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"By the Dim Lamps," Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1941
"By the Dim Lamps," Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1941
"I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps..."
—Battle Hymn of the Republic
WHATEVER may be the merits or demerits of this novel of New Orleans and the sugar plantations of Louisiana during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the reader is assured that the historical background of events, manners, speech and the minutiae of everyday living is as factually accurate as research and infinite pains in the doing could possibly make it.
Considerable time was spent in New Orleans and the surrounding territory absorbing atmosphere and color; and wherever possible, contemporary diaries, pamphlets, letters and newspapers were examined for material in preference to the more formal history books. I was peculiarly fortunate in unearthing a large number of unpublished manuscript plantation books of account, overseers' diaries, memoirs and day-by-day recordings of stirring events. The archives of the Library of Congress, Louisiana State University, Howard Memorial Library, Duke University and the University of North Carolina proved particularly rich mines of material; and family papers still in private hands were added treasure troves. The germs of many of the incidents of this story, in fact, might be traced to similar incidents contained in these letters and diaries.
Some of the terms employed in the novel are local to the period and the territory, and accordingly a short glossary may be in order:
An arpent is a land measure of 100 perches, each 22 feet square; slightly more than an acre.
A banquette is a city sidewalk; usually a raised platform of wooden planks to keep dainty feet from the normal mud of the streets.
A bayou is a natural canal overflow from river or swamp.
A Congo means no more than a very black negro.
A gallery is a porch, verandah or balcony. A jalousie is a two-battened outside window-blind or shutter.
Ju-ju—voodoo practices—still may be found in the more primitive districts of Louisiana as well as in Haiti and elsewhere in the West Indies.
A square is a city block.
A carpetbagger was a Northerner who ventured South after the war to see how good the pickings were. Usually they were very good. The name was derisively derived from the battered carpetbag these gentry carried, in which were contained all their worldly possessions.
A scalawag was a Southerner who joined his Northern counterpart in the pursuit of plunder. Though there is some doubt whether the terms carpetbagger and scalawag were in use prior to 1869, the respective breeds came into being immediately on the termination of the war, and I have accordingly employed these descriptive designations from 1866 on. I trust that purist historians will forgive the possible anachronism.
Research is essentially a cooperative venture. I take this opportunity to convey my thanks and deep appreciation for most generous aid and assistance to Dr. James A. McMillen, Librarian of Louisiana State University; to Dr. E. A. Davis and W. R. Hogan, of the Department of Archives of the same institution; to Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Director of the Southern Collection, University of North Carolina; to George Shively, of Frederick A. Stokes Company, for invaluable suggestions and encouragement in the writing of the novel; and to Mrs. Lillian Roche and Mrs. Celia Sokol for their gay companionship during my Southern sojourn.
Nathan Schachner.
IN New Orleans the clubs were marching. Marching with quick, defiant tread to pacing drums and the toss of lit transparencies; marching with shouts upon their lips and a reckless fervor in their hearts. Breckinridge for President, they chanted; and sang the new song, Dixie. Down with Lincoln and the Black Republicans, they clamored; and answering hate roared back from the banquettes where their elders stood to cheer them on. Young men they were chiefly, with the tide of life strong in their veins and the future still a bright-hued fantasy. Marching down Canal Street, swinging into Camp, going to hear Yancey of Alabama fire the Sugar State into rebellion.
Young men they were chiefly, marching through the mists of time to war and weary slaughter, marching to defeat and bewilderment and a sullen despair, marching to a peace more terrible than the war it ended, marching to a future they never knew. Marching...
To Hugh Flint it now seemed curiously remote. The noise and the fireworks and the blaring bands and the heated passions of the political campaign. Here on the Mississippi were bright sky and coffee-colored water, and the slow slide of mud-caked levees and green plantations as the Eleanor shouldered its way upriver. The broad deck throbbed underfoot with the muted pounding of the engine, the paddles made a steady, churning noise, and light-shot smoke plumed upward from the double smokestacks.
"Right peaceful, ain't it, Mr. Flint?" drawled a voice in back of him.
Hugh did not turn for a moment. His big, brown hand rested lightly on the rail. The river wind ruffled the thick, strong profusion of his hair. The carefully tailored coat did not conceal the firm, square set of his shoulders. There was a nip in the air of these last days of October, 1860, that required the comforting warmth of broadcloth rather than the usual cottonade.
It was that same nip that concentrated his attention on the plantation past which they were steaming, so that he heard only with vague half-hearing the remark of the man who had come up behind him. His keen, experienced eyes had hurdled the levee with its evidence of a recent crevasse wretchedly repaired, shifted slightingly over the half-hidden house whose columns were badly in need of paint, and narrowed on the sugarcane that stretched tall and green as far as the cypress-fringed bayou that ran parallel to the river.
Little frowning thoughts moved through his mind. Was Andy Hilgard mad? It was practically November, yet the fields showed not the slightest sign of activity. The place should have swarmed with slaves, working feverishly against cold weather. The mat-laying of seed cane for next year's crop should already have been completed, and grinding commenced. Like the Wailes place, for example; just above the bend of the river. His eyes shifted approvingly upstream to catch a glimpse of a square brick chimney lifting slightly above a stand of cypress and moss-draped oaks. Black woodsmoke jetted forth, and ever so often a shower of hot red sparks.
Then his gaze swung back. He knew Andy for a reckless, hard-drinking, scatterbrained sort of chap who periodically took the river-boat down to New Orleans for a fling at the gaieties of the city. There were plenty of planters just like him in the delta, Hugh thought grimly. The bar and lobby of the St. Charles Hotel were their rendezvous. The drinks were potent, and the auction block a fatal attraction. It wasn't the good, sound buck niggers they were after; it was the comely, grinning wenches that made for furious bidding. Andy Hilgard bid the highest when his drunken fancy happened to be caught—and that was often—though his fences were down, his house was shabby and the next flood would sweep the levee away unless it was properly repaired.
Hugh shrugged. Bet he was down in New Orleans right now, drunk as all get out, shouting his head off for Breckinridge and denouncing the dam Yankees to every pot companion instead of tending to his proper business.
He wouldn't give a damn, of course; but the firm of Flint & Son, Commission Merchants and Sugar Factors, with offices and a warehouse on Poydras Street, handled Hilgard's crop. Hugh sniffed the air. Wouldn't be surprised if there'd be a frost in a couple of days. In that case the standing cane would be ruined. He made a mental note to drop a warning to his father and senior partner about it, just as soon as he hit Pineville. Partner? The word rolled with silent pride through the interstices of his brain. Old Stephen Flint wasn't given to coddling his son. He had tested him severely before adding that magical & Son to the faded lettering of the swinging sign. Sent him North to Princeton for an education; then deliberately put him into the warehouse and on the sweaty levee at the foot of Canal Street like any menial clerk. Three hard years he graded bales, sampled interminable hogsheads, hectored draymen, made out invoices. Then, three months before, old Stephen had repainted the sign, without a word about it to Hugh in advance.
Hugh grimaced. Three months, yet he was already quitting. That is, old Stephen had called it quitting; and added to his remarks some quite unmentionable epithets. Hugh's shoulders stiffened at the memory, and a hard glint crept into his steady black eyes. But no rage. He never scattered his will in futile anger. Anger was the outlet of the weak, of those who couldn't face realities. He had told his father as much and shocked the old man into an apoplectic silence. Then Stephen Flint had breathed hard and said, "Hugh, I used to think the Flints were hard as the stone we were named after, and that I was the hardest of the lot." He shook his head wonderingly. "But you've already beaten me at it, son, and you're only twenty-three yet."
"I'm just being realistic, Father," Hugh had protested.
"Call it what you like. But remember this. You're quitting the business on a fool guess as to what's going to happen. If things work out like you say they will, the firm of Flint & Son stays on. But if they don't—you're out. You're through. Do you understand?"
Even in memory Hugh Flint felt the pain of that last parting. He knew old Stephen well enough to know that nothing could change that final decision. Nevertheless, for the time being, he was still a partner, and there was the matter of Andy Hilgard. The letter he was going to send down by the next boat to New Orleans revolved itself in his brain.
"Dear Father: We passed Hilgard's plantation on the 29th. There's frost in the air, but the damned fool has every rattoon still standing. The cane will spoil sure as shooting. Be certain to examine his hogsheads with the utmost care when he delivers—especially the molasses. He'll be desperate enough to try and palm it off on you. And don't advance him another picayune against the crop. He's overdrawn now.
"Hope you've cooled off about what I've done. I aim to be prepared when the trouble starts; not go off half-cocked like the rest. I'm as positive as ever; there will be trouble. I've been North and I know the Yanks."
The man behind him cleared his throat. "I said it was right peaceful, Mr. Flint," he repeated loudly.
Hugh spat into the muddy river, straightened and turned.
"Sorry, Captain Willis," he apologized. "I was just thinking over things; and you know how it is."
Willis grinned slyly into his roundish beard and jerked a blunt, rope-scarred thumb across the river. "If it's Mr. Hilgard you're a-thinkin' of, I don't blame you. Last I saw of him down in New Orleens he was a-whorin' up and down Basin Street. Doin' it methodical, too. House to house. Didn't want any o' the madams to feel he was slightin' her, he told me. Said he was pretty damn sick o' his house gals. No gratitude in 'em at all. He set up Letty, the last one, with a brand-new petticoat and a right smart pair o' shoes from Stiewel's on Canal Street. The lazy slut didn't have to do a stitch o' work, either. Yet what does she up and do?"
"I haven't the slightest idea."
The captain tugged at the short hairs of his beard. He winked. "Damned if Letty don't slide out one night to follow the North Star; an' with a field hand, too."
"Ran away, did she?"
"Like a greased hawg. Hilgard claimed that broke his heart. Wouldn't of been so bad if it was a house nigger she took the underground with; but a field hand!" The captain's leathery face screwed up in righteous indignation. "I sort of don't blame Hilgard for feelin' bad. Says if he ever gets them back, he's a-goin' to rip the hides right off their lousy backs. Says the wench cost him twelve hundred dollars, but he don't care. When he gets through, she won't bring two hundred in the fields. That's how bad he feels."
Hugh didn't try to stop the loquacious captain's flow. It would have done no good. Hugh was the only passenger going upriver on the Eleanor, and Willis had to have someone to talk to. The mate was a lanky, cadaverous redneck from the piney woods, and as such, as well as from his station, not fit social company for a Mississippi captain. The crew, of course, slave or free, was altogether out of the question.
Hugh listened politely, but his thoughts were busy. Willis had been right. It was peaceful. In sharp contrast to the seething city he had left the night before. They were moving sluggishly round the bend, puffing and snorting against the unheeding river. Hilgard's fell away, and Wailes's place swung into view.
Moon Hill Plantation! Wonder who ever picked such a falsely romantic name. Every bit of it was flat as a pancake, and feet below the river when the spring floods came rolling down. Only the levee held them back. But then, most plantation owners were romantic. Look at the fancy handles they gave their places. Hugh ran over some of them in his mind. Rosalie, Magnolia, Buena Vista, Green Leaves, D'Evereux, Belle Chasse, Aurora! Moonlight and roses stuff; when what came out of the richly fertile bottomlands was sugar and cotton and rice, bags and bales and hogsheads, the essential materials of commerce. Now take Moon Hill, for example....
The mate came around the pilot-house. "Beg pardon, Cap'n," he said, "but they's signaling from the Wailes's place. Want us to pick up something, it seems like."
Willis stopped his chuckling commentary on Hilgard. Hugh followed his gaze. A gigantic negro stood out on the levee close to the clump of gray-oaks that marked the boundary between Moon Hill and Hilgard's. He was waving a large square of white cloth frantically in the wind. Though the air was cool, his broad, black face glistened with perspiration.
"Hiyah-h-h!" His voice drifted in a long lilt across the water. "Hiyah-h-h!"
"That would be Wailes' man, Quash," observed the captain. "Ain't no other buck along the whole Mississipp' as big as that black scoundrel. It's none o' my business, but there ain't no sense makin' a house nigger outa that mess o' beef and sinew. He should be out in the cane-rows, swingin' his knife like the rest o' them." He nodded to the waiting mate. "All right, McVey, set 'er in."
McVey cupped his hands and bellowed to the pilot-house. "Set 'er in!" Then he sauntered at a slow gait along the deck toward the stubby nose of the boat, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. But his voice whipped and rasped like a buzzsaw in the piney woods.
"Up with you, yuh lazy niggers! Git a-goin'! Git along! We ain't got all mornin'. Git the stages out and be right smart about it, 'fore I lay on your wuthless backs with a club!"
Bare feet padded up the companion-way from the lower freight deck; black faces grinned with excitement. In the twinkling of an eye the Eleanor shifted from placid monotony to a bedlam of whistles, snorts, jangling bells, and a general seethe of confusion.
The chimneys shuddered and blew out thick wads of pitchy smoke. A hoarse whistle screeched over the river. The big bell clamored twice. The steamer rounded to in the current, headed upstream at a wide angle to the shore. Its nose swung slowly around and butted toward the levee where Quash was still hullaoing.
But he was no longer facing the river. His great frame, incongruous in a dark blue coat and tight gray pantaloons, had turned toward the stately, colonnaded mansion whose upper story only was visible over the high levee. He was signaling and shouting to an unseen audience. The wind, and the inferno of sound on board, prevented his words from being audible to Hugh.
"Can't understand why they want us to land," puzzled Willis, squinting against the sun. "We're goin' upriver, not down." His face brightened suddenly. "Unless it's Miss Sally. She's got an aunt up Shreveport way. Might be that. You know Miss Sally prett' well, Mr. Flint? Your dad's been a-handlin' the Wailes's sugar for years."
"Not very well," Hugh denied. "You forget, I've been up North a few years; then I kept pretty close to Poydras Street ever since. But I think I did see her back in January. Sam Wailes thought he might get a better price selling his sugar from the plantation. I came up to talk it over; and talked him out of it. She's a spindly-legged, rather gawky little girl, isn't she? I remember. Her eyes seemed way too large for her face."
"Mmmm!" Willis looked at the young man sharply; then tugged his gaze away over the churning, fast-narrowing strip of water that separated them from the levee. "That might be almost a year ago. Little girls have a habit of sprouting, like a stand o' plant cane....
"Easy there!" he sang out suddenly. "We're going to ram too hard."
"Easy there!" screeched the mate like an echo.
The steamboat shook violently as the engines reversed. Speed slackened and the broad blunt nose buried itself with a sough of sucking mud into the yielding levee.
"Keep her there!" yelled the mate, and flung himself tigerishly upon the gawking crew.
"Git along with that stage, you black apes! Push 'em out fast, ef'n you don't want me to play Dixie on those thick skulls o' yours."
Two planks swung out from the upper deck, dropped neatly on the flat rim of the levee.
"What you got for me, Quash?" the captain sang out. "I'm headed up the Red River Shreveport way and I ain't got all day."
The gigantic negro turned his face toward the boat. It was an arresting face, hewn in black granite by a sculptor who worked with broad, powerful blows of his chisel and scorned the finishing details. A face savage in its contours, yet informed with a smoldering, sullen intelligence.
A dark, slow grin twisted his lips, but did not touch his eyes.
"Got two passengers—and me. Goin' up to Pineville."
"Pineville?" echoed Willis, startled. He looked at Hugh. "That's where you're bound for. Nothing there but the Academy."
Hugh nodded. "So I understand." His curiosity quickened. "Who's going, Quash?" he called out.
The negro inclined his great head. "Howdy, Mistah Flint. No one else but young Mast' Dabney and Miss Sally. She tak'n him up to school. And me, I'm a-goin' for his pus'nal man. But heah they's comin' now."
Captain Willis took off his cap and scratched his head thoughtfully. "Well, I'll be damned!" he said under his breath. "That young hellion! About time they did something about him. The wildest youngster on the river, from New Orleens to Vicksburg." He looked quizzically at Hugh and chuckled suddenly. "You two goin' to be schoolmates, eh?"
Hugh felt a slow red creep up his jaws. He had had enough of sneers from his father over what he had set out to do. His brown, competent hands clenched, unclenched and fingered the stuff of his light tan waistcoat. He stared hard at Willis and the chuckle died as suddenly as it had started. "No offense meant," mumbled the captain.
"Didn't expect any," agreed Hugh. "But young Dabney Wailes; he's Miss Sally's young brother, isn't he? About fifteen."
"Nigh on sixteen. There's Nancibelle in between 'em. But he's a handful. Shot up in the last year to 'bout your size, though still a bit slight in the beam. He was wild enough as a boy, spoiled as all get out; but ever since Missus Wailes died on 'em in the spring he just can't be handled. Old Sam Wailes is prett' much broken up over the death of his missus an' he lets ever'thing go but the plantation. Miss Sally—she's the boss now; and a right good one, too. The boy ain't afraid of nawthin' in the world but her."
"Better come 'long, Miss Sally," they heard Quash exhort someone beyond the levee. "Cap'n Willis—he say he ain't got all day."
"Captain Willis will wait just as long as it is necessary," responded a firm, decisive voice. "Dabney, it's no use sulking. You're going to school and you're going to like it. I hope they make a proper man of you. It's about time. And you, Patsey, be mindful of that bonnet. It's my very best. Hurry, Cuffy! Don't you know how to handle those mules? I'll tell Father to put you back in the fields."
"Doan' you-all do dat, Miss Sally," pleaded a terrified voice. "It am dese trunks. Dey keep a-rattlin', and de mules, dey git scairt." Passion shook the invisible negro. "Doan' you heah what de missy say, you long-laiged, lop-eahed sons ob de debbil?"
A whip cracked sharply, leather grunted, and ungreased axles made grating sounds.
The next moment a blue silk bonnet lifted above the levee. Then a blue mantilla of the same shade, and a girl—or woman—moved lightly into view. A tiny foot, trimly encased in soft blue leather, peeped momentarily from underneath the swirling flounce of a figured muslin dress, withdrew with immediate modesty into retirement as she steadied her footing. She shook off with a quick denial of her head the proffered aid of Quash.
"I need no assistance, Quash," she said; then turned sharply back to the steepish climb. "All right, Cuffy, bring the trunks on board. Quash will help you."
The giant negro's face took on a look of outraged dignity. "You don't mean dat, Miss Sally. Mistuh Samuel, he tell me I'm Master Dabney's pus'nal man. Dat's Cuffy's job to tote dem trunks."
"He's quite right, Sis," expostulated an elegant young man who now strolled nonchalantly to the top of the levee. His hands were deep in the pockets of his fawn-colored pantaloons. His boots were glossy with blacking, his ruffled shirt starched to perfection, and a fine gold chain hung across his flowered vest. A very exact replica of the fashionable blades who frequented the Opera House down in New Orleans, thought Hugh disapprovingly. He half expected him to draw out an enameled snuff-box and take a delicate pinch with a languid flourish.
But the lad's face, under its surmounting beaver, was not bad. Sullen, yes—and wilful. Spoiled, without question; as many of the sons and heirs of the great plantations in the sugar belt were spoiled. Yet the lines were good. The chin would firm with maturity, and the smooth cheeks, sedulously scraped though only a fuzz had sprouted, were glowing with sun and abounding vigor. The eyes, a hazel-gray, were petulant now, but they held a hint of deepening manhood.
"Quash is my man," pursued the boy angrily. "Dad said so himself. I won't have him spoiling his clothes with the trunks. Cuffy can take care of them—"
The girl's bonnet moved sharply toward her brother, and for the first time Hugh saw her face. He sucked in a deep breath. He had been prepared for some change by Willis's passing remark, but not for anything like this!
Last January he had not paid any particular attention to the girl. He had come up on business, and all his energies had been concentrated on dissuading Sam Wailes from his contemplated course. If Wailes decided to offer his sugar direct from his plantation to the speculators who ranged the river, that meant that the then firm of Stephen Flint would lose a steady and lucrative source of commissions. Of course Hugh's advice had been tinctured with that unspoken thought, but it wasn't controlling. He knew they could get better prices for Wailes on the Canal Street levee than any roving speculator could offer, even allowing for the additional freight, wharfage and commissions.
Whatever vague impression he brought away of the girl consisted in the picture, as he had told Captain Willis, of a spindly-legged, awkward young lady, with great, staring eyes in a rather thinnish face.
But the face had filled in, and the eyes no longer seemed disproportionate. On the contrary, no other eyes could have matched so well the firm, well-modeled contours of her countenance, or bridged the gap between the sensitive nostrils and the wide, arched eyebrows with such complete satisfaction. They were large, it was true, but with a speaking largeness. The hazel-gray of her brother was here transfused with a lustrous quality, and infused as well with a determined glint that brooked no trifling, and but very little opposition. The mantilla fluttered open a bit to disclose rounded breasts temptingly restrained under tight, smooth muslin. She had bounded to maturity in a single season.
"Do not interfere, Dab." She spoke with a sharp vibrant decisiveness. "Cuffy needs help, and Quash is going to give it. Go on, Quash, and don't stand there glowering."
"Yes'm," said the big negro hastily, and fled down the slope of the levee.
"Now, Sis—" whined the boy, losing his careful pose. "You're making me look like a fool—"
"You do that well enough for yourself." Her voice softened. "Now get on board, Dab, and don't hold up Captain Willis." Her gaze fluttered upward. Willis bowed. "I've all week for you, Miss Sally," he responded gallantly.
She curtsied. "Thank you, dear Captain; but we won't delay you that long." She did not seem to see Hugh Flint, who stood at the rail, a little apart, staring, wholly forgetful of his manners.
A small, thin negress with a bright, knowing face hopped like a bird to the levee top, holding an enormous hatbox in one hand, and gesticulating angrily back with the other. "You, Quash, and you, Cuffy, you done spattered me on pu'pose." She looked down at her bright green dress and her eyes snapped like those of an enraged sparrow.
"Never mind your dress, Patsey," said Sally Wailes. "Get on board and mind you don't fall in the river, or it'll have more than a few mud spots on it."
The two negroes came next. Cuffy, a small weazened man, with a complexion the color of the Mississippi and feet that had originally been intended for a giant like Quash, staggered under a small brass-bound trunk. Quash moved effortlessly, with one huge trunk tucked under his arm and another perched lightly on his shoulder. Cuffy was grinning delightedly at the stormy Patsey; but Quash strode up the narrow stage with a set, savage look on his jet-black countenance.
Like a Texas mule, thought Hugh, that's waiting to bare its teeth and fly out with both heels. Should never have made a house man of him. He remembered vaguely some talk of Quash. He had come from a rice plantation on the Carolina coast where he had killed one field hand and maimed another. A bad nigger! He had even drawn a knife on the overseer and been half-whipped to death for it. The scars still showed a dirty gray on his ebony back. Then they sold him down the river, and Sam Wailes had picked him up cheap on the auction block at the St. Charles. Sam was a good man, but stubborn. He laughed at the well-meant warnings of his friends, and brought the slave into the house. Elizabeth Wailes took an interest in the giant negro and had gone so far as to teach him how to read and write; much to the headshakings of all the neighboring plantations.
"I don't hold with teaching niggers anything but their prayers," declared one forthright planter. "Gives them ideas. They get uppity; and then there's trouble."
Sally Wailes was the last to go on board. She moved lightly up the plank, her hoops billowing in the wind.
Cuffy dropped his load on the deck. "G'bye, Miss Sally," he panted. "G'bye, Marster Dabney, might de Lawd tak' keer of you-all."
He leered at Patsey, who sniffed disdainfully and pretended not to see him, cast a furtive, half-frightened glance at the immobile Quash, bowed and scraped to the white folks, and ambled back down the plank, his big feet flapping and slapping the wood.
The stages were hauled in swiftly, the whistle blew, the bell clanged, and the Eleanor backed away from the levee and into midstream, swinging her nose once more upriver.
"Good-morning, Miss Sally." Hugh came forward, bowing. "I'm Hugh Flint. You may remember me. I came up to see your father last January."
"Good-morning." The girl nodded briefly, abstractedly. It was as if her mind were occupied with more important things than the young man who had greeted her. She turned almost immediately to Willis. "Now if you'll show us our staterooms, Captain, I'd be much obliged."
"We haven't much to offer, Miss Sally," he said handsomely, "but whatever it is, it's at your service. I'd give you my quarters; but Mr. Flint is now in occupation. However, if he should care—" He looked suggestively at Hugh.
"Naturally!" The girl spoke with calm finality. "I'll take that room. And give the next best one to my brother. And don't place Patsey too far from me, please."
"Of course! Of course!" Willis lifted his voice. "Mr. McVey, show Miss Sally to my quarters. Mr. Flint has kindly consented to move to the room over the boiler. It's a mite small; but I'm sure—"
Anger leaped hot and red in Hugh's brain; subsided like a pricked balloon. "Mr. Flint," he said sharply and clearly, "has no recollection at all of having expressed his consent. He has no recollection even of having been asked for his consent."
For a moment the deck held something of that quietude upon which Willis had remarked prior to the call at Moon Hill. It dropped like a pall, smothering even the measured churn of the paddles. Hugh had a strange sensation of being the very hub and center of the universe. The captain's leathery face wore a blank, bewildered look. The mate, McVey, stood with his hand on the door as though he never intended to move again. Patsey's eyes popped and retreated hastily into their sockets. Dabney, lounging against the rail, hands still in pockets, forgot momentarily his bored superiority.
But it was only Sally Wailes whom Hugh saw. And she saw him now; fully and carefully. As though it were for the first time.
"You are quite right, Mr. Flint," she said at length. "The captain, of course, took it for granted that you would offer your room; but you really should have been given the opportunity to offer of your own accord. I shall appreciate your sacrifice."
Hugh grinned. "But I'm making none."
She smiled at him. "I expected you would say that. It is really very charming of you. But I shall insist on thinking that it is a sacrifice just the same."
"You misunderstand me. I meant literally and exactly what I said. I am making no sacrifice because I am not yielding my room. I find it quite comfortable, and the room Captain Willis so magnanimously offered in its place is, shall I say, stuffy and subject to most annoying noises from the boilers."
Her face paled; then flushed. "You mean," she demanded incredulously, "that you won't yield it even when I ask you?"
"I mean just that," he declared coolly. "I'm certain Captain Willis can find you proper accommodation elsewhere."
Young Dabney straightened from the rail, took his hands out of his pockets. He marched over to Hugh. "Sir," he began in an ominously deep tone that suddenly broke and changed to a raging squeak, "you are no—"
"Dabney!" cried Sally in alarm. Her own blood pounded within her; but she had to stop him before he said that last fighting word. This Hugh Flint wasn't a gentleman, even though he pretended to the appearance of one. A sugar broker, a fellow in trade! Stood on the hot levee near Canal Street and huckstered for bids. A fellow of commissions and brokerages and split picayunes. There were some planters along the river who met these men socially; even invited them into their clubs. But not the Wailes's, who had been gentlemen and owned their great plantations in an unbroken line back to the first Sir Henry Wailes.
She went swiftly over to her hotheaded young brother. He was only a boy, and this—this Hugh Flint was a grown man and rather competent-looking. As though he was quite accustomed to the use of pistols. She laid a slender, gloved hand on Dabney. Her tone, to her great surprise, sounded cool; indifferent even.
"It really doesn't matter, Dabney. Mr. Flint is well within his rights. I'm sure I'll sleep just as well over the boilers. They say they have a faculty of lulling one to sleep."
"I've heard the same thing, Miss Sally," Hugh remarked with equal coolness.
"B-but, Sis," Dabney sputtered, trembling with rage at this cad who stood there with such infuriating ease, and at himself for that most unfortunate break in his voice just when he wanted especially to give the impression of a grown, mature man.
Sally led him firmly away. She put on her sweetest smile for the frozen Mr. McVey. "Now if you'll be kind enough to show me that lovely boiler room, and my brother his quarters—"
She went off with what she hoped were flying colors. But underneath she was a volcano of surging lava and mortification. What sharpened her inner wrath was the faint half-acknowledgment that she had got what she deserved.
THE Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, to give it its full title, stood splendid and solitary on a rise of cleared ground in the heart of untrammeled forest. Hugh Flint came upon it with something of a shock. He was wholly unprepared for such magnificence in the midst of the wilderness.
The trip from Moon Hill Plantation up the Mississippi and along the Red River to their destination had been tedious and uneventful except for one minor incident. Some thirty miles below Alexandria they ran up on a sand-bar, and it took two hours of backing and filling, of pounding engines and sweaty cursing to get them off.
"That ain't nothing," Captain Willis declared philosophically. "Back in August the river was that low we grounded for a week. Had to wait for the water to rise to float us off."
"What did you do with your time?"
"Jes' sat around an' fished for catfish in the pools off'n the bar, an' played cards." The captain's eyes twinkled. "Had a tinhorn gambler on board. He'd been run outa Shreveport, and was going down to Orleens to try his luck there. Thought he'd keep his hand in, I s'pose, playing McVey an' me. He didn't know I knew him."
Willis rubbed his beard reminiscently. "They all do business the same way. Let you win awhile to sorta gain your confidence. Then they suggest, us being all friends, to take off the four-bit limit we been playin' an' make it a gentleman's game.
"Well, when our tinhorn comes to that, I'm ten ahead and McVey's got seventeen solid dollars in front of 'im. McVey don't know him to be a tinhorn, an' I say nothin'. McVey's eyes begin tuh glisten an' he says sure, why not?
"It was the tinhorn's turn to deal, an' he cold-decks us. He was prett' good at it, I must say, for I watched him right sharp, yet I didn't see 'im switch the decks. But when I spreads my cards I jes' knows it was done. I got four kings. I squint over at McVey. He's tremblin' like a leaf, and he's lickin' his lips like they was dry. Says I to myself, McVey, you got four jacks in those dirty paws o' yourn an' you're goan' to try an take your pore ol' cap'n's money away. I don' have to bother 'bout the tinhorn. I knows he's a-sittin' there with four aces.
"Well, I'm after the dealer. So I drops a shiny dollar onta the table for a freshener. McVey, like I thought, spills five round ones after it. The tinhorn looks very sad and ups it ten. I says very loud to my black boy: 'Mose, here's the key to that iron box in my room. Open it an' bring me the leather bag you'll find inside.' Then McVey, he fishes a key outa his pocket, an' gives it to Mose to bring his little bag. The tinhorn jes' sits there an' tries to look onhappy."
Hugh crossed his legs comfortably and downed his rum toddy. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching Sally Wailes. She was good to look at, sitting at the other table in the stuffy little apology for a dining saloon and eating with a superb show of unconsciousness that he even existed. Her hair, smoothed down on either side in accordance with the prevailing mode, was a lustrous brown that glinted with little lights in the flicker of the lamps. Her body was vigorous and alive, and moved with an assured grace in spite of confining stays and the enormous hoop she had seen fit to don. Though her lower limbs were completely hidden under yards of flounces Hugh was positive they were no longer spindly. But, of course, a gentleman was not supposed to engage in such surmises.
She had obviously taken special pains with her dress. The dark green silk she wore, while not a party dress, was rather richer in fabric and cut than could be considered justified on a poky little river-boat like the Eleanor where there were no other women and only one male passenger, with whom she wasn't on speaking terms. Hugh smiled into his drink and picked up the interrupted thread of the captain's tale.
"I throws in a twenty-dollar gold-piece, making it bounce an' ring," continued Willis. "McVey, he sort of shivers with eagerness an' empties his sack. There's a gold-piece, twenty-two silver boys an' nine Mex dollars in the pile. He shoves 'em all across the table. 'That's my bet, gentlemen,' he says very husky.
"The tinhorn looks bored, takes out a whopper of a sack from his hip pocket, an' jumps it to a hundred. I make it two." Captain Willis stared with faded blue, innocent eyes at Hugh. "Y'see," he explained, "I was a-carryin' some planters' money down to Orleens to settle their store accounts."
"I see," said Hugh.
"McVey looks a mite sick. 'Gentlemen,' he says, 'I ain't got that much to call, but I'll give my note.' I looks at him very severe: 'McVey,' I says, 'notes ain't no sort o' hard money. We jes' kaint take it; kin we, Mister Devoe?'
"The tinhorn, he says, 'Yes, the captain's right.' He knows the note 'ud be wuthless; an' he's got eyes only for the round shape o' my sack. McVey cusses right loud, an' drops his hand. Well, I ain't a-goin' to bother you with details, but when the tinhorn finally calls, there's over two thousand in gold and silver on the table. 'I'd of raised that last five hundred o' yourn,' he claims, 'but I ain't got no more cash. Beat four aces.' An' without waitin' for to see what I lays down, he grabs for the money.
"I says, 'Hol' on there, Mister Devoe, you're a mite beforehand.' An' I spreads out soft an' easy a straight flush—hearts, up to the nine."
"I thought you said you had four kings," Hugh interrupted.
Willis looked at him thoughtfully. "Did I say that, Mister Flint? Now, that's right queer; for there was the straight flush, sure as shootin'. 'Course," he admitted, "it might of been part o' the real deck, 'stead of the cold one the tinhorn pulled outa his sleeve; but I wouldn't know.
