their profession, their main pleasure, had been a sort of clearing-house for Friendship, Love, and Truth--and especially for social news--to all the _Votaress's_old coterie; Hugh, the pairs of Milliken's Bend, Vicksburg, andCarthage, the boat's family, Phyllis, Madame Hayle, even old Joy--withmadame for amanuensis--and Ramsey herself. She and Hugh, had followedevery step in each other's course, upheld by a simplicity of faith infriendship, love, and truth, which hardly needed to ask the one questionabundantly answered by this steadfastness of eye. 

Now she looked away to the moon's path on the river, and the question ofchange came back from her: "Have you?"

"Only to grow. "

"You have grown, " she said, "every way. "

"And you, " he replied, "every beautiful way. I have just said so to yourfather. "

Her response came instantly: "How did that happen?"

"We made it happen. "

She looked at him again. "We, " of course, meant "I. " Truly she had grownevery beautiful way, but it was yet as wonderful as ever to stand, saying what she had said, hearing what she was hearing, eye to eye, opensoul to open soul, with one who could make words--words at anyrate--happen between himself and Gideon Hayle. She looked this time notalone into his eyes but on all his unhandsome countenance, and in asurviving upflare of her younger days' extravagance thought whether, among all time's heroes of the world's waters, there had ever been onetoo great for Hugh Courteney's face. So looking she thrilled with thebelief that there was nothing such men had ever done which this onemight not some day, the right day, equal or surpass. 

Again she looked away and as she looked the hovering Californianmurmured to his new-found confidant:

"You can't see the glory of her in this light nohow, unless you'd seenher already in the full blaze of the cabin, or of broad day, with thelight in that red hair. If you had you wouldn't need even the moonlightnow. You'd only need to know she was there and you'd see her withoutlooking. I seen her in her first long dress, jest a-learning to fly andsome folks showing no more poetic vision than to call her 'almostplain. ' I saw the loveliness a-coming, like daybreak in the mountains. And _he_ saw it. I saw he saw it. And now? I tell you, sir, her brow islike the snowdrift, her throat is like the swan, and her face it is thefairest--I never seen Annie Laurie, but if she's better looking orsweeter behaving--I'd rather not. Anyhow they're enough alike to besisters. I've writ a poem on this one. Like to show--hmm? Hold on. Itdon't quite suit me yet but--what's your hurry? When it does, I Joe!it'll be a ripsnorter. I've worked eight year and a half on it and theysay genius is jest a trick o' takin' infinitessimal pains. . . . No, I'mnot sleepy. Reckon I'll go up to the pilot-house. So long. Pleasantdreams. "

While he so spoke Ramsey had said: "Here comes another boat, down in thenext bend. Or is she in the chute?"

"The chute, " replied Hugh. "That's the old _Antelope_. "

"Ah, up and running again! I know all about you and the _Votaress_saving her people that awful night she sank. "

"Who told you?"

"Oh, a dozen, at a dozen times; but the best was Phyllis, writing tous. "

"Phyllis behaved heroically that night; made up for all the past--thoughreally she'd done that before. "

"I'm glad you feel that way, " murmured Ramsey and suddenly asked: "Whydid you take my father to your room just now?"

"To show him the plans for another boat. "

"Humph!" What crystalline honesty was in his answers, she pondered. Theywere as prompt as a mirror's. 

"Rivals, " she remarked, "don't ordinarily show plans. "

"Your father and I are not ordinary rivals. "

What did that mean? Her, and not mere boats' plans? She did not look athim this time. Like "California" she could see without looking. "ThinkI'll rejoin the Gilmores, " she sighed, as certain couples came up to seethe _Antelope_ go by. She feared a recurrence of "'Lindy Lowe. " On theway to the pilot-house she leisurely inquired:

"Do you think you'll ever build a finer boat than this?"

"Yes, and larger, and faster. "

"Not this season?"

"No, I should hope not for many. Yet----"

"Boats' lives, " she prompted, "are so uncertain. "

"Yes, grandfather thinks----"

"Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had"were" and "was" in hand at last. Then:

"How long will that boat be?"

"Three hundred and thirty feet. She'll have ten boilers. Her cylinderswill be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She'll carryeighty-five hundred bales of cotton. "

"Goodness! How wide will she be?"

"In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheelswill be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feetspan. You still like figures, boats' figures, I hope?"

She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous;liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for notcoming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on, " she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?"

"Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen. "

"What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?"

"No, I've just been telling your father--here comes the _Antelope_. Iwas telling him that grandfather----"

An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drownedall words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfatherwas still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now wasto know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to letHugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined theGilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as tothe light-draught _Antelope_ having come up through the chute of IslandSo-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor andgayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson:

"Why don't our men sing? _I_ want some more 'Lindy!"

Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she hadnot, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them anunfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now, by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under thestarboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies, at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. Theboat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forwardrail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up hereexcept to experienced "poetic vision, " sent up a long-drawn chanttelling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flewforward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plungedto the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pinetorch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in drippingcoils and hove again. 

"Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain. "

As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietestspeaking voice repeated:

"Mark under water, twain. "

But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls, veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodiouscry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with allits swing and melody left out, Hugh passed it on up to the pilots. Between the strains Gilmore said softly to "California":

"My dear fellow, no. Every time we show ourselves their partisans wemake heavier hauling for them. They'd tell us so, only that--don't yousee?--they can't even do that. It would be _infra dig. _" But in factRamsey was just then telling something much like that to his wife. 

"Yes, " admitted the Californian, full of a new scheme, yet alwaysgenerous, "and that was a ten-strike, your wife, after supper, takingMiss Hayle away from Hugh and Gideon in such gay style. Did you seehow't sort o' eased the old man's mind?"

The leadsman's cry changed and so came twice or thrice, Hugh as oftenrepeating it to the pilots, while Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore, thoughhearkening, whispered busily. 

"Shoaling, " commented Mrs. Gilmore to Ramsey. 

"Not seriously, " said the river-wise Ramsey. "Go on. What did you getout of him at last?" She had a merry sparkle. 

Once more the far-below cry rose to them and was restated by Hughwithout color or thrill. Ramsey well knew that so it was always sung andspoken, yet she remarked:

"Hear that absurd difference--in those two voices. "

"That's the difference between him and other men, Ramsey; even betweenhim and your father. "

She liked that, though now she felt bitter toward him for not being morelike ordinary mortals. 

"Go on, " she lightly repeated. "If he won't make words happen with me Imust take him second-hand. "

"You naughty girl! He'll tell you all you'll let him. "

"Oh, I'll let him, all he'll tell me. What did he say?"

"He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of newcharms----"

Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, mylady. He wouldn't know how. You said it. "

"Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramseywe began with. "

"The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead werepassing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet. "

"The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" Thespeaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hughsedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool. "

Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked withyour father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it. "

"Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, onher trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don'tyou see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it theseeight years and more!--in spite of everybody's silence. "

"We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believeCaptain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think youdo. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"

"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers--may have broken promisesbut they--keep--their--threats. You know that's the fashion of all thiscountry, from Cairo down. "

"Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain, " chanted the leadsman for his final call, andnot only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairodown. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over andthe _Enchantress_ swept round for the chute. 

In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back towardthe solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with"California. " His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them. 

"Your brothers, " murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just thesame before you came into the issue at all. "

"Yes, " said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian toldme so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand. ' Oh, that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as HughCourteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come inand it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?. . . 

"Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in afight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in thefamily, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's--and--and mine. The twinssee that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's why_they_ are entirely satisfied with the deadlock. . . . Look. "

The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward thepilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him inmeditation. 

"I know what you're thinking, " said Ramsey. "But it'll never happen. They've settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thankGod!. . . Here he comes. Think he'll talk to me? Yes, he will. He'll beginwhere he left off. " She laughed. "He's going to tell me the name of hisnext boat, if he ever builds another. Anything 'conclusive' in that?"

Mrs. Gilmore was grave a moment longer and then brightly said: "Theremight be! There may be! I can see--I can see how he--" She could notfinish. Hugh had entered. 

His coming broke in upon another conversation, that of Gilmore and"California. "

"Old boy, no. Suppose it should work out as you plan. You leave us atNatchez; that's easy. You live there a week, a month, free with yourgold and making friends--of the sort gold makes. You get into apolitical quarrel with the twins--nothing easier--and in a clear case ofyour own self-defence the two are:--

 "'--Laid in one grave. Sing tooralye, ' etc. "

"Wouldn't that be poetic justice? and ain't I a poet?"

"Undoubtedly. Then by miracle you come off scot-free. "

"Not essential. I take my chances. "

"Still, you have that hope; freedom is sweet. More-over, miracle ofmiracles, what you did it for is never guessed. But, my dear fellow, there are two who'd never need to guess. Like us they'd know and thatknowledge would sunder them forever. They'd never willingly look intoeach other's faces again. "

"Nnn-o. No, course they wouldn't. I seen that from the jump but I sorto' hoped you'd maybe know some way to get round that; it being the onlyreal difficulty. "

"Sorry, but I don't. Odd how narrow-minded one's friends can be, butwhen they are--what can we do?"

"Yes, that's so. . . . Mr. Gilmore, you're not narrow-minded; I've got apoem----"

It was there Hugh entered. But it was there, too, that Watson made amove in his modest part of the game. 

With his eyes out ahead down the chute they were entering--"If any one, "he drawled, "wants to see a scandalous fine moonlight picture of thisriver, one they'll never forget, the best place from whence to behold itis the texas roof, down here, out for'ard o' the chimneys. "

"If Captain Hugh would go with us, " pensively said Mrs. Gilmore, "we'dall go. " And soon the pilots were alone. 

"Now, " growled the younger, with his gaze down there on Ramsey, "don'tthat beat you? Her making California stay so's Cap'n Hugh can't pair offwith her!"

"Be easy, " said Watson; "that's according to Hoyle. Don't shoot tillthey settle. . . . There. Now I'll go down and take care of California. Bycracky! run smooth or run rough, I believe it's going to go this time. "

LX

ONCE MORE HUGH SINGS

Between that great eastward bend nearly opposite the mouth of theArkansas, which in later years was cut off and is now, or was yesterday, Beulah Lake--between it and Ozark Island below--a white-jacket came upfrom the passenger deck far enough to show his head to the watchmanabove and warily asked a question. 

"Six, " was the reply. "Including me--seven. "

The inquirer ran wildly down again, but the _Enchantress_ sped onthrough the glorious moonlight as though he scarcely mattered. On thetexas roof Mrs. Gilmore sat with "California, " her husband with Watson, Hugh with Ramsey. But only the last two were out on its forward verge. Mrs. Gilmore had found it cool there and with the others had drawn backa few steps, into the pleasant warmth of the chimneys. For averagepassengers the evening was far gone, but not for players, pilots, Californians, or lovers--of the river. 

A mile or so farther on, the white-jacket reappeared and, gliding by allothers to reach his captain, said, with mincing feet and a semicircularbow, while presenting a tray of six, not seven, sherry cobblers:

"Sev'l gen'lemen's comp'ments, an' ax, will Mis' Gil'----"

"What gentlemen? Who?"

"Sev'l gen'lemen, yassuh. Dey tell me dess say, sev'l gen'lemen. Sev'lgen'lemen ax will Mis' Gilmo' have de kin'ness fo' to sing some o' demsame songs she sing night afo' las' in de ladies' cabin an' las' nightup hyuh. . . . Yass'm, whiles dey listens f'om de b'ileh deck. "

"Has my father gone to bed?" asked Ramsey. 

"No'm, he up yit. He done met up wid dese sev'l gen'lemen an' find deyold frien's--callin' deyse'v's in joke Gideon' Ban'--an' he talkin'steamboats wid 'em----"

The speaker tittered as Ramsey inquiringly extended her arms out forwardand crossed her wrists. "Yass'm, " he said, "hin' feet on de front rail, yass'm. "

It seemed but fair that Mrs. Gilmore, to meet the compliment generously, should sing at the very front of the hurricane roof, just over theforward guards of the boiler deck. But Ramsey and Hugh kept their place. Ramsey wanted to be near the sky, she explained, when songs were sung onthe water by moonlight, and eagerly spoke for two or three which herfriend had sung of old on the _Votaress_ to spiritualize the"acrobatics" of the Brothers Ambrosia. 

The singer's voice was rich, trained, and mature, and her repertory asurvival of young days--nights--before curtains and between acts: Burns, Moore, Byron, and Mrs. Norton, alternating with "The Lavender Girl, ""Rose of Lucerne, " "Dandy Jim o' Caroline, " and "O Poor Lucy Neal. " Andnow she sang her best, in the belief that while she sang the pair upbetween her and the pilot-house were speaking conclusively. Let us see. 

"Ramsey, " said Hugh, and waited--ten seconds--twenty. 

Well, why should he not? In eight years and a half there were tenmillion times twenty seconds and she had waited all of them. At lengthshe responded and the moment she did so she thought she had spoken toopromptly although all she said was, "Yes?"

"The hour's come at last, " said Hugh. 

"What hour?--hour to name that boat?"

"Yes, to name that boat. Only not that first. Ramsey, I've told yourfather all I ever wanted to tell you. "

"Humph!" The response was so nearly in the manner of the earlier Ramsey, "the Ramsey he had begun with" and whom she remembered with horror, thatshe recognized the likeness. The further reply had been on her tongue'send, that to tell her father only that could not have taken long, orsome such parrying nonsense; but now it would not come. She felt herwhole nature tempted to make love's final approach steep and slippery, but again without looking she saw his face; his face of stone; his ironface with its large, quiet, formidable eyes that could burn withenterprise in great moments; a face set to all the world's realities, and eyes that offered them odds, asking none. So seeing she knew that ifshe answered with one least note of banter she would make herself anobject of his magnanimity, than which she would almost rather fall underhis scorn--if he ever stooped to scorn. Suddenly she remembered thedeadlock and was smitten with the conviction that these exchanges werelove's last farewell. Now it was hard to speak at all. 

"What was it you told him?"

"I told him how long I'd loved you, and why. "

"We both love the river so, " murmured Ramsey in a voice broken by thepounding of her heart. 