"Anyhow, Devoe lets out a tumble yowl, an' goes for his derringer. But I already got my hoss-pistol squintin' across the table, an' that sort of quiets him down. By the time we gets t' New Orleens we're real chummy. No hard feelin's, either way."
Hugh laughed. "I'll bet," he agreed. "Did you return what you had won from McVey?"
The captain looked virtuous. "O' course not. I won that fair 'n square. Didn't McVey drop his hand? 'Sides, I reckoned it 'ud learn that close-fisted Scotch redneck not to go gambling no more."
Pineville proved to be a mere landing stage. A few squalid, unpainted houses huddled miserably together on the red, clayey bank, seeking solace in each other's plight against the overtowering pines that threatened to send them toppling into the river. Sally Wailes and Patsey commandeered the only carriage left in the hamlet, and Dabney, all spruced up and elegant, rode in front on a spavined bay. His trunks, Sally's hatbox, and Hugh's own modest portmanteau jounced along in a rickety old wagon, with Quash sitting with grim fierceness next to the driver, wholly indifferent to that worthy's sidelong awe of his overwhelming bulk. Hugh ambled along in the rear of the procession on a roan gelding that had seen better days.
Three miles of dark woods, the rutted path uptilting; and then the Seminary burst suddenly upon them out of the close-hemming forest. The main building was magnificent. It rose three tall stories high, and imposing towers flung upward still another story. The massive walls, flanking three sides of a tremendous quadrangle, were crenellated like a fortress. Wide galleries ran along each floor, and the fresh white paint broke the afternoon sun into splashes of dazzling reflection.
The quadrangle and the parade ground were alive with color and movement. Critical parents sniffed after the manner of all parents into every nook and cranny of grounds and buildings, escorted by cadet sons who wore the world-weary air that came from being veterans of the previous semester. Hugh reined in his horse and stared at the cadets with a certain humorous admiration. They looked like peacocks on parade in their dark blue military frocks with stiff, upstanding collars and fancy gilt buttons, and their light blue trousers with black stripes down the outer seam. But it was the hats that were obviously their delight and pride. These were grand affairs, broad-brimmed, high-crowned and stiff with sizing. Ornate brass plates displayed for the delectation of the beholder true representations of the college building and the coat-of-arms of Louisiana. Waving black ostrich plumes flung back with a rakish air from large clasps on the side. Other lads, quite evidently newcomers, watched them with openmouthed amazement. Even young Dabney, supercilious of everything connected with this backwoods institution into which he had been unwillingly thrust, condescended to stare with the rest.
A small, bowlegged negro appeared suddenly out of the turmoil to catch hold of Hugh's horse and to impart bored directions as to the whereabouts of the Superintendent's office. But directions were not needed. For Sally and young Dabney had already disappeared into the imposing building and Hugh had only to follow them into the plain, sparsely furnished office.
For the first time his resolution was somewhat shaken. Doubts rose up to plague him as he sat on the hard, pine chair, hat gripped in sinewy fingers, and waited for the Superintendent. Sally sat at the other end of the office across the long desk with its neat stacks of papers, giving him the benefit of a proud, yet sensitive profile within the frame of her traveling bonnet. An aristocrat to the very tip of her nose, thought Hugh, half-admiring and half-resentful.
Most of the American planters in the delta were a rather friendly lot, who admitted the New Orleans factors to a fairly equal social footing with themselves, though their wives managed to convey—of course, with the most delicate subtlety—that there was a difference between a landed owner and a person in trade.
But some few, who had come down with their slaves and traditions from the caste-ridden sections of Virginia and the Carolinas to tap the rich new bottomlands of Louisiana, retained all the old prejudices against the hardheaded traders to whom their forefathers had been heavily in debt before the Revolution. It was even said that much of the enthusiastic patriotism displayed by the Virginian and Carolinian planters in throwing off the yoke of Britain was founded largely on these same debts. But that, of course, was obviously a canard.
Old Sam Wailes belonged to this group, yet he did not share their prejudices. A stubborn man when crossed, and subject to flares of violent temper on occasion; but given to no false frills or condescensions. There was a broad earthy streak in him that held him close to the soil and made him one of the most successful sugar growers along the whole Mississippi coast. He had been somewhat of a trial to Elizabeth, his wife, whose delicately nurtured sensibilities were constantly being exacerbated by his loud, hearty laughter, his inability to distinguish properly between those who belonged and those who did not, and his utter contempt for the handsome, languid Creoles who frequented the Opera, traveled regularly in Europe and permitted only a few carefully selected Americans of proper lineage within their Old World patios.
"A worn-out, bloodless race, my dear," he snorted to his wife. "They think the French flag still floats above the Cabildo, and they dabble with their la-de-da trills and frills at the Opera instead of getting along with life."
"You're talking a great deal of nonsense," Elizabeth sighed. "Sometimes you forget you are a Wailes, with a tradition of your own to uphold."
He grinned affectionately at her. "At least you'll never forget you're a Dabney, my dear. The Dabneys of Virginia! Lord, I still remember how carefully your brothers checked up on us poor Waileses before they consented to our marriage. It was a lucky thing there was a Waylys who was Lord of the Scottish March in the time of Edward the First, whereas the first Dabney won his spurs by a judicious contribution to the coffers of Henry the Eighth a considerable time later."
"How you go on with your nonsense, Samuel!" exclaimed Elizabeth indignantly. "You know as well as I do that there was a Dabney with William the Conqueror."
"As sutler, my dear," he called after her as she flounced out of the room.
But he truly loved her, and her sudden death of the yellow fever left him broken, without laughter, and shelled around with an obsessive preoccupation with crops and fields and the hard routine of sugar....
The silence in the office became oppressive. The Superintendent would see them shortly, a servant had informed them, and withdrawn. Hugh had time for his doubts to grow. He was not ordinarily given to doubt. He made up his mind only after a careful consideration of all angles to the problem in hand, and then he hewed solidly to his course in the face of all opposition.
The violent blasphemy of old Stephen, his father, had not shaken him. The openmouthed astonishment of Captain Willis when he heard of his destination had brought no qualms; nor even the quick, sidelong glance that Sally had thrust his way and withdrawn like a sword into its sheath when the captain, who dined at her table, had obviously gossiped about it.
But now that Hugh had come to the Seminary and faced the reality of its buildings; and had seen, though casually and at a distance, those who were to be his fellow-students, he began to feel that perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake.
For the students were young. From fifteen to eighteen, as near as he could judge. Callow youths, still fit subjects for schooling and the petty discipline of books and cloistered teachers. No older than those with whom he had spent three years at Princeton, up North, in the already dim, retreating past.
He stared down at his long, comfortably crossed legs, and a faint frown brought into relief the lean, strong ridge of his nose. What was he, a grown man, doing among these children? Suppose there was no war? Suppose Douglas, or Bell, or Breckinridge was elected, and the whole thing simmered down? Wouldn't he look the fool? A disturbing picture of old Stephen arose in his mind. The newborn firm of Flint & Son would die almost at birth. The men he knew in New Orleans—mature men of affairs and not given to crotchety, harebrained ideas—what would they think and say over their sherry cobblers?
The muscles of his legs pressed hard against the edge of the chair. He started to rise. Then the door opened and a tall man walked into the room.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting," he said briskly. He bowed to Sally, thrust a quick, reserved glance at Dabney, and turned to Hugh.
"I'm Colonel Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman, at your service. I assume the lad is your younger brother?"
His frame was spare, yet loosely hinged. His long, keen head was surmounted by a shock of reddish hair and his beard was bristly and untidy. The collar of his fatigue uniform was unhooked. But his blue-gray eyes, set deep within their sockets, smoldered with a certain repressed fire even in repose.
Dabney's face went red and he said angrily: "I am no kin of his!"
Sally rose quickly, smoothed out the folds of her dress. "Dabney Wailes is my brother, sir," she said with emphasis. "We wish to enroll him in the Seminary. You have doubtless received my father's letter—Mr. Samuel Wailes, of Moon Hill Plantation?"
Colonel Sherman looked sharply at Hugh, who smiled quietly and said nothing. "To be sure, Miss Wailes." He turned to the girl again. "I misunderstood."
"My father found it impossible to come," she explained. "The sugar is being ground, and he didn't wish to trust it to the overseer. The frost is early this year."
The Superintendent's eyes fixed themselves on Dabney. There was a certain disapproving glint to them. "So you wish to enroll in the Seminary, eh? You're pretty young, sir; about fifteen, I should say." He stared pointedly at the fawn-colored pantaloons and the ruffled shirt. "It's hard work here, and Spartan living. And our rules are strict."
"I'm sixteen," Dabney declared hotly, "and I didn't want to come to your Seminary. That's my sister's doing."
"You're at liberty to leave. The River Queen's due down from Shreveport at seven this evening." The Superintendent plucked out his heavy gold watch. "You'll have ample time to make it. It's barely three now."
Sally put a gloved hand on the arm of the smoldering lad. She faced Sherman, chin very firm and determined. "He is going to stay, Colonel. He's a little high-spirited, but no man is worth his salt who hasn't been a bit skittish as a boy." Her face softened into a smile. "I trust, sir, that you will make a man of him."
"Hmmm!" Sherman looked noncommittal. Then he sat down at his desk and wrote rapidly. "He'll go into the Fourth Class. I'll assign him to a roommate shortly." He looked up, let his eyes wander to the high, pine ceiling.
"You didn't, perhaps, bring along a slave or two to attend to your personal wants?"
"Only one, sir. My man, Quash."
"Ah, just as I thought. So many of the cadets from the plantations do that." He straightened suddenly and his voice became brittle. "I'll have to make a special note of it in the next prospectus. The students here, my dear sir, take care of themselves. This is in a way a military camp, not a lounging place for the pampered young men of Louisiana. You clean your own rooms, you make your own beds; and God help you if you leave so much as a speck of dirt. The man Quash, my dear Miss Wailes, must return with you."
"By God!" flashed Dabney, starting up, "I might have known this would happen. A Northerner as Superintendent of a Southern college! Bah! Weren't there enough good Louisianians to choose from? Men who are gentlemen?"
Hugh saw the fire flame up in Sherman's face, and subside.
He began to write again. "I think, Miss Wailes," he said icily, "that both of you had better catch the River Queen. We have more gentlemen in the Seminary right now than is good for us."
"Dabney!" Sally's tone was one of shocked reproach.
The boy wilted. "All right, Sis. But I still think—"
"You're staying; and you're apologizing to Colonel Sherman—immediately."
A humorous half-grin lit up the Superintendent's face. "Apologies are a waste of time, Miss Wailes. I dispense with them. But remember, if your brother remains, he submits to discipline. I stand for no nonsense."
"I'll vouch for him," she declared.
"Very well." He scraped his chair around to face Hugh. "Now, sir?"
"I'm Hugh Flint. I sent up a formal letter of application for admission to the Seminary as a cadet."
Sherman looked startled. "Eh, what's that?"
Hugh repeated his statement.
The Superintendent surveyed the competent, well-knit form of the applicant with a puzzled stare. What he saw he approved of: the firm, yet pleasant face, the steady eyes, the strong hands, the general air of one who has seen men and affairs and weighed them in the balance.
"I did receive your letter," he admitted finally, "but I didn't anticipate— Our cadets are usually on the youngish side, though we have a few students in the Third Class who are practically twenty-one. May I ask, sir, something of your background?"
Hugh told him.
Sherman listened in silence, tapping the desk thoughtfully with his pen. When Hugh finished, he said: "What you tell me makes it all the more surprising. A graduate of Princeton, eh? And now a member of an old-established firm. I've heard of your father. Surely, my dear sir, we have nothing to offer you here."
"You have, Colonel."
"What?"
"Military training. I understand from Major Beauregard that you are stressing that feature. And you, sir, are a West Pointer. I could want for no better tutelage."
Sherman put his pen slowly and carefully down. His gaze, strangely penetrating, measured Hugh. Sally and young Dabney looked surprised.
"Military training! So that's it!" Sherman drummed with his fingers and a shadow passed over his face. "If that's the case, why didn't you choose West Point then, or the Military School in Virginia? Their training is far better than ours could possibly hope to be."
Hugh braced himself. "It's too late for that, sir. West Point is Northern, and V. M. I. was closed to applications by the time I had made up my mind. Besides, their courses spread out too much. The time is too short. I hope to obtain here at least the essentials of military tactics in the few months still left."
"What few months are you talking about?"
Their glances clashed like swords. "What I mean is that there'll be war by April at the latest; and I aim to be prepared. God knows the South will have plenty of volunteer officers—too many, by far. But there'll be a scarcity of officers who know their trade. Fighting is a trade, sir; the same as handling sugar and cotton. It takes time to learn."
Sherman sat straight and rigid in his chair. "By God, Mr. Flint," he ejaculated, "you're right! War is a business, a dirty business; the more one knows of it the quicker it can be brought to an end. But—"
"War!" Sally burst in disdainfully. "There'll be no war. Even if that black abolitionist, Lincoln, is elected—which God forbid!—there'll be no war. The South will peaceably secede and set up its own Confederacy, as it has a right to do. That will be all."
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. She spoke heatedly, addressing herself rather to the Superintendent than to Hugh. The calm young trader puzzled her. Though she still resented his insulting behavior on board the Eleanor, when he first began to speak of the necessity of military training for Southerners she had listened with attention. For the moment she felt a half-willing respect. He was different from the careless, laughing, quick-triggered men of the neighboring plantations. He represented a different world; as alien, in fact, as this raw-boned Superintendent who had been imported from the North.
But when he aired his views on the subject of war she veered instantly back to her original opinion. War a trade, forsooth! There spoke the man of commissions and grubby instincts. What did a Southern gentleman have to know of drillmasters! They were for Yankees. Let the Northerners push their long, blue noses into drill books and shout: "Squads right! Squads left!" or whatever it was they yelled at greasy mechanics who didn't know one end of a gun from the other.
War was not marching and countermarching. War was a matter of elan, of gallant, hard-riding gentlemen who charged with flashing swords, and with cheers upon their lips. War was...
"You must not talk that way, Miss Wailes," the Superintendent interrupted her stormy thoughts in strained, harsh tones. "It is just such talk that will bring on the very thing that we all fear. I hold no brief for the abolitionists up North. I wish that slavery had never existed, for it breeds infinite mischief. But it does exist, and all the theoretical notions of humanity and religion cannot shake the fact that slave labor is of great value and cannot be dispensed with. I would not if I could abolish or modify your institutions. But your constant threat of disunion if you cannot have your way has done you more real harm than all the prayers, preachings and foolish speeches of distant abolitionists. The true position of everyone, North and South, is to frown down even a mention of disunion."
The words tumbled so breathlessly from his lips that he stammered.
"Nevertheless," said Hugh quietly, "if Lincoln is elected—and I believe he will be—the South will secede."
"Of course we will!" cried Sally. Then she sniffed: "But why should there be war? We'll have no reason to fight."
"The North will not stand by idly and see us go."
"The North! A pack of psalm-singing Yankees who think only of their pockets. They'll be glad to trade with us; in their eagerness to get our cotton, sugar and rice they'll pocket any amount of insult."
Hugh said gravely, "It is just such romantic beliefs on the part of those among us who ought to know better that will bring on the final tragedy."
"Bah!" Dabney broke in disgustedly. "You speak like a Yank yourself. Sis is right. But even if she weren't, we'd beat the tar out of them in a week or two." His eyes glittered. "I wish they'd try it. I'd get me a commission."
Sherman stared at the lad. "Remember, sir," he said sternly, "you are still in the Union and an enrolled student of this Seminary." He turned to Sally.
"Mr. Flint is right. Secession and Civil War are synonymous terms. Peaceful disunion is impossible. It would be war eternal until one side or the other has conquered."
He directed his piercing gaze on Hugh. "And the North will win, sir."
"I know it."
Sally gasped. "You—you know it! You—a Southerner can stand there—oh, this is incredible!"
"We Southerners just can't face the truth," Hugh went on as though she had not interrupted. "We still think of war as it was in the Revolution, as it was even farther back, in the days of knighthood and chivalry. We don't realize that the times have changed; that modem warfare is no longer a matter of cavalry charges and waving swords. It's become a matter of money, of big guns, of iron and steel, of factories and mills; and, above all, of a fleet. The South has little of these things; the North has them in abundance. We may win at first, but a blockade of our ports will shut off the only possible markets where our raw materials—cotton, sugar, rice—might be exchanged for the things we'll need, and need desperately. In the end, we must be defeated."
"Yet you wish to train yourself for this inevitable defeat?" Sherman asked.
Hugh faced him squarely. "Louisiana, sir, is my native State. When it secedes I go with it. I would have preferred it otherwise. I believe secession and the war to come a grievous error. This continent can stand but one nation. We complement each other—we each have the raw materials the other lacks. But no one will listen—the hotheads on both sides will see to that. Since I have no other choice, Colonel Sherman, I wish to be in a position to fight the best I can."
"Thank God all Southerners aren't as certain of being licked!" Dabney burst out.
Sherman ignored the angry boy. "Mr. Flint," he said slowly, "you're a young man of decided parts. I am reluctant to train you in the business of soldiering; for, understand me, if war comes I intend to resign and offer my services to the Federal Government. But until that happens and as long as I accept a salary from the State of Louisiana, I must accept my duties as well."
He sat down and began to write. "You will enter the Third Class, Mr. Flint, and do all the work assigned; even though the curriculum may appear a trifle elementary to you."
"I understand."
"Now, as to quarters." Sherman looked from Dabney to Hugh—the boy of sixteen and the man of twenty-three—and a faint smile played around his lips. His pen scratched rapidly over the paper. "I shall assign Mr. Wailes and Mr. Flint to Room Number Twelve on the second landing. You will both furnish your own bedding and equipment. If you have brought none along, the Commissary will sell you the necessary articles at a fair price, and the amounts will be charged against your cash deposits."
He rose again in a gesture of dismissal. "I trust, gentlemen, that you will be a credit to the Seminary. You will find the rules and regulations posted in your room, and I need not say that they are strictly and literally enforced. Good-day, gentlemen. Good-day, Miss Wailes." He bowed.
It was only then that Dabney found breath enough for speech. "Put me in the same room with that—that—uh—Mister Flint?" he spluttered. "I won't do it, I tell you; I won't—"
"That will be enough," the Superintendent said ominously. "The first rule you must learn is that of obedience to orders. You obey—or you leave."
He swung on Hugh. "Have you any complaints to make about your room?"
Hugh looked at the raging boy, permitted his glance to rest momentarily on Sally.
"No, sir," he said.
An hour later Hugh Flint made his way out of the building. It was good to be out again and to inhale fresh air. The room had been stuffy from long disuse and required a vigorous cleaning. He had received no help from Dabney, who sulked about the dingy quarters, sniffing at the bare pine walls and the Spartan furnishings and ostentatiously not speaking to his enforced roommate.
Hugh had grinned to himself and set to work. He took off his fine broadcloth coat, doffed his tan waistcoat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. When he was through the room was clean, and livable. The window was wide to huge draughts of the keen November air. The furniture was arranged; beddings unrolled for the night. But by that time Dabney had fled.
As Hugh came out, the silence of the place struck him forcibly. Two hours before, the quadrangle had swarmed with cadets and their parents. Now a shadowy quiet had fallen. The students were in their rooms. The parents had departed home or had retired to their own quarters. The sun had gone down and the tall pines were black with seminight.
He breathed deeply. The sight of those pines set his thoughts moving. The future was as black, as impenetrable as they. Then he shrugged. He was doing what he could to prepare against the future; and that was all that could be expected of any man. In the meantime...
Someone was moving with light, quick steps across the hard-packed earth toward him.
"Mr. Flint!"
He wheeled. "Miss Sally!" he said, surprised.
Her face was indistinct within the shadow of her bonnet. Her voice was breathless, almost as if she had been running.
"I've been waiting for you to come out. You see, I'm going back on the River Queen tonight. I thought it better. Quash and Patsey are in the carriage, ready to drive me down to Pineville. They're waiting for me."
"Yes?" The hurried flow of words had halted; she seemed to be undecided what next to say.
Her face lifted, and he caught a glimpse of eyes that were half-angry, half-imploring.
"I want to ask you—I mean, you ought to remember—it's about Dabney."
"Yes?" he said again.
She was hurrying faster now. "He's only a boy, though he thinks he's a grown man. He may say things, do things, like any unthinking boy. You are older, much older. Please remember that, and—and—"
Her voice trailed off. He waited for her to continue. But she just stood there, motionless.
Still Hugh did not help her out.
She stiffened angrily, and when she spoke again, her tone was hard and scornful.
"You must know how embarrassing this is to me, yet you force me to ask you outright. Very well, then. I ask you not to fight any duel with Dabney, even though he should challenge you."
Still Hugh said nothing.
Her scorn evaporated; gave way to anxiety. "You won't, will you? Promise me you won't."
"Miss Wailes," Hugh said gravely, "you need have no fears about your brother's safety. I shall fight no duel with him."
He heard her deep, released sigh. "Thank you; thank—"
He stopped her. "Let us understand each other. I shall not fight your brother, or anyone else. I consider dueling a silly, unnecessary custom; and I have no intention of risking my life in such idle sports."
"Oh!" she gasped. "Then—then—"
She caught herself, whirled and ran swiftly toward the waiting carriage. She did not even say goodbye.
Hugh watched Quash gather up the reins. The carriage lumbered out into the rutted road and disappeared among the pines. He turned on his heel and walked back into the Seminary.
NOVEMBER 6, 1860!
All that day the men of America marched to the polls. All that day the bands were silent and the torches put away; and the orators rested their voices. In New Orleans the gentlemen of Canal Street and of Camp and Carondelet donned their best flowered waistcoats, clapped high hats upon their heads and sallied forth to vote. From fields of sugar and cotton and rice, swinging to horse along the coffee-colored Mississippi, trudging through the piney woods toward the Red River, poling pirogues on the Teche and the Bayou Sara, lumbering in carts over the great prairies into Opelousas, went the men of Louisiana to exercise their great prerogative.
In Maine they voted and in Illinois, in the heated city of Charleston and on the sidewalks of New York. Bleeding Kansas and sun-flecked Florida, staid Connecticut and the Old Dominion; tiny Delaware and tinier Rhode Island. Lincoln or Douglas, Breckinridge or Bell; who would it be? Men with the fate of a nation in their hands, come to decide the vastness of the future.
All day long they voted and the telegraphs hummed with the tidings; all day long the politicians sat and figured and smoked interminable cigars, and the air was thick with portents. Lincoln or Breckinridge, Douglas or Bell; who would it be?
On November 7th Hugh Flint awoke as usual to the brassy notes of an off-key bugle. He yawned, shook himself and thrust back his single blanket. The sharp, pine-laden air beat like a cold shower against his flesh as he quickly shed his nightshirt and pulled on his fatigue uniform.
Outside, through the half-open window—an innovation he insisted on against the bitter complaints of Dabney Wailes—the thick tide of night was slowly ebbing. A brooding opalescence moved tentative swirls along the battlemented walls and sprayed the farther pines with little droplets of light. From the parade ground the bugle kept up its raucous clamor.
Hugh groaned. For six long mornings he had stood that tuneless madness. He would stand it no longer. After reveille he was going to talk to the bugler, and make him see the error of his ways. He revolved in his mind appropriate means of persuasion for a wretch who persisted in blowing off-key to the hurt and detriment of sensitive eardrums.
Hugh laced on his heavy shoes, began to roll up his mattress that lay hard and flat on the bare pine floor. Swiftly he strapped it into its case, tightened the buckles. Then he straightened.
The light was coming up in great waves now. The offending bugle had muted and a bird began a few preliminary runs. From neighboring rooms and across the great quadrangle came the stirring of sleepy students.
Then his eye withdrew and dropped to the motionless form of his roommate. In the still-dark corner of the room he lay huddled and shadowy in his tangled blanket. Hugh considered him for a moment. Twice Dabney had been sharply reprimanded for failure to appear at roll-call. The third time meant expulsion. Colonel Sherman had made that quite clear.
The Superintendent was an ill-timed humorist, Hugh thought morosely. His enforced association with this spoiled young lordling had not so far been particularly pleasant. Dabney sulked and interposed the weight of sullen inertia to all Hugh's efforts to get him to do his equal share. He resented the school, he resented the discipline and the other students; and above all, he resented Hugh Flint.
All that Hugh had to do now was to leave the room quietly, go down to the spring for his early morning ablutions, and attend roll-call on the parade ground. The next day young Dabney Wailes would be on his way back to Moon Hill Plantation. It was a tempting prospect!
Hugh strode across the room, bent down, plucked off the tight-wrapped blanket. "Get up!" he said. "You've less than five minutes to roll-call."
The boy rolled heavily to the floor. His bared buttocks made soft, slapping sound as they hit the hard, cold pine. With a stifled yell he sprang to his feet, forcing sleep-locked eyes open against his roommate.
"Damn you, Flint!" he screamed. "What do you mean by throwing me out of bed? I'll kill you for this."
Hugh moved closer to the panting youngster. He was getting tired of it. Twice before Dabney had muttered in suits and threats and he had grinned them away. It would not do for twenty-three to meet sixteen on the equal plane of words or action. But now it was time to call a halt.
With swift motion he pinioned the lad's arms to his sides. Dabney struggled furiously against the steel-hard grip, but could not break away.
"Listen to me, you young whippersnapper!" said Hugh. "It's time we understood each other. There will be no killing done; not here, or anywhere. I fight no duels, especially not with infants hardly out of swaddling clothes. But remember this. I can pierce a leaf at fifty yards, and a human heart at a hundred. If you're not dressed in four minutes and out upon the field, you're expelled. Colonel Sherman is a man of his word. Now do you dress, or do I have to thrash you?"
For several long seconds they stood like that, breathing hard. Hugh's grip tightened as the boy's eyes flared with killing hate. He would, he thought grimly, find it a pleasure to thrash this insolent young whelp.
Suddenly Dabney relaxed within his fingers. The glare died from his eyes. A strange, puzzled look crept into them.
"I'll dress, Mr. Flint," he said quietly.
Hugh withdrew his hands. He stared at the lad with keen, suspicious glance. He had half-dreaded, half-welcomed a tremendous explosion. This sudden yielding put him on his guard.
But Dabney had already pulled off his nightshirt, was thrusting his strong young legs into a pair of cotton drawers.
"Don't bother washing," advised Hugh, still watching for some sudden lunge. "It's too late for that. And you can put away your bedding after roll-call."
He turned hard on his heel and went swiftly out of the building and down the hill toward the spring. A dozen other students hurried with him, bent on the same errand.
Roll-call was a routine affair, but rigidly adhered to by the Superintendent. Some sixty men and boys, shivering in the keen north wind that bit through their thinnish uniforms, were hastily lined up on the parade ground. Sleep was still strong upon their faces and here and there a latecomer surreptitiously finished his toilet.
There was the white glitter of frost on the stubbly grass, Hugh noted as he took his place in the ranks. The brittle stalks crunched under their heavy boots. Cadets Tempel and Bringhurst moved apart to make room for him, their greeting smiles tinged with a certain respect. They were eighteen and he was twenty-three; the five years made a vast difference.
The professors clustered in a little group to one side. Commandant Smith stood directly out front, facing them, motionless. He was a handsome man and an accomplished gentleman. His every move showed the breeding and training that came respectively from a First Family of Virginia and the Military Institute. Hugh liked him; nor did he resent the fact that the Commandant was a full year younger than himself. Smith, with his background, could teach him what he had come here to learn.
Colonel Sherman came out of the Seminary and walked rapidly toward Smith. Simultaneously, a belated student rushed past the Superintendent, dived headlong into the ranks of the Fourth Class, buttoned his collar into place and snapped to attention just as Sherman nodded to the Commandant for the roll to commence.
Hugh stiffened his tall frame against the rigid elbows of his fellows. The belated student was Dabney Wailes.
He felt no elation over his victory. His mind was too ordered and well-arranged for retrospective triumph. He had won, and that was that. The problem moved into the background; others moved forward for consideration.
Vaguely he heard the responses of the Fourth Class.
"Present!" "Present!" "Present!"
"Cadet Wailes!"
"Present!"
The little sheathings of powdered ice on the grass annoyed him. It had dropped several degrees below freezing during the night. Even if Andy Hilgard had already returned from his whoring in New Orleans, his crop was ruined. The unprotected, tender stalks of cane would be yellow and drooping this morning. The juice expressed from their pulpy stems would reek with the sickly-sweet odor of decay.
It didn't matter much to the firm of Flint & Son. He had sent off his warning note to old Stephen Flint; and the commissions were never large on Hilgard's hogsheads. But he was annoyed just the same. It was sheer waste; a crime against nature. Hilgard might go to the devil, for all he cared—Hugh never wasted his sympathy on men of his stamp—but right now Louisiana needed every pound of sugar, every bale of cotton, every bushel of rice that the teeming soil could produce for her. These were her gold, her silver coin, her medium of exchange for the manufactured goods and guns she soon would desperately need.
The rattle of responses was coming closer now.
"Cadet Bringhurst!"
"Present!"
"Cadet—"
Hugh set himself to answer. He was next in line. His mouth opened—and stayed open.
Out of the swathing forest, hooves startlingly loud on the frost-hard road that led from Pineville, galloped a rider. The horse's nostrils were red and flaring, and the spume of his uphill flight flung long streaks along his heaving flanks. The horseman wheeled at the sight of the formation of cadets and bore down upon them without any slackening of speed. As he came he shouted something, but the wind distoned his words.
The roll-call had stopped. Sherman frowned; Smith's lips were parted for the name, but no sound issued. A curious tremor ran along the ranks. Hugh felt his body tighten; he braced himself for what was to come. Though the rider's face was distorted with excitement and streaked with rivulets of sweat, he recognized him at once.
He was the telegraph operator at Alexandria, across the river from Pineville!
The Superintendent moved forward. The man reared in sharply not five paces away from him. His hat was askew and his voice rose almost to a scream.
"Lincoln's been elected! The Black Republican's President!"
With curious inconsequence Hugh concentrated on certain sharply defined impressions. The way the telegraph operator's mouth twisted to one side as he shouted. The gums showed white and shriveled where two front molars were missing, and the incisors were stained with tobacco juice. He'll lose them all if he doesn't stop chewing perique, thought Hugh. The way the Superintendent's coat hung like a sack on his gaunt frame. Can't stomach the lousy food, he thought. Neither can I; but I'm younger and it doesn't matter as much. The way Commandant Smith stood there with his head held rigid and his slender, almost womanish fingers making pulp of the muster-roll. The way young Francis Tempel was breathing; like a railway locomotive getting up steam.
"To hell with all Abolitionists!" yelled suddenly some youngster in the Fourth Class. "Hurray for the new Confederacy!"
That broke the spell.
An angry growl ran up and down the ranks, burst into shouting.
"To hell with Lincoln!"
"The nigger-lovers want him; let 'em have him!"
"What'll South Carolina do?"
"Do? Secede, of course."
"Up Louisiana and Secession!"
They broke ranks, young faces flushed and raging. Young boys, with the sap seething and forcing them irresistibly on—on toward Bull Run and Manassas, on toward Chickamauga and Antietam, on toward Gettysburg and the last agony in the Wilderness.
The numbness left Hugh. He did not move from his place, nor did he join the shouting. He knew, and he saw that Sherman knew, what this meant better than the others. The Superintendent's face was white and pinched around the nostrils. The reddish beard made a startling frame.
The Superintendent's shoulders straightened. His eyes blazed. "Back to your ranks!" he thundered. "And silence!"
Slowly, unwillingly, the milling cadets resumed their formation.
Sherman stared hard at the bearer of the news. "Sir," he said with a bite to his voice, "you have interrupted formation. That is an unpardonable offense."
The horseman's jaw dropped. "I only thought to do you a good turn, Colonel," he protested.
The Superintendent pointed a stiff finger at the Seminary building. "I have an office, sir. Any news hereafter you may deem of importance for me to hear, you will deliver in that office, quietly and without any commotion."
The man was bewildered; a bit frightened, in fact. "Y-yes, sir; just as you say, Colonel," he stammered. He jerked his horse around and clapped spurs as though he were in a greater hurry to get away than he had been to come.
"Go on with the roll-call, Major Smith," Sherman said conversationally.
The young Commandant had not stirred through all the shouting and confusion. Now he opened his tight fingers and stared at the crumpled sheet. Slowly he smoothed it out. His face was a set mask.
"Cadet Flint!"
The first wild flush of indignation passed. Life at the Seminary resumed its accustomed grooves. News of the outer world came fitfully and in bewildering mixtures of fact and rumor to the backwaters of the Red River.
Governor Moore of Louisiana denounced Lincoln's election and ordered the Legislature into session to consider what course the State should pursue. Other States did the same. But everyone was watching South Carolina. Would she secede and start the procession of the South out of the Union, or would she swallow all her fiery words and submit tamely?