"Yes. I told him that, for one thing. And I told him how gladly I wouldhave asked for you long ago had I not seen myself, as you so often sawme on the _Votaress_----"

"Condemned to inaction, " she softly prompted; for if this was farewell atrue maiden must speed the parting. 

"Yes. "

"By an absolute deadlock, " she murmured on. "My father sees it. He knowsit's one yet and must always be one. "

"No, a lock but not a deadlock. It's a lock to which your brothers donot hold the key. "

The pounding in her breast, which had grown better, grew worse again. "Who holds it?"

"Your father. I have just told him so. At no time would I have hesitatedto ask for you if the key had been with your brothers. I would have gota settlement from them, sink or swim, alive or dead. I believe inlover's rights, Ramsey, and I'll have a lover's rights at any risk orcost that falls only on me. Those old threats--yes, I know how fiercelythey are still meant--and they have always had their weight; but they'venever of themselves weighed enough to stop me. I've held off andendured, waiting not for a change of heart in your brothers, but for anhour counselled, Ramsey, by my father on his dying bed. "

"What hour? Hour of strongest right? strongest reason?"

"Not at all. The hour I've waited for was the one which would bestenable me to meet your father on equal terms as measured by his ownstandards. "

"Oh, I see. I believe I see. "

"Yes, the hour when I should be not owner merely, but captain too, ofthe finest boat----"

"Dat eveh float'--" she tenderly put in. 

"Yes, on this great river. "

"Oh, Captain Courteney----"

"Don't Courteney or captain me now, Ramsey, whether this is beginning orend. " There was a silence, and then--

"Hugh, " she said, as softly as a female bird trying her mate's song, "you mustn't ask my father. You mustn't ask any one. I can't let you. "

"Your father's already asked. If he consents I go ashore at Natchez, having telegraphed ahead from Vicksburg----"

"You shan't. You shan't go to my brothers. You shan't go armed and youshan't go unarmed. "

"Yes, I shall. I'll go and settle with them in an hour without the leastfear of violence on either side. "

"Armed with nothing but words? You shan't. And armed with anything elseyou shan't. "

"Ramsey, words are the mightiest weapon on earth. The world's oneperfect man--we needn't be pious to say it--set about to conquer thehuman race by the sheer power of words and died rather than use anyother weapon. Died victorious, as he counted victory. And the result--apoor, lame beginning of the result--is what we call Christendom. "

"You shan't die victorious for me. "

"No, I shall not. I talk much too vast. "

"Humph! you always did. " She smiled, but a moonbeam betrayed a tear onher folded hands. 

"True, " he admitted. "I talk too vast. I'm only claiming the power ofwords in small as well as large. I've no hope of martyrdom; I'm onlyconfident of victory. "

"No matter. You _won't_ go ashore at Natchez. "

"You mean your father won't consent?"

"I do. There's one thing, at the very bottom of his heart, that you'venever thought of. "

"I think I have. "

"What is it?"

"That as the Hayle boats are all one day to be yours, and our unionwould unite the two fleets under the one name of Courteney, he willnever allow it. "

"He never will. "

"Ramsey, he says he may. If we and the boats are so united the fleetwill be, while grandfather lives, the Courteney fleet; but each new boatfrom now on will be named for a Hayle, beginning with you, or yourfather, or your mother, as you and they may choose. At Vicksburg, if heconsents in time, we can telegraph her--we must have her--to come aboardat Natchez for the rest of the trip. Grandfather, I suppose you've beentold, is now waiting for us at Vicksburg. He came up on the _Antelope_. "

"The _Antelope_! How do you know?"

"By a despatch received at Memphis. "

"Mmm! what a blessing is the telegraph! But, ah, Hugh"--the name wasalmost naturalized--"this is a mere castle in the air! My--mybrothers----"

"I'll take care of them. "

"You can't! You can't! Oh, Hugh, they--keep--their--threats. " She caughta breath and looked at him. If he went seeking them she would go at hisside! He must have read her mind, for in his majestical way he smilinglyshook his head. 

Mrs. Gilmore had ceased to sing and with the others had risen and turnedRamsey's way, confident that up there the conclusive word had beenspoken. Ramsey called down:

"Don't stop. Sing 'My Old Kentucky Home' or that thing in which 'theriver keeps rolling along' and 'the future's but a dream. ' We're songhungry up here. "

"Then sing to each other, " was the reply. "You can do it. "

"Let Captain Hugh sing, " said Watson. "He's off watch. "

"He says, " said Ramsey, "captains don't sing on the texas roof. " Shemoved to join the group on its way to an after stair. Watson bent hissteps for the pilot-house. At the stair the actor's wife let her husbandand "California" go down before her and as Ramsey and Hugh came closesaid covertly:

"Sing, captain. Sing as softly as you please, just for us two while theworld is in dreams and sleep, won't you?"

The lover's heart was big with happiness, his solicitor had just beensinging pointedly in his interest, the seclusion here was all butabsolute, the quoted line was from Ramsey's song of that first night onthe _Votaress_, and to the bright surprise of both his hearers he laid atouch on Mrs. Gilmore's arm and in a restrained voice so confidential asto reach only to the pilot-house above and to the two men at the stair'sfoot below began to sing. 

Before half a line was out the Californian had seized both of Gilmore'sshoulders. "My poem!" he gasped. "I gave it to him last night togrammatize! He's fit it to a tchune. Partner, he's the only man that'slistened----"

"Sh-sh-sh! listen yourself, " whispered the actor, and this is what theyheard:

[Music: O come and grace my gar-den, From all the world a-part. Thouon-ly may'st the won-der see Of birds and flow'rs that in it be, For allof them are dreams of thee. My gar-den is my heart, . . . My gar-den is myheart. ]

 "If heaven might make my garden An empire wide and great, Fidelity should close it in, The joy of life bloom evergreen, And love be law and thou be queen, Might I but keep the gate. 

 "For where would be my garden, Dear love, from thee apart? Whose every bush and bower and tree, Its founts, perfumes, and minstrelsy And all its flowers spring all from thee, Thou sunlight of my heart. "

"You say that's your poem?" murmured the actor. 

"Oh, he's doctored it, " stealthily admitted the Californian. "He'sdoctored it a lot. "

LXI

WANTED, HAYLE'S TWINS

Early in the next forenoon another of the Californian's benevolentschemes threatened to miscarry. 

At the settlement of Milliken's Bend there were people already at thelanding, and people running to it from three directions. Yet not a hat, hand, or handkerchief did they wave until the _Enchantress_, in fullview up toward the head of the bend, was too near to mistake theirsalutes for a sign to stop. Then there were wavings aplenty and cries ofacclaim. By the "River News" daily telegraphed down to the New Orleans, Vicksburg, and other papers, from Louisville, Paducah, Cairo, and likepoints, and brought up in those papers by such boats as the _Antelope_, it had been known here and at every important landing below that thislatest bride of the river was coming and the time of her appearance hadbeen definitely calculated. And now behold her, a vision of delight, awinged victory, the finest apparition yet. Up in front of her bell couldbe seen Captain Hugh, and who was that beside him, twice his bulk, butGideon Hayle!

"Well, well, what's going to happen next?"

No one offered an answer, though the question echoed round. 

So early in the season the new wonder carried no cotton, but her lowerdeck showed "right smart o' freight, " and wherever passengers were wontto stand stood a crowd looking so content that on the shore one lean andhungry native with his hands in his trousers to the elbows drawledsourly as his eye singled out the boiler-deck throng:

"Kin see thah breakfast inside 'em f'om hyuh. "

Now they read her name in gold on the front of her pilot-house, now onits side and splendidly magnified on her wheel-house, and lastly againon the pilot-house, at its back, as she dwindled away eastward forIsland One-hundred-and-three, called by Ramsey and Watson "My Wife's, "and now known as Pawpaw Island. 

"California" was a general disappointed of his reinforcements. The pairat Milliken's Bend having failed him, what better hope was there of theCarthaginians or even of the Vicksburg couple? Yet at Vicksburg, twohours later, he had joy. For down at the wharf-boat's very edge, liveliest of all wavers and applauders, with a "Howdy, Cap'm Hugh?"before the lines were out, and a "How you do, Miss Ramsey?" were thethree pairs at once, foregathered here, they said, "to make the spreemo' spree-cious, " and wild to be the first on the "sta-age plank. " Closeafter them came Commodore Courteney, and Vicksburg faded into the north. 

"Why, Mis' Gilmo'!" said the three pretty wives, sinking with a deftsweep of their flounced crinoline upon the blue-damask sofas and faintlyteetering on their perfect springs, "why, my deah la-ady, yo' eight an'a hafe yeahs youngeh!-- Ain't she?-- She certain'y is! An' that deahCommodo' Co'teney! He's as sweet as eveh!

"But you, Miss Ramsey, oh, --well, --why, --you know, --time an' again weheard what a mahvel you'd grown to be, but--why, --lemme look at youagain! Why, yo' just divi-i-ine! Law'! I'd give a thousand dollahs justfo' yo' red-gole hair. Why, it's the golden locks o' Veronese, thatCap'm Hugh's fatheh showed you, --don't you remembeh?--on the _Vot'ress_, an' you showed us, --in the sky. They there yet!

"An'"--the five heads drew close together--"Cap'm Hugh, oh, he ain'tsuch a su'pri-ise; we've seen him f'om time to time. But ain't he--mmm, hmm, hmmm! An'so a-a-able! Why, Miss Ramsey, --oh, you must 'a' heardit, --they say excep' fo' yo' pa he hasn't got his equal on the riveh an'could 'a' been a captain long ago had he 'a' thought best himself. Hecertain'y could. But ain't this boat the splendidest thing in thewi-i-ide, wi-i-ide world? It certain'y is! It's a miracle! an' he hercaptain and deservin' to be!

"Mis' Gilmo', --Miss Ramsey, "--the lovely heads came together, --"the's ahund'ed pretty girls--an' rich as pretty--that ah just cra-a-azy abouthim. But they might as well be crazy about a stah. They certain'y might, an' they--know--why!" (Laughter. ) "They certain'y do-- Law'! ain't MissRamsey got the sa-a-ame o-o-ole la-a-afe, on'y sweeteh'n eveh? Sweetehan' mo' ketchin'! You certain'y have. No wondeh yo' call' the Belle o'the Bends. But, all the same, yo' cruel. Yo' fame' fo' yo' cruelty!"(Laughter. ) "They say he's just telegrayphed yo' ma to come aboa'd atNatchez. That's just ow Southe'n hospitality. But won't that befi-i-ine? It certain'y will!"

The three husbands came bringing the actor, the junior pilot, theCalifornian, and his confidant of the evening before. Incited by Ramseythe wives fell into queries on the coming election, rejoicing that evenshould Lincoln be made President, and that incredible thing, a war, comeon, the great river and its cities--New Orleans, Natchez, Memphis, andespecially Vicksburg--would be far from the storm. While they made merryMrs. Gilmore got Ramsey aside. 

"If Captain Hugh's telegraphed, why, then, your father----"

"Oh! my father, he's roaming over the boat somewhere with CommodoreCourteney! I'm going to change this hot dress for a cooler one. I'll beback before a great while. "

"Let me go with you. Are you not well?"

Not well! The girl laughed gayly. But as she drew her friend out uponthe guards and to her stateroom's rear door she talked with a softearnestness all the way. 

"I don't see how I could have been so blind! If _he_ saw those thingswhy couldn't I see them? I thought of them, over and over; but alwaysthe other things crowded them back into the dark--and there was plentyof dark. He's right, my father does hold the key, and if I'd seen thingsas I see them now I'd have made the twins give in, somehow, long ago. Ifyou should see mammy Joy, or Phyllis, or both, please send them to me. "

She shut herself in, dropped to the berth's side, and let the tears runwild. The nurse and the still handsome Phyllis appeared promptly, together. But they found her full of sparkle; so full that Phyllis sawunder the mask; a mask she herself had worn so often in her youth undera like desperation. 

"Mammy, " said her mistress, "want to go somewhere with your baby, aboutsundown this evening?"

For explanation the old woman glanced at Phyllis, but Phyllis's eyeswere on Ramsey with a light whose burning carried old Joy's memory backtwenty years. "Sundown?" echoed the nurse to gain time, "yass'm, o'co'se, ef--but, missie--sundown--dat mean' Natchez. You cayn't be goin'asho' whah Cap'm Hugh dess tell Phyllis yo' ma comin' aboa'd?"

"Not ashore to stay, " was the blithe reply as Phyllis aided the changeof dress. "There'll be two or three of us. "

"Well, o' co'se, ef you needs me. Wha' fo' you gwine?"

"To see the twins, " sang Ramsey, "if we go at all. "

Then Phyllis knew she was trusted, and while with a puzzled frown thenurse watched her manipulate hooks and eyes she blandly asked: "MissRamsey, if Cap'm Hugh give' me leave kin I go too?"

"Yes, you might ask him. Nobody's going unless he goes. "

The light came to old Joy. "Law'! missie, now you a-talkin'! Now youa-talkin' wisdom! Dah's whah I's wid you, my baby. I's wid you rightdah, pra-a-aise Gawd!"

All three, parting company, were happier for several hours. But theCalifornian's were not the only fond schemes, aboard the _Enchantress_, that could go to wreck. 

Nor had "California" met his last disappointment even on this journey. As he and his reinforcements came out on the boiler deck with a hundredothers from the midday feast the deck-hands below, for quicker unloadingat Canal Street on the morrow, were shifting a lot of sacked corn fromthe hold to the forecastle-deck and were timing their work to a chantey. The song was innocently chosen in reference solely to the piece of riverin which they chanced then to be, but all the more for its innocence ittouched in that gentle knight a chord of sympathy. 

 "My own true love wuz lost an' found-- O hahd times!-- An' lost ag'in a-comin' round Hahd Times Ben'. Found an' lost, lost an' found, An' lost ag'in a-comin' round Hahd Times Ben'. "[2]

So it ran, while the _Enchantress_ turned southeast with that Lake SaintJoe of which "'Lindy" was "the pride" lying forest-hidden a few milesaway on the starboard beam. The melody opened with a prolonged wail onits highest note and bore the tragic quality which so often marked thesongs of slavery. Helped on by names of near-by landmarks--the Big BlackRiver and the once perilous Grand Gulf--at the bottom of Hard TimesBend--it played on "California's" mind like summer lightning and seemedto call to his romantic spirit supernaturally. He could delay no longerto take his companions into his confidence. 