Very few doubted her answer. She would secede. But after that? Would the North acquiesce in a Southern Confederacy; or would it fight to compel the States to return to the Union?
In quarters, on the parade ground, in the classroom, the arguments went on and on. Letters from home were quoted to make a point. Newspapers, as they drifted in, were pounced upon and their contents devoured.
Lessons were scamped; but not the Friday assemblies. These had been dreary enough affairs at which the students, under the watchful eye of Professor Boyd, had declaimed set pieces on truth and honor and the immortality of the soul. A place of compulsory perspiration for the unhappy orator and of yawning boredom for his fellow-students. But no longer!
Earnest young men gesticulated and sawed the air. They plagiarized unblushingly from the published speeches of Calhoun and Yancey, of Rhett and Semmes. They called on their fellows to defend to the death their slaves and their homes; they discoursed on patriotism and the Southern way of life. Secession was inevitable, they said; but there would be no war. Dabney Wailes, when his turn came to declaim, was quite positive—and quite contemptuous about it. His voice grew shrill. "The North wouldn't dare!" he shouted. "They know who won independence from the British in 1776; they know whose troops it was that conquered Mexico. They know that the spirit of liberty is the undying heritage of every Southern gentleman." He struck a dramatic pose."And if they come, why, let them come! We'll show them the difference between a money-grubbing people and a nation of patriots and spirited men."
Hugh thought that Dabney stared defiantly at him as he sat down; but perhaps he was mistaken. He hadn't been paying strict attention. These superheated speeches wearied him. There was so much heat; and so little light.
There was one very short oration, however, that attracted his attention. It was delivered by a slim, shy youngster of about nineteen who spoke nervously and hurried his words. But as he spoke, others besides Hugh sat up to listen.
"My opinion," declared the speaker, "is that if the Union is dissolved it will ruin both the North and South. A dissolution can hardly be accomplished without bloodshed; and if blood is once shed it will be the precursor of a long and bloody war. After the North and South have exhausted themselves by a long contest, they will become the prey of foreign nations. Then we will see the effects of our blind obedience to a few overheated politicians. If the North and South would stand by the Constitution, and wait until it was violated before they hurried into extreme measures, I think the Union would stand a great deal longer. Thank you!"
A low murmur swept over the students. Dabney shouted suddenly: "That's a lie!"
Professor Boyd rose in mild reproof. "There must be no comments. Each student is entitled to a respectful silence. If there are any further interruptions, I shall be compelled to report the offender."
Hugh leaned over to his neighbor. "Who was that last speaker?"
"Huh? A fellow named Brown." The neighbor coughed disgustedly. "He's just trying to toady to ol' Sherman. He knows the Super likes to hear that sort of talk. Thank God there're not many others who think like that."
Then, on December 20th, came electrifying news! South Carolina had taken the final plunge and called on her sister States to follow her example.
The Seminary stirred like a hive of bees all ready to swarm. Classes suspended. Impromptu speakers exhorted their fellows.
"Good ol' Carolina! She'll show those nigger-loving bastards!"
"Louisiana's next. I hear they're drilling down in New Orleans."
"No such luck. The Convention won't meet until January 23rd. We'll be the last to go."
"A damn shame, I call it! Look't Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. They'll say we're 'fraidcats."
Dabney Wailes shouted the loudest. A perpetual fever had him in its grip; his eyes glittered and he talked incessantly. "I'm enlisting!" he announced to whoever would listen. "Just as soon as my father consents."
"And if he doesn't?" Hugh asked.
Dabney frowned. "Then I'll go just the same. Look at Maury and Greenbow. They've lit out already, without waiting to hear from home."
"You wouldn't do that. That's child stuff. You've got to stay on and make a man of yourself first. Remember what your sister said—"
"You leave my sister out of this," glowered the boy. "She thinks the same as I do. And as for my father—"
"I've written to him," Hugh said quietly. "I told him that it would be best for you to remain at the Seminary. You need the discipline."
Young Wailes clenched his fists. His breath came in little rapid bursts. "You did!" he howled. "Who—who gave you the right to stick your nose into my affairs? You keep out of them, do you hear? You—you damned half-Yankee, penny-nursing—!" He turned and went away abruptly.
Who had given him the right to interfere? Hugh wondered as he held a right rein on his temper. And why had he done so? He sought to clarify his attitude toward the boy. He assured himself that Dabney meant nothing to him; that it did not matter a hoot in hell what he did or did not do.
But that analysis was not sufficient, he was honest enough to admit. It was true that Dabney, as an individual, did not matter. Yet somehow he was constantly concerned with him. Why? Was it because of Sam Wailes? Hugh had met him only a few times, and then on a strictly business basis. Then what else...
Hugh braced himself to face what had been skittering around in the back-reaches of his mind for some time. The answer was—Sally Wailes!
Since he was quite a realistic young man, he thought to consider the matter coolly and sensibly. After all, he argued, I've met her barely twice. The last meeting was certainly not pleasant. She's wilful, opinionated, and thinks herself the salt of the earth because she's a Wailes and the mistress of a great plantation. Why, she's not even good-looking, he ended triumphantly.
There he stopped. Candor compelled him to admit that this last accusation was not quite true. An image formed on the backdrop of his memory. There she was again, sharply clear as though a daguerreotype had been impressed upon his brain. No, decidedly, she was not bad to look at. He felt relieved on admitting it. It proved he could be fair even in the consideration of people he disliked.
Suppose now he continued his analysis of Sally along the same judicial lines. Take her irritating, snobbish attitude, for example. He tried to concentrate on these unpleasant qualities. But they refused to jell. They blurred at the edges and fled. Again and again he tried, only to find himself face to face every time with that most disturbing image.
Whereupon the very sensible and reasonable young man sighed and gave it up. It was the most difficult thing in the world, he decided ruefully, to be properly judicial about a girl like Sally Wailes!
Classes were resumed on the day following the news of South Carolina's action; but the atmosphere had changed. Discipline relaxed, in spite of Sherman's tight-lipped efforts to sustain it. The boys were restless. Not a day now passed without further infection from the contagion of the times. State after State slipped out of the Union; but still Louisiana held on.
Sherman moved like an unhappy, red-bearded ghost about the institution he had helped build. He had lost weight and there were anxious hollows under his eyes.
The New Year came.
And with it, the acceleration of events. Louisiana began to march. Yelling troops appeared suddenly at the Baton Rouge Arsenal and before the muddy forts below New Orleans. They surrendered without resistance.
On January 26th came the long-expected thunderclap. Louisiana, in Convention assembled, formally seceded from the United States of America!
Hugh shook his head at each successive blast of news and concentrated with a certain fierce intensity upon his military studies. Infantry tactics, the theory of ballistics, target practice, and drill—drill—drill! He couldn't get enough of them. There was so much to learn; and so little time left in which to learn it.
Most of the other students, however, went almost wholly out of hand. They lounged in the classrooms and went on illegal expeditions to Alexandria to taste the delights of that countrified little town. Dabney was the wildest of the lot. Since their last flareup, conversation between the two roommates confined itself to the barest essentials.
On several occasions young Wailes did not return from his nocturnal expeditions until close to dawn. He paid no attention to his studies. He began to smoke, surreptitiously at first, behind drawn shutters; then openly and defiantly, staring hard at Hugh as though he expected him to protest and was prepared with an insolent rejoinder.
But Hugh kept on reading by the light of his lamp and made no comment. Dabney, he noted, did not really enjoy the long black seegars he affected. There was a light perspiration on his forehead and he looked palish around the gills.
The smoke filled the room with a thick gray fog. The reek of tobacco was almost insupportable. Dabney lolled in his chair, watching Hugh. His lips twitched and his eyes were sullen.
"All right!" he burst out finally. "For God's sake, say it! I'm breaking the rules. I'll get you into trouble for it. But don't sit there with your nose dug into that infernal book and pretend to be a martyr!"
Hugh looked up quietly at the defiant, jittery youngster. "I'm not being a martyr. What you do is your business; what I do is mine."
"I'm getting sick of this cursed place! Nothing but hard work and rotten food and discipline. Discipline! I never want to hear that word again! The slaves at Moon Hill are treated better than we are."
"Yes?"
"Yes. And one of these days I'm going to tell His Majesty, King Sherman, that if he thinks he can keep Southern gentlemen under his damned Northern—"
Quick, staccato footsteps beat along the outer corridor. The sound filtered through the barred door with a curious loudness. Dabney broke off his tirade. His eyes went wide with panic; his bravado wilted.
"Jiminy! Here he comes now! He'll kick me out for sure; and I just got a letter from Moon Hill insisting I—"
There was a loud, imperative knock on the door, and the voice of the Superintendent: "Open up in there! Wailes, Flint, open, I say!"
"Coming, Colonel!" Hugh said heartily. As he went slowly toward the door he motioned with his hand toward the open window. But the boy mistook his gesture. He plucked the smoldering seegar from his lips and hurled it wildly into the wash bucket. It made a hissing noise and expired in an acrid spurt of smoke.
Hugh lifted the latch and said in his best welcoming manner: "How do you do. Colonel?"
Sherman disregarded the greeting. He walked solidly into the center of the room and stood there sniffing. Then, like a bird dog, he wheeled suddenly toward the bucket. Dabney, standing at attention, watched him with the fascinated gaze of a bird on the advancing jaws of a snake. Sherman bent quickly, fished out the amorphous, sodden remains of the seegar and examined it with stern attention.
"Well, gentlemen," he said ominously, "you know the rules. Who has been smoking this—uh—specimen?"
Dabney's mouth opened and shut in a convulsive movement. He said nothing.
Hugh said: "The specimen you refer to, Colonel, happens to be a very excellent seegar that I imported from Cuba. Naturally, its immersion in a bucket of slops imparts, shall I say, sir, an aroma somewhat alien to its usual benign fragrance?"
Dabney stared at him in amazement. He gulped and made a little choking sound as though he were about to speak. Hugh warned him to silence with a gesture and faced Sherman. His countenance was candid and open.
The Superintendent looked at him keenly. His gaze flicked over to the white-faced boy and darted back to Hugh. His lips tightened. "I am sorry to hear this, Mr. Flint. In fact, I must confess my surprise. You are a man, not a boy, sir. The rules admit of no excuse."
Hugh bowed. "I am ready for any punishment you may see fit to impose, sir. I offer no excuse."
"Hm! Very well, then. Mr. Wailes, you may leave the room. I wish to speak with Mr. Flint."
Dabney went out. His eyes implored Hugh as he went.
Sherman waited until the door was closed; then he shook his gaunt head. "Under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Flint, I would expel young Dabney," he said abruptly.
"Eh, what's that?" exclaimed Hugh, startled.
The Superintendent looked stern. "Your attempt to take the blame from the boy is not even laudable, sir. I am not in the habit of being fooled. One look at him was sufficient to decide where the guilt lay. He's been a troublemaker ever since he came here. By God, I've had enough of these spoiled offshoots of your Southern aristocracy!"
Hugh surrendered. "He's spoiled," he admitted, "but not really bad, sir. There's good stuff in the boy. If you'd give him another chance—"
"It doesn't matter much now." Sherman's face was suddenly tired. "I'm leaving."
"You, sir! But why? You've been doing an excellent job-"
Sherman paced up and down the room with quick, nervous strides. "Do you need to inquire?"
"If you mean because Louisiana has seceded from the Union?"
The Superintendent swung on him harshly. "I was willing to stay on even with that. But your State has gone farther. It has committed an act of war against the Union I love. It has forcibly seized the arsenal and the forts." He stopped short before Hugh, put his hand on his shoulder. His voice was a bit unsteady.
"There will be war, long and bloody, in any event. Secession was madness."
"I said there would be war when I enrolled," Hugh pointed out.
"Yes, I remember. You seem to be about the only one in all the South able to face reality. The others live in a sort of fool's paradise. My resignation, Flint, is in the hands of the Supervisors. It takes effect on the 19th of February."
"I'll be sorry to see you go, sir."
"There is no alternative. It will be a terrible wrench. I loved this place. I would have been content to remain here the rest of my days. I have made friends; in fact, I have more good friends in the South than I have up North."
Sherman turned hastily and went out of the room. Hugh stared after him. He realized suddenly the loneliness of the man; what unutterable pain burned in those deepset eyes as they contemplated the future. He was going, without illusions, without enthusiasm, to perform a necessary duty; the same as Hugh. On both sides there would be thousands of men, equally honest, equally torn by conflicting ties of duty and affection.
Hugh sat down at his book again; but the black letters on the page made a meaningless jumble. He did not hear Dabney's breathless entry. The boy had evidently been wrestling mightily with himself. His face twitched and looked haggard.
"I won't let you be expelled," he panted. "I'll go right now and tell him the truth. I'll—"
Hugh looked up. He had forgotten completely about young Wailes. "Sit down," he said wearily. "No one is going to be expelled."
The morning of February 20th dawned clear and cold. The sun made a low, red ball over the treetops. The great building of the Seminary seemed vaster than usual in the still, cold air. Not a sound came from the battalion as it stood at attention on the parade ground. The usual whispers and grumblings were gone; the officers did not, as on other days, make caustic comments on unbuttoned tunics or sagging belts. Hugh stared straight ahead. He was a captain now, second only to the Commandant, Major Smith.
The faculty made a separate group. They looked stern and forbidding. Trying to hide their emotions, thought Hugh. There was Boyd, who taught ancient languages and English literature; the Frenchman, St. Ange, who had been an officer in the French navy and whose prowess as a duelist had long been the subject of awed comment among the boys; the Hungarian, Vallas, who taught mathematics the way it was done at the University of Pesth. The story went the rounds that Sherman, after listening to Vallas's first lecture to the students, left muttering in disgust that "every damned shot went clear over their heads."
The seconds lengthened into minutes, but still no one moved. Then every head turned as if animated by a single string. The Superintendent was coming very rapidly from the building.
He stepped in front of the battalion. His face was gaunter than ever, but for once his untidy hair and beard were carefully combed. He began to talk—a few words, abrupt, broken, vibrant with emotion. He was leaving them. He had been happy in the Seminary; and he hoped they had been, too. He was not much at speeches; but they knew what he wanted to say. He broke off, and walked up and down the lines, shaking each man affectionately by the hand. Tears shone in the students' eyes; one boy sobbed aloud. He had been the wildest, most insubordinate of them all.
Sherman stepped out in front again, and the tears trickled slowly into his beard. He tried to address the sad little group of professors, but he couldn't go on. He put his hand upon his heart and said in a queer, choked little voice: "You are all here!" Then he turned sharply on his heel and walked back to the Seminary'.
No one moved until his tall, spare form had disappeared.
Dabney burst headlong into their room. "You know, Hugh, old Sherman wasn't such a bad chap, after all; even though he's a Northerner. Why, do you know when he said goodbye at reveille I was crying like a silly—"
He stopped short. "What are you doing?"
Hugh tightened the strap on his portmanteau; got up from his knees. "I'm going back to New Orleans, Dabney."
"Back to New Orleans!" the boy echoed in amazement. "Good Lord! Are you going to enlist?"
"Not yet. Not until there is a war. But I just received a letter from my father." A smile flickered over his countenance. "It's very rarely that Stephen Flint admits he's been wrong. He didn't do so even now. But he writes that the impending war has placed a great load on his shoulders. Everyone's trying to get rid of his stock simultaneously and convert it into hard money. He can't handle the flood of orders himself."
"Oh!" Dabney sounded disappointed. Then his face brightened. "You know, I wrote home again for permission to enlist. It's a damn shame I've got to get anyone's consent. I'm old enough to know what I'm doing."
Hugh said nothing.
The boy began to trace patterns with his foot upon the floor. He didn't look up. "I'm sorry, about—everything," he said finally. "I've acted—sometimes—well, like a child."
"Forget it," Hugh said, kindly. "Every man's entitled to his moments." He put out his hand. "Goodbye, Dabney. I'm catching the boat from Alexandria. Colonel Sherman is taking the same steamer to New Orleans."
Hugh waited outside the single small hotel in Alexandria where Sherman was taking formal leave of Governor Moore and the Board of Supervisors. Moore and Sherman came out together.
Sherman turned to the Governor with a smile. "Well, goodbye, Governor! I hope that if I join the Union army I'll never be able to catch you; for I should certainly hang you. You know you're a traitor and a rebel, of course."
"How do you make that out, Colonel?"
"Well, you seized the arsenal at Baton Rouge before your State seceded, and that's treason."
The Governor laughed, and Sherman laughed. They shook hands warmly. Then Sherman turned to Hugh. "All right, Flint, we'd better go. The boat's waiting for us."
On the way to the landing Hugh asked curiously: "You said to Governor Moore, 'if you join the army.' Does that mean you may not?"
Sherman took a long time before he answered. Down the muddy street they heard the impatient whistle of the steamer. "I don't know," he said finally in a troubled voice. "I haven't made up my mind. The present government in Washington is too cowardly; and Mr. Lincoln, I'm afraid, will prove too radical. I may even go to California. I—I don't know."
Years later Hugh Flint was to remember this incident. Thomas Overton Moore, former Governor of Louisiana, was on the proscribed list of the flushed and victorious North. He was to be hanged when captured. Sherman made a personal appeal to President Johnson for a full pardon for the man he had once amicably threatened. The pardon was granted.
HUGH FLINT came in out of the bright sunlight of Poydras Street with the feeling that he was home again. The four months of Red River country and Seminary life were already a vague, indefinite past to which there was no returning. They were a dream, a strange interlude that somehow, as he stepped down the stage and surveyed the familiar confusion of the levee, seemed to have been a decided error in judgment. Life had gone on, the strong, vibrant life that he loved; and all the while he had stagnated among schoolboys on whose minds experience had as yet imprinted no identifying marks.
If it were not for the portmanteau in his hand, and the stiffly pressed Atakapas cottonade suit he wore against the heat, he might never have been away. The levee itself, and the city that sprawled below, seethed and sweated and roared as they had always done. Commerce was king—and the insatiable pursuit of money. Secession, war, the scream of musketry and the terrible whine of grape, seemed infinitely remote.
Along the curving levee, as far as the eye could see, stretched an interminable forest of masts and straight black chimneys. River boats from Vicksburg and Cincinnati, coastal steamers from Baltimore and Boston, huge five-masters that plied to Liverpool and Marseilles, to Genoa and distant Sebastopol, were in that crowded array.
Row on row, for more than a mile, hiding the earthen bank with their sprawling profusion, piled the cotton of the South, the sugar, the molasses, the flour, the pork; bales, barrels, hogsheads, casks; the lusty, sappy spawn of a teeming land that sluiced along a hundred arteries into the gaping maw of New Orleans for distribution to an eager world.
The clamor of the city was welcome to Hugh's ears after months of murmurous silence. The dust as it rose in little swirls, the pound of heavy wheels, and the sudden braying of long-legged mules. The cries and oaths and scurryings of sailors from a hundred ports. The red-shirted longshoremen in blue cottonade pantaloons, heavy brogues, and no stockings on their hairy legs. The Irish draymen, fantastic on the seats of their lumbering vehicles in blue coats of an ancient cut, buttoned in tarnished brass. The merchants inspecting the bulging bales and the odorous casks, disparaging the contents, beating down the price penny by penny, and leading the helpless planters to a Front Street bar for the long mint julep that inevitably sealed the bargain. The brisk young clerks aping their elders, with shiny boots, snowy pantaloons and black coats open to display gay, checkered vests across which sprawled heavy, golden chains. And everywhere, toiling, slouching, or just plain lazing—black hands and free.
Hugh breathed in deep draughts of it as he flung his bag to the grinning boy who had come to meet him, and strode down the three short squares that led to the warehouse. The sign, with its gilt already peeling, he noted, had not been changed. Nor had the dingy interior, with its stored bales and barrels and crusted layers of untouched dirt, changed in the slightest. Nor even the sudden shapes of the clerks and porters, looming up from their tasks with bows and duckings of heads and welcoming words.
He closed the wooden office door softly behind him. In spite of himself he was tight against the encounter. He had been right, and Stephen Flint wrong. Lincoln had gained the election, secession was here, and war on the way. Yet old Stephen had been also right, and he wrong. What mattered the posturings of the politicians, their States rights and Federal rights, their agile constitutions and doctrines of equality, their sly incitements to riot and racial slaughter! The land remained—the teeming, bellying land. Each spring the seed would stir in the fruitful womb; each fall the ripe burden drop into man's waiting hands.
Sugar, cotton and rice, pork, corn and yams; these were the stuff of life. And New Orleans, the Flints included, pumped the precious yield along in uninterrupted flow. Let the city cease its constant ministrations, let the wharves along the levee sink into silence, let the merchants and the factors desert their posts, and the dependent land would rot with swift gangrene, stifled under the weight of its own superabundance. That's what Stephen had said—or rather, what he had meant—under the sharp, grunting economy of his phrases. The planter and the merchant—these were the necessary folk.
Hugh stood at the door a moment, waiting. His father had not turned at his quiet entrance; made no outward sign that he knew he was there. The little office had not changed in his four months' absence. The dim light struggled through the same dirty window through which, if the grime had not overlaid it with thick opaqueness, one might have been able to look diagonally across St. Peter's Street toward the bristling levee and the quick curve of the Mississippi.
The walls were hidden under piled boxes, perilously tilted up to the ceiling. In those boxes was the accumulation of three decades of bills and invoices and letters written in innumerable hands. As a youngster, this stored hoard had fascinated Hugh. Whenever he could, in his father's absence, he had heaved at the dusty loads, and spread the faded, yellowing evidences of forgotten trade over the floor and traced the figures and sprawling words with a chubby forefinger and worked his lips painfully over the half-understood text.
Invariably he had been caught, mouselike in a nest of torn and wholly entangled sheets; and invariably he had been whipped with the stout sapling that stood close to the desk for just such encounters. But whippings never deterred Hugh. At the first opportunity, whenever old Stephen clapped his hat on head to sortie out upon the levee, the little boy would sneak agilely through the dark warehouse while complaisant clerks were deep in their ledgers, and tug once more at the irresistible files.
"A real Flint!" his father would roar in exasperation, yet with a curious undertone. "Stubborn and self-willed as all get out, even at this age. Takes his lickings without a whimper, and does it all over again." Then he'd vent his fury on the trembling female servant who'd come by horse car from their home on Prytania Street to find her escaped charge. She'd expostulate: "I declare! I never sot eyes on such a young 'un! A body kain't even leggo Master Hugh's han' for a secon' to mebbe wipe a body's nose afore he's off'n like a li'l ol' wrigglin' eel and sho' nuff two-t'ree squares away."
Then, being a free lady of color and beholden to no one, she'd flounce indignantly away under Stephen's blasts; and other free ladies of color would take her place in rapid succession. The Flints had no slaves: only those among the merchants of New Orleans bought slaves who had social aspirations. And Rebecca Flint, Hugh's mother, who might have held the household together by those little alchemies best known to wives and mothers, had died of the cholera when he was barely three.
Strange how these old memories flooded Hugh as he waited patiently for his father's first word. Suddenly Stephen looked up from the mass of bills-of-lading and invoices he had been studying, gathered them in a gnarled, powerful hand and thrust them toward Hugh.
"Take these danged things, Hugh, and get to work on them," he said in exasperated tones. "Everybody's gone crazy all at once. Sell! Sell! Sell! And not a buyer in sight. It's this war fever that's got them. Every last one of them's hot for war, but every last one of them's trying his damndest to convert his cotton and sugar into gold so he can hide it against hard times. Patriots!" Stephen snorted. "Bah!"
Hugh took the sheaf. His backbone relaxed from its anticipatory stiffening. He had won his victory. The casual way in which his father had greeted him, after four months of absence, showed that. He might just as well have returned from the Customs House within the hour. Old Stephen was not given to sentiment; nor to verbal admissions that he had made a mistake.
Under the flaring gas-jet—made necessary by the state of the window-panes—Stephen Flint looked like a man not safely to be trifled with. As tall as his son, but more massive with the heavier set of age, with strong, seamed face and aggressive brows from under which perpetually angry eyes beat down opponents, he seemed of a more ancient, more heroic mold than the smiling, soft-bodied, soft-voiced men of the Exchange.
He had come to New Orleans by way of Kentucky and the Mississippi flatboats and the turbulent, roaring life of the frontier. He had used his fists and his wits and his gouging thumbs where nothing else brought respect; and in the early life of the city he had found these same qualities in good stead to gain for himself what he deemed his rightful share of the growing trade.
Yet the planters liked him, if his fellow-strivers did not. They liked the way he stood up to them, drawing no fine hairlines between the gentry of the older South and the newcomers out of the piney woods and the uplands who, by scrimping and scrounging, had managed to purchase a few arpents of bottomland and a score of slaves to set up as planters on their own. They knew he was honest and forthright. When Stephen Flint made remittance, it was correct to the last picayune; there was no need to check or make inquiries. Which was a vast comfort to gentry who hated figures and had been mulcted on many an occasion by smoother and more obsequiously smiling factors.
Hugh leafed rapidly through the bills-of-lading, saying: "I wouldn't call them names, Father. They're quite right in trying to sell now what they can. When war comes, they won't be able to. The South will need hard money more'n it will need sugar and cotton. With hard money, even the North will trade, war or no war."
"That's wonderful!" growled the old man sarcastically. "My own son, who's not supposed to be a great gentleman, goes off to a fool military school and sacrifices our hard-earned business, while the high'n mighty folk he's going to defend are busy cashing in."
"They'll be making their sacrifices when the time comes. Don't you worry about them, Father. Hmmm! I see Sam Wailes is still selling through us."
"Eh, what's that?" Stephen said quickly. "What made you think we were going to lose his business?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Hugh stopped short, plucked out the next invoice. "Hello! Andrew Hilgard, St. James Parish. Three hundred and eighty hogsheads of sugar; twenty-two barrels of molasses. Didn't I write to you, telling you not to take Hilgard's stuff?"
The old man looked almost embarrassed. "Sure you did. And the stuff is a bit off. I tapped a few kegs to find out. But I'm listing it as third-grade. Told Hilgard about it, and he agreed. He needs the money bad."
Hugh stared at his father in amazement. "We've never sold anything but first-grade sugar. Every buyer on the levee knows our reputation. If he needs money that bad, let him borrow against next year's crop from some other factor. He owes us enough as it is. Have you gone soft while I was away?"
"Not me! I wouldn't have done it, but Sam Wailes asked me. Made a point of it, in fact."
"What's Wailes got to do with Hilgard?"
"They're neighbors."
"I know that. But in business—"
"Wailes said something about how maybe they might soon be closer than neighbors."
"Meaning—"
"Meaning that Andy's been courting Miss Sally these last couple of months, and Sam's very benevolent about it."
The sheets dropped from Hugh's hands to the rough, uncarpeted floor. He stooped to pick them up, gathering them individually, taking his time about it. He hoped his father had not seen the frozen expression on his face. He knew it had frozen because his lips and cheekbones had gone suddenly numb; and this bending over, seeking stray sheets, would bring the blood back to loosen the tight skin.
He didn't understand himself. Why the devil should this bit of gossip have such an effect upon him? What was Sally Wailes to him? Nothing at all! In fact, during the past few weeks he hadn't given her a thought. Not more than an occasional fleeting one, that is. So she was going to marry Hilgard! Let her, if she wanted to make a fool of herself. Why the devil did women become attracted easily by Hilgard's kind? A man who had a dozen bright yellow children running wild on his own plantation, and who was known by his first name to every whore in New Orleans. That didn't matter so much; but his shiftlessness, his inability to run his plantation properly did matter. Or did it? Hugh's lip curled contemptuously as he finally straightened up. Nothing mattered as long as he could ride a horse, shoot hard and hold his liquor in the presence of ladies. Nothing mattered as long as the Hilgards were gentry, and this latest example cut a dashing figure, danced well and turned a neat compliment to a pretty face.
"I'm getting clumsy," Hugh observed. Then, with the proper casualness: "I met Miss Sally taking young Dabney up to the Seminary."
"So Sam Wailes was telling me."
Hugh would have preferred further comment. What else had Sam Wailes said? Had he spoken of the strained relations between his daughter and Hugh? Had Sally talked about him to her father?
But Stephen remained exasperatingly uncommunicative.
Hugh said: "Sounds as though we'll soon be combining their accounts."
"I don't know any more about it," said his father, and dismissed the subject. "Just now we've got work on our hands getting buyers."
"Leave that to me. I'll get them."
Hugh Flint was as good as his word. He sent code telegrams to certain men in New York and Philadelphia, in Boston and Providence. Cotton merchants and manufacturers of cloth, sugar importers and exporters whom he had made it his business to meet personally during his three years' residence in the North. In a few frank phrases he explained the situation. War was on its way. A blockade would follow. Now was the time to lay in supplies. Profits would be enormous. He was chartering steamers, every coastwise craft he could lay his hands on, to ship north to them as fast as they gave the word.
They gave the word. They were hardheaded men of business who could grasp a situation when it was presented to them, who saw the point and were plagued with no silly qualms about ethics or what have you. Business was business, and impending war only added to the assurances of an excellent profit.
As a result, the consignments to Flint & Sons melted from the levees and from the warehouses, while other planters and other factors scurried frantically around seeking nonexistent buyers and jostled only against each other.
March slipped by; and April came. New Orleans rapidly assumed a warlike appearance. The Pelican flag of the State waved proudly from the City Hall and the Customs House. Shiny new uniforms dotted the streets. The ancient company of Washington Artillery paraded; so did the Louisiana Guards, the Crescent Rifles and the Orleans Guards. The old men and the young girls and the small boys cheered themselves hoarse, and everyone was certain that the North would acquiesce in the new Confederacy rather than face such a gallant soldiery. Buchanan's temporizing course in Washington aided greatly in maintaining this belief. He did nothing except make a few ineffectual gestures, and obviously waited for Mr. Lincoln to take office so that he might avoid responsibility.
Hugh Flint did not parade, nor did he stand on the banquettes to cheer those who did. He was too busy. The firm of Flint & Son had more orders than it could handle, and waiting steamers had to be loaded for the long dash to Northern ports. Time was pressing.
Mr. Lincoln took office at Washington and his Inaugural Address accentuated the general belief that he would not fight. It was so mild and conciliatory. The Black Republican was showing himself a sheep in wolf's clothing.
Then came the news of Fort Sumter. New Orleans went wild. The first blow for freedom had been struck, and General Beauregard, their own neighbor, a Louisianian, had covered himself and his State with immortal glory!
Hard on its heels followed Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to suppress "combinations"! Combinations, forsooth! People laughed. Within a week or two the "combinations" would send him flying for his life from Washington!
The Louisiana troops responded promptly to the countercall of the new Confederate Government. The companies, the regiments and the brigades went into action. Cheering and shouting, they waved from the train windows to the throngs that saw them off; bound for Pensacola and for far-off Virginia. They'd be back in a month or so, they yelled cheerfully. The Yanks'd run like hell at the sight of their spotless gray; they'd never even get close enough to use their shiny bayonets. And so they rattled away over the iron rails, singing Dixie and all the songs they could think of, betting each other on the number of Yankees they would bag, as though they were going on a quad and turkey shoot.
And still Hugh Flint did not go.
Mr. Lincoln had clamped down a paper blockade, and no further shipments could be made to the North. But before the paper had a chance to harden to the wooden planks of a watchful fleet, Hugh shifted charters to Liverpool and Havre. In payment of these cargoes the firm of Flint & Son insisted on drafts against foreign funds on deposit in the banks of New Orleans.
April ended in a blast of heat. The city lay gasping in midsummer weather. Outside, through the mesh screen that covered the opened window, Hugh saw the muddy, swirling rush of the Mississippi. The unseasonable heat had melted the Northern snows, and the great river, no longer placid, was rising rapidly. He slapped at a muskito that persisted in lighting on the back of his neck, and drove his tired eyes over the documents on the desk before him. He was tired. Tired of the ceaseless grind of the last two months, tired of the hurrahing and marching and the uniforms, tired of dealing with figures and barrels and bales.
Something of the heat had got into his veins. He was restless; angry with himself for being restless and angry because everyone else of military age was in uniform, gone to Virginia or ready to go. It was important work that he was doing; he knew that. More important than holding a gun or leading a company of troops. Through Flint & Son a steady stream of precious gold had poured into the hands of Confederate men. Some day that gold would prove invaluable.
But no one else knew it; except possibly his father. And even Stephen was grumbling a lot these days about inconsequential things and glancing queerly at his stalwart son when he thought Hugh wasn't looking. The old man loved a fight; always had.
"Damn!" said Hugh irritably, and slapped the back of his neck so hard he jerked his head erect. The muskito buzzed off on a triumphant note and prepared for a new landing party. Hugh reverted to his former thoughts. He was going to enlist. In fact, he'd do it first thing in the morning. Hadn't he taken off four valuable months to get as much military training as he could? Yet now that the South was at war he sat at a desk, dealing in figures. In another week or two the blockade would actually be in effect; and then what? Let old Stephen take care of things. He was too old for war; but his son wasn't. Stephen thought so; and so did everyone else. Hugh could read it in their eyes, in their very politeness. Tomorrow then....
A bowing clerk opened the door and showed three people into the dingy, overheated office.
"Mr. Flint will be glad to see you, I'm sure. This way, Mr. Wailes and Mr. Hilgard. And you, Miss—"
Hugh stumbled to his feet, and sent a paperweight crashing to the floor. He did not have to hear the last name. The soft swish of organdie and the delicate odor of jessamine told him exactly who the third visitor was.
He managed somehow a passable bow. "This is a pleasure. I didn't know you were in town. Good-morning, Miss Sally. How do you do, gentlemen?" He whisked ledgers from chairs and offered them seats. They sat down, doubtfully.
Sam Wailes laughed. "From what your clerk said I thought we'd be seeing your father, Hugh. It takes time, I suppose, to get the idea that you're Mr. Flint too."
He was a short, heavy-set man with a broad, heavy face to match and hair that was streaked in dark gray and white. The white had come in within the year, since the death of his wife. His laugh was still loud, but Hugh was shocked at the slightly querulous, peevish note it held. His eyes, that once had been direct and forthright, were now withdrawn and with a hard glaze to them. The spring had gone from his step and his movements were slow.
"I'm not quite used to it myself," Hugh smiled back. "I've only been in the firm, on and off, some few months."
"Young Mr. Flint has done right smart by himself," said Hilgard genially. "A hard-headed business man, if there ever was one. Do you know I had to talk like the very devil to Stephen Flint before he'd agree to take my sugar and molasses for sale? He kept on sniffing and sniffing round the hogsheads like an old setter bitch nuzzling its young. Claimed young Hugh here passed by my plantation around grinding time, when I was called down to New Orleans on business, and was sure everything'd spoil."
Something of a flash came into Sam Wailes's glance, and withdrew into the glazed shell again. "You had no right to leave the plantation then. Andy. Your other business could wait. Sugar comes first. You've got to remember that, if you expect to run a plantation properly."
"You shouldn't say that. Pa," Sally protested. "If Mr. Hilgard went to town when he did, he must have had excellent reasons for doing so. Didn't you, Mr. Hilgard?"
She turned her face toward Andy in searching inquiry. The coquettish little hat, tilted to one side and held under her chin with trailing silk ribbons, gave it a devastatingly piquant expression; but there was no hint of coquetry or piquancy in her steady glance.
Hilgard had the grace to blush. He was a handsome, dashing chap, and particularly handsome and dashing just now in his fleckless uniform. His boots were glazed to a mirror finish, his gray uniform set off his trim, lean figure to advantage, and the brass buttons and the bars on his collar shone with faithful polishing. There was an easy, devil-may-care expression about him, and his eves sparkled with a joyousness and a childlike love of all good things that made his dissipations seem the mere superabundance of spirits of the very young. Yet he was almost thirty. A good fellow at heart, though scatterbrained, said men among themselves, and laughed indulgently at his escapades. The women adored him—women of all ages and conditions in life. He had a way with little children, and he had a way with dowagers. The eligible belles of the delta set their caps for him—so far in vain—though his plantation was small and his husbandry wretched. It was known also that he was heavily in debt, and a bit wild. The madams of Basin Street welcomed him with their best stagey smiles—though only too often his visits were on credit of the vaguest sort—and the girls fought secretly among themselves for the chance of entertaining the fascinating Mr. Hilgard.
The blush faded and he met Sally's gaze with a candid, open air. "Thank you. Miss Sally, for those kind words," he said, with just the right touch of warm gratefulness. "The business was important. I—ah—had some matters at my bank—you know Tom Layton at the Southern Bank, don't you, Sam?" He laughed ruefully. "When Tom calls the turn, us poor planters've got to dance."
"Not I," declared Wailes. "A planter that runs his place right has the bankers bending over so far their spines are almost double; not the other way round."
Hilgard looked at Sally. "You're right, Sam. That's what comes of having had a good wife and family responsibilities. A bachelor gets pretty careless about money."
Sally said very clearly and distinctly, "Are you thinking of getting married, Mr. Hilgard?"
Hugh felt shocked. What was the matter with the girl? Was she throwing herself openly at him? Where was her modesty, her sense of decency? He saw that her father was taken aback too; and that a slow anger was welling up into words.
But Hilgard's blue eyes lit up. He took a step forward. "Why, Miss Sally," he said eagerly, "since you mention it—"
"Because if you do," she went on as though he had not spoken, "I would suggest that you put aside all such tender thoughts until after we've licked the Yankees. All true Southern men must concentrate on that to the exclusion of everything else. I assure you, sir, every Southern girl feels the way I do about it."
To Hugh, bewildered, it seemed that there was a perverse impishness to her quick addition; but there was no question about the sharp glance at himself that followed in its wake. That swift up-and-down survey scorned his white and indigo-striped suit, his soft white shirt and civilian shoes. Hugh felt suddenly awkward, improperly clad, and hot. The office, warm before, was doubly hot now. He felt stifled in his clothes, while Hilgard, in his heavier, high-collared uniform, looked trim and smart.
Hilgard took his own discomfiture with an easy grace. The momentary disappointment fled like a passing shadow, and he grinned charmingly. "It will be hard to wait," he bowed, "but one must always defer to the commands of the ladies. I trust that the Yanks, when they hear of this ukase of our fair charmers, will be gentlemen enough to yield to our valor within a decent period."
Sally tapped her fan on the hard arm of her chair. Her lips were tight. "If there were any gentlemen among them, they wouldn't have started this war."
"I've been North," said Hugh. "There are Yankees and Yankees. I've met quite a few who are just as decent in their way as we in ours."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Hilgard.
Sally turned sharply in her chair to face Hugh. The tiny, fragile fan lay in her lap, but her fingers gripped it hard. Her voice was brittle with not-too-veiled contempt. "Of course, Mr. Flint, you are a pretty good judge of what constitutes a Southern gentleman. But then, I thought all Southern gentlemen were in uniform and ready to fight for their land and their homes. Mr. Hilgard, for example, is leaving for Richmond and the front tomorrow morning."
Hugh got up from his chair. His big hand closed over the edge of the desk with such force that the varnish crackled and split. Anger, hot, thick, flowed in a tide all over his body. The skin on his face seemed drawn too tight for breathing. As from a great distance he heard Andy Hilgard's quick expostulation: "Why, Miss Sally, we're all doing our share, each in his own way."
But Hugh saw only Sally. She sat calmly in her chair, her eyes never wavering, facing him. They were large eyes; they seemed to engulf him, to draw him down, down, down!
Then the passion ebbed. Anger was not for him. And anger especially at a chit of a girl; a romantic, silly fool who didn't know what she was talking about. Why the devil should he explain to her? That until now what he had done was infinitely more important than strutting around in a uniform. That tomorrow he was joining up. It would sound like lame apologies; and he'd be damned if he'd apologize for his actions to her or to anyone else. Let her think what she wanted; let them think anything they wished.
Sam Wailes looked appealingly at his daughter, turned quickly to the silent, standing young man. "It's about Andy's leaving on such short notice that we came down to see your father, Hugh," he said hurriedly, obviously in a rush to smooth over an embarrassing situation. "You see, Andy's going up to join the Guards under Colonel Dreux. They've been ordered from Pensacola. He needs funds, naturally. A Confederate captain has to pretty well pay his own way." He paused, stroked his furrowed chin. "That's why we thought we'd drop in and settle our accounts. You've done pretty well by us both. You've sold our sugar at good prices while the other planters haven't begun to find buyers yet. Of course, from what Andy tells me, there isn't too much coming to him—not enough to pay for his equipment and keep—but I'm willing to advance him something against my account. Now if your father—"
"He's gone to Opelousas to pick up some more sugar. He won't be back for several days."
"Hmmm! That's too bad." Wailes looked disappointed. "It doesn't matter for me, you understand. I can wait. But Andy here—"
"I'm in charge," Hugh said formally. "If you wish me to straighten out your accounts, I have them all ready."
"That's real good of you," Hilgard chimed in eagerly. He coughed. "How much is coming to me?"
Hugh sat down again at the desk, opened the top drawer. He riffled through the neat stack of statements, pulled out two. He looked them over, feeling without raising his eyes the concentrated stares of the other three.
"Ah, yes!" he said finally. "We didn't do so bad, gentlemen. Suppose I take Mr. Wailes's account first."
"Good enough."
"Let me see. We sold 850 hogsheads of sugar for you at $11.60 a hogshead, and 65 barrels of molasses at $4.50. That makes a total of $10,152.50, less $980.50 commissions and expenses; which leaves you a balance of $9,172. Mr. Hardy, our bookkeeper, will have your cheque ready in a minute or so. You made a pretty good crop this year, considering everything."
Sam Wailes shook his head. "Not bad, as you say. But if it hadn't been for the war coming on—"
"How about my account?" asked Hilgard, twiddling with his fine military hat.
"Your crop didn't do so well. You've got practically as many arpents under cultivation as Mr. Wailes, but we received only 380 hogsheads of sugar and 22 barrels of molasses for sale."
Hilgard grimaced. "My land's not as good," he said uncomfortably, painfully aware of the girl's appraisal. Then he brightened. "Anyway, at those prices, I should be able to—"
"You forget," Hugh held his voice to brusque, business accents, "that we were compelled to list it as third-grade. Flint & Son can't afford to try and fool its buyers."
"Oh, sure; of course!" Hilgard agreed hastily.
"All we could get was $3.40 a hogshead of sugar and $1.70 for the molasses. That makes—uh—$1,329.40; less commissions, $1,200.20."
Hilgard looked crestfallen a moment; but his resilient spirits soon rallied. "Just about leaves me pocket money, I suppose, after I pay off the tailor, the bootmaker, and some odds and ends of debts around the town. However, I appreciate what you did, Hugh; and if you'll let me have the cheque—"
He rose.
Hugh rose also. He had been fighting all along to hold himself in. But the repressed anger had burned like a slow fire, smoldering along his veins, waiting.... He wanted to hurt Sally Wailes! In vain he told himself she didn't matter, that whatever she said didn't mean anything to him one way or another. But he could not hurt her directly; he couldn't say the things he would have said to a man. She had taken advantage of her silly sex. So, by some obscure reasoning he transferred his subterranean rage toward Hilgard.
"There won't be any cheque," he said evenly. "You forget there is a debit balance on our books against you for over $1,500. It's been running for the past two years. We'll credit your account with what we've just collected."
Hilgard looked at him with the hurt eyes of a child. "But, my God, man!" he protested. "I must have some money. I know you've been decent in letting it run so long; but surely—"
Hugh said with the proper firmness, "Sorry!"
Wailes came lumbering to his feet; Sally's hoops swirled as she jumped up.
"Captain Hilgard's leaving for the front." Wailes's voice was one of sheer unbelief. "He's going to fight for the Confederacy; for Louisiana! Surely under the circumstances—"
Already Hugh was sorry for what he had done. The queer hurt look on Hilgard's face troubled him. But some inner devil of perverse stubbornness drove him on.
"It's against our rules, Mr. Wailes," he said.
Sally went up to her father; to Hilgard. She slid one gloved hand under her father's arm; she took Hilgard by the other. Her eyes blazed. Her clear voice whipped like scorpions.
"Don't you understand? Mr. Flint is a business man. A business man wouldn't know about such things as war and honor and glory." How that damned word, business, took on a loathsome taint the way she said it! "War is business, a new means of gaining profits. Come, Dad! Come, Andy!" It was the first time she had used his first name. "Dad will lend you whatever you'll need. Won't you, Dad?"
Sam Wailes seemed in a daze. A large, blue vein was twitching on the side of his throat. "Of course! Of course, Sally!"
She turned them deftly and steered them toward the door. "My father has decided not to wait for his cheque," she flung over her shoulder. "Quash will call for it this afternoon."
The door closed with a decided bang.
Hugh stared stupidly at the solid barrier without moving. The anger was cold, sodden ashes within him. He felt a little sick. Then, somehow, his tight-bound muscles felt an overwhelming urge for furious action.
He kicked violently at the nearest chair and sent it crashing. He took a savage delight in the splintering, rending noise it made; even the stabbing pain in his toe was grateful. He snatched up his hat, thrust it askew upon his head, and tore the door open almost in the face of a very startled clerk who had left his stool and come running at the crash.
"My gracious, sir!" fluttered the thin, pale little man, blinking up at him with nearsighted, terrified eyes. "I thought—"
"Never mind what you thought, Hardy," Hugh snapped. He felt a sudden distaste for the meek, faithful little bookkeeper; for everything connected with this God-rotted establishment. "Never mind what you thought," he repeated in a louder tone. "Make out Mr. Wales's cheque. Make out Mr. Hilgard's cheque—for the full amount. And don't take off a cent, not a picayune, for commissions, do you hear?"
"Y-yes, sir. B-but what about the sum he owes us—and the commissions? Your father will not like—"
The very reasonable young man flew into a passion. "Do you take orders as I give them, or do you not, Mr. Hardy?"
The clerk retreated in haste. "As you say, sir. And where shall I send the cheques, sir?"
"To the devil! To the Wailes's town house, of course. Both of them. I'm going out now, Mr. Hardy."
From a safe distance the clerk plucked up courage. "Where to, Mister Hugh; in case anyone inquires?"
But Hugh was already halfway down the long, dark aisle that divided the old warehouse between storage and office. "To enlist," he yelled back. "It's about time, don't you think?"
"Why, bless me; I—never—"
"Yes, you did! The same as everyone else. Tell my father I'll be back when the war's over. Two—three—four years, maybe."
Hot sunlight flooded the musty interior; then blinked into a darker darkness with the slam of the outer door.
Simon Hardy got slowly up on his stool again, wrapped his thin shanks tightly around the rungs. He picked up a new steel pen, dipped it into the inkwell. He surveyed the dripping point, shaking his head and muttering. "What could have gotten into Mister Hugh today? I never would have dreamt—" He shook his head from side to side, making little disapproving sounds with his lips. "Going to enlist, hey? What for? Just when business is getting on so nicely." He put pen to paper. "What was it he shouted just before he ran out like that? Be back in two—three—maybe four years?" The pen made little, scratching sounds. "Now I know he's got a touch of the sun. This war'll be over in two—three months. Why, everybody says so."
FOR almost a year the war was a thing remote to New Orleans. Men died in Tennessee and spilled their entrails on the bloody ground of old Virginia. Missouri was a shambles and Manassas a glorious victory. The telegraph hummed with wildest rumor and the Picayune printed it as truest fact. Louisiana men dug in at Corinth and marched along the road from Yorktown. They fought in short, fierce skirmishes and they died in ever-increasing numbers. Colonel Dreux fell on vedette and Major Wheat had not much chance to live.
But in New Orleans and along the flat-banked Mississippi and the moss-hung bayous life went on secure and safe. The sugarcane ripened and the cotton expanded in the good hot sun. The slaves streaked the soil with their sweat and wondered in secret about this yere man Linkum. The new French Opera coruscated in red and white; and Placide's Gayety packed them in. On hot nights families sat out on the galleries and nibbled calas tout chaud—the toothsome hot rice-cakes cried by street vendors. The banquettes were crowded with parasoled ladies and men on business bent, and the French market displayed to the bargainers its tumbled array of vegetables and fruits, its coffees and spices.
The war was remote, and the thud of cannon far away. Yet slowly but surely the tide began to move closer. Money died first—the hard, comforting feel of gold and silver coin. The banks suspended payment and the people began to hoard. Paper took its place; shinplasters eloquent with promises never to be fulfilled. Richmond printed them; so did Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. The merchants took a hand and made their own. Prices rose, and the currency fell. It fell so far you could pass the label of an olive-oil bottle because it was as greasy, smelled as bad, and bore an autograph like any shinplaster.
The war became a bore. It was all troops entraining and casualty lists, the making of lint and bandages and the cutting up of nightgowns into soldiers' drawers; it was all a lack of chocolate and Parisian fashions, a glut of business and a failure of supplies.
To Captain Flint, attached to the staff of General Twiggs, and later in the entourage of Major-General Lovell, the war had long been a bore. He had gone direct to Twiggs to volunteer his services for Richmond and the front. That harassed general greeted him with loud cries. He knew Stephen and he knew Hugh; the firm of Flint & Son held contracts for Camp Moore.
"You're a fool, Hugh!" he said with some asperity. "I've got more applications for commissions than I have places for. Did you see the anteroom?"
Hugh said he had.
The General flung up his hands. "What this war needs are privates—common, ordinary, everyday men with guns in their hands—and supplies. Officers! Good Lord! We're overrun with them!"
"I didn't say I wanted a commission. All I ask is a chance to get to the front."
The General looked astonished. "Now I know you're a fool, Hugh. You've got more brains, and a lot more training, than most of the others. You trained under Sherman, didn't you?"
"Yes."
Twiggs sighed. "An excellent soldier and disciplinarian. It's a pity he didn't see the justice of our cause. Now look, Hugh. You're too valuable for service at the front. We have plenty of brave, gallant youngsters for that. What seems to be forgotten, though, is that supplies will win the war. An army can fight only when it's fed, when clothes are on its back, and there's plenty of powder and bullets for its guns. There are mighty few men who can handle these things right. You're one of them. Suppose I put you on my staff, so you can help me here in New Orleans."
"Sorry, sir; I want active service."
The General looked at him keenly. "It wouldn't be a girl; would it, Hugh?"
Hugh felt himself flush under the scrutiny. "No, sir."
"Then listen to me. Your fool stubbornness forces me out into the open. We're in a devil of a spot down here. The Confederate Cabinet pays no attention whatever to my pleas for help. Everything is concentrated on the Potomac; they don't realize that the war will be won or lost right here on the lower Mississippi."
"How do you figure that out, General?"
"Unless the North rates bigger dunderheads than I give them credit for, they're going to make an attempt in overwhelming force to capture New Orleans. Once they've done that, they'll have gained control of the river and cut the Confederacy in two. When that happens—"
"They could never get past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip," Hugh protested.
"Not if the forts are properly repaired, properly manned and gunned. Not if I have enough muskets and minié rifles for my ninety-day militia. Not if I can get ammunition and medical supplies. I need men who know how to lay their hands on these things, and who know how to get them in exchange for Confederate currency. Now will you accept a commission on my staff?"
Hugh sighed. "Since you put it that way, sir."
It was hard, tedious work, he soon found out; much worse than trading on his own. The New Orleans business men, like business men all over the world, were patriotic; but they were most reluctant to yield up their precious stocks of essential goods in exchange for Confederate paper that dropped in value almost from day to day. He did what he could, however; and did it rather well. He ferreted out hidden stores; exhorted, argued, and threatened when the need arose. He persuaded his planter clients to place part of their hard cash on deposit with the foreign banks, in order to pay for English goods that managed to slip past the blockade. He even got old Stephen to grant long-term credits.
His father at first exploded at the very mention of such a thing. "You may have gone daft, Hugh!" he shouted angrily. "But thank God I haven't. What do you want to do? Ruin me? Long-term credits, indeed! That damned paper is being turned out as fast as the presses can print it. They'll be using it for wallpaper soon."
"It's the only chance the Confederacy has, Dad. If its own people won't take the money—"
"You always said we couldn't win."
"I still say so."
"Then, by God!—I'm to ruin myself and become a beggar in my old age, is that it?"
Hugh faced him steadily. "We're all in the same boat-all the South, I mean. Perhaps we started something we shouldn't have. But it's been done; and there's no turning back. Not for you, not for me, not for any Southerner. We've got to go on, though it's ruin in the end."
The old man stared at him from under his thick, strong brows. There was a suspicious glint in his eyes. "I believe you're soft as well as daft," he snorted. "Soft under the hard crust of a Flint. I've suspected something like it ever since you paid that rapscallion Hilgard every penny we collected on his spoiled sugar without so much as deducting a commission; and then running off like a bleating kid to enlist. I say I won't extend any long-term credits."
In the end, however, grumbling and swearing that he was as big a fool as his son, the old man yielded.
That conversation brought Hugh's thoughts around to Moon Hill Plantation and to Hilgard. He hadn't seen any of them since that final scene to which old Stephen had so bitingly alluded. But he had heard plenty. Captain Andrew Hilgard was Major Hilgard now, and a hero. When Colonel Dreux had been killed in an ambush, he had taken command and led the trapped battalion to safety. At Lee's Mills he had behaved with the utmost gallantry and won the personal commendation of General Magruder himself. Forgotten now his exploits in Basin Street and Toulouse; forgotten the indulgent tone with which the solid, substantial citizenry of New Orleans had been accustomed to discuss him; forgotten even his debts by those—and they were many—whom he had put off again and again with smiling words and careless promises. He was a hero, and the glamor dazzled away all human imperfections.
Hugh tried to assure himself that the queer feeling he had whenever he read of some new praise of the dashing major in the Delta or the Crescent or the Picayune was not jealousy or envy; yet his assurances were unconvincing. Hilgard trailed glory from afar, and half the maids of New Orleans dreamed tender dreams and wove romances in the quiet of the night. Hugh smiled a trifle bitterly over his suddenly stodgy invoices. He too wore a uniform and sported the captain's triple bar on his collar. But bright eyes slid over him—or what was worse, grew hard with disdain. Sober men of years, with whom he did business for Confederate gain, who should have known the importance of his task, glowed with talk of Dreux and Beauregard, Wheat and Hilgard, and treated Hugh as a trader and a bargainer like themselves.
It hurt; and so did the news of Moon Hill as it came to him. Young Dabney Wailes, the spoiled sophisticate of sixteen years, his roommate at the Seminary, had run away to join the army. As a common soldier he had gone, with a lie about his age and a false name upon the rolls, to join the Tenth Louisiana under Marigny. There Hilgard had found him, ragged, footsore, toting his gun, scratching his lousy hide—and uncomplaining.
The news had been a shock to Sam Wailes, and to Sally. Then pride came—pride at this son and brother who had gone against all odds to fight the foe.
Hugh had kept strictly away from Moon Hill in his journeys up the river to regain precious coin for the use of the nation. He had tried to keep as strictly away even in his thoughts. Sam Wailes, he heard, was setting out a crop of cane on Hilgard's place as well as on his own, and exercising general supervision in the absence of the hero.
But one day a weazened little negro, his big feet flapping as he walked, came into Headquarters. In his hand, tight-clutched, was a bulging bag.
He slid along, his eyes rolling from side to side, frightened at the swarm of uniforms and shiny brass, and clutching the bag to his side with a tighter grip.
"Wheah-all am de Gin'ral?" He bowed humbly before a spruce young aide.
"What do you want to see the General for, Pompey?" demanded the aide.
"Mah name's Cuffy, suh; an' I got stric' bus'ness—"
Hugh raised his head sharply from his desk. "I know him, Carew," he called to the young lieutenant. "I'll speak to him."
Cuffy grinned with delight at seeing a familiar white face among all these superior beings. "I'se proud to meet you, Misto' Flint. Miss Sally, he gimme dis yere bag to gib to de Gin'ral." He slid closer and whispered: "He am full o' gold money what dey wants to gib 'n exchange fo' dem dere papah money. Miss Sally, he say I mus' git one o' dem receets."
Hugh said slowly: "I'll take the gold, Cuffy, and give you a receipt for it. That's my job here."
He had difficulty in writing it out. He spoiled the first one and had to do it over. So Sam Wailes was sending his whole hidden store of money down to help the Confederate cause! Eight thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars! Practically every cent he had received on last year's sugar. To exchange for paper that within a week might be worth hundreds less.
Hugh blotted his document with meticulous care. "I'm surprised Mr. Wailes trusted you with all that money down the river alone, Cuffy."
The little negro grinned. "He don' trust me, Misto' Flint. He standin' outside and Miss Sally too. Dey done waitin' fo' me."
Hugh understood then. They knew he was on Twiggs's staff, and in charge of currency. They did not wish to see him. He held out the paper to Cuffy. "Tell Mr. Wailes," he said curtly, "he can cash this draft at any bank for Confederate currency. General Twiggs will forward to him a formal note of thanks for his contribution."
Autumn slid into winter, and winter into a new year and the early Southern spring. Closer and closer came the war and the rumors of war. Food grew scarce and prices exorbitant. Pork was $45 a barrel and salt $10 the sack. The blockade tightened. New Orleans slackened the tempo of its earlier enthusiasm. It became jittery and apprehensive.
The Yanks were coming!
New Orleans, proud Queen of the Confederacy, gave way to panic. Down in the Gulf, the sloops of war and the mortars were gathering. The rumors swelled like the river in flood. Attacks by sea and by land. A vast army on its way by hurtling trains along the Jackson Railroad, due to reach the defenseless town by early morning light. From the Vieux Carré, from Carrollton Parish, from the banks and the levees, from Baronne and Thalia Streets, from the bagnios and the patios, streamed the populace of New Orleans. Men, women and children rushed to the depot to repel the invader, to interpose the hardness of determined flesh against guns and steely bayonets.
But the depot was empty, and the mob dispersed.
Governor Moore called for volunteers to defend the city. General Lovell replaced Twiggs. Hugh was not much taken with the man. He seemed weak and given to futile motions. Yet not all blame could be attached to him. The untrained militia numbered barely three thousand men, and hardly a thousand of them had muskets. Frantic appeals to Richmond for aid brought no response. New Orleans was abandoned to its own resources.
A raft of logs and iron chains was stretched across the river between the forts. The rising river smashed it into kindling. Another was hastily constructed. A great wind blew and tossed it away. The ram Manassas steamed majestically down to the defense. Belated work commenced upon the ancient forts. Slaves along the delta were impressed into service. The planters complained loudly that they could not spare their hands; they said their planting season would be ruined. Pressures were brought to bear, and the negroes quit the forts under the triumphant escort of their masters.
Hugh came back from a tour of inspection in a cold fury. He reported to Lovell. "The forts are in a miserable state, sir. The walls are crumbling and the new guns we've managed to obtain for them are still unmounted. The garrisons are working day and night to build the necessary platforms, but both General Duncan and Colonel Higgins assure me they haven't enough men to man the guns even if they should be mounted in time. We need men, sir, thousands of them. Men for defense and slaves for work."
Lovell made a helpless gesture. "I know that as well as you, Captain Flint. But the planters won't volunteer and they won't give us the negroes. Look at this report that just came in from Plaquemines Parish, right in the line of a Northern occupation if the forts should fall. I appealed to their patriotism." He flung the paper disgustedly across the table.
"Patriotism! Bah! Not an ounce of it, even to save their own skins. They called a meeting. Where six hundred should have come, only two hundred attended. And how many do you think, after all the speeches, volunteered their field hands and themselves to the cause of the Confederacy?"
"Judging from what I've personally seen, about twenty or so."
Lovell laughed. It was a bitter, mirthless laugh. "Two volunteered! Two, by God! Two who could see beyond their noses."
By the beginning of April the attack was definitely on the way. General Benjamin F. Butler, based on Ship Island, cleared all opposition out of Pass Christian and Biloxi. For days Flag Officer Farragut tried in vain to move his fleet across the shallow bar at the mouth of the Mississippi. Then a favorable wind and a timely flood hoisted him across and swept him up the river toward the forts. Butler, with 6000 men and three battalions of artillery, made landing in the rear of Fort St. Philip.
In New Orleans panic gave way to a sudden calm. Now that the enemy was actually at hand, optimism resumed its former role. Invincible forts, resistless rams, Confederate valor, made a thick stew of words to soothe the citizens.
But Lovell, with his hasty militia encamped outside the city, and a few weak batteries at the Rigolets, had no illusions. Neither did Hugh, restless and straining now that war was dumped into his lap. Three times he sought permission to go down to the forts, and three times Lovell peremptorily refused.
"I can't spare you, Captain Flint. I need every available man here in New Orleans in case Farragut breaks through."
"If Farragut passes the forts, sir, New Orleans is doomed. The place to save the city is at the forts. My advice, sir, is to reenforce the garrisons. I'd be willing to—"
"Damn it, Captain Flint!" roared the General. "I haven't asked for your advice. The forts must take care of themselves."
Hugh saluted and withdrew. He dared not trust himself to speak. Lovell was badly rattled. Whatever little initiative he had once possessed was gone. It was true he had received no support whatever from the Richmond Government or the delta planters. But a man of iron will and determination would have made the best of the situation. Even now it was not too late to save the city. But Lovell was not the man to do it.
Torn with bitterness Hugh paced through the camp, leaving behind him a ragged wake of unacknowledged salutes. What was the matter with the Confederacy? Didn't anyone realize the importance of New Orleans? Up North there were leaders, consummate generals. Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and Beauregard. Up North, fronting the enemy with dauntless breasts, were the flower of the South: the men who had volunteered and gone blithely to meet the foe. Hugh thought of Hilgard and young Dabney Wailes; he thought of Francis Smith and Boyd and Clarke, of a score of Seminary lads, mere babes in arms, who had gone to Virginia. Only the laggards, the cautious and the weak had remained behind to hold the lower Mississippi for the Confederacy. Like himself, for example.
Hugh's eyes smoldered and his mouth made a tight, harsh line. Damn Lovell! Damn Twiggs for having forced him into such an equivocal, inglorious position! Damn everyone! Again he thought of Hilgard, and the thought was like puckering ashes in his mouth. The name made a hammering refrain that beat and beat within his brain. Who now was right, and who was wrong? He fled to his quarters and gave himself over to black despair.
For six days the Federal ships bombarded the forts. For six days the forts flung back shell for shell. Gallantly they responded, though the river waters rose in the magazines, though the bastions were in flames and half their guns disabled. Licking their wounds, the Federals withdrew.
Now was the time for the fire-ships to spread flame and confusion among the enemy; now was the time for the gunboats and the great rams to speed to the attack. But the fireships ran aground, the beaked Manassas was silent, and the ironclad Louisiana lay in the shadow of the forts with a complement of huddling gunboats, unable to grasp the opportunity.
To Hugh, nerves raw and muscles tense, a hundred miles away, the suspense was maddening. It seemed to his straining ears that he heard the distant boom of guns, the screaming passage of mortar shells. The levee daily swarmed with people, peering down the sharp bend of the river as though to penetrate the intervening miles. Confidence was writ large upon their faces. Each fresh accession of news brought forth excited cheering. The forts were holding out; they had beaten back the Yankee ships; the Louisiana was going into action; half the mortars were in flames; hurray for Duncan! hurray for Higgins! hurray for everyone!
Hugh strode past in a savage humor. He didn't blame the cheerers. They did not know. But he knew, and Lovell should have known. Urgent messengers came up the river from the forts. Help was needed—men, guns, shot and shell. Where was the great new ram, the Mississippi, on whose building the South had placed such hopes? Still on the ways at New Orleans; unmanned, ungunned as yet. Fit her out then, at once, immediately; send her churning down the great river after which she had been named. Impossible! retorted Lovell; and took a fast boat to the forts to find out why these desperate calls for help.
Hugh, temporarily off duty, flung into the warehouse on Poydras Street.
"Where's my father?" he demanded of Simon Hardy. The fragile bookkeeper peered up at him in the eternal gloom. He shook his head.
"Gone up the river to Vicksburg, sir. Left this morning."
"What for?"
Hardy indicated the piled bales of cotton and the neat rows of sugar hogsheads. "He's trying to see if he can't dispose of our stocks, Mister Hugh. Our clients are getting pretty impatient."
"Let them. Don't the fools know the river's blocked below? There won't be much chance at Vicksburg, either, now that this fellow, Grant, has taken Fort Donelson."
"That's what Mr. Stephen told Miss Wailes only yesterday, sir. But she wouldn't listen. Said she'd have to take the Moon Hill account, and Major Hilgard's too, out of our hands if we didn't dispose of their sugar at once." The rusty little man pursed up his lips. "She's pretty high-spirited, sir; and a mite unreasonable, if I may venture the opinion."
"I'm not asking for your opinion," Hugh exploded, and walked quickly out into the noise of Poydras Street.
Hardy blinked after him, bewildered. "Now what did I say now?" he asked himself in an aggrieved tone. "There's no pleasing Mr. Hugh these days."
Hugh felt a little ashamed of his outburst as he strode toward the levee again. Then his resentment turned toward the girl. "To the devil with her!" he muttered ungallantly. "Why didn't Dad tell her to take their accounts away and be damned to them! And what did Sam Wailes mean by sending a chit of a girl down as his emissary?" Of course, the last planting of cane would now be in progress; but Hugh was too angry to think of that.
In his heedless stride along Front Street he did not hear at first his name shouted loudly across the cobblestoned road. But the second hail, and the short, powerful figure in sailor's jacket that blocked his path, brought him to a halt.
"You sure look like a tornado tore ye from your moorings, Mister—I mean, Captain Flint. I bellowed fit'n to burst my lungs, but nary a look would you cast my way."