By guess, he said, by inferences, and by modest inquiries he haddiscerned that Hugh was going ashore at Natchez to--they understood. Allright, he would go, too, and ordinarily he would be enough. But thepresent need was not a fair fight but peace. Hence the propriety ofoverwhelming numbers. Wouldn't they like to take a hand?

"But he'll see the twins privately, " said the invited. 

"Of course, but 'though lost to sight' they'll know we're too close forthem to get away from, and that's a very convincing situation to 'mostany man, even twins. "

"Yes, but we can't turn a feud into a fox-hunt. You don't know thesethings as we do. "

"Don't? Why, my friends, I'm a Kentucky highlander. Might as well say Idon't know the smell of whiskey because I keep sober, when, in my day, I've been so drunk I've laid on my back and felt up'ards for theground. "

However, he yielded sweetly. But it was plain to see that he wouldcertainly, contentedly, go with Hugh alone. Indeed, only this would hehave preferred--that Gideon Hayle might go instead. But one square lookat the big, grim, baffled commander had told him earlier that Hugh'sperilous isolation was wholly acceptable as a final test of his fitnessto belong to Gideon's Band. He parted with his companions and stood atthe front rail taking comfort in the thought that whoever mightdisappoint him the twins would not and looking down on the toilingsingers in placid defiance of their lines:

 "My true love's heart to mine 'uz boun'-- O hahd times!-- Dey broke dem bindin's comin' roun' Hahd Times Ben'. Boun' an' broke, broke an' boun', An' broke ag'in a-comin' roun' Hahd Times Ben'. "

Watson's partner touched the listener's arm, who smiled and said:

"Only four hours more. "

"That's all, " replied the pilot. "But I've just thought of something. Suppose the twins shouldn't be in Natchez. "

[Footnote 2: [Music notation]]

LXII

EUTHANASIA

A few steps aside from Hugh and his grandfather at the forward rail ofthe hurricane roof, in a glow of autumn twilight, the Gilmores and thethree couples taken on at Vicksburg observed the _Enchantress_, underWatson's skill, lay her lower guards against the guards of the Natchezwharf-boat with a touch as light as a human hand. 

Down on the wharf-boat, in its double door, as beautiful in her fulleryears as in _Votaress_ days, and more radiant, stood Madame Hayle. Aman-servant at one elbow, a maid at the other, saw the group on the rooffondly bidding for her smiles, but except one sent earlier to the twoCourteneys they were all for her husband and daughter, who, unseen fromabove, awaited her half-way down the main forward stairs. When the maid, however, leaned to her and spoke, her glance went aloft and her gestureswere a joy even to the strangers who crowded the boat's side. Now whilethe stage was run out and her husband met her and gave her his arm, andwhite-jackets seized her effects, the man-servant answered a questionsoftly called over to him by Ramsey, and the group overhead caught hiswords:

"De twins couldn' come. No, miss, 'caze dey ain't in town. No, miss, deybofe went oveh to de Lou'siana place 'istiddy. . . . Yass, miss, on a bahhunt in Bayou Crocodile swamp. "

Mrs. Gilmore stole a glance at Hugh, but the only sign that he had heardwas a light nod to the mate below, and a like one up to Watson. 

"Take in that stage, " called the mate to his men. The engine bellsjingled, the _Enchantress_ backed a moment on one wheel, then wentforward on both, fluttered her skirts of leaping foam, made a wide, upstream turn, headed down the river, and swept away for Natchez Islandjust below and for New Orleans distant a full night's run. She hadhardly put the island on her larboard bow when merrily up and down thecabin and out on the boiler deck and thence down the passenger guardsrang the supper bell. 

"Bayou Crocodile, " said a Carthaginian descending the wheel-house stair, "that's where one of the sons-in-law has his plantation, isn't it?"

"On the Black River, yes, " said he of Milliken's Bend. 

"Near where it comes into Red River, " added Vicksburg. 

Once more Hugh and Ramsey sat alone side by side under a glorious nightsky, at that view-point so rarely chosen by others but so favored byher--the front of the texas roof. Down forward at the captain's stationsat the two commodores and up in the pilot-house were the two pilots, the Gilmores, "California, " Madame Hayle, and they of Vicksburg and theBends. 

In the moral atmosphere of this uppermost group there was a new andhappy clearness easily attributable to a single potent cause--MadameHayle. Her advent and the moon's rising had come in the same hour andwith very similar effect. Every one was aware for himself, though nobodycould say when any one else had been told, that while Gideon's decisionwas still withheld, madame, in her own sweet, absolute way, had said itwould be forthcoming before the boat touched the Canal Street wharf, andthat in the interval, whether Hugh and Ramsey were never to sit side byside again, or were to go side by side the rest of their days, theyshould have this hour this way and were free to lengthen it out tillnight was gone, if they wished. 

It was not late in any modern sense, yet on the passenger deck no onewas up but the barkeeper, two or three quartets at cards, the secondclerk at work on his freight list, a white-jacket or two on watch, andJoy and Phyllis. Thus assured of seclusion the lovers communed withouthaste. There had been hurried questions but Hugh had answered them andRamsey was now passive, partly in the bliss of being at his side as shehad never been before and partly in a despair growing out of hisconfessed purpose to leave the _Enchantress_ at Red River Landing. Thegrandfather had already assumed Hugh's place and cares aboard, and itwas Hugh's design to make his way, by boat or horse, up to and alongBlack River in search of the twins. 

To allay this distress Hugh's soft deep voice said:

"Suppose you were a soldier's wife. This is little to that. This is butonce for all. "

"Yes, " murmured Ramsey, "but I'd have one advantage. "

"That you'd be his wife?"

"Yes, " whispered Ramsey, who could not venture the name itself, for thepure rapture of it. 

"Why, you're going to be mine. As the song says: 'I will come again, mylove, though a' the seas gang dry. '"

"Hugh, didn't you once say I didn't know what fear was?"

"I certainly thought it. "

"Well, now I do know. "

He made no reply and she sat thinking of his errand. If he should findher brothers he would meet them in the deepest wilderness. Only slaves, who could not testify against masters, would be with them, their loadedguns would be in their hands, and their blood would be heated with--Sheresorted again to questions in her odd cross-examining way. 

"You say you think there's going to be a war?"

"I fear so. "

"Humph! fear. If there should be will you fight?"

"Certainly. "

"Humph! certainly. I should think--you'd hate to fight. "

"I'd fight all the more furiously on that account. "

"Humph!. . . On which side?"

"Ramsey, I don't know. I _don't know_ till the time comes. "

"Then how do you know you won't fight my brothers--now?"

"I shan't be armed. "

"But if in an outburst you should snatch up some weapon?"

"I don't burst out. I don't snatch up. "

"Humph! Wish I didn't. "

They were rounding Point Breeze. The long reach from Fort Adams down toRed River Landing lay before them. "Hugh, did you ever have apresentiment? Of course not. I never did before. I got it a-comin' roundHard Times Bend. "

"Then I can cure it--with a new verse, one our poet has made and givenme. It shall be our parting word. Shall I?"

"Oh, yes, but not for parting! I don't want any parting!"

He spoke it softly:

 "I dreamp I heard a joyful soun'-- O hahd times!-- Love once mo' foun' de last turn roun' Hahd Times Ben'. Los' an' foun', broke an' boun', Love foun' an' boun' de last turn roun' Hahd Times Ben'. "

Ramsey barely waited for its end. "What's that light waving far awaydown yonder? It began as you did. "

"It didn't know it. It's only some one on the Red River wharf-boat, wanting us to land, " said Hugh, and before his last word came the_Enchantress_ roared her assent to the signal. But Ramsey had spokenagain:

"What's this, right here?" She sprang up and gazed out on the water ascant mile ahead. There, directly in the steamer's course and just outof the moon's track, another faint light waved, so close to the water asto be reflected in it. The moment the whistle broke out it ceased toswing and when the whistle ceased the engines had stopped. 

"What is it?" she asked again as Hugh stood by her looking out aheadwith eyes better trained to night use than hers. 

"A skiff, " he replied, "with some message. "

She could see only that Watson had put the light on their starboard bow. It seemed to drift toward them but she knew that the movement was thesteamer's, and now the light was so close as to show the negro who heldit. He stood poised to throw aboard a billet of wood with a noteattached. And now he cast it. The lower guards were out of Ramsey's lineof sight but a cry of disappointment told her the stick had fallen shortand would be lost under the great wheel, which at that moment, with itsfellow, "went ahead. " But as the _Enchantress_ passed the skiff itsoccupant called out a hurried statement to the mate, on the forecastle, and as the skiff and its light swept astern the mate repeated the wordto the commodores. 

"Man at Red River Landing accidentally shot. Must be got to the cityquick or he can't live. "

The commodores, and then the lovers, resumed their seats. 

"Poor man, " murmured Ramsey, "poor man! he's got _his_ trouble withoutgoing in chase of it. "

"If he'd gone in chase of it, " rejoined Hugh, "he might never have metit. "

The _Enchantress_ swung more directly toward the dim lights of thewharf-boat and at top speed ruffled through a freshening air with thegoal but a few miles away. Yet the lovers sat silent. Once parted theywould think of many a word they should have spoken while they could, butnow none seemed large enough to break such silence with. To be silentand best content with silence was one of the most special and blissfulof lovers' rights. 

Presently a glow rose from the forecastle, reddening the whitejack-staff up to its black night-hawk. The torch baskets were beinglighted. Hugh stirred to go but Ramsey laid her touch on his wrist andhe stayed. 

She spoke. "Mustn't you wait near your grandfather till you see who itis that's coming aboard?"

"I can. I may as well. "

The _Enchantress_, in mid-river, began to "round to" in order to landbow up-stream. When she came round, the half dozen men on the wharf-boatwere close at hand in the glare of her torches, eye to eye with those onthe forecastle, but prevented by the light itself from seeing those onthe upper decks. 

Ramsey sprang to her feet with lips apart to cry out to her mother upbehind her, to Gideon down before, to Hugh at her side, but all thesesaw and knew. A face in the centre of the torchlight and of thewharf-boat group was Julian's bearing the mute intelligence that thewrithing man on a rude stretcher borne by two negroes was his brother. The lovers parted without a word, but in a moment were near each otheragain as Hugh joined the commodores while Ramsey and her mother crouchedat the roof's forward rail to see the wounded man brought across thestage. 

"In my room!" pleaded madame to both Courteneys at once, and the elderassented as Hugh hurried below with the three Hayles following. 

It was heart-rending work getting the sufferer into the berth while hepoured out moanings of agony mingled with frantic accusations of hisbearers, railings against God and all his laws, and unspokenrecognitions of mother and sister. Ramsey, seeing his eye fall onPhyllis and remain there staring, and knowing from old Joy that he hadgrown enough like his uncle Dan to have been his twin, suffered for heras well as him. 

"Who are _you_?" he cried, still staring. "Where am I?"

The maid did not reply, but her unfaltering gaze met his as if itneither could nor would do otherwise. Ramsey intuitively followed theplay of her mind. To look again on Gideon Hayle had already recalledemotions she had striven for half a lifetime to put away, and now theykept her eyes set on this tortured yet unrelenting advocate of all thewrongs from which those emotions sprang. 

He looked to his mother. "Great God! mother, is this the new Courteneyboat? Well, if this isn't hell's finishing touch! Jule! Where's Jule?Go, get me Jule!"

Phyllis turned to go but--"No, " he cried with a light of sudden purposein his face, "you stay. Everybody else go! And send me Jule. Don't senda doctor, I'm the doctor myself. Get out, all of you, go! This isn't mydeath-bed. God! I wish it was, for I'm a cripple for life and will neverwalk again--leave! go! and send me Jule!"

Guided by a cabin-boy to Hugh's room, Ramsey found Julian confrontinghis father, "California, " and the Gilmores. Hugh had led them there forprivacy and stood close at one side. Julian seemed to be suffering ashock scarcely less than his brother's though it made a wholly differentoutward show. His face wore an appalled look, his voice was below itsaccustomed pitch, and his words, words which could not have beenpremeditated, seemed studiously fit and precise. 

"Fortunately, " he had been saying before Ramsey appeared, "henever"--meaning his brother--"goes into the country without his drugsand instruments--we have them with us yet--and he could tell me what todo and I did it, or he would have died right there in the swamp. "

"But you don't say how the accursed thing happened, " said Gideon asRamsey entered hardly aware that she was pausing at Hugh's side. Thebrother turned and stared on the two. 

"Come, " said Gideon, "never mind that. How did it happen?"

"It happened, sir, through my own incredible carelessness and by my ownhand. _Don't say a word!_ I would to God I had been the victim and hadfallen dead in my tracks. If I had killed him I would have put the otherload into my brain. "

"Oh, if!" solemnly sneered the incredulous father. While he did soJulian, the profoundness of whose mental torture his father poorly saw, received from Ramsey his brother's summons and with her was turningaway. He stopped and flashed back a look of agonized resentment, butGideon met it with a beetling frown and neither gaze fell until Ramseystepped between, facing the giant, and she and the brother backed awayand were gone. 

They sought the passenger deck. Between anguish for Lucian's calamityand anguish for his father's contumely there poured from Julian's lipsin hectoring questions to Ramsey a further anguish of chagrin for theseeming triumph of Hugh's love. Two or three challenges she parried andwhile in a single utterance he launched out as many more theyencountered at a wheel-house stair their mother and old Joy. He cutshort all inquiries with a proffer to return to them and Ramseypost-haste and give a full account of the disaster. 

Meantime down in the sick-room Lucian said to Phyllis, when they hadbeen a few minutes alone:

"And now give me my medicine. "

"Yes, sir; where is it?"

"Oh, damnation! in my saddle-bags on the washstand. What are you tryingto talk white folks' English for?" He hardly spoke three words without amoan or an oath. "Do you find a measuring-glass?"

She found it. 

"See a small bottle--dark liquid--about twice the size--of the glass?"