Hugh shook hands. "It's a habit with me. I think too damn much, and I just don't hear people. I wouldn't pass you by knowingly, Captain Willis—"
"I allus said thinking wasn't good for a body," Willis chuckled. "It scrambles the brains an' makes them oneasy-like. Look't me. I keep my boat runnin' an' my cargoes safe; and what more kin a feller want?"
"Nothing at all. I congratulate you on your singlemindedness. How's the Eleanor doing these days? We haven't been able to give you a load for quite a while."
"Ain't no one else, neither. This here war's just about ruinin' the river trade." Then he winked. "But leave it to old Cap'n Willis to make an honest dollar wherever he can."
"What do you mean?"
The captain tugged at his beard. "There's a few gentlemen here in Orleens what like to see a fight—from a distance, o' course—and signified they'd be willin' to pay well for the privilege."
"I still don't understand."
"Well," drawled Willis, "I'm a-takin' some nine or ten sportin' characters down the river in the Eleanor tonight to see that Yank, Farragut, have it out with the forts. They're a-payin' me twenty hard dollars a head, which ain't to be sneezed at these days."
"Why, the damned, stinking little rats!" exclaimed Hugh angrily. "I've a good mind to—" He stopped suddenly, caught hold of the captain's rough-woven jacket. "When are you leaving tonight?"
Willis looked alarmed. "You can't do a thing to stop me, Captain Flint. There ain't no law about it; and two hundred hard dollars is—"
"Never mind that," Hugh broke in impatiently. "What time are you sailing?"
Suspicion lurked in Willis's eyes. "Right after dark. Mebbe seven o'clock. But—"
Hugh dug into the pocket of his uniform. His hand came out with a handful of bills. "I haven't any gold. I leave that to your patriotic passengers. But here's eighty dollars in shinplasters. That should cover. I'm booking passage with you."
"Now, look here, Captain Flint," protested the other, his eyes clinging to the proffered money. "I can't do that. You're in uniform. You're an officer. I might get into trouble—"
"I'm not deserting," Hugh assured him, "if that's what you're afraid of."
"We-ell!"
"I've got to get down to Fort St. Philip in a hurry. It's official business. General Lovell is down there now. I've got to get a message through to him of the utmost importance."
"But I ain't landin' at the fort. I ain't riskin' the Eleanor nohow."
"I'm not asking you to. When you get as close as you safely can, I'll take off in your skiff and row the rest of the way."
"How'll I get it back?"
"I'll buy it from you," Hugh said promptly. "What's it worth?"
Willis grinned. "One hundred fifty—in shinplasters, seeing how you ain't got real money. I'm dockin' off the Bienville wharf. Seven sharp, mind ye!"
Hugh Flint had gone down the Plaquemines Delta dozens of times, but never under circumstances like these. The night, the churn of the paddles, the surge of the swollen river, the dim-seen banks receding to black-fringed swamps, the great five-story sugar-houses and the more modest homes, the occasional twinkling lights and the steady, labored puffing of the chimneys—and above all, the sense that he had cut all moorings and was himself moving toward an obscure destination—gave him a tingling awareness, a sharp reaction to the past, the present and the future.
He sat on the edge of the narrow berth and stared at the circumscribing walls of the tiny cabin. The pound of the engines and the clank of the boilers communicated themselves to his blood. There was irony in every corner of the cabin. In the distant past—so remote that it seemed a yellowed page from an ancient text, so close that every detail was graved in his memory with steel—he had refused this very room, and compelled an outraged, self-assured young belle to cramp her dainty flesh within its walls.
He had come surreptitiously on board, biding his time, almost at the moment of casting off. He had no desire to see his fellow-passengers; he did not wish to be observed by them. He heard them now through the thin, vibrating walls. They were gathered in the small saloon around the inevitable bar. They spoke loudly and glasses banged to make a point. Seegar smoke made a thick curtain that seeped through the ill-fitting door. Loud, senseless laughter punctuated with oaths, louder bets offered and done. Damn them! thought Hugh. The war to them is but another cockfight, the tragic battle they intend to see only another race along the track at Lake Pontchartrain.
Yet he could not go out to confront them with scathing words. His position was anomalous. He realized it fully; had realized it even in that sudden moment when he paid Captain Willis for his passage.
He was in effect a deserter; at best, absent without leave and subject to courtmartial for insubordination. His duty was in New Orleans; three times General Lovell had specifically refused to honor his request. Tomorrow, when the General returned, he would be missed. He could picture the explosive wrath of an essentially weak man. Yet strangely enough, none of that mattered.
What did matter were his inner reasons for what he was about to do. He tried to analyze them. Was he become another romantic fool, all hot for glory? To the outer world it might well seem like that. A staff captain, bored with the dull routine of orders and counter-orders, of currency exchange and bales of cotton, throwing himself gallantly into a beleaguered fort like any volunteer to gain undying fame amid the thunder of guns. A sudden apparition to rally a dismayed garrison, to touch the match to the very shot that crashed the wooden walls of the enemy flagship. Romantic vision, implicit in the heroic deeds of many a man!
No, it was not that. At least, he thought not. Then, what had driven him on this quixotic flight from one reality to what might well be a mirage? Boredom with his duties? No; he liked them. He was not one of those who frowned on routine; provided the routine had important ends in view. What then?
It was difficult to place in words the obscure complex of his inner urge. It was the slow realization that there was no ordered pattern, no conscious purposiveness to the Confederacy. All was milling and confusion; all was muddleheaded thinking and an inability to face the starkness of reality. Lovell, Jefferson Davis, Governor Moore, Semmes, Robert Toombs—didn't any of the leaders know? It was not enough to maintain that the Yankee men in office were just as bad. The North could afford to blunder through; the South could not.
The hard distaste had grown in him. The tons of paper, the buying and selling of goods that rotted on railroad sidings a mere few miles away from where the need was desperate. The sheer inertia that no subordinate could penetrate. The terrible futility of it all. At least the fighting men were definite and certain. Their aims were simple and precise. Kill as many of the enemy as you can; smash their armies and their fleets. A minié ball carried a pungent message; a mortar shell exploded with unanswerable force. They might be hampered by the paper-men in tilted chairs; but reality was with them. That was why Hugh was going to the forts. His muscles were tight for action; his bottled disgust required immediate vent.
At two-thirty in the morning Captain Willis knocked on his door. Hugh opened it. His eyes were tired and a little bloodshot, his chin was shadowed with unshaven stubble and his limbs were cramped from lack of movement.
"We're almost there," whispered Willis. "In about ten-fifteen minutes we're anchoring to wait for the fireworks in the mornin'. That'll be 'bout a mile or so above the forts. It's as close 's I dast go. I don' want to get in the way of trouble." He laughed in his beard. "Nuther do my sportin' gentlemen, I reckon."
Hugh lifted his scabbard from a chair and buckled it on.
Then he strapped his holster into place. The pistol butt made a bulge under the gray coat.
"You've got the skiff ready?"
"She's a-danglin' back o' the stern. Good luck, Cap'n."
Hugh went out into the long saloon.
The sporting men who had come to see the bombardment looked up in surprise. Their faces wavered behind a drifting fog of smoke. They were playing cards and tall glasses were at their elbows. Stubs of seegars littered saucers with their staleness.
He couldn't distinguish them; neither, he thought, could they determine who he was as he hurried through. They were somewhat drunk. But they saw the uniform and the bright sheen of the buttons. One of them said hoarsely: "Well, I'll be—" And then Hugh was out upon the deck, breathing in the clean, damp air. The mist was low on the river, and the hurrying tide slapped viciously against the sides. There was no moon or stars.
"You'll have to go by guesswork, sort of," Willis mumbled. "This here's 'bout where I'm droppin' anchor. Our gunboats oughta be somewhere along close to shore. Set your boat downstream, an' bear to the left An' mind your eye, Cap'n; some lookout's li'ble to shoot first, an' challenge after."
They went down to the lower deck, and picked their way through coiled rope and the smells of old cargoes to the stern. Hugh could barely see the vague, bobbing shape of the skiff.
Willis pulled on the rope, grabbed the painter. Hugh jumped in, balanced himself against the wallow, dropped to a seat. He fumbled for the oars, found them. On a sudden impulse he struck a lucifer, looked at his watch. It was 3:28 on the morning of April 24th.
The smelly match sputtered into the muddy river. He poised the oars.
"Good luck!" Willis repeated and cast off the line.
Hugh strained on his oars. The skiff swirled away like bobbing flotsam. The Eleanor, its lights masked, became part of the solid wall of gray-black darkness.
The silence deepened. Even the steady crunch of the paddles faded. He was alone, a mere chip on the surface of the resistless flood. Yet not far below, along the unseen shores, were great ships, thousands of men, prepared and shotted cannon, waiting the dawn, waiting to recommence the six-day-old battle.
He swung hard on his left oar. If he wasn't careful he'd pass the forts and plunge headlong into the Yankee fleet. The darkness deepened; the mist was rising. He'd...
Boom!
The great sound slashed through the night; reverberated over the waters.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The night was gone, the river vanished and the darkness tore to shreds. The whole world was suddenly a welter of frightful sound. The huge concussions lifted the skiff and dropped it into a spinning maelstrom.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Answering thunder burst from the shores, met and mingled in screaming chaos.
Hugh caught wildly at the oar he had dropped, swung his tossing craft around. He was too late. The bombardment had opened, long before the dawn. But why? Why?
He pulled with all his might, the sweat cold and dripping under his clothes. He'd have to find the Eleanor in a hurry. It was suicide to be out on the river now, or to attempt the shore.
Downstream, the Yankee mortars increased the tempo of their firing. The boom and scream of shell became continuous. The answering guns from the forts were scattered and wild.
Then, far down the waters, Hugh saw dense black smudges spurt upward, mushroom against the fading night into smothering palls of smoke. He froze momentarily to his oars. The palms of his hands were stiff, and his flesh had no sensation. The widening smoke began to move upstream.
"My God!" he thought incredulously. "The Yanks are going to run past the forts! That's why the mortars opened up in the darkness. They're covering the run!" Then fury burned in him. "What's the matter with our boats? Why don't they cut loose the fire-barges? They'd light up the river, so the gunners could see their targets. Of all the blasted idiots!"
In his anger he almost forgot his own predicament. The sudden loom of a black shape in the fading dark, the swift suction of inrushing waters, brought him to his senses. He pulled desperately; but the ship was directly upon him. It was about to strike!
Hugh flung down his useless oars, jerked to his feet. The skiff rocked heavily. Balancing himself as best he could, bending his knees for utmost leverage, he sprang.
There was a splintering, grinding sound that faded suddenly into the greater turmoil. Hugh's hand clutched at the slippery deck, slipped, clutched wildly again. His raw fingers gouged into the wood for purchase; then he inched his way to safety.
For a moment he lay spent and panting. It was mighty lucky that the boat had very little headway, otherwise he'd have been pulled into the churning paddles.
He rose painfully to his feet, stumbled toward the stairs that led to the upper deck. He was certain no one had seen him, or heard the destruction of the skiff. The darkness and the hell of sound prevented that.
He came like a dripping ghost upon the huddled group that stared in vain out upon the river.
"If I were you, Captain Willis," he said, "I'd turn the Eleanor around and get back to New Orleans as fast as your boiler will let you."
Willis spun on his heel as though he had been shot. From the clustered passengers came a single, startled oath.
"Cap'n Flint!" gulped Willis. "Are ye a ghost, or a thing o' flesh an' blood?"
Hugh smiled wryly. "If I'm a ghost, I'd have you to thank for it. You ran me down. But you heard what I said."
One of the passengers stepped forward. His face was bland and smooth, and the diamond on his shirtfront blazed like a beacon light.
"I don't know who you are, sir; but Captain Willis is under charter to us. We came down here to watch the fun, and we expect to hang on until we see it."
Approving growls came from the others. "That's right, Devoe!" cried one. "I've got a bet on it with you, and I aim to stay."
Hugh looked quietly at the diamond-shirted man. He remembered the name. Willis had yarned of him on the trip up the Red River; since then Devoe had risen to the top of the gambling fraternity in New Orleans. A reckless, daring man who'd bet on anything and to any amount; whose handiness with gun and fists was belied by the soft smoothness of his face.
Hugh turned to Willis as though he had not heard their comments. "If you stay, you'll lose your ship, and all your lives as well. The Yanks are steaming past the forts. They'll be here within half an hour. Look for yourself."
The sky was paling and the river boiled with bubbles of rising mist. Almost in a single line, full steam ahead, belching great clouds of smoke, came the Northern sloops and gunboats. To the rear, pumping shot and shell, canister and grape, were the mortars.
"Well, I don't know—" Willis scratched his ear indecisively.
"They'll never make it," said Devoe with an easy positiveness. "And even if they break past the forts, there are the Louisiana and the Manassas just above to give them hell! Besides, there's the boom across the river."
"Which they've already broken through," Hugh interrupted. "That's the Hartford in the lead; Farragut's ship. She's past it right now."
"There goes the Manassas?" yelled the short, squat man suddenly. "Now we'll see what's what."
The great ram came steaming out from the shelter of the forts and hurled itself upon the advancing fleet. Hugh thrilled to the sight, even as he cursed the gallant folly that sent the Manassas alone to certain destruction.
It ran at the Hartford, first in line, cutting a fire-ship adrift into its path. The Hartford swerved and raced on, its broadside flaming and thundering. The fire-ship swung helplessly in the swift current and missed its target. The ram rushed on toward a gunboat, a single gun hammering away. The gunboat answered with a tremendous burst of shot.
In the hazy half-light Hugh could not see what damage was done. But the Manassas yawed and fell away, and a cloud of smoke enveloped its deck.
No other Confederate ship came out to join the fight.
"You see, gentlemen," said Hugh in taut, repressed tones. "It's just as I said. They've passed the forts, and the river is clear. If Captain Willis doesn't get started—"
"Will you look at that boat coming on!" cried the squat man again.
A Federal steamer had pulled past the Hartford and was racing toward them, smokepipes spouting.
"Hell, isn't that a pretty sight?" Devoe said admiringly.
Flame spurted from her forward deck. A solid shot fell in a waterspout not more than three hundred yards below.
"That shot was meant for us," Hugh observed with matter-of-fact calm. "Now if any of you gentlemen still wish to stay—"
But the sporting men had already broken and fled toward the farther stern. Only Devoe stood his ground. His smile was still bland. "I think, sir, you called the turn. That Yank holds all the aces. I agree that Captain Willis had better get started."
Willis had not waited for orders. At the first report of the gun he moved very fast toward the pilot-house. They could hear him bellowing now, and the mate bellowing in turn. The Eleanor butted its nose around in the current, and began to get away from there.
But the pursuing Federal was not to be denied. She came on driving fast and her shells demanded peremptorily that the Eleanor stop.
Hugh hurried back to find Willis. That worthy looked anxious. "She's pulling up on us," said Hugh. "Can't you get up more steam?"
"God damn all Yanks!" swore the captain. "I got a quarter interest in this boat. I'm damned if I—Wait a minute. I got a load o' rosin on board. I'm a-goin' to throw that in the fires. Either we blow up to glory or we get away."
"Throw everything on! I've no hankering for a Northern prison. I hear they don't feed you very well."
Willis tumbled down the hold. Hugh went back to watch the onrushing steamer. Devoe had not shifted his position. The other gentry were not in sight; they had evidently taken refuge in the saloon.
"Think we'll make it?" asked Devoe. He might have been requesting a light for the long, black seegar in his mouth.
"I don't know. The captain's throwing on rosin."
"Last boat they did that on, I was blown clear to shore. Very lucky for me, too; for I can't swim a stroke."
Hugh laughed. This gambler was a bit of a man.
A shower of sparks rose from the chimneys, bright and hard and dancing. The boat heeled over, shuddered, and lurched forward.
The shells screamed overhead, fell in huge spouts on every side.
"Bad marksmanship, don't you think, Captain-uh-?"
"Hugh Flint. No, I don't think so. They're using their forward gun, and the river's pretty rough. She dips her prow into the waves in a way to knock out any calculations."
The sparks became a solid sheet of flame. Wisps of fire dropped to the deck.
"Whew! Not a very good dealer's choice, Captain Flint. To be sunk by a shell, to be blown to bits, or to be burned to a crisp."
"Willis knows his business. They must all be sitting on the valves. But look, we're beginning to pull away. The Yank's dropping back. She's going to look for bigger game than the Eleanor."
Devoe threw his seegar away, took out another one. He cupped his hand on a lucifer, lit up and surveyed Hugh keenly. "Going back to New Orleans?"
Hugh shrugged. "Might as well. Though by tomorrow Farragut will be demanding our surrender."
IT rained on the morning of April 25th. The downpour damped the hundred clanging bells to a dull thunder like the boom of distant guns. The din awoke Hugh Flint. It would have wakened a much sounder and less troubled sleeper. He sat bolt upright on his cot, struggling out of a restless, unsatisfying slumber.
Church-bells! Hundreds of them! Yammering and clanging and tumbling fit to burst his ears. Good Lord! He didn't know there were that many in all New Orleans. The lash of rain on the barracks roof slackened, and the din increased.
He got up, pulled on his boots. He had not undressed the night before. He struggled into his coat, buttoned the high collar and searched with the instinct of long habit for his scabbard. It was not in its accustomed place, hung neatly from a nail.
He remembered now; and the memory brought back some of the hard anger of yesterday.
He was under arrest, confined to his quarters! Quarters were a small wooden, one-room affair on the very edge of the encampment, closest to the city.
Hugh went to the door, flung it open. The pound of the distant bells became a rushing wall of sound. The guard did not even hear him open. He was leaning on his rifle, mouth wide as if to save his ear-drums from the shattering concussions of air, his stupid, good-natured face pointed uneasily toward the roaring town.
"What are those damn church-bells making such a racket about, Duradon?" demanded Hugh.
The soldier spun on his heel, saluted, and snapped his gun to his shoulder. "I—I didn't hear you, sir," he gasped. Captain Flint might be under arrest for absence from duty without leave, but Duradon had been in the army long enough to know that it was not safe for a private to presume on that too much. By tomorrow General Lovell would cool off and change his mind; or the matter might be dismissed with a mere reprimand. Besides, Duradon thought a good deal of Captain Flint. He was a competent, hardworking officer and he didn't treat the enlisted men like dirt.
"They're warning bells, sir. The Yanks are close to Chalmette and coming up fast."
The news was no shock to Hugh. As soon as he had seen Farragut's fleet run the gauntlet of the forts he had known that New Orleans was lost. The weak batteries that comprised Lovell's interior line of defense could never stop the powerful mortars and the heavily armed gunboats.
The wild clangor seemed to redouble, to take on an ominous tone. The bells were beating out the dirge of a great city, crying out the doom of the Confederacy itself. With the Mississippi blocked...
"Where's the General?"
"Gone to New Orleans. He galloped off about an hour ago, right after getting the news."
Hugh stared out at the long lines of the barracks. There was a tremendous amount of commotion. Drums were beginning to raise a counter-clamor, soldiers were running back and forth, long-eared mules were hurriedly being hitched to the commissary wagons.
"Looks as though we're quitting camp, Duradon."
"Yes, sir. In fact, sir, I was told by the corporal to wake you; but I was listening to them there bells so hard, I clean forgot. We march in half an hour, sir. Your horse is saddled. He's tied in back of your quarters."
Hugh looked sharply at the guard. "We're going to defend the city?"
Duradon shook his head. "No, sir. From what I hear we're quittin'. Running away. Takin' the cars on the Jackson Railroad."
Hugh stiffened. Running away without a fight! Turning New Orleans over to the enemy without even a blow to be struck in its defense! It sounded incredible! Yet in the back of his mind Hugh was forced to acknowledge that Lovell could do nothing else. He had only 3,000 men, slipshodly trained; Like this Duradon, for example, who was leaning once more on his rifle in most unsoldierly fashion and conversing with an officer under arrest against all rules and regulations. He had no heavy cannon to oppose to the long-range guns of the fleet; and the Yankee General Butler had already landed above the forts with maybe 10,000 well-equipped men. Above all, resistance meant the bombardment of the city. What with refugees and the families of men off to the Richmond front, there were nearly two hundred thousand helpless people crowded within the Crescent. The mere thought of grape and canister and exploding shells hurtling into the city was enough to raise little mounds of flesh upon one's skin.
But if they were evacuating, why had Lovell gone down to New Orleans?
The guard answered his unspoken question unwittingly. "I hear'n the orders is to burn out all the cotton, the 'baccy and the sugar, Cap'n." His leathery, good-natured face took on an expression of pain. "Maybe it's right smart not to 'low them to fall into them Yanks' hands; but it sure sounds like a sinful waste to me." He grinned apologetically. "Sorry, sir, but I got my own little piece o' land along the Bayou Sara. I knows how hard I got to work to grow a few bales o' cotton. Some of that there stuff they's going to burn is mine."
Hugh said very precisely and with just the correct ring of authority: "Proceed at once to Lieutenant Carew's quarters and tell him it is imperative I see him at once, Duradon. You'll find him on D Street. And hurry back with him as fast as you can."
The guard's action was wholly instinctive. He gasped: "Yes, sir. Immediately, sir," and went off almost on the double-quick.
Hugh waited until he saw him vanish among a jumble of carts, mules and sweating, swearing soldiers. Then he ducked swiftly out, went rapidly around the rear. There, just as Duradon had said, was his horse, saddled and ready for travel.
Quickly he untied the slip knot, swung upon the big, rawboned mare's back. He flicked the reins sharply and the mare bounded forward. The camp fell away, with its mad haste and confusion; and the shell road stretched straight and wide toward New Orleans.
Hugh put his spurs to the horse. His face was grim and his eyes hard. The fools! The fools! The fools! Lovell and the Government and the whole lot of them. First they dawdled and waited; now they lost their heads. Burn a million dollars' worth of precious goods! Destroy, in their panic, the very lifeblood of the Confederacy. Pauperize every planter within a hundred miles of New Orleans.
Didn't want the stuff to fall into the hands of the Yanks? Why in hell then didn't they start moving it to safety a week ago? Up the river on steamboats; out into the tangle of back bayous by dray and wagon; into upper Mississippi by railroad!
Even now, there might be time to move the Government stores. Private goods, by the rules of war, were safe. So far, the Yanks had not burned or robbed. He did not think they would start now. Especially if the city surrendered without resistance.
The slacking rain beat against his face. To the east the sun slashed a momentary beam, hid again behind the clouds. The mare's hooves rang hard and satisfying on the crushed shell road. He bent low and dug with his spurs. There was something ominous in the way the bells had suddenly ceased their clamor. Had the burning already commenced? It was hard to tell in the misty distance.
The galloping mare ate up the intervening miles. Lake Pontchartrain was lost behind, the turbid Mississippi snaked sinuously ahead. He felt half-consciously for his scabbard, for the belt that carried his revolver. His hand came away empty and he grinned mirthlessly. He had almost forgotten. He had been under arrest; now he had added to his crimes. An escaped prisoner, a deserter! Lovell would shoot him if he were caught.
But the full meaning of what he was doing was dulled for him by a rigid concentration on what lay ahead. The war receded into the mists; all his military attitude fell away like a hampering cloak. Cotton and sugar and rice and tobacco—these were all that mattered. The habits of years reasserted themselves. In the warehouse on Poydras Street was stored more than a hundred thousand dollars of goods that men had sweated all the year to produce. Men who trusted Flint & Son; whose lives and fortunes were embodied in those bales and sacks and hogsheads. The decades of unremitting toil of old Stephen as well.
Hugh knew mobs; knew what would happen once they were unleashed. Lovell might think he could control them; keep them wholly to the destruction of Government stores, legitimate contraband. Never! Once they tasted the terrible thrill of smashing and burning and gutting, there'd be no stopping, no nice distinctions between public and private.
If Stephen were at the warehouse, he'd stop any mob. Old Stephen was like that. But he was far away, up in Vicksburg seeking a vanished market. There was no one else. Hardy, frail and timid and nearsighted—and a handful of clerks who'd scamper away like rabbits at the mere threat of a mob.
The mare's brown flanks were shiny with sweat as he galloped across Esplanade Street and swung up the narrow way of Chartres. The great bells had taken up their madness again. The stuccoed houses, ordinarily shut against intrusion, emptied men and women and children into the roaring street like a thousand rushing torrents. The iron-laced galleries were festooned with the more timid, the servants and clinging infants.
On every face there were terror and hate and a certain exaltation that comes in time of stress.
"The Yanks are here!" screamed a slim Creole whose tone had never before risen above a carefully modulated pitch.
"Mammy! What do the Yanks look like?" shrilled a little girl on a balcony. "Have they got horns and tails like you said they have?"
"Hush dat talk!" scolded the fat negress, her coal-black face paling. "Dem ol' Lincum sojers eat lil girls whut talk lak dat."
"To the levee!" shouted a huge, redshirted longshoreman, shouldering his way through the growing mob.
The cry was taken up.
"To the levee! To the levee! No Yanks can come to New Orleans! We'll smash them back ourselves! To the levee!"
The cry became an ugly roar; the milling crowd a resistless flood.
Hugh yelled and shouted for passage. But the narrow street was a solid, flowing mass from end to end; and the wild hate-roar and the thumping clamor of bells drowned out all words.
Past Dumaine and St. Philip, out into the wide stretch of Jackson Square and the gray-stone façades of St. Louis Cathedral and the grim Cabildo he was helplessly pushed; his mare lifted along like a float in Mardi Gras.
The great square, dominated by the newly erected heroic statue of Andrew Jackson, swarmed with a scrambling, pushing mob. But here there was room to maneuver. Hugh spurred forward on a long diagonal toward St. Ann Street and the huge red-brick Pontalba Building, scattering the running people from his path, driving headlong toward Decatur and Front Streets.
He flung out upon the levee at Canal and into such a scene as he had never thought to witness.
The levee was black with thousands of yelling, hooting people. Coming up the river, rounding the bend, steamed the vanguard of the Yankee fleet; squat mortars and wickedlooking gunboats with their cannon yawning from decks and portholes. Slowly they came and majestically, secure in their power, heedless of the tremendous scream of hate that welled from a hundred thousand throats at the sight of their coming.
The levee itself was a shambles.
A howling, seething mob surged from end to end, shrieking, yelling, shaking futile fists against the oncoming fleet. Men of substance and affairs, their faces distorted with a frenzied madness, their tall hats awry or trampled underfoot, shoving side by side with burly draymen and drunken loafers from Tchoupitoulas Road. Men with set, purposeful faces dashed out upon the wharves, tossed burning torches into the steamers and the brigantines that lay at moorings. Others with axes chopped at the tangling ropes.
"Burn everything!"
"Kill the damn Yanks!"
"Don't let a single thing fall into their hands!"
Shouts and screams and oaths and the lust for destruction.
Merchants and roustabouts, sailors and draymen, bawds and pimps, young boys and brawny negroes, men in uniform, breaking into the neighboring warehouses and presses, dragging out bales of cotton, casks and boxes and barrels, piling them up on the wooden wharves in desperate haste. Torches were thrust into the heaps, the soft cotton torn out by the handfuls and flung back into the spurting flames.
Others, more canny, rolled out barrels of whisky, shoved heavy boots through the bottoms. The amber, pungent fluid gushed out into the gutters. With loud whoops they threw themselves into the precious flow, wallowing, lapping and sucking at the streaming liquor, heedless of muck or tramplings overhead. Negroes in tattered garments and poor whites trundled wheelbarrows from every side, came running with pots and pans and hastily snatched boxes, scooped up with trembling fingers the spilled sugar from the battered hogsheads, rushed off again with their booty.
On Canal Street, on Front Street, on Iberville and Decatur, frantic merchants stood outside their stores and called upon the streaming populace to come and help themselves. Hugh, pushing slowly through the mob, recognized one of them: Ferdinand Masur, a dried and shriveled dealer in wholesale provisions.
He was dancing up and down in front of his shop, waving his arms like one possessed.
"Hurry, good friends!" he cried in a cracked voice. "Help yourselves! Take all my stock! Take everything home before the damyanks come! Don't leave a thing for the dirty bastards!"
The good friends came with a rush. They came with barrows and good, strong hands and one man with a dray. The man on the dray was calm and serene. His bland face held in it amused contempt as he whipped his horses on.
Hugh was caught in a sudden swirl and his mare pirouetted around, narrowly missing a shrieking slattern with her plunging hooves. He saw the man on the dray.
"What are you doing with a team, Devoe?" he yelled.
The gambler waved his free hand cheerfully. "Picking up a year's supply, Captain," he shouted back. "Manna from heaven! The dray cost me ten paper dollars to hire, and I've got my money back twenty times. Sorry; I can't wait."
The powerful horses shouldered their way down Canal Street. On the dray, piled so high they overshadowed the gambler, were hogsheads of sugar and sacks of coffee, firkins of butter and smoked hams, barrels of potatoes and hominy and beans.
Hugh's mouth set grimly. For the moment he was tempted to turn back and force the excited little merchant from his orgy of self-destruction. But one look at the man's ecstatic face, a sweeping glance at the greed-maddened countenances of the mob that swept like devouring locusts upon their invited loot, persuaded him of the danger and futility of such a course.
Already the flames rushed upward from the shipping. Already the black smoke, shot through with angry red, spread like a heavy blanket from the heaps of burning cotton. The rain had ceased and the sun came out hot and strong to meet the counterblaze that sprang up from the scorching ground.
Whites with blackened faces and blacks with ash-daubed skins danced and howled and shrieked with insensate joy as each new heap, each new ship caught fire and sputtered into a raging tornado of flame. The bells clanged, the roar of a maddened city mingled with the maddened holocaust of fire and smoke. The blazing steamers drifted out upon the muddy waters, went swinging and weaving in aimless dance down the river toward the advancing fleet.
Hugh stood up in his stirrups and yelled for them to make way. The mob was surging toward Poydras Street, toward the warehouses that lined its granite blocks, its frenzy for sheer destruction only whetted with what had already been done. The house of Flint & Son was the fourth in line.
Gone was Hugh's solicitude for the milling, yelling men under the horse's hooves. Gone was everything but the fierce resolve to save his stocks from the madness that had come upon New Orleans. This was what Lovell had done; what the Confederacy had ordered in its hasty panic. By the morrow all would be regretted, the men who now took part ashamed of themselves. But it would be too late.
The mare leaped forward, and the crowd gave way. Gave way screaming and cursing and plucking at the reins as he passed. Wild fists raised.
"Tin soldier!"
"Trying to run us down, instead of defending us!"
"Pull him off his horse!"
Hugh knocked off restraining hands, smashed down with fists into burly faces, and thrust the mare down Poydras Street. The mob streamed after. With joyous shouts they flung into the warehouses of Payan Frères, dealers in tobacco and tobacco leaf.
He galloped down the squares, pulled up sharply in front of the gold-lettered sign of which he had been so inordinately proud barely a year before. Only a year? It seemed like a lifetime to him now.
He swung down to the curb, slammed the silent, weatherworn door open with a crash. Dim mustiness smote him a palpable blow; mustiness and the gasps of huddled clerks. He strode in, his heavy boots making thudding sound on the bare wooden floor.
"Hardy! Tompkins! Folsam!" he called sharply.
They came from their barricade of stools and desks trembling and fearful.
"You—you scared us, Mr. Flint!" chattered Hardy. "We thought—"
Hugh spoke rapidly. "The mob'll be here in a minute. They've gone crazy. They're destroying millions of dollars' worth of property. Once they break in they'll gut the establishment. We'll have to stop them."
"Stop them?" echoed Hardy. "H-how can we?"
"With our bodies, our voices; our fists, if need be." Hugh stared down at his holsterless belt. "Have we any weapons in the place? Guns?"
"Guns!" There was a shocked quality to Hardy; a mutter from the others. "No, sir. Surely you wouldn't think to—"
"I'm going to save our goods from those crazy maniacs; and I don't care how I'm going to do it." Hugh's voice was hard. "They'll be here right away. Who's going to stay with me?"
"They'll kill you, Mr. Flint," the bookkeeper quavered. "They'll kill all of us. I'm an old man, sir. I'm not much good at fighting."
Hugh surveyed him briefly. "You're right, Hardy. This isn't a job for you. You'd better get quietly out the back way and go home until this madness runs its course. You, too, Folsam, Manners, Gregg." He swung on the two remaining clerks. "How about you two? You're pretty young and fairly husky."
The bigger of the two, a man of thirty with a comfortable, big-boned face and a pen stuck behind his ear, said agitatedly: "I'm a family man, Mr. Flint. I have three children. It's no use trying to fight against a thousand. Besides, orders were to burn everything. I feel—"
The younger, a mere lad with eager eyes, stammered: "I'll stay with you."
"Thank you, Tompkins! But I've changed my mind. Patton is right; so are the others. This isn't your fight, and the Government did give the order. You'd all better go."
"And how about you, sir?"
Hugh looked around the dim vastness of the warehouse; noted the huge piles of bales and hogsheads. He knew every single one of them. Over there, stacked in a corner, was the cotton of Johnny Erwin, up Natchez way. A good fellow, Erwin, whose luck had been down a long time. For four years running the river had smashed his levee, flooded his crops. This year his luck had changed. The river left him alone. All his worldly hopes were in those stored bales. They represented his only chance to rid his plantation of accumulated debts.
Next to his bales was the sugar of Michel Preval, soft-spoken Creole from St. Bernard Parish, directly in the path of Yankee Butler's troops. His springing cane would be trampled under men and horses, his meticulous, green-shuttered house used as a barracks. To the right were the bags of rice of the Cajun, Olympe, from the marshes of the lower Bayou Teche. An inarticulate man with no English and a forgotten scrabble of French, who had seen wife and five little children and ancient mother swept away in a single scourge of the fever.
Men who had entrusted their hopes and their possessions to the keeping of Flint & Son; men who would go to their ruin with the failure of that trust.
He kept his eyes away from the section reserved for Sam Wailes of Moon Hill and Andrew Hilgard—Major Andrew Hilgard. Their hogsheads and their casks took up quite a space. Sam Wailes had worked both plantations with a stubborn energy and all of his old competence. The crop was exceptionally large. Hugh knew there had been hesitation about sending it down to the Flints this year. But old Stephen had made a special journey up the river to talk it over, and Wailes had finally agreed.
"I'm staying," said Hugh slowly. "Now get going, all of you."
"But you can't do anything alone," protested Tompkins.
Hugh shoved the lad with kindly force toward the back exit. The other clerks had snatched up their hats, their little lunch boxes and sundry small possessions. "Don't worry about me," he assured.
He waited until they were gone. Then he went to the front door, bolted it.
Through the walls he could hear the approaching cries of the mob, the thud of rolling barrels, the shrill crackle of flames. And above all else, the constant, interminable clashing of bells as though the ringers had forgotten to stop.
If only he had his gun, or his sword, he thought. Then he shook his head at himself. Better that he hadn't. He didn't want to kill anybody. They were acting under official orders. They were, many of them, people he knew, men who thought they were committing a patriotic act. Perhaps they were right; perhaps the Government was right. Suppose the Yanks, in their hunger for the cotton and the tobacco and the sugar denied them since the start of the war, should decide to confiscate all private stocks of these precious articles. Rules of war usually went hang under immediate pressures. Suppose even they were gentlemen and paid for the commandeered stocks with good Northern coin. The coin wouldn't be of much help to Southern possessors except in the hands of a few blockade runners. While the cotton to the North helped toward victory.
He wavered at that, sitting there alone on a stool, fronting the bolted door, hearing the mob come closer, closer. Suppose he was taking the wrong course. Suppose...
He got up quickly. It was too late to go into rights and wrongs. Fists were beating at the outer door; voices were raised in confused crying.
"Open up' Open the door!"
Hugh stood close to the panel, saying nothing. Perhaps, if he kept quiet, they would go away.
But the pounding increased; the clamor grew stronger, angrier.
"Open up, or we'll smash in!"
Hugh shoved back the bolt; pushed the door wide. He stepped outside, his broad shoulders filling the open way.
A great howl greeted him. The crowd surged forward.
Lit torches sputtered and blazed in uplifted fists. Many of them were drunk, ugly with the liquor they had gutted from the stores. And others were drunk with madness, with the madness of patriotism and hate of the invader whose guns were already swinging slowly toward the shore.
"It's Cap Flint!" shouted a hulking stevedore, his carroty hair naked to the sky, his bleared, unshaven face inflamed with drink and stronger passion. "Good ol' Cap Flint! Offish'r in th' army. He knows whut's whut. He'll help us kill the bast'rds! Won't ye, Cap? Wheee!"
Unaccountably the temper of the mob shifted. Hats were flung high, the torches made whizzing, hissing arcs of fire. The levee roustabouts knew Hugh; others saw his uniform and the golden bars.
"'Ray for Flint!"
"Ain't like those other damn so'jers!"
"Stayed behind to lick the Yanks!"
"Hurray for Flint! We kin lick 'em!"
Hugh stared calmly out over the shouting, hurrahing mob. Fickle as all mobs; swinging from left to right like a pendulum! Ready to slit your throat one instant and slobber tearfully on your neck the next.
From where he stood he could see the river, and the long stretch of the levee. The Mississippi was a leaping, roaring flame. Dozens of ships, burning furiously, scattering sparks over the flood, drifting downstream. The wharves, belching huge columns of black smoke, crackling and groaning with charred and smoldering remains. Beyond, in midstream, swung the Northern ships, taking their battle stations, grim black mouths pointing ominously toward the rioting, threatening city. But one little thing fixed itself indelibly on his gaze.
Down the open street, toward the levee, he saw a lady. A very beautifully dressed young lady, fresh and dainty in her best soft muslin, lacy parasol carefully held over her bonnet to protect her face from the too ardent embraces of the sun, tripping daintily along, avoiding each mudhole with a nice regard for her flounces and her delicate new shoes, as heedless of flame and madness and the pointing guns as though they were hundreds of miles away.
"Men!" said Hugh. "There's no use in wasting idle threats against the Yanks! Look out there on the river; look at those big guns! A single shot fired from shore would bring a salvo of shot and shell that would lay New Orleans into a heap of smoking ashes. Think of your families; of the thousands of innocent people that would die from one reckless act. The only thing to do is to retire peacefully to your homes. The war isn't over. Our forces are strong elsewhere. The fact that New Orleans has fallen doesn't mean that everything is lost."
A growl swept over the crowd, lifted into ugly shout.
"Might have known!"
"Should be wearin' a Yank uniform, 'stead of the gray!"
"Wants those damned nigger lovers to step on our faces!"
"Why ain't you with our army then, 'stead of skulkin' like a rat inside o' your place o' business?" yelled someone loudly.
"I'm here to protect our clients' goods," Hugh yelled back. "Your goods! The goods of men you know; honest patriots! Listen to me, men—"
The drunken stevedore shoved his burly shoulder forward, planted himself swaying and belching liquor fumes into Hugh's face.
"I'll tell ye why he'sh here!" he roared. "Wantsh to help the Yanks. Wants to make money. Lotsh money. Only Yanksh got money. Us poor fellers whut lose blood, livesh fer country, ain't got no money."
He thrust out a burly arm. "Outa m'way. We'sh gonna burn all hish damn money, ain't we, boysh?"
Hugh caught him square on his mouth. His knuckles stung and there was a little squishing sound. The drunken stevedore staggered and went down with a crash.
"He lies!" shouted Hugh. "I want you to hear me out—"
He got no further. A howl went up at the sight of the fallen man. There was a swirl forward, a swift rush. A small man with a stick raised it and brought it down.
Hugh caught the blow on his shoulder. It hurt. An answering madness rose in him to meet the madness of the mob. His fist smashed along the small man's cheek. The small man howled and jerked back into the press of bodies.
Others took his place. They pushed and heaved and swung at Hugh. Their faces were inflamed and ugly. Hugh braced his feet solidly on the door lintel. His wiry frame blocked the opening. There was a single step up into the warehouse, and he took advantage of that extra reach. They could only come at him a few at a time. Faces blurred before him; he lashed out, felt the satisfying thud of bone and flesh. Faces fell away, and new ones glared up at him. Fists smashed into him; hands dragged at his coat.
A blow jarred his head. He shook free from clutching fingers, pivoted to meet the attack. Blood trickled salty into his mouth. His cheek felt puffed and swollen. He fought mechanically; no longer knowing or caring why he fought. He couldn't hold them off forever.
Glint of steel caught his eye. A foreign sailor, swarthy, with glittering eyes and strong, yellow teeth, snarled as he raised a revolver. Hugh hurled to one side and toward the man. The gun exploded. Something hot and stinging cut across Hugh's left arm. Then dull, throbbing pain.
Hugh was on top of the sailor. His right fist clipped him just under the ear. The triumph turned to blank surprise. The sailor fell. As he fell Hugh snatched at the gun, backed up the step again, faced the suddenly silent mob. The shot had sobered them.
He pressed his wounded arm against the door-jamb for support. His face was bloody and his uniform ripped. The pain throbbed and beat in his arm. But the revolver was held with a steady grip.
"You see, men, what this all leads to," his voice rang out.
"Murder! Sheer murder! It was luck he didn't kill me. Now, you people don't want murder. You're decent citizens, patriots everyone. Suppose now you listen to me—"
The crowd milled indecisively. There was shock on many faces; the sudden quenching of passion. They didn't want murder. They hadn't counted on any such thing. But there were others, roughs from the waterfront, crimps who lived by shanghai and robbery, who were not shocked. If he could hold these off until the sobering process was completed....
The crowd swayed and parted. Down a narrow lane, like a trim, keen-prowed ship cutting the waves, came a girl. Behind her, peering from side to side and rolling her eyes with fright, moved a small black maid clutching a folded parasol as if her life depended on it.
Hugh stopped short in his speech; blinked.
"Miss Sally!" he cried.
She came on through the parting mob with head held high, looking neither to the right nor left at the staring men, eyes straight ahead. Little spots of color blazed in her cheeks and there was a set firmness to her lips. Patsey Shepherd plucked at her pale blue organdie from behind. "Miss Sally! Fo' de Lawd's sake, come back! Dis am no place fo' a lady."
But Sally went straight on, and Patsey, moaning and muttering, swept helplessly along in her wake.
The crowd was deathly silent now. Every neck craned; everyone waited.
She came up to the step that led into the warehouse. Hugh lowered his gun. He was suddenly aware of her nearness, of the odor of jessamine that somehow mastered the acrid, billowing smoke. Aware, too, of his bleeding cheek, his torn uniform and the throbbing arm he held against the door.
"Miss Sally!" he said quietly. "Patsey is right. This is no place for you. There's no telling what a crowd like this will do. You'd better get inside and go out the back way."
He made room for her to pass, but the girl faced him.
"You have our sugar and the sugar of Major Hilgard in your warehouse, have you not?"
"Why, of course," he said, surprised. Then he wiped the blood from his cheek, and grinned. "I've been trying to keep these—ah—gentlemen from making free with it, as a matter of fact."
The color in her cheeks burned with a hard, bright flame. "Thank you for nothing, Mr. Flint." She did not call him Captain. "You need not do so any longer."
He stared at her stupidly. "What do you mean?"
She did not answer him. Instead she turned and faced the crowd. "Gentlemen!" Her voice was clear, ringing, easily heard above the roar of distant flames and crash of timbers. "I am Miss Wailes, the daughter of Samuel Wailes. Our sugar and molasses are stored inside. So is the sugar of Major Hilgard, our friend and neighbor. You've all heard of Major Hilgard." Again she emphasized the title.
"Sure we have," came answering voices. "He's fought the Yanks to a standstill. He ain't like these fancy officers what never smelled powder."
"Exactly, my friends. Major Hilgard is a hero. And my brother—" For the first time her voice faltered. "We've just heard. Lieutenant Dabney Wailes was killed in a scouting expedition in Virginia. He died protecting the retreat of his men from a superior force."
"I'm dreadfully sorry," Hugh said heavily. He was stunned; a little sick. Young Dabney had been irritating, hotheaded, spoiled. But toward the end, before Hugh quit the Academy, there had been signs of a change, a growing maturity. It was the blow to the girl that affected him most, however. Within two years her mother had died; and now her only brother. At the same time he felt a certain inner exultation. He was watching the silent crowd, noted their uneasy shuffling. Sally was handling them right; much better than he could have done. The warehouse was saved.
Then, in utter stupefaction, he heard her go on. Not even by a gesture had she acknowledged her awareness that he had spoken. She still faced the street.
"I want you to know, gentlemen, that Major Hilgard and my father consider above all things the honor and welfare of our noble Confederacy. The Yankees have come to New Orleans because our gallant men volunteered for active service in Virginia. The enemy would never have broken through had men like Major Hilgard been here to protect us."
"That's true!" yelled a gangling youth. "He ain't no penpushing fighter like Flint."
Laughter and jeers swept the mob. The sober mood was past.
"Your Government," cried Sally, "has given strict orders that no cotton or sugar fall into the hands of the foe. Every bale of cotton, every hogshead of sugar that the Yankees seize, means just so much longer and harder a struggle for our brave defenders. I for one will obey our Government. There are over fourteen hundred hogsheads of sugar belonging to us in this warehouse. I—"
Hugh caught at her arm. "Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Do you want to ruin Moon Hill?"
She shook him off. "I give you permission—I insist—that every one of those hogsheads be smashed and burned to caramel. We are Southerners; not Yankees in Confederate uniform."
A great cry of delight answered her.
"Hurray for the girl! Hurray for all Southern women! They got more spunk than the men!"
They came on, yelling, not to be denied.
Hugh looked at Sally, looked at his gun. With a weary shrug he let it fall into the street. He couldn't fight any more. He might have handled the mob; but the girl was too much for him.
He stepped down and away from the door as the mob surged past. They disregarded him. They flung inside; and he heard the echoing thud of bales, of rolling barrels. They began erupting upon the hard granite blocks, bouncing and splintering wide. The girl stood to one side, rigid, imperious. Like a young goddess served by a crew of roistering mortals. Patsey clung to her, whimpering with fear, yet fascinated.
Hugh walked quickly away, his left arm swinging stiffly. He did not wish to stay for the final holocaust. More than a hundred thousand dollars about to go up in smoke. The firm of Flint & Son ruined; and all their clients ruined.
He had failed in his duty. Failed because of Sally Wailes and her fanatic ideas on patriotism.
SALLY WAILES found it difficult to get up that morning. A strange, unwonted lassitude assailed her and held her cramped within the softness of her bed. She opened her eyes and they burned with the dazzling sun that streamed through the open window. Something else burned them and made them smart—the angry tears that came unbidden and ran in stinging rivulets down her cheeks. The wet salt feel of them roused her to awakened wonder and a sense of shame. She—Sally Wailes—crying! She, who had prided herself since small girlhood on two most unladylike qualities—that she never cried, and never swooned or even pretended to swoon.
Her poor, dear mother had tried to teach her these essential adjuncts of proper womanhood. "Darling!" she had said in her gentle, yet inwardly exasperated voice, "you are too hoydenish. You must remember always that you are a member of the weaker sex."
"I am not weaker, Mother!" She had planted her small, pliant body firmly and defiantly before Elizabeth. "I can outride Dab and I can shoot a gun as well as Papa. I don't see why I have to sink gracefully to a sofa in a faint when I feel perfectly all right."
"Because it's expected of a woman, my dear, when she's under the stress of great emotion. Men like to feel protective; and how can they be protective when a young girl refuses even to carry a bottle of smelling-salts in case of need?"
"Men!" Sally had sniffed disdainfully. "Must we do everything, pretend everything, just to satisfy the egos of a pack of creatures whose only superiority consists in the fact that they don't have to wear yards and yards of petticoats and skirts to hide their legs?"
Which most unladylike retort had reduced the shocked Elizabeth to a quick resort to the very smelling-salts whose use she had just advocated.
Now that she thought of it, Sally had not cried when Elizabeth had died; had not even cried when the curt, stereotyped notification came that Dabney had been killed in action. Something had stopped within her at each successive blow; something went hard that had been warm and palpitating before. But she had held her head erect; had met tearing anguish with a firm determination to make no moan. The secret forces of her youth, she felt instinctively, were indomitable. The life that flowed within her veins was much too strong for crushing.
It wasn't that she hadn't loved the dead. With her mother, perhaps, it was a more dutiful affection. They had never really understood each other. Poor Elizabeth had sighed and shaken her head over this high-spirited, strong-willed child in whom the aristocratic breeding of the Dabneys had been diluted with some of the lusty vulgarity of the man she had married.
It was different with her younger brother. In spite of Sally's constant exasperation with Dabney's spoiled pettishness and lord-of-the-manorish air—to which she had helped contribute—she had been passionately protective of him. And when Elizabeth had died, she had become mother, big sister and father all in one. There was stuff in the boy....
Yet the tears had not come! And now they were rolling down her cheeks.
She sat up straight and taut in the immense, high-canopied bed. With an angry gesture she dabbed the sleeve of her nightgown over her face. The fine, soft cambric came away damp. She stared down at her heaving bosom, smooth and satiny under the lacy fringe. She plucked back the thin coverlet, swung bare, firm-molded legs to the floor. The sight of her knees and flexing calves arrested her attention. She was not ordinarily given to inspection of her body; but inspection was a defense against the nightmare of the night, of the whole week that had preceded it.
"I'm not bad-looking," she considered herself with some surprise. "Men have told me so; lots of them. Andy Hilgard always makes a point of it. But then, he makes the same point with every woman who isn't positively a frump." She dismissed Hilgard from her mind; tried painfully to smile. "There's one man who doesn't seem to think so, though. In fact, he goes out of his way to make plain his aversion."
Her eyes snapped. Her fingers clenched. "Who cares what Mr. Hugh Flint thinks! A vulgar, pushing tradesman, and a coward to boot. He took good care to get himself a nice safe position when public opinion forced him to enlist. The coward!"
Yet even as she said it with the utmost vehemence and scorn she saw him again, his wounded arm propped against the door, his face drawn and bloody, fronting the mob on Poydras Street in defense of his warehouse. The picture disturbed her; and because it disturbed her, her synthetic fury increased. "Imagine a soldier defying orders; trying to save all that sugar and cotton so he could trade with the Yankees! If I hadn't come just then..."
She twitched angrily again at the coverlet. It came off the wide bed, fell to the floor under the muskito netting. The sudden movement exposed the rounded, still immature form of her sister who had been soundly sleeping through all of Sally's half-spoken tirade, her blond head cushioned in the crook of an upflung elbow.
Nancibelle was only fifteen months younger than Sally, yet the gap between them was enormous. Her cheeks were round and plump, and the breath of childhood had not passed from them as yet. Long, dark lashes lay as though painted on her lids, but her eyes when open were a wide, enthusiastic blue that found matter for romance and thrill in everything—in the golden-yellow of the moon as it dropped below the haunted cypresses, in the garish river boats as they breasted the great river, in the stock gallantries of successive males who visited Moon Hill. But above all she thrilled to the river boats—and to their pilots, magnificent demigods who stood at careless ease within the gilt and glass cupolas and with a nod and gesture brought their floating palaces in safety through all the snags and quicksands of the treacherous flood.
Whenever a boat was due to pass, she would hasten down to the levee and wait hours if need be in the shade of a single gnarled, gigantic pecan for the blissful moment. As the steamer rounded the bend she began to wave, frantically, not stopping until the lordly pilot condescended to favor her with a wave in return. If, in addition, he sent a whistling salute across the water, she had the stuff for a week of close-hugged dreams in which tall, invariably darkly handsome pilots bent shyly over her and asked certain very personal and very deeply thrilling questions.
A thin breeze whispered over Nancibelle as she lay uncovered. A soft, childish breast showed candidly above the rumpled texture of her nightdress; her lips were slightly parted in a smile as though her dream was not unpleasant. But Sally's impatient movement wakened her. She opened her drowsy eyes, the smile still patent on her lips.
"Uh—Sally darling—oh, I was dreaming so deliciously! He was so handsome and had such a lovely little mustache that—"
"Go back to sleep then, child," Sally said somberly. She was in no mood for Nancibelle's prattling confidences. Through the screened window New Orleans seemed strangely silent. There were no cheerful whistles from the distant river, no muted rattle of far-off drays on the heavy cobblestones or closer grind of horse-cars on the steel rails of St. Charles Avenue. A weighted pall had fallen upon the ordinarily seething, turbulent town. Even the sun, as it streamed across the wide, high-ceilinged room, was moveless and dead.
A city of the dead! A grave for the Confederacy—that was exactly what it was. She knew now why she had awakened with unaccustomed tears on her cheeks. In thousands of homes, from the Garden District where the Wailes's had built their town house to the narrow, high-walled Creole Quarter, the Vieux Carré, other patriotic women were shedding similar tears, and not a few men as well.
It had been a dreadful week; a week sharply to be etched upon their memories and burnt so deep that never, never, through all the generations to come, was the bitterness of it to be assuaged. Impotent rage suffocated in her throat, constricted every muscle until she thought she would not breathe. Mayor Monroe had done his best; a brave and gallant man. But his best was not enough. How could it be, when General Lovell had run away and left them to their fate? How could it be, when men like Hugh Flint strutted in Confederate uniform and thought more of sugar and cotton than of the flaming ideals by which they should have lived and died? Oh, if she only had been a man! She'd have shown those smug, dastardly Yankees; she'd have...
Nancibelle bounced suddenly erect. Her pale blond hair tumbled in disarray over her half-naked shoulders. "Good gracious, Sally, we're late!"
"Late for what?"
But Nancibelle was already out of bed, thrusting toes into embroidered mules, and shrugging her warm, soft body out of the long nightdress.
"How you go on, Sally! As if you don't know the Yankee troops are marching into town today. If we don't hurry, we'll miss all the excitement. I adore parades—and uniforms."
"We're not going."
Nancibelle stopped short with one leg half-thrust into her best lawn pantaloons. "Not going?" Her voice was shocked, incredulous. "Are you out of your mind, Sally? How could I ever go back to Moon Hill and confess to my friends that I didn't see the parade? I'd simply die of mortification."
"They're the enemies of your country. No patriotic Southern woman should go within a mile of them. Let them know that they are outcasts."
"Fiddle-dee-dee! They're men, the same as everybody else. And I think those blue uniforms are much more handsome than our gray. I declare I don't know what Jeff Davis's old Cabinet was thinking of when they picked that color. They had so many bee-yutiful shades to choose from. As for no one being there to watch—my gracious! Everyone I know is going to be there. Elfrige Ducros invited me yesterday to watch it from their gallery. You know the Ducros house, Sally. It's right on the corner of Camp and Lafayette Square. We couldn't want a better place."
She thrust the other leg into the pantaloons, pulled the lacy material up over the rigid corset. Then she caught at the bell rope that hung close to the great mahogany post of the bed, jerked it hard.
"I declare, Sally, you'll have to do something about Patsey. She's getting too all-fired lazy. I told her to lay out my new green organdie and my best sateen petticoats. And my hair—she's got to do my hair. Heaven," she wailed, "we'll be late!"
The torrent of breathless chatter overwhelmed Sally. Some of the sentiments expressed shocked her. Ordinarily she would have put her small, determined foot down with an unarguable "No!" and let Nancibelle go into a tantrum if she wished; but she was suddenly tired and unable to cope with any situation. The desperate tension of the past week had done its work; the alternations of hope and despair, of wild anger and wilder, futile hate. Her strength was gone, her will relaxed. For the first time in all her life she felt the need for maleness, for masculine strength to which she might cling and gain that comfort which other women declared they received from such proximity.
But her father was at Moon Hill, held down by the constant weeding and hoeing of the cane rows, the planting of the corn, and the desperate necessity for savage, unremitting toil to dull the edge of their most recent blow. And Dabney...
Her eyes stung. There was no one else now. All she could say to the still chattering Nancibelle was: "You forget so soon! Your brother—"
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Nancibelle's small red mouth screwed up at the comers and she began to cry. Tears came easily to her; and passed as easily. "Naturally I won't wear the green organdie—Oh, there you are, Patsey, you good-for-nothing wench! I declare I'm going to tell Father to put you out in the fields. Here I've been ringing and ringing—"
Patsey's black, knowing little face showed no signs of fear. Missy Nancibelle was not her mistress. She cocked a birdlike glance at Sally. Sally was slipping on a pair of sheer white cotton stockings.
"Yas'm!" Patsey said imperturbably. "I'se hearn de bell pull jes' once. Ef'n you specks tuh mensh'n 'bout de green dress, ah felt, counta poo' Massa Dabney, you—"
"I know; I know!" Nancibelle said remorsefully. "I really meant the white muslin, of course."
"Ob co'se. Ah figgered you did. Now ef'n you jes' keeps you pretty lil head still, ah'll comb et out proper."
The Wailes' town house lay just off St. Charles Avenue on Fourth Street, in the very heart of the lovely Garden District that the newer Americans had built for themselves in New Orleans. Three stories high, with its kitchen, slave quarters and outhouses sprawled discreetly to the rear, it fronted the eye with white colonnades and green shutters behind a façade of royal palms and huge magnolias bedecked in pink-white blooms.
Nancibelle found it hard to walk demurely down the graveled path. Her blue eyes glowed with anticipation; her feet wanted to skip and dance. But Sally's eye was upon her, and Dabney was dead. It had been a huge enough concession, she knew, to be permitted a simple white instead of mourning black; and as for the parade...
She tilted her parasol to a saucier angle, gave another dab at the flowing ribbons of her bonnet.
"Aren't we taking the carriage, Sally? It won't take but a minute for Noah to hitch up the horses."
"There will be no carriage," Sally said firmly. "Either we take the street-car, or nothing at all."
Nancibelle subsided. She knew her sister. They walked slowly to the avenue, Nancibelle wrapped in dreams of marching men and Sally more than sorry that she had been weak enough to yield assent to this expedition.
Southern women watching the entrance of the brutal conqueror as if it were a peep-show! The very sight of those who had been responsible for her brother's death, for the slaughter of thousands on thousands of as brave and gallant men as ever breathed, was befouling. The thunder of the big guns as the Yankees passed the batteries, the blazing levees and the riots in the streets, were still as vivid as yesterday's madness.
It had been a terrible week. A week in which the great city cowered under Farragut's brutal threat of bombardment; of looting and evacuation by the last remaining soldiers, of the tramp of the hastily organized European Brigade to enforce law and order after Lovell had withdrawn, of rumors and proclamations and sleepless nights.
The one shining exception to the whole degrading business had been Mayor Monroe. He had stood up boldly to Farragut's arrogant demands, had acted with coolness and decision. He would not surrender, he told the Yankees, unawed by the pointing guns of the fleet. He would not down the flags of Louisiana and hoist the hateful Stars and Stripes in their place. He was unable, he declared, to offer resistance to the Yankee seizure of the town; but never, come what may, would he yield affirmatively. In spite of the Yankee bluster and brag, he had stuck to that position.
Every lady in New Orleans who was anything had backed the gallant Mayor in his stand. Had it been left to them, they would have gone even further. They would have resisted with guns and stones and great pots of boiling water. They would rather have buried themselves in the ruins of the city than permit the bloody foe to place one foot on the sacred soil of New Orleans. They drew up a petition to that effect and presented it to Mayor Monroe. Sally had signed it with a bold, most unfeminine flourish.
She would never forget the tragic deepening of the lines on the Mayor's bearded face as the indignant delegation handed the long document to him.
"My dear ladies!" he had exclaimed. "If our defenders had had only a part of your indomitable spirit we would never have been brought to this pass. But alas, I am helpless now! I cannot assume the terrible responsibility of having two hundred thousand men, women and little children mangled and torn. I must do what I think best."
In a measure he had won. The city had not weakly yielded to the foe. The flags had flown defiantly over the City Hall, the Customs House and the Mint until a landing party of marines, flanked by cannon, had taken them down and ran up the enemy flag instead. The Mayor's ringing answer still thrilled in Sally's memory.
"We will stand your bombardment, unarmed and undefended as we are," he told Farragut proudly. "The civil world will consign to indelible infamy the heart that will conceive the deed and the hand that will dare to consummate it."
She had also thrilled to the little group of determined men who had torn down the alien flag from the Customs House and dragged and trampled it down Canal Street in full sight of the fleet that lay in the river. How the Yankees had raged and howled over what they were pleased to call the insult to themselves!
And now their army was marching in, under General Benjamin F. Butler; and she, who had sworn never to permit even her gaze to rest upon the loathed conquerors, was weakly going under Nancibelle's urging to watch them come.
"My gracious!" Nancibelle exclaimed suddenly. "Didn't I tell you so? Everyone is going downtown to see the Yankees."
They had come to the corner of St. Charles Avenue. The silence of the city was suddenly shattered. A stream of people poured down the great thoroughfare, jostling, pushing, elbowing each other in their eagerness. Men, women and children running along the banquettes; negroes in ragged garments and flapping shoes and whites in sleek broadcloth and tall and shiny hats. Carriages whipped down the muddy street, and parasoled ladies leaned back against the cushions. Cake vendors held their little baskets tight against their bodies as they wormed and squirmed along, hurrying to sell their wares to the crowded spectators. The street-cars clanged along the rails, the horses stepping slowly in the press of carriages and people on foot who overflowed upon the tracks. The bells gave warnings that no one heeded. Car after car went by, bulging with human freight.
"We should have taken the carriage," wailed Nancibelle. "We'll never get a car. They're not even stopping."
But they finally managed to squeeze into one. There were gentlemen on board; not the laborers from the verminous shacks up toward the stockyards and the muskito-haunted marshes. They courteously gave way for the two ladies; two of them bowed and gracefully quit the conveyance to continue their journey on foot.
Elfrige Ducros greeted the two girls with welcoming little cries. She was about Sally's age, but she was most at ease with Nancibelle. Sally Wailes, lovely as she was, had too much of that strange American drive and energy that no Creole could ever view with anything but astonishment.
Elfrige's dark eyes sparkled and her dark, thin face glowed as she ushered them into the "parlor" with its graceful and delicate French furniture and its folding doors that led to the dining-room.
"Maman!" she exclaimed to a fat, tightly laced woman with rouged face and hair that was too black for her pouchy cheeks. "You know my frien's, do you not?"
Madame Ducros extended her hand. "Mais oui, ma chère. But of course! You will haff some chocolat perhaps? We haff still some lef'; it was the las' from Limongi." She sighed, and the ornate cross heaved on her bosom. "Ah, dis blockade; it do terr'ble things."
Sally declined with thanks. Through the heavily curtained windows she caught a glimpse of the inner courtyard where the Creole life truly flowered. Great stone urns were half hidden under a profusion of blooms, a central gas-lit lantern stood sentry over a gushing fountain. Roses climbed over the stucco walls and grilled-iron benches were placed shadily under overhanging balconies.
"Maman thinks always of her chocolat," laughed Elfrige. "The war is to her ver' bad because soon she will have no more."
Maman sighed again. "My child, chocolat is like the voice of the great Patti. It is smoot' and mellow and golden. Not like dat terr'ble coffay ever'one drinks nowadays. But if you weesh to see the Yankee you mus' hurry upstairs. They are comin'."
"Aren't you coming with us, Madame Ducros?" asked Nancibelle. The muffled thunder of drums seeped through the heavy walls, and a surge as of distant surf.
The old Creole lady stood very straight. A new dignity came to her, so that Sally forgot the dyed hair and the heavy rouge. "I do not weesh to see them, ma chère. M'sieu Ducros, he is a Colonel wit' great Beauregard himself."
"You are quite right, Madame Ducros," Sally told her. "I should never have allowed Nancibelle to insist. I'll stay in the parlor with you and keep you company."
"Come on, Elfrige," cried Nancibelle. "They're already passing!"
The two girls darted hastily upstairs. Sally could hear the slam of the shutters as they stepped out upon the gallery.
The two women looked at each other. The ticking of the ornate bronze clock on the marble mantel sounded loud. The brass-stemmed carcel lamp, filled with the finest sperm oil, hissed and thrust its yellow light upward over the framed painting of a lady by Gérard.
"My poor child," said Madame Ducros softly. "I haff heard. You haff los' your brother."
"Yes."
Sally was suddenly full. She did not want sympathy; not even the sympathy of this old Creole lady. She did not want to talk, either. Since Dabney's death events had rolled too breathlessly upon her. The ticking of the clock became a steady beat of drums. The blue damask draperies, the delicate chairs in gilt and damask, the flickering light of the lamp and the dark, smooth paintings began to whirl around and around. If she stayed there another moment she would faint, or scream, or do something equally terrible. She got up suddenly.
"I—I think I ought to go up to the gallery," she said hurriedly. "Someone must chaperon the girls. They should not be left alone."
She fled up the curving staircase as though she were being pursued.
Madame Ducros watched her flight with understanding eyes. It did not occur to her to laugh at this assumption of maturity by a nineteen-year-old girl, who was of an age with Elfrige. Sally had that effect upon people.
Sally stepped out upon the gallery to the accompaniment of a deafening noise. The two girls had pushed aside the long, clinging vines with their purple blooms that half-hid the frilly grille into which the monogram CD had been deftly interwoven. Charles Ducros was the builder of the house and founder of the family.
Nancibelle leaned half over the rail, her shoulders quivering with excitement, her eyes shining. She caught sight of her sister. "You're just in time! They're coming up Camp Street—millions of them!"