"Yass, suh, but it's full, suh. "

"Hell! what of that? Fill the glass and give it to me!"

She filled it but paused. "It--it looks like la'danum. "

"Oh, damn you, so did your great-grandmother. It's not laudanum. Did youever smell vinegar in laudanum, or nutmeg? Give it here! God A'mighty, if I could reach you with my fist--Give me that glass!"

"Misteh Lucian, if this is la'danum----"

"You hell-fired idiot, it isn't! And if it was, such an overdose wouldonly vomit me. Don't you know that?"

"Yass, suh, I know it would. " But still she held back. 

"Then give it here!"

Julian came in with alarm added to his other distresses. 

"Oh, Luce! do you want to start that bleeding again?"

"I'd just as lief as not! Make that wench give me that glass or mash herhead! She knows if it was laudanum it would merely puke me. Damn it, it's a simple euthanasia. " The crafty sufferer felt assured his brotherwould neither know nor ask the smooth word's meaning. 

Julian turned, savagely upon the maid. Heated with drink, enraged athimself, his father, Hugh Courteney, his sister, and his mother, he wasin no mood to humor the contumacy of any freed slave and least of allthis one. "Give it to him this instant, " he cried. "Do you want to killhim?"

"No, Misteh Julian, that's exactly----"

He drew and levelled his revolver and then motioned with it a repetitionof his command. 

With a woe of protest in her eyes, Phyllis obeyed. Lucian swallowed thedraught and sank to his pillow. Julian watched Phyllis slowly set downthe glass and bottle. 

"What did you say that stuff is?" he asked his brother, with an assumedlightness. 

"Oh, a palliative for these infernal pains. Have you told the familywhat happened? Go do it. " The speaker's tone grew lofty. "I want them toknow it was all my fault! This girl can stay with me till you come back, and you can take your time. I shan't need you for an hour. Go, Jule, mybrother. Oh don't harry me with idle questions. "

As Julian presently shut himself out Phyllis, her fears for the patientdisarmed by his transient excitement where she had looked for heaviness, laid her hand on a chair; but he stopped her. "You white nigger! wouldyou presume to sit down in my presence? If you can't stand gooutside--and shut the door. Oh, go anyhow! Life's more tolerable withyou out of sight. If I want you I'll call. "

The room was close abaft the wheel, where a widening of the guards madean inviting space, and out there Phyllis drew a chair up beside thedoor. A whitejacket came from the cabin in behalf of passengers inneighboring staterooms to ask what the commotion meant, and as she beganto explain it away Ramsey and old Joy came down a near-by stair to watchwith her or in her stead and to them she amplified her explanation. Ramsey listened at the door. The patient seemed to be asleep, so audiblewas his breathing. 

She had a sudden thought: a doctor's saddle-bags always containlaudanum. Had Phyllis seen any--in another bottle, untouched? That wouldconfirm the patient's denial. She beckoned and asked. Yes, Phyllis hadseen it, labelled. 

"And besides, " Ramsey thought on, "neither twin has ever spoken falselyto the other. " Why, then, sleep was good!

Even in outer sights and sounds there was solace and reassurance: inriver and shore forever passing majestically up-stream through floods ofmoonlight; in the rhythmic flutter and rush of wheels and foam, and inthe keen quiver of the _Enchantress_ flying to New Orleans on theswiftest wings steam could give. Ramsey sent Phyllis up to bid Julian beat ease, and the maid, returning, announced that both the commodores hadgone to rest but that madame was anxious to come back to the invalid themoment he would permit. She added, unasked, that Captain Hugh was in thecaptain's chair. 

The hour passed and Julian reappeared. The partial relief of mind whichhad come to all the others had in degree reached him. It enabled him, ashe came down the wheel-house stair, to reflect, though with a shudder, upon that furious treatment which alone, he had somewhere heard, wouldcounteract an opium poisoning, and upon Lucian's utter inability toendure any part of such a treatment. He found Ramsey hearkening at thedoor again, newly disquieted. The two servants were out at the rail ofthe wide guards. 

"Ought his breathing, " she said, "to sound like that?"

Julian thought not, but even a sister's solicitude offended his lifelongsentiment of paramount ownership in his brother. "Stand away, I'll letyou know, " he replied, passed in, and closed the door. 

Then all at once, as so often has happened to so many of us, he saw hisheedlessness where he had fancied himself vigilant. The light was dim. He knelt close to the sleeper. One long stare into the pale yet lividface was enough. Lucian was dying. Julian leaped to his feet to seek aidbut saw its futility and fell again to his knees. Lucian was dying ofthe "black-drop" which his brother, in haughty ignorance, by the hand ofPhyllis, had given him. 

Presently Julian found voice, yet, mindful still of the listeningRamsey, let himself only softly murmur: "Oh, Lucian, my brother! Oh, Lucian, my twin brother! I've killed you, killed you twice over, my twinbrother! God! but you're right not to live a cripple. And it was I whocrippled you! Oh, Lucian, I'm the cripple now!"

Ramsey tapped. He sprang to the door and without opening it answered:"Yes, in a minute. He--he's all right. "

At the wash-stand he lifted the phial of black-drop still half full. Asquietly as if the dose were a dram at the bar he filled themeasuring--glass and drank its last drop. Then he turned to the door andbarely opened it. 

"He's all right, Ramsey. . . . Yes. . . . Yes. He's done just the right thing. So have I. Now, go away, please, wherever you like, onlydon't--stay--here just to bother us. I'll merely lie down beside himwithout--What?. . . No, go away! You'll find us all right in the morning. "

LXIII

THE CAPTAIN'S CHAIR

On the next afternoon but one, while hundreds went down to the steamboatlanding to view the new _Enchantress_, there was a double funeral in theold French cemetery, Saint Louis Street, New Orleans. 

Returning from it together, Watson and his former "cub" spoke of GideonHayle. 

"He takes the loss of them boys harder'n what I'd 'a' thought he would, "said the younger pilot. 

And Watson replied: "Yes, but he don't take it as hard as what, yearsago, he tuck their fust refus'n' to go with him on the river. "

They said no more all the way up Rampart Street to Canal, out Canal tothe steamboat landing, and across the levee to the _Enchantress_. Anhour later they stood in her wheel-house, looking down on the sameSaturday afternoon five o'clock scene that Watson and Ned had thuscontemplated from the _Votaress_ a hundred months before. 

Here were the same vast piles of harvest wealth, the same crowds andlittle flags, the same shouting and tumult only grown greater, the sameopen sky--though of October--the same many-pillared cloud of blacksmoke, the same smartly painted bumboats selling oranges, bananas, pineapples, corals, and seashells--many of the latter treated withpuritanic art, having, that is, the Lord's Prayer bitten into them withmuriatic acid. Here lay the same yellow harbor with many more fussylittle tugs in it, its water low yet still mast-deep, its yard-longcatfish and fathom-long gars leaping and wallowing after their prey, itswhite gulls flashing about the steamers' pantry windows. Here was thesame black forest of ships in the up-stream and down-stream distance andhere, finally, the same public hope and pride grown wider and loftier intheir last affluence before entering that purgatory of civil war whichnow seems but a bad dream outlived. 