In spite of herself Sally had to look. The banquettes were filled with a jostling, straining mob. Cake-stands had been overthrown and men clambered on the wooden boxes to gain a better view. Every gallery overlooking the street held its complement. But the stores beneath were closed, and black squares, still fresh and sticky, had been painted upon the granite columns as a sign of mourning. There were many negroes in the mob—free negroes chiefly. The slaves were confined to their quarters by peremptory command of their masters. The upturned black faces and white presented a checkered appearance. Scorn, hatred and fury, mingled with a certain vulgar curiosity, showed on the faces of the whites. The blacks grinned delightedly as though it all were merely a show; though here and there Sally noted a curious exaltation, a shining through that disturbed her strangely.
Then the Yankees swung along, past Gravier Street, a sea of blue surging over the cobblestones. A rather short, heavyset officer almost wholly immersed in gold lace walked in front. His scabbard glittered in the sun; less-plumaged officers walked on either side, flanked by drab blue soldiers whose bayonetted rifles caught and shattered the light into a spray of dazzling incandescence. A band played loud and brassy the Star-Spangled Banner. And behind, swinging in from Canal, a solid tide that filled the street from curb to curb, the Yankee army. No wonder, to Nancibelle's eyes, that they seemed like millions.
But as General Butler strode importantly along, the temper of the spectators changed. The scattered noise took on a definite note. Cries, insults and wild Confederate yells rose anonymously from the banquettes, fists clenched and shook in angry fury, small boys wriggled between the legs of their elders to spit at the passing soldiery.
Sally saw Butler's face turn a mottled red and his hand go involuntarily to the pommel of his sword. The front of the procession was almost abreast of the Ducros house.
The uproar increased. All the hate, all the pent-up despair of a proud people found vent in futile imprecations. Ladies standing on the galleries suddenly turned inside, slamming the shutters with loud, contemptuous bangs. The negroes on the banquettes stopped their jostling, began to slip away. Yankee soldiers gripped their guns the tighter, stared with arrogant disdain at the yelling, screaming mob.
Elfrige shrank back a little, but Nancibelle leaned boldly out. Her pale blond hair was tumbled, in spite of Patsey's earlier ministrations, and her young, round cheeks were flushed a rosy pink.
A staff officer, a little behind General Butler, looked up just then. There was something boyish in the dark, goodlooking face he disclosed, in the tiny mustache that made only a darker fuzz across his lip. He saw Nancibelle.
Yielding to a sudden impulse, she waved. The young officer smiled and showed his teeth. He swept off his hat with a gesture and waved it back.
Sally, horrified and stunned almost beyond movement at this brazen action of her sister, sprang forward from the semiobscurity of the rear of the balcony. She caught Nancibelle by the arm. "Have you gone mad, you little fool?" she cried. "Get inside at once!"
With a sulky, half-defiant air Nancibelle obeyed. Elfrige had already disappeared, frightened by the madcap act of her friend. Sally turned to follow.
The young officer waved his hat again; this time to her. The commotion caught the General's eye. He stared up, his face black with rage. Like an outborne wave, faces turned to follow his apoplectic anger.
Sally felt herself suddenly the cynosure of a thousand eyes. Curious, hostile, admiring, resentful, they stripped her, made her seem utterly naked. Only the slackened march of falling boots was heard. The band had stopped its brazen clamor, the packed banquettes their hoots and jeers.
Something seemed to snap within her. Something tight and repressed that had held her within an iron lacing since this madness had started. Something reckless, wild and free leaped outward. She was no longer Sally Wailes.
She stood quivering against the railing, her knees pressed hard against the fretwork. She ignored the youthful aide; she stared down with flashing gaze at the General.
"Murderer!"
The word was distinct and sharp, like the clean smash of a solid shot. The word flung outward into the silenced street, dropped with a clatter beyond all meaning. Time stopped; General Butler stopped; everything was static and moveless.
Then the mob tongued its thousand-throated answer. A wild cheer, a shrill whistling yell of approval, tossing arms and faces and hats in inextricable confusion.
Everything moved then: the Yankee men, bayonets, and General Butler's face. It was purple and green and mauve by turns. He swung on the boyish aide and barked a command whose purport was lost in the avalanche of sound.
The aide looked startled. The command was barked again; louder. The aide saluted and moved toward the banquette directly underneath. A file of soldiers followed. The triumphant parade writhed onward, like a long worm, turning the corner into Lafayette Square, heading toward the City Hall.
But Sally had not stayed to watch. Horrified at herself, breathlessly frightened, yet with a strange inner exaltation that glowed in her like a great fire, she fled from the gallery, sped down the staircase toward the three women who stood, strained and anxious, close to the great rosewood table in the center of the parlor.
Madame Ducros, for all her bulk, came swiftly toward her. Sally found herself somehow in those great, comforting arms, shivering against the well-padded breasts.
"What haff happen, my chil'?" soothed the old Creole. "I try to fin' out from these jeunesses, but they say not'ing."
"I've just done a terrible thing!" cried Sally. Then, defiantly: "But I'm not sorry."
"You did?" exclaimed Nancibelle incredulously. "I thought I was the one supposed to have—"
The brass knocker on the outer door made reverberating sounds within the room. The peremptory summons found answering metal inside of Sally.
"Now, who could come at dis time?" wondered Madame Ducros. "Go, Elfrige, an' see who it is."
Sally was icily calm. Her body shivered no longer; she felt composed, quiet. Now that the blow was about to fall it didn't seem to matter. She withdrew herself from the Creole's protective arms, said in a steady, matter-of-fact voice:
"They're coming for me, Madame Ducros."
"But who is?"
"The Yankee soldiers. I called their General Butler a murderer."
Elfrige said: "Oh, the good God!" Nancibelle cried out, frightened: "How could you, Sally? They'll shoot you!"
The knocking grew louder, more demanding. "Open in there!"
Madame Ducros said quickly: "Don't open, Elfrige." Her hand closed on Sally's wrist. "Come ver' quick. Dis way. Go out the court, run t'rough Mad'm Payan's. Dat lead you into Church Street. Den you slip—"
"I won't run away," Sally declared firmly. "They'll arrest you."
"Don' you worry 'bout me, chil'—"
"Open, or we'll break the door. Sergeant—"
Sally seemed to have no feeling anywhere in her body. The numbness crept around her heart and began to stifle her. "Open the door, Elfrige. Please!"
The girl stared at her with wide, affrighted eyes. Then she went to the front, slipped back the latch.
The doorway filled with soldiers. The young aide stepped in, followed by a bearded sergeant.
Madame Ducros deftly interposed her bulk, barring the way. "W'at right haff you to break into dis house?" she demanded.
The lieutenant doffed his hat. "I'm sorry, ma'am, for the intrusion, but it is my painful duty—"
"Step aside, woman," growled the sergeant.
The lieutenant whirled on him. "You may wait outside, Sergeant," he said sharply. "And close the door behind you."
The bearded soldier looked startled. "But, Lieutenant," he protested, "it may be dangerous. You don't know who these rebs've got hidden here."
"Did you hear me, Sergeant?"
"Y-yes, sir." The man saluted and went out. He slammed the door a bit viciously.
The lieutenant bowed. On closer examination his face was thin and sensitive. He was not more than nineteen; Sally's age. The penciled mustache was a futile attempt to add years and dignity to his manifest youthfulness.
"I am Lieutenant Frazer Scott, of the Sixth Massachusetts Battery, ladies, at your service."
The old Creole did not relax her formidable front. "And I, sir, am Madame Ducros, and ver' much not at your servees. I repeat, dis is a priv'te house."
The lieutenant looked pained. He cast a sidelong glance at Nancibelle. In spite of her fear for her sister she flushed. Instinctively she began to smooth out the rumpled billows of her skirt. "As I was saying," he bowed again to the old lady, "I have a painful duty to perform. I have been ordered by my General to arrest a certain lady who saw fit to apply a certain epithet to him a moment ago from your balcony."
Nancibelle clapped her hand to her mouth. Elfrige gave a little scream.
Madame Ducros still barred his way. "You are mos' mistake, sir," she announced without blinking. "It mus' be from some oder house. Here, we were all down in dis parlor. I gift my word of hon'r no one was out on the gallerie. No one, sir, in my house would want to watch the Yankees."
Sally stepped from behind the old lady. It took almost every ounce of energy she possessed, but she could not permit Madame Ducros to lie in her behalf. Even a Yankee would not be ninny enough to believe so palpable a falsehood.
"I am the one who called your General a murderer," she said quietly. "And I am not sorry I said it, either."
The young lieutenant did not look at her. He did not seem even to see her. He gazed intently at Madame Ducros.
"You give me your word that a mistake has been made? That none of your household has left this room within the past ten minutes?"
The old lady was bewildered, but she rose to the occasion. "I do, sir," she said most emphatically.
The young man made a sweeping bow. A Southern gentleman couldn't have made a better. "Then indeed, ma'am, I am sorry for breaking in on you like this. And my regrets to these charming ladies."
He turned on his heel, opened the door and went out. They could hear his voice, louder than need be, through the heavy wood as it closed behind him.
"She got away. These damn New Orleans houses make a regular labyrinth. March your men, Sergeant."
All the strength flowed out of Sally. Her legs trembled and sagged a trifle as Madame Ducros led her to a chair with soothing words.
"But I don' understan' it at all, Maman," exclaimed Elfrige. "After w'at Sally tol' him—"
Nancibelle clapped her hands in released excitement. Her eyes shone. "He did it because he was a gentleman. No gentleman would arrest a woman. Wasn't he just wonderful?"
Sally roused herself. "No Yankee can be a gentleman," she said sharply. "He was just stupid enough to believe Madame Ducros." She took the old lady's hand tenderly. "You lied to save me. I shall remember that."
"Hush, chil'. It was not'ing. But you mus' leave New Orleans. That Gen'ral Butlaire may not be so stupid."
"Lieutenant Scott was not stupid," Nancibelle said angrily. "That isn't fair of you, Sally; after what he did."
"He is a Northerner," Sally retorted illogically; knowing in her heart that she was being illogical and stubborn. "You are right, Madame Ducros. We'll have to get back to Moon Hill; but how, I don't know."
GETTING back to moon hill Plantation was a more difficult task than even Sally Wailes had anticipated. General Butler had promptly placed New Orleans under martial law and permitted no one to leave the town without a pass countersigned by himself. He was a hard, arrogant man, much impressed with his own dignity and importance, and determined to smash all thoughts of revolt in this seething, dangerous and explosive cauldron of several hundred thousand rebels.
Two fears constantly attended him—a sudden flame of rioting and revolt that might sweep his inadequate force of occupation into the Mississippi; and the yellow fever.
The second count frightened him even more than the first. New Orleans was notorious for its plagues. Only a few years before almost half the population had died of it, and hardly a year passed without some epidemic. And there was a spice of malice in the reports that Northerners were peculiarly susceptible to the dreadful fever.
Therefore Butler declared the strictest of quarantines and pressed negroes and Irish laborers into service to clean up the muddy streets and drain the swamps. Thereby he performed a double service. He kept the plague away and provided for the starving poor of the city. For conditions had become desperate. Prices had rocketed—flour at $25 a barrel, butter a dollar a pound, and eggs as much for a dozen. The long blockade, the thousands of refugees who had streamed into town, the loss of employment by draymen, stevedores and cotton-handlers on the closing of the Mississippi had created a very grave problem. The Confederates had tried to handle it by free markets to which the more fortunate sent provisions. Butler paid wages—good wages. Thereby he hoped to create a Unionist sentiment among the laboring classes.
But the wages did not come out of Federal funds. The burden of caring for the poor, he maintained, must be placed upon those responsible for their plight. Who were these? Why, the rich of New Orleans, of course; those who had instigated the rebellion. Wherefore he assessed these wealthy, these business men and bankers. The assessments were heavy and accompanied by threats of confiscation and imprisonment in case they were not paid.
On the first count he sought to strike fear and awe into the hearts of this sullen, dangerous folk. Howitzers were placed at strategic corners, strong forces of troops thrown around the St. Charles Hotel and all public buildings. The possession of arms carried the death penalty. Shopkeepers who had closed their shops were ordered to reopen on pain of fine and imprisonment. Yet he confiscated no stocks of merchandise, much to the anguish of those panicky merchants who had flung open their stores before the occupation and invited the populace to help itself.
His tender feelings were constantly being exacerbated by fancied slights and real insults. Two small boys who spat at Northern soldiers were searched for by a grim platoon. A man who raised a cheer for Jeff Davis went to military prison. A lady who laughed at the moment that an officer's funeral cortège was passing by received two years on Ship Island. William Mumford, who had helped tear down the American flag from the Customs House where it had been hoisted by Farragut, was executed.
Far from breaking down the will to resist, however, he succeeded only in arousing a flaming anger that had repercussions even in the North. The ladies of New Orleans, especially, went out of their way to display contempt and hatred for the Yankees. Ostentatiously they withdrew their skirts at the near approach of a Union soldier; they crossed the street to avoid contamination by Federal uniform or waving Stars and Stripes. They snickered when a dashing horseman stumbled on the irregular granite blocks that paved the chief streets of New Orleans; they made loud, derisive remarks as they walked along Canal Street. When the Yankees, in retaliation, placed crossed American flags over the entrance to the churches, they stayed away from services or made circuitous detours through mud and boggy ground in order to avoid the hateful banners. They placed a stringent social boycott on all Northern men. Any Southern woman who spoke to or received a visit from a Federal officer was thereafter ostracized and made to feel their united displeasure.
The exasperated General now committed his greatest blunder. He issued his famous, or rather, infamous, Order No. 28. It read as follows: "As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word or gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the U. S., she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation."
Sally Wailes arose early on the morning of May 16th. She shook her sleeping sister. "Get up, you lazybones! You've had more than enough sleep."
Nancibelle stirred, yawned and tried to burrow back again into the soft pillow. But Sally caught her firmly by the hand, pulled her to a sitting position. "Isn't nine hours enough for you? Wake up."
The girl's eyes were puffed and she almost slipped through Sally's restraining fingers back into bed. "I didn't get that much," she mumbled sleepily. "Not more'n four or five. I'm so tired."
Sally looked at her more closely. "Is there anything ailing you?" she demanded. "You've been acting pretty peaked the last few days."
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just want to sleep a little longer."
"Hmmm. You've been restless. I woke up once during the night and you weren't in bed. Where were you?"
Nancibelle sat up then with a start. Sleep fled from her blue eyes, and a strange panic took its place. "Why—I—I—that is—"
"What in goodness are you stammering so about? All I asked was a simple question."
Nancibelle pulled herself together. She gulped. "Why, Sally, I'm not stammering. Just sleepy. I went downstairs to get a drink of water from the bucket. I was thirsty."
"That's funny. There's still a pitcher full on the tabaret. Why didn't you drink that?"
Her sister stared at the pitcher and basin of light blue crockery as though she had never seen them before. She flushed, said with sudden pettishness, "I wish you wouldn't cross-examine me like that. Every little thing I do. I must have been so sleepy I didn't think about it."
She sprang hurriedly out of bed and began to dress rapidly, chattering away even more rapidly. "I hear Beast Butler's stolen a lot of money from the banks. He's going to put Mayor Monroe into jail, too, he says, if the Mayor isn't careful. Lucy Ives tells me they've got nothing but cornmeal and potatoes left to eat. Not even a slice of bread. All their money is in Confederate paper, and Beast Butler's given strict orders it shouldn't be taken in trade. I'm getting sick of potatoes and smoked ham myself. Haven't tasted a green vegetable in weeks."
"Hold on a moment," exclaimed Sally. "One minute you're so tired you can't get up, the next you sound like the Picayune."
She examined her trim form in the long mirror of the armoire and frowned. Not because of what she saw. She was not vain, yet she knew that she was beautiful and that men's eyes followed her admiringly. Even though they had no chance to see her straight, slim legs. Perhaps in their imaginations...
She opened the swinging door of the armoire and took her light blue chiffon off the hook. It would be hot today.
"You're right about the food, Nancibelle. If it weren't for old Noah going down to the military and pretending to be an escaped slave so he can get a basket of rations, we'd be practically starving. If we don't get home somehow to Moon Hill soon I don't know what will become of us."
"There's no chance, is there?" Nancibelle looked alarmed.
Sally stopped hooking her dress. "The way you say it, one would think you didn't want to go home."
Her sister's head muffled quickly in a flimsy green organdie. From its depths came smothered denial. "How you go on, Sally. Of course I do; but I don't see how. That's all I meant."
Sally wasn't quite satisfied, but she let it drop. Nancibelle had been acting mighty strange the past few days. Mooning around the big town house, speaking little and looking vacant when spoken to; quite unlike her usual bustling, chattering, fun-loving self. It must be the strain of their situation; their practical captivity in the hands of the enemy. Why then did she look so relieved every time Sally's attempts to find a method of escaping from the city failed? Or was it just her imagination?
The problem had become seemingly insoluble. For the first week after Butler's pompous entry in the role of conqueror, and Sally's narrow escape from arrest and God knows what, the two girls had kept themselves voluntary prisoners inside their town house. Noah, the coachman, would go out for food, and Patsey would bring them gossip. Her sharp nose and bright, knowing eyes uncovered plenty. "Dat Yankee Gen'mal am sure wild, Miss Sally," she reported. "He done search high an' low foah dat reb'l gal what call him a murderah. An' he gib that Cunn'l Scott de dickens foah lettin' y'all escape."
"Lieutenant Scott, Patsey. But where did you pick up all this gossip?"
Patsey grinned pertly. "Easy-lak, Miss Sally. De Gen'mal hired Tabby Williams foah his pus'nal cook. She done tell Cicely Johnson, dat free nigger what runs a bo'ding-house on No'th Liberty. Cicely am kinda sweet on Ben Brown, Mistah Ives' coachman; an' he—"
"Is sweet on you."
"Yes'm, dat fool niggah shu' is."
But the days passed, and the matter died. Other and more important events arose to absorb the insulted General's attention. Patsey reported faithfully on the rise and fall of Butler's wrath, as it came along the grapevine to her. Finally Sally deemed it safe to venture out and start the machinery in motion for getting out of New Orleans. What heartened her immensely was the assurance that General Butler had been unable to give a proper description of his fair tormentor to his detectives, and that Lieutenant Scott had spoken vaguely of a rather middle-aged woman with pinched features and graying hair. As for Madame Ducros, who had been taken to Headquarters for questioning, she still insisted stoutly that the epithet must have come from a neighboring balcony and that she knew nothing of any woman of any description.
Sally finished smoothing out her dress, gave a final pat to her warm brown hair in which little golden lights tingled and danced, and shook the soft ringlets into place over the nape of her neck. Her mind, though, was on the desperateness of their situation. She had tried every conceivable outlet for escape. All had failed her. The people she knew, the influential and important men of a happier day, were as crushed and as impotent as she. Even Mayor Monroe could do nothing. "My dear," he had told her with a sad smile, "I am practically a prisoner myself. I expect any day to displease the mighty General, and be hustled off to a Federal prison. Your only chance is to seek the good offices of some friendly Northern officer or, better still, some Southerner who has found it profitable to come to terms with the invaders." His smile took on a bitter hue, his bearded lips curled with harsh contempt.
"I wouldn't degrade myself that way, Mister Mayor," Sally flashed indignantly. "I seek no favors from either foe or traitor."
"I don't blame you, my child. I feel the same way."
"And anyway," she added with a fine inconsequence, "I don't know anyone."
But didn't she? There was Lieutenant Frazer Scott, the boyish Yankee who had practically forced her escape. He, however, was in very bad grace as a result of it. As for Southern traitors, she'd die rather than seek their help. Rumors were thick about them. Thank God there were only a few who chose the silver of Judas; and she knew none of them except by name. She stopped short and bit her lip. There was a rumor... But of course that was nonsense! Whatever his faults, she couldn't conceive him capable of such a thing. It was impossible, incredible! Yet was it? She remembered certain phrases he had used in her presence at the Seminary; she remembered how her scorn had practically forced him to enlist; worst of all, hadn't this Hugh Flint disgraced his uniform by thinking more of his precious merchandise than of Confederate advantage? A slight misgiving flitted across this last. After all, the cotton and sugar hadn't been his. It was her father's, and Hilgard's, and Labatt's, and all the river planters'. But they were willing to sacrifice. What business had it been of his, then? It was only his commissions he was worrying about. Yet even as she told it triumphantly to herself, she felt troubled and a bit guilty. Hastily she swept the whole disturbing picture from her mind.
"Where are you going, Sally?" asked Nancibelle, as her sister began putting on her gloves.
"I don't know. Maybe I'll see Mr. Layton at the Southern Bank. Perhaps he can let us have some gold on our account, even though Picayune Butler has ordered payments to be stopped. If not, he may be able to get word through to Father. Poor Father! He must be worrying terribly about us. I wish—"
Patsey entered. She held a newspaper gingerly in her black hand as if any moment it was going to bite her. Her sharp, ordinarily merry little face was oddly twisted. "Heah am de Bee, Miss Sally. I done got it f'um dat fool, Ben Brown. Some white trash gib it to him, laffin' fit ta bust. He say: 'Black boy, you'n me goan' to hab fun now.'" Her eyes refused to meet those of her mistress. "He say moah; what ain't fitten for del'kitt eahs."
Sally took the folded sheet with a strange shiver. She unfolded it with slow, deliberate movement. The Bee was printed in French and English, in parallel columns. Her eyes clung to the English headline, and the text that marched down the page in closely woven type.
The type blurred. The letters danced and jumbled into a meaningless heap. Yet already they had burned their horror into her brain.
"What's the matter?" she heard Nancibelle's anxious cry. "You look as if you're going to faint! Oh, Sally, have we lost another battle?"
"No." It was a little word, yet it found difficulty in passing her stiffened lips.
"Then—then what?"
Sally handed her the newspaper. Nancibelle took it eagerly. The same look of horror flooded her face as she read the text of the order of the day—the infamous Order No. 28.
"Ohhh!" she whispered. Then she flung the paper away as though the mere touch contaminated. "The beast! The beast! Women of the streets! Oh, how horrible! How dare he!"
"Yas'm. Dat's what I tol' dat niggah, Ben." Patsey quivered with birdlike indignation. "He sta'ts ta laff jes' like dat white trash. Ah slaps him den. He's a no-count niggah."
"The Yankees dare everything," said Sally. Her chin took on a sudden determined firmness. "Give me my best blue hat, Patsey. The one with the feather; not the bonnet."
"Sally! Sally! What are you going to do?"
Sally swiftly placed the coquettish little bit of lace and feathers on her head, surveyed herself in the mirror. "I'm going to see General Butler himself."
"Have you gone mad? After that order he just issued! Why—why—"
"Because of that order. New Orleans will be no place for a decent Southern woman from now on. We'll be the sport of every ruffian in uniform or out. Our honor won't be safe a moment. I'm going to insist that he give us a pass through the lines, so that we can go home. I should have thought of seeing him directly before this."
"You can't do that. He'll recognize you!"
"He won't. I wore a different dress then and a bonnet that helped hide my face. Besides, I understand he's nearsighted."
Nancibelle held tight to her sister. Her breathing came in little bursts. She looked badly scared—and rattled.
"You—you mustn't. He's an ogre. He treats every woman who comes to him for favors with the most abominable vulgarity. Why, Frazer has told me—"
The terrible look in Sally's face stopped her headlong rush. She shrank back, clapping her hand over the mouth that had said too much.
"Frazer!" Sally was all tight and hard inside. "Do you mean Lieutenant Frazer Scott?"
Nancibelle started to tremble. "No, no! I was just talking nonsense. I didn't mean anything—"
"Don't lie! You've been meeting him—an enemy of our country; one of those responsible for Dabney's death. Gracious God! That's why you stammered so when I asked you where you were when I woke up last night. You've been meeting this—this Yankee at night."
"No! No!"
"You have! How long has this been going on?"
"I met him by accident, I swear it. I was passing the St. Charles Hotel just as he came out. He recognized me. I didn't dare refuse to talk to him. He might have reported you. But he was so kind—and gentle."
She lifted her head defiantly; hurried on in a very agony of explanation. "He asked where he could see me again. I knew what you thought about all Northerners. I knew what everyone would think. He met me in our garden at eleven at night. Just three times, that's all. He's not like other Northerners. He's so respectful. He has a sister—"
Sally's knees began to shake. Everything was in a whirl. "Stop!" she said in a hard, defensively stony voice. "I don't want to hear any more."
"Well, you asked me—"
"You have shamed the name of Wailes. You have shamed the memory of Dabney. You have shamed every Southern woman. How could you have done such a thing?"
The girl began to sob. The easy tears streaked down her cheeks. "You have no right to talk that way! He can't help it if he was born in the North. He told me about his home in Medford—"
"I'm not interested in his home life. He's a Yankee." A swift thought choked Sally. "You sneaked into the garden with him! Nancibelle, did—did—?"
The girl sprang up from the bed upon which she had flung herself. "How can you think of such a thing?" she flashed. "What do you think I am? Meet a man—any man—without a chaperone, indeed. Patsey was always present. Weren't you, Patsey?"
The small negress hastily moved toward the door, her eyes rolling with apprehension. "Foah de good Lawd, Miss Nancibelle! Now you done it!"
"Patsey!"
The quality in Sally's tone stopped her meditated flight. "Yas'm."
"Is this true?"
"Please, Miss Sally. Miss Nancibelle, she wuk and wuk on me till I jes' had to gib in."
"Is it true?" Inexorable, repeated insistence.
"Yas'm."
Something like relief flooded Sally. At least nothing had happened that couldn't be cured. She caught up her parasol. "Tell Noah to span the horses to the carriage. I'm going out."
"Dis very minute, Miss Sally. I runs; I flies!" Patsey went as if in truth she were flying. As she hastened down the stairs and toward the back buildings that housed the negroes, she wiped the sweat off her forehead with a coal-black arm. "Glory! I shu' inspec' Miss Sally was goan' to hab me licked. Patsey, you am shu' a lucky niggah. I ain't nevah goan' to trus' Miss Nancibelle no moah." Then she grinned, irrepressibly. "Not what I kin blame 'er. Dat No'th'n gen'mun, he am pow'ful han'some."
Noah Seff pulled up his horses at the corner of Gravier and Carondelet. "Ef'n you don't mind, Miss Sally, I t'ink you better walk down de square to de hotel. Mebbe some o' dem Lincum sojers mought reckernize ol' Noah. I'se s'posed ta be a contraban' nigger. Dey han' me po'k an' a mess o' greens ever' day down by de market."
He was a lanky, sad-looking negro with an immense air of dignity, as befitted a coachman who belonged to quality folk like the Wailes's. No one had ever seen him smile, and he spaced his words with an air of weighty deliberation.
"Of course, Noah." Sally stepped lightly to the banquette, opened her parasol. She made a lovely picture in the sun. A Yankee officer, booted and spurred, and with sword swinging importantly at his side, broke step as he went by, staring in frank admiration. By heavens, but these Southern girls were beautiful! If only they weren't such damned hot rebels—worse than their menfolk. And the way they freeze up when you just look at them! As if you were dirt in the street! He went on his way, resentful; heedless of the mixed quality of his metaphors.
A sentinel with fixed bayonet stopped her as she entered the marble rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel.
"State your business, ma'am."
The great inner hall had once swarmed with planters hellbent on drink and gaiety; with cotton brokers and pushing drummers from New York and Philadelphia. Ladies in bright satins and swinging hoops had brought color to the rather dismal marble; and occasionally a brawny slave stood on the auction block, sullen or openly pleased at the painstaking inspection to which he was subjected by prospective buyers.
Now, however, there was no gaiety. Men in blue were everywhere. Officers! Officers! Officers! One would think the whole Yankee army consisted only of officers! And some civilians. These were men in flashy waistcoats, hard of face and shrewd of eye. Fortune hunters, swarming like scavengers in the wake of the conqueror, buzzards seeking meat to pick from the agonized wounds of the South.
Sally tapped the marble floor with the ferrule of her parasol. "I wish to see General Butler."
"Sorry, ma'am. It's against orders."
"Never mind your orders!" she said imperiously. "I must see him. I'm Miss Wailes."
The sentinel looked perplexed. "They all say they must see the General. I tell you—"
"It's—it's a matter of life or death."
"Oh, all right; I'll send up word. Though it may cost me a couple o' days in the guardhouse for busting orders, ma'am."
"Thank you!"
It took fifteen minutes of whispered consultations; of questions by a corporal, then a sergeant, then an officer with the epaulettes of a captain. Finally, grudgingly, she was conducted upstairs by a slouching soldier who chewed tobacco with surreptitious workings of his lantern jaw.
She passed through two more sentinels stationed before the great suite which Butler had taken for his own.
"Right in there, ma'am," said her escort with a jerk of his thumb, and turned hastily toward the brass spittoon, choking. He had almost swallowed his wad.
The door opened silently. Sally pulled herself together, brought her gloved hand up swiftly to make certain that her tiny hat held just the right tilt, and walked in.
"Beast" Butler, "Picayune" Butler, "Ogre" Butler—all the hate-filled epithets which a crushed city had fastened upon him flashed across her mind.
He sat at a great table in the very center of the carpeted and plushly dark room. Two staff officers—colonels—bearded and booted—had chairs drawn up close to him. One of them was saying something in a low voice. In the farther corner, his face in the shadows, stood another officer. He was staring out of the window.
Butler looked up scowling at her entrance. The officer stopped talking. Both of them stared inquiringly at the intruder. The slender officer in the corner did not turn around.
"Well, what's your name?" Butler demanded in a loud, rough voice. "What do you want? You ladies of New Orleans seem to think I have nothing else to do all day long but listen to your complaints."
He wasn't much of an ogre, thought Sally with something of disdain. A beast, possibly; but certainly not an ogre. An ogre had a little of the giant, a bit of terrible grandeur about him. This great General was just an ordinary, middle-aged man with walrus mustaches, whose voice tried to swell itself up to bigness. A brace of pistols lay naked on the table before him. Was the brave General afraid of the righteous wrath of those he was oppressing? Did he fear assassination even behind the barricade of soldiers who guarded every approach to his august presence?
Sally suppressed a desire to laugh. Her lips crinkled.
"Well, speak up, ma'am."
"I'm Miss Sally Wailes, of Moon Hill Plantation, in St. James Parish. My father is Mr. Samuel Wailes. My sister and I were caught in New Orleans by the ascent of your fleet. We wish to return to our home, but we cannot pass through your lines without an order from you."
The General's scowl deepened. "There's no satisfying you women. First you want to quit your homes for New Orleans; then when you're here, you want to go home." He pounded violently on the table, so that the pistols danced. "And when you're here, you act like women of the gutter. She-adders, the whole lot of you! How long do you think we'll stand for your arrogant ways, your sneers and your folderols?"
He was shouting now, and his face was an angry red. The two colonels listened with pained, half-ashamed expressions.
Indignation flooded Sally. She had never been spoken to like this in all her life. He was a beast, a common, filthy beast! Stinging retort quivered on her tongue. Then, coolly, calmly, her clear voice rose above his tirade. "May I have a chair?" she addressed the officers.
Butler stopped, taken aback. He seemed deflated. The two officers rose; but before they could move, the slim young man who had been staring out of the window was at her side bowing, a gilt-backed chair placed before her.
"Here you are, Miss Wailes.".
Sally needed the chair very much just then. Her request had been one of sheer bravado; just to show the ranting General what she thought of him. He hadn't even had the decency to offer her a chair in the first place.
But the sight of the slim young officer who had sprung forward made her knees turn to something like jelly. She sank down, breathless, feeling the pallor spread over her face.
The officer was Lieutenant Scott—Frazer, Nancibelle had called him! And he had recognized her. She was certain of that. Suppose...
But he bowed again in silence, and returned to his post. Not by a flicker of his eyelids had he betrayed her. She was grateful for that; then her gratitude soured. His seeming gallantry had a purpose. Every Northern officer was just dying to be accepted socially by Southern quality. These ribbon-counter clerks expected their uniforms and their swaggering ways to open all doors. They had been miserably mistaken. If he thought, just because he had turned Nancibelle's addlepated little head, and because he had pushed his services upon her, that that would make any difference, he too was miserably mistaken.
Through the swirl and jumble of her thoughts she heard Butler's interrupted passion against the ladies of New Orleans get into stride again. She wasn't even listening. Even his final shouted: "No, ma'am, I'll give you no pass through the lines. There're hundreds of others waiting their turn!" made no impression on her.
It was only when she was downstairs in the marble hall, on her way out, that panic seized her. Every look turned her way by a soldier gripped her throat with a new fear. Whatever she did or did not do, whatever she said, could be construed into contempt or insult or offense. Then, according to that outrageous order, they could treat her as "a woman of the streets plying her avocation!"
The very thought of it brought hot, burning flushes to her cheek. Hadn't Southern womanhood been outraged enough already? Did these swaggering, nasty Northerners expect to rape every decent Southern girl? The men of New Orleans, cowed, ground down though they were under the heel of an iron despotism, would never submit to this despoiling of their women. They'd rise up in a terrible desperation, and smash these beasts with clubs and stones and rails torn from the balustrades of their homes. The streets of New Orleans would soak with blood; with...