Steam was up on the _Enchantress_, and every now and then her mightywheels tugged on her hawsers. In the crowd gathered on the wharf to seeher go were the Gilmores and the half dozen from Vicksburg and theBends. Up on the hurricane-deck were two or three small knots ofpassengers, chiefly ladies, unknown to the Gilmore group; but beside aderrick post, where we first saw Hugh on the _Votaress_, stood the threeHayles, old Joy, and "California"--bound once more for thegold-diggings. Near the Hayles, yet nearer the bell, was Hugh, incommand. 

"You don't reckon, " said a voice in the throng, "that that's hercaptain, do you?"

"No, " said another, "I should think not. "

"Yes, " said the very human Gilmore, "that's the captain. "

Vicksburg and the Bends sent up smiles and faint wavings to Ramsey andher mother and only did not call to them because they were in a greatcity. It made them very proud and happy to see Hugh the master of this, to them, matchless wonder of utility and beauty, and they could not helpsaying things to each other with voice enough to let strangers aroundthem know he was their personal friend. While they did so who shouldalight from a cab and glance up to Hugh but his grandfather. Hughanswered with a gesture toward the Gilmores, to whom the old gentlemanpromptly turned. There had arisen among the boats a good-natured customof giving friends a free trip eight miles up the river, to the suburb ofCarrollton. So a word from the commodore was enough; the players andtheir group hurried aboard with him and as they touched the lower deckthe last bell sounded and the lines were cast off. 

When they reached the hurricane-deck they were in the middle of thestream. They did not join the senior Hayles at once; Ramsey met them andwith her they stood on the skylight roof watching the shores to see whenthey should stop drifting and gain headway. Over on the "Algiers" sideof the harbor lay the _Paragon_, repairing a smashing she had got at thewharf through the bad handling of another boat, else the Hayles wouldhardly have been going home on the _Enchantress_. 

The crew of the _Enchantress_ stood about her capstan and theirchantey-man, ready to sing when the swivel should peal and her burgeerun down; but the Gilmore group were too far aft to see them. Theplayer's wife, speaking gravely with Ramsey in low tones, remarked withsudden gayety:

"I see why we're here behind the bell. You're afraid they'll sing----"

Ramsey made a pleading gesture. 

"Why, what can you expect, " asked her friend; "not 'Bounding Billow'?"

Ramsey, laughing, could only repeat the gesture. The swivel pealed, downsank the burgee, a wind began to ruffle their brows, and up rolled thesong:

 "Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sea ships come an' go, On de finess boat dat eveh float, " etc. 

It was still coming up when a young man not of the Gilmore groupsurprised the actor a moment aside. 

"Mr. Gilmore, is that Commodore Hayle over there?. . . I thought it mustbe. I suppose he's going up home to settle his two sons' affairs. Mr. Gilmore, they wan't bad, they were only wild. Sad, their having to beburied in the city. But in this climate, you know--hmm!--yes. "

The song and his observations crossed back and forth. 

 "Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, you'd ought to come befo'"-- (Chorus. )

"You don't remember me, Mr. Gilmore, but I was on the _Votaress_ withyou and your lady and Madame Hayle and those twins and all. I marriedthe young lady I was keeping company with then. There she is. Don't youre-collect my lending you my field-glass at the Devil's Elbow?"

"Dear me! was that you at the devil's elbow! I--I hope I returned them. "

"Oh, you did! You remember the first clerk of the _Votaress_! He's hercaptain now. And Ned--you remember Ned, the pilot, don't you? Well, he'son her yet. I see you're lost in admiration of this most unusual sunset. We almost always have these unusual sunsets. This is a wonderfulcountry. "

 "Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet cane honey flow'. (Chorus. )

 "Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, love a-knockin' at de do'. " (Chorus. )

Now the boat was in the pilot's hands. Hugh joined Madame Hayle and thetwo commodores at the derrick post. The same shrewd texas tender who hadonce abstracted the weapons of the twins from their stateroom set asecond chair beside the captain's. Hugh offered the two seats to thecommodores, but both declined. They of Vicksburg and the Bends watchedthe gorgeous October sunset beyond the low, flat orangeries on theirright. "California" was with them and told them of the sunsets on thegreat plains. Gilmore generously kept the one-time lender of thefield-glass and the lender's mouse of a wife beguiled with anecdoteswhile Mrs. Gilmore talked on with Ramsey, making fond and welcomeincursions into her confidence. 

"Isn't it ridiculous, " murmured Ramsey, "that he seems condemned to doeverything in the tamest possible way? Not that he cares; he seemsalmost to like it so. It's so right now. He can't proclaim anything. And--you see why, don't you?--neither can I. "

"Ramsey, you needn't. Only do one thing for us, Gilmore and me, andwe'll know. When we've landed and the boat starts away again and he--"She finished in a voice too small for type. 

At Six Mile Point the actor escaped his bonds and for a moment got Hughinto his sole possession. 

"Certainly, under these conditions, " he assented, "you can't _assert_anything--of that particular sort. But see here: You can tell me, justfor us two Gilmores exclusively, what your next boat will be named. Can't you?"

"Yes, " said Hugh, "she'll be the--" He let Gilmore speak the nameinterrogatively and merely nodded, smiling. 

The _Enchantress_ was within five minutes' run of Carrollton when Watsondropped a quiet word to the roof, where both the Courteneys and Gideonwere looking up-stream at a downward-bound steamer which had rounded toand landed under Nine-Mile Point. 

"What is she?" asked Gilmore of Watson for his group. 

"A Hayle boat, the _Troubadour_, " said the pilot; "probably putting offsome sugar-house machinery. "

The _Enchantress_ neared the huge Carrollton levee. "Good-by. ""Good-by. " "Good-by. " "Good-by. " Down they hurried, the old commodore, the players, the extraneous pair, and the six from Vicksburg and theBends, followed to the stage plank by "California, " and waved to fromthe after guards by Joy and Phyllis. 

"Good-by. " "Good-by!" The beautiful craft backed away and turned forNine-Mile Point. And here came the _Troubadour_, with whistlestrumpeting a troubadour's salute to the new queen of the river. TheHayle boat's people had espied their own commodore and the black mass ontheir forecastle were singing "Gideon's Band. "

With whistles above and song below the _Enchantress_ replied. Thewhistles ceased; the song was "'Lindy":

 "Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to meet to paht no mo', On de finess boat dat eveh float' In de O--hi--o, De Mas-sis-sip-pi aw de O--hi--o. "

Back at Carrollton on the crown of the levee, standing apart from theircompanions, the players gazed after the _Enchantress_. The three Hayleshad returned to their stand by the derrick post. Hugh was near the twochairs. The actor softly spoke:

"Shall I tell you what Hugh told me?"

"Yes, " said the wife. 

"Then tell me what Ramsey told you. "

"Nothing. She's going to tell it now. Watch!"

They watched together. Ramsey crossed to Hugh, and seemed to speak aword or two, not more. He sat down in the captain's chair and she tookthe one beside him. 

Even Vicksburg and the Bends understood that. 

"He told me, " murmured the actor, "that the next Courteney boat will bethe _Ramsey Hayle_. "

[Transcribers Note: # is used to indicate bolded text. ]