As she moved blindly toward the stone steps that led out upon St. Charles Avenue, bemused by her own imaginings, she collided with a man who was just coming in.
"I'm sorry," a familiar voice cut like a sharp instrument through her haze. Then the man took off his broad-brimmed hat with an easy gesture. "Now indeed I'm doubly sorry, Miss Sally. I didn't expect to find you here."
So wrapped had Sally been in her shuddering fantasies that the sound of a familiar voice, the sight of a familiar face brought a wild reaction of relief to her surcharged feelings.
"Hugh Flint!" she exclaimed, and extended her hand impulsively. Then she withdrew it in as sudden a motion. Her scorning eyes took him in from head to foot in a single comprehensive sweep.
His smile did not fade, but it became a hard veneer, a stubborn mask to hide the half-bitter resignation with which he had greeted all such scorning glances in the past few weeks. His eyes followed hers; surveyed his clothes. They were good clothes, of proper style and cut. The waistcoat was discreet in tone and texture; it did not flaunt itself like those of the Northern scavengers who had flocked to the lobby of the great hotel as to a roosting place.
"I see you do not like my clothes, Miss Sally," he said with that same outward smile. "Yet Mr. Payan assured me they were the best he had in stock. You know Payan's, of course, on Canal Street."
"There is only one style proper to a man!" she said acidly. "Confederate gray!"
"But surely you wouldn't expect me to walk into the lion's den in uniform. Those bayonets are pretty sharp."
"Your wit is ill-timed, Mr. Flint. I've heard about you; yet I tried not to believe it."
"What did you hear?"
"That you resigned your commission before you could be courtmartialed and cashiered. That you remained in the enemy camp in order to trade with them and recoup your personal fortunes. But I see that the rumors were only too well-founded. A renegade, sir, is the word that expresses you exactly. Now let me pass."
The smile dropped like an outworn mask. A stubborn glint came into his eyes. He let her pass; but turned and kept even pace with her as she hurried around the corner into Gravier Street.
"I know the rumors," he told her quietly. "In part they are correct; in part they are terribly wrong. I won't attempt to justify myself to you. You wouldn't understand, anyway. Very few of your romantic breed would. There are two ways of fighting a foe more powerful than yourself. One is by getting profitlessly killed on the battlefield; the other is less romantic but infinitely more effective."
"Words!" Passionate contempt made her voice sound husked and dry. "Fine words to cloak a coward and a renegade! Do you not see, sir, that I do not desire your company?"
She was at the end of the square, hastening toward the curb where Noah sat in sad dignity on the carriage seat. "Noah!" she cried. "We are returning home."
Hugh's supporting hand was somehow under her elbow, helping her into the carriage. As the horses clucked into motion he swung lightly inside and sat down beside her.
She turned on him, blazing. "How dare you, sir? I told you you were not welcome."
His steady gaze beat her down; the jolting of the wheels over the granite blocks of Carondelet Street was not conducive to a proper semblance of outraged dignity.
"Let's not get too dramatic. Your personal likes and dislikes—or mine, for that matter—are not to the point just now. You're in trouble, Miss Sally; or you wouldn't have paid a visit to General 'Picayune' Butler. Perhaps I can help you."
Was he laughing at her? That would be unbearable.
"I'd die rather than accept your help."
"I told you to leave out the dramatics," he said roughly. They had swung into the ruts of Howard Avenue, and the jouncing of the carriage flung them against each other. A curious warmth that was not all the overweening sun spread drowsily through Sally. There was a hard maleness, a certain quality even in that hard, rough voice that...
She caught herself, and moved along the leather seat toward the outer end as far as she could get. She was angry at the way her pulses had suddenly hammered.
Hugh did not appear to notice her withdrawing gesture. "New Orleans is no place for you, or for Nancibelle. She's with you, isn't she?"
Sally nodded dumbly.
"There'll be plenty of trouble in the city if that fool Butler keeps up his proclamations and his arrests. Your father's up at Moon Hill. That's where you belong, too. Why don't you go there?"
"We tried." In spite of herself Sally had to answer him. "But we can't get a pass. The Yankees know that poor Dab was killed in action. We rate as enemies, and we won't take the amnesty oath."
"I don't blame you; yet I can't blame Butler either."
She noted how he had set himself also at the other end of the carriage; how his strong, firm hand was grasping the side so that even the hard ruts into which the wheels had jerked could no longer bring contact between them. Unreasonably she resented his action. She had done exactly the same thing, but she was right in doing so. She was not accustomed to having men deliberately withdraw themselves from proximity to her.
Her resentment, obscure and only half-understood, was promptly translated into a different indignation.
"You took the oath, of course!"
He flung her a swift, searching glance. "I did not."
She gasped. "Then how are you able—a former captain of the Confederate Army—to remain in New Orleans unmolested?"
Noah had turned the horses into the driveway of her town house. The gravel crunched under their hooves, made little sucking, satisfying sounds against the wheels. There was the tangy smell of oranges and the sweeter odor of magnolia blooms. The white-columned porte-cochère loomed ahead. A lazy beagle came out to greet them, his mouth agape in a stretching yawn and his tail wagging in a slow arc.
Hugh did not answer her question. His brow was knit; he was considering some inner problem. The horses halted underneath the wide-beamed cover. Noah came stiffly down from his seat.
"I think I can manage to get you both safely back to Moon Hill," Hugh said finally.
"You mean you can get us a pass from the Yankees?" she demanded suspiciously.
His smile was bleak. "No; not yet. Perhaps later I shall have turned sufficient of what you please to term renegade to manage even that. Your escape will be strictly and satisfactorily illegal."
Hope flared in her; hope that only too quickly died into despair. How could Hugh Flint, or anyone else, smuggle two girls through the strict control that the gunboats exercised on the river? As for a land journey, with the Federals swarming everywhere, with the roads blocked and practically impassable...
"Trust me this once," she heard him declare. "I can get you through."
"But how?"
His smile was enigmatic. "I have my methods, my dear Miss Sally. Now if you and Miss Nancibelle can get ready by this evening—"
"We can't leave Patsey behind. The others belong to the town house, but she's a plantation darky. She'd die of fright if we left her."
Even as she spoke, she was amazed at herself. She was accepting his offer of service, though she had sworn never to be beholden to him in the slightest. Vainly she told herself that she would have done the same even with a Yank; with the devil himself. They simply had to get to Moon Hill. Somehow she did not question that he could do what he claimed. The assured air of him, the manifest competence of his strong, virile face, gave her a comfortable feeling. She struggled against it in vain. It was so good to yield oneself for once to strength; to taste helpless femininity. She, who had always scoffed at her delicately clinging girl friends, who had always insisted on standing foursquare on her own slimly solid legs!
He considered the question of Patsey. "I think we can manage her, too," he said at length. He sprang out of the carriage; offered his hand for her to descend. Without seeming to ignore it, she jumped down alone. His sudden dark flush brought a strange stab to her—compounded mysteriously of remorse and a certain exultation that she could wound him.
"When do you wish us to be ready?" she asked hastily.
He stood there, with his hat still in his hand. The flush passed. "Let Noah drive you down to the wharf at the foot of Bienville Street. Be there at seven-thirty sharp." He looked her over with appraising eyes, and she felt a warm red spread over her neck and cheeks.
"Another thing. I want both of you to dress in your frilliest and most alluring outfits. Get out your lowest-necked gowns."
The flush became angry; burning. "I am sure, sir, I do not understand you. You forget we are in semi-mourning for Dabney."
"I haven't forgotten. And don't try to understand. There are excellent reasons. You'll have to trust me that much farther."
He turned on his heel suddenly; strode down the wide path. Magnolia petals dropped in a light snow upon his broad shoulders.
"Just a moment," cried Sally. "I'll have Noah drive you back to town."
Hugh neither stopped nor turned. "Never mind," he called back; "I'll take the street-car."
New Orleans was a place of shadows and dimly lit, deserted streets. The former bustling, roaring life was gone. The horses' hooves struck with a dismal thud on unpaved roads; then rang with harsh steel echoes when the cobblestones began. The stores that lined the main streets were shuttered and closed; only here and there a small retailer blinked owlishly in the huddle of darkly vacant shapes.
A small flare of gas lamps greeted them as they crossed Canal Street; but the French Market, once a scene of mad confusion and trundling bales and heaped-up stalls, was dark as any tomb.
Patsey, small and half-submerged beneath a jumble of tightly clutched boxes, sat on the driver's seat next to Noah. Her bright, sharp eyes searched the silent ways with apprehension.
"I'se skeered, Noah. I don' know what dis yere Mistah Flint gwine to do wid us."
"Hush you' silly mouf!" Noah reproved her majestically. "Mistah Flint, he am all right. He almos' quality."
Inside the carriage, though, there was similar apprehension. Sally had a long light cloak thrown over her, though the evening was steaming hot. Now that the die was cast, something like panic assailed her. After all, what had Hugh Flint done to deserve her trust, her placing of her very honor into his hands? A Southerner who had quit his country in its direst need; whom she had met practically in Butler's Headquarters. She remembered how he had evaded her direct question about his seeming immunity at a time when other Southerners—even those who had not been in the Army—were being arrested by the scores.
For one blind moment she wanted to turn back; to take her chances along with thousands of other loyal Southern women. But the sight of Nancibelle's sullen face, still showing the ravages of stormy tears, decided her. Nancibelle had made a scene. She didn't want to leave New Orleans, she cried. She didn't want to leave Frazer Scott. He was a gentleman, as good as Hugh Flint any day, as good as any man in the South. He would see to it that no harm came to them.
It took all of Sally's superior will, of the traditional habits of obedience to her elder sister, to compel the protesting, crying Nancibelle to come. Things had come to a pretty pass, thought Sally. That a Wailes should actually have fallen in love with a Yankee; an enemy! It was high time for them to go. Once at Moon Hill, this romantic nonsense would quickly evaporate. Nancibelle had had her romantic moments before; usually with pilots, though, who passed on the river and never stopped.
The Bienville wharf showed sooty and dark against a spatter of yellow flaming torches. The torches moved in the hands of a pair of low-voiced men who whispered, rather than shouted, their orders to a gang of negro stevedores who toted heavy wooden boxes up a gangplank to a shadowy, unlit steamer. Smoke poured from the stacks, as though steam were up and the boat was ready to move.
The wharf sagged in the middle, with the charred timbers of the frenzied cotton burning thrusting their gaunt skeletons in silhouette against the night. The toting stevedores made wide detours around the edges to avoid the breaks.
Noah checked his horses. "Heah we is, Missies," he said very low. Something of the demonic quality of the scene, something of Patsey's apprehension, was beginning to infect him too.
One of the torch holders turned his head and saw them. He handed his blazing pine to another, came quickly over to them.
"Good!" said Hugh Flint. "You're on time."
Sally sat up straight and dignified. She tried to still the beating of her heart. "I'm always on time."
Hugh grinned. "That's more than I can say for most ladies of my acquaintance." He leaned over the edge of the carriage. There was fatigue showing in his tight-drawn face; a certain grim urgency. "Miss Nancibelle, isn't it? You've certainly grown in the last two-three years. You'll be turning a good many masculine heads, I'll be bound."
The girl's face lifted eagerly to the words. The sullenness disappeared and she dabbed hurriedly at her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. She hoped the ravages of her tears weren't too noticeable.
"Well, we're here, Mr. Flint," interposed Sally. "Do we—do we go on board that boat?"
"There is no other."
Sally surveyed the dim lines with a growing unease. Suppose...
"You don't have to worry," he assured her. "The boat is an old friend of yours; so is the captain."
"I don't recognize it."
"All boats look alike in the dark. But surely you ought to remember the Eleanor; and Captain Willis, too."
Sally had not been aware how scared she really was. The flood of overwhelming relief almost frightened her. She had been so tense before. There was nothing to worry about any more. Salty, kindly Captain Willis! With him she'd be as safe as in her own home. Some of her joy spilled out toward Hugh.
"Thank you, Mr. Flint. You've been very kind." She lifted to step out of the carriage.
"Just a moment. You've put on the lowest, frilliest dresses you have?"
"Y-yes, though I still don't know why—"
"Take off your cloaks then."
She stared at him. "Take them off—now?"
"Now. And remember, your first names are Flora and Suzanne. Never mind about your last names, except that they are not Wailes."
"You got us passes, then?"
He looked at her queerly. "Yes, in a way. Now take off those cloaks, and pay no attention to whatever is said. No matter how strange it may sound."
"I don't like this-"
"Oh, don't be silly!" Nancibelle interrupted. "I'm sure Mr. Flint knows what he's doing." She sprang out of the carriage, removed her cloak. "Don't I look nice?"
She wore a pink, shimmering organdie that flared out with volatile bows and displayed smooth, bare shoulders and a rounded, maturing breast.
"Grand! Come now, Miss Sally. The boat's ready to leave."
She hesitated; then, with a quick motion, the cloak fell away and she stepped down.
Sally heard Hugh's quick intake of breath; and it was pleasant. The sense of power over a male, no matter who the male, is always sweet to a woman.
She had put on her most extreme gown. It was an evening dress, fashioned with careful hands in far-off Paris for softly lit ballrooms, for joy and laughter and the mazes of the dance. Smooth, lustrous silk of wine-purple hue clasped her waist as tightly as a lover would, slid over a series of hoops in a cascade of rustling, shining splendor. It left her shoulders bare, and no straps held it in place. Her bodice was daringly low and the ripeness of her breasts, half-revealed, half-concealed, made a maddening display. A film of lace gave a discreet edging, but failed to dim the swelling outlines.
"Isn't she beautiful?" cried Nancibelle.
"Yes, very!" Hugh's voice sounded hoarse. It was with an effort that he pulled his eyes away. "Now don't forget. Your names; and be surprised at nothing."
They went toward the wharf. The black stevedores moved up and down the gangplank in an endless stream, staggering under their loads.
"Now—careful!" whispered Hugh warningly.
Two soldiers suddenly appeared out of the background of the night. They seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. They held rifles extended, and the smoking torches cast bloody gleams on the bayonetted points.
"Halt!"
Hugh laughed; the hearty, knowing laugh of the hail-fellow-well-met.
"These are the two gals I was telling you about, Flora and Suzanne." He winked, slapped his thigh jovially. "Boys, I want you to meet two of the nicest, kindest, loveliest ladies in all New Orleans."
The soldiers stared, hungrily, greedily. Little lights burned in their eyes. "By God! I'll say you're right, Mr. Flint!" exclaimed the taller, lankier one. "Too bad we kain't get off dooty tonight. Which 'un is Flora?"
"The little lady with the wine-colored dress," laughed Hugh.
The soldier nodded with a self-satisfied air. "Kain't I pick 'em, though? I knowed rightaway Flora was the name for her."
Hugh deftly steered the girls past the admiring soldiers. "You sure can," he agreed. "When they get back I'll fix it up for you, and for your partner, too."
"That would be mighty nice of you, Mr. Flint," said the shorter guard. He chuckled wheezily. "Me and Bill here won't fight over 'em. Me, I kind of like Suzanne in that pink dress."
Hugh felt the shivering of the girls' arms as he pushed them on toward the gangplank. "Sssh! Not a word!" he whispered fiercely. Then he lifted his voice again. "Here they are, Captain Willis. Just as I promised. The boys up the river sure will be glad to see them."
"Well, well, if'n it ain't my sweet little girlies, Flora an' Suzanne!" boomed Willis. "You'll be a sight fer sore eyes, I'll bet." He smacked his lips loudly. "If'n I was only a mite younger now—"
The soldiers laughed. "Now ain't that too bad!"
But Hugh had already hustled them across the deck, and into the saloon. His face was suddenly tired, and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead.
"Everything's all right now," he said. "The Eleanor's casting off in a minute. Willis will show you your rooms—"
Sally was shivering all over. Inside of her everything was hot and cold at once. She knew she was paler than Nancibelle, but her eyes couldn't possibly be that round.
She turned furiously upon Hugh. Words tumbled and seared past the choking obstruction in her throat. "You—you—now I understand! The dresses we had to wear—everything! They thought we were common women, light ladies of the street! How they smirked and ogled and ran their filthy thoughts over us!" She flung the cloak over her bareness, as if to smother the memory of the taint. "How dared you subject us to that vileness! It was your revenge, wasn't it? You planned it; reveled in the jest you were going to play. You—"
Hugh said: "Stop it, you fool! Do you want them to hear out there on the wharf?"
His harsh, low voice cut across her passion. Nancibelle said in a panic: "If they find out who we are, they'll really treat us like—like fancy women."
"Listen to me!" Hugh told the still-shaking girl. "I've got you away, as I promised. You're safe."
"But how—how!"
"How? By the only trick that could possibly work. Do you think those sentries would have let you by otherwise, without a pass? Now pull yourselves together and keep quiet, both of you. If you don't care about my safety, think of Willis. If we're caught at what we're doing, it's the firingsquad for both of us. There's too much at stake for a couple of silly girls with fantastic ideas about the facts of life to ruin everything. I'll gag and truss the first one of you that opens her mouth like that again."
There was a fierceness, a driving urge in his manner that impressed them in spite of themselves.
"I—I don't understand," gasped Sally. "What's at stake? Why should anyone be shot for helping us through the lines?"
"You don't have to understand. It's safer if you don't." Hugh said loudly: "Take good care of the gals, Captain Willis. Don't let those soldier boys mess them up too much."
Willis came loud-booted into the saloon. "Them gals is safer with me than with you, Mr. Flint," he roared. "I'm realizin' how old I'm a-gettin'. He! he!"
"Ha! ha! You're right at that, Captain. Well, a good trip."
Hugh went out without a backward glance. They heard his shoes making sharp, decisive sounds on the gangplank. Then the creaking of ropes, the sudden swing of the boat to the current.
Nancibelle's eyes were shining. "I think he's wonderful, Sally. If I hadn't seen Frazer first—"
Sally did not hear her. She stood there with tight-clenched hands. He hadn't even thought enough of them to say goodbye!
DAWN came up in a filigreed mist as the Eleanor butted its head against the levee at Moon Hill Plantation. No lights showed on the river boat, and no whistle or clanging bell announced its coming. The Eleanor rode high; the Mississippi was in flood and a bare four feet separated the turbid, debris-filled waters from the top of the levee. To Sally and Nancibelle, hastily on deck, surrounded with the few boxes of things they had been able to salvage in their fantastic flight from New Orleans, it was an eerie sensation. Below them, so far below it seemed as though any moment the river would hurl disaster down upon it, lay Moon Hill, peaceful and dozing in the morning light. A pocket of mist covered the land; from which, dissociated, insubstantial, rose white columns and the floating islands of surrounding trees.
"Sorry to drop you off like this, ladies," said Willis. "But it ain't healthy to go blowin' the whistle."
Sally said: "That's all right, Captain; I understand. And thanks for everything."
She didn't understand. The secrecy, the furtive passage of the Eleanor up the river. No lights showing; the two stops during the night on the west bank of the river, where she was positive that no village or plantation existed; only swamp and threadlike bayous leading inland. It was not the noise of the swift unloadings that had awakened her. There was very little noise. And no lights. The men worked fast and in whispers. Even the mate's usual bellow had muted to a ghostly shadow of itself. From the scuffling push of bare feet, from the quick, soft thud of boxes on the mucky earth, it seemed to Sally that men had waited in the recesses of those swamps, waited for the Eleanor to appear. Drowsily she wondered at the contents of those heavy boxes. Plain labels had stared at her on the deck at New Orleans. Sugar apparatus. Evaporating pans. Steam kettles. All in bold, firm crayon. More drowsily she wondered what need there was for plantation machinery in the heart of swamp and tangled bayous, miles from the nearest plantation. Then she dropped off to sleep again, lulled by the rhythmic returning movement of the paddles and the deep, regular breathing of her sleeping sister.
Nancibelle was crying now. Whether it was from joy at their homecoming, or from some other cause, Sally did not know. She had a queer, expanding feeling in her own breast and her eyes stung. It must have been the acrid, earth-fed mist. She blinked and stared at the slowly clearing, much-familiar land, at the quiet, stately house, as though her ache would never cease.
Home! Thrice-familiar, thrice-beloved home! Relaxation, safety; escape from the nightmare that New Orleans had been for the past few weeks. Her father—stubborn, strange, different; hard-shelled against the hurts that had sought to crush him in. No loud and hearty laughter, no earthy moods such as she had loved and her mother had deplored. Instead, a fierce and narrow concentration upon the land; a driving, obsessive passion for the minutiae of digging and planting and hoeing and cutting, as though he wished to force his solace by main strength from the teeming, fruitful ground.
Dabney's death had been the ultimate blow. The single male of his line; the sole hope that the name of Wailes would go on and on. The plantation became a shell, a boundary through which he would not, could not pierce. When business interests required his presence in New Orleans, he refused to go. Stubbornly, without reason or explanation. That was why Sally had gone, with Nancibelle to keep her company.
Sally's lips twitched at that. It would have been better if she had not gone. Perhaps their sugar might still have been intact; and the future not quite so hopeless. Unaccountably, Butler had failed to live up to expectation. He had not confiscated private goods. He paid in gold for what he bought. Then she squared her shoulders. She was not sorry for what she had done. She would not give Hugh Flint credit for prophetic vision. All he had been interested in were profits and the chance to trade.
"Praise be de Lawd!" said Patsey, her face shining. "We's home! I doan care ef'n I nebber see dat Yankee trash agin."
She shut her eyes and began to sing, in a low, humming voice:
"Shet up my eyes and take-a my hand,
And let me fly away wid de Angel Band."
Willis looked anxiously up and down the lonesome river. "You'd better hurry, Miss Sally. I got to be gettin' on."
Sally shook the singing, twitching Patsey. "Did you hear what the Captain said? He'll take you back to the Yanks if you don't get off."
Sharp, black face took on a comical consternation. Eyes opened wide; and with a screech Patsey clutched at hatboxes and raced across the gangplank. "Noah, he don'!" she panted from the levee's safety. "I'd jes' kick an' scream an'—"
But the missies were on shore beside her, and the boat was backing away, swinging out into the stream.
Nancibelle was saying: "Run, Patsey, wake up the household. Get Cuffy and Quash to bring the cart; tell our father—"
"You stay right here," Sally interrupted, "and mind the things. I—I want to surprise Dad. I want to see Moon Hill just this way, walking up the road."
The younger girl flung her arms remorsefully around Sally. "Of course, how stupid of me! I declare, though, you're actually getting romantic, my dear, practical sister!"
The mist was lifting, and the sun poured its steamy rays across the broad, flat land. Hand in hand they went down the gentle slope, crossed the public road that followed the river all the way to Baton Rouge, and trudged along the avenue of approach that led to Moon Hill. Silence held them tight; nor did it matter that they splashed in scattered puddles.
The great white house rose in shining dignity down the end of the road. On either side were groves of oak and bay and spreading magnolias. Pink and white crepe-myrtles, red oleanders, yellow mimosa and sharp-edged yucca made a bower in front. The path they trod was hemmed in by gigantic live-oaks, their great limbs writhing to the ground, draped in bearded moss.
Four strong Ionic columns lifted their height across the front of the house to support the wide gallery of the second story. Two wings stood apart like vigilant guards, plastered over with a creamy stucco, on which green shutters made oblong patches. These were single-storied, their pitched roofs broken by dormer windows; and short passages connected them with the stately central structure. Behind, half-shadowed by the mist, standing on the verge of the cypress-haunted swamp, towered the brick chimney of the sugar house. Between ran a thin scum of green over the land, and ordered, whitewashed rows of negro cabins.
Moon Hill! Home!
As they neared the house the cabins began to stir. Smoke curled. Figures, small and black against the reddish sun, moved out into the fields. A dog barked. Then another. A sudden chorus shattered the scene.
"That would be Dildo," exclaimed Nancibelle. "She's always the first to take tongue."
A statuesque, powerfully built negress emerged from the rear of the house. A blue bandanna was on her head, but her splendid torso was bare and dripping from disturbed ablutions.
"Kain't dem houn's ebber get shut-mouf! Gwine back thar, foah ah—"
"It's us, Easter!" called Sally, hastening her steps. "We're back!"
The negress whirled as the dogs flowed past her, yelping and wriggling their bodies with joy. She raised her hands, forgetful of her deep, dark breasts and glistening skin.
"Miss Sally! Miss Nancibelle! Glory! glory! Den de Yanks ain't et you!"
She spun on her bare heels, dived back the way she had come. They could hear her excited, resonant voice. "He here! He here! Mass' Wailes, he come!"
Then the dogs were upon them, their lean, brown bodies jumping and yelping and jumping again.
The front doors opened and Sam Wailes came out upon the portico to the edge of the steps and stood peering down the avenue of trees.
"Father! Dad!"
The two girls disentangled themselves from the dogs, rushed forward to fling themselves simultaneously at him. Laughing, crying, babbling, hugging.
He kissed them both. "I'm glad you're back." His voice was husky, and a little tired. "I tried to get word to you, but there was no way. The Yankee gunboats let no one pass. But how did you come?"
"On the Eleanor, Dad." Sally kissed him again. "Captain Willis was very land."
"And Hugh Flint!" exclaimed Nancibelle. "Don't forget how he—"
A sharp kick at her shin brought an exclamation of pain. "Why, Sally, what—" The look that Sally flung her cut her short. There was no telling how their father might take the story of how Hugh Flint had smuggled them on board.
Sally held him off at arm's-length for inspection as if he were a child. She was shocked at the change that even this last month had made in him. He looked tired, and his shoulders sagged. His beard was a three-days' growth; he who had shaved at the appointed evening hour while the Mississippi boiled over the shattered levee in a roaring cascade. The lines were deeper along the sides of his nose; and his eyes, filled with sudden light at the sight of them, had already relapsed to a stubborn withdrawal.
"What's the matter?" she demanded. "Is it the sugar we had in New Orleans?"
"I heard about it," he admitted. "It wiped us pretty clean."
"No more than any other planter. It was the least we could do for our country, Dad. The next crop—"
"There won't be any next crop." He said it harshly, loudly; as if to take the raw edge from his hurt by the vehemence of his words.
Nancibelle was waving greetings to Easter Sunday Clark, who had managed somehow to thrust her nakedness inside a dotted scarlet waist, and to Cuffy, whose big feet as they slapped around the house looked more ludicrously incongruous than ever. Cuffy was Easter Sunday's latest husband; and the smallest she had ever temporarily wed. Her husbands never lasted more than a year. Come New Year and they dropped out of the picture, half-resentful at their going and half-fearful of the mighty arm that Easter wielded when necessary. Within a week thereafter she would present herself with another snickering, spruced-up buck for the Wailes's inspection.
"Why don't you stick to one husband?" Elizabeth Wailes had asked her once.
"La, Miss Elizabeth!" Easter chuckled, taking a firmer hitch on her latest beau. "Ah jes' lose mah taste foah dem fool niggers." Then she added with a loud laugh: "'Sides, ah doan' care pertik'lar w'ich one I'se got; but ah do lak de weddin' veil an' de cake whut you gibs wid each marriage."
But at her father's strange, harsh voice Nancibelle dropped her hand. "What do you mean, Dad—no crop! There's been no flood, has there? The levee's holding."
"Hush, Nancibelle! Of course there's been no break." Sally faced her father squarely. "You're holding back something," she accused. "What is it?"
He avoided her eyes; said nothing.
She turned to the silent, ill-assorted couple. "Easter! Cuffy!" she demanded. "You tell me."
Cuffy opened his mouth. Easter caught his skinny arm; gave him a shake that rattled his teeth. "You mak shut-mouf, nigger. How many times ah tol' you dat w'en ah's around you don' say nuttin'?"
Still Sam Wailes said nothing.
Easter folded her huge black arms grimly. "It's lak dis, Miss Sally. Dem fool niggers bin gittin' fool idees sence de Lincum boats bin paradin' up an' down de ribber. Dey bin gittin' uppity an' res'less-like; an' dey wuks a little, snoozes a little, maks big tawk a little."
"Dass right!" Cuffy bobbed his skinny head in agreement. "Me an' Eastah Sunday 'bout de on'y ones whut ain't made ju-ju tawk." He shrieked suddenly. "Owww! You ain't got no call ta pinch me, woman."
"Ah'll pinch you wuss nex' tarn, nigger, ef'n you don' shut dat big mouf o' yourn," she threatened. "He jes' makin' tawk, Missy," she told Sally hastily.
But the girl had heard enough. Ju-ju talk! She knew what that meant. Voodoo talk, perhaps voodoo practices, that sometimes swept over the superstitious negroes of the sugar plantations like fire in stubble grass. Dark, secret rites that no white man had ever seen. Blood sacrifices, strange orgies, relics of the distant jungle from which their ancestors had been raped. The mere whisper of them froze up even the best of negroes, caused the planters to look to their weapons. Any slave uprising, it had been said time and again, would be preceded by a period of ju-ju.
"Both of you keep your tongues from clacking so much," ordered Sam Wailes suddenly. "Get into the kitchen, Easter, and get some breakfast for Miss Sally and Miss Nancibelle. They must be starved. And you, Cuffy, get the cart down to the levee to pick up their baggage and Patsey."
"Yassuh!" grinned Cuffy and slapped away toward the stables.
Easter glared after him. "Doan' you go makin' eyes at dat no-count Patsey," she yelled, "or you'll wish you nebber bin borned." Then, without a break, "You poo' chillum. Ah bin so admirin' to see you, ah clean fo'got 'bout food. Ah'll hab something smokin' hot foah you afore you gits inside."
Easter was almost as good as her word. By the time they had washed, given Patsey instructions to lay out their things, and come down into the great dining-room, the long mahogany table was set with spotless linen and their best flowered china. A silver egg cooker spurted thin wisps of steam as the eggs slowly coddled to a creamy consistency within; huge bowls of hot hominy gave off a grateful odor; a platter of crisp bacon was heaped high before them and there were hot biscuits, rashers of fried ham, tiny pickled watermelons, apple jelly and spiced walnuts, together with a silver urn of hot Southern coffee.
Sally and Nancibelle hadn't realized how hungry they were. For fifteen minutes Sam Wailes and his daughters ate in silence. The girls were waiting for him to begin; and Sam ate more than he wished to cover up his unwillingness to talk.
The great dining-room looked out on the long sweep of sugar fields. By this time they should have been buzzing with activity. Files of slaves should have been moving steadily among the tiny green shoots, ploughing with shallow ploughs between the rows, following with hoes to clear away the weedy grass and the draining cross-ditches from accumulated rubbish.
But over the vastness of the land a scant half-dozen worked. Or rather, they worked when the spirit seized them. Mostly they slouched or rested on their hoes; chiefly they talked across the stubble fields; and the single negro with the single plough leaned against the motionless mules and idly flicked their drooping heads with a dried cane switch.
Sally could stand it no longer. She put down her coffee. "Look, Father, it's no use pretending. Something has happened in Moon Hill. If the slaves won't work, why don't you call in the sheriff from Lutcher? He'll take care of them."
Sam Wailes looked up from the egg with which he had been toying. His voice sounded very tired. "The sheriff has been here; with two men. It happened last week."
"Did he jail the ringleaders?"
"He took Enock and Ned. They had been the most impudent."
"Well, didn't that settle matters?"
Sam stared down at his plate again. "As he and his deputies started down the road someone fired on them from ambush. Joe Pike was killed outright, Branch Beatty died yesterday; and Sheriff Mount was shot through the hip. Enock and Ned took their horses, their weapons and equipment and galloped down toward Algiers and the Federals."
Nancibelle's spoon fell with a little clatter. "Branch dead! He used to tell me stories about the Carolina mountains when I was a little girl."
"Did—did they find the murderer?" demanded Sally.
"No. It was someone hiding back of our fence up the road a way. The sheriff is certain it was one of our slaves."
"But this is shocking! Surely you've found out by now who it was!"
Sam spread his hands in a gesture. "You don't understand, Sally. The world has turned topsyturvy. Every value with which we've grown up has disappeared. The slaves run the land now. Every night they gather in back of the sugar house. I can hear talk and bursts of strange wailing."
"But, Dad," protested Nancibelle, "why don't you take your gun and put a stop to it?"
"They'd kill me."
"What?" Both girls were incredulous; unbelieving. Slaves congregating; and their master scared to break it up? In very fact the world was toppling.
"You don't know what's going on. The negroes are in a state of mutiny from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. The Yankee patrols have come up this far; and when they leave, they take back with them a batch of slaves. Contraband, they call them. And those that don't stream after them, dazzled by their talk of freedom and a life of ease, get restless and sullen. White men daren't go out alone at night. Down in Lutcher they broke into the stores and took all the whiskey. For two days after, not a stroke of work was done. Everyone was drunk."
Sam tapped the nails of his fingers against the china. "There's some ringleader among them who stirs them up and eggs them on. I have reason to believe it's the same fellow who shot Mount's men."
"One of our slaves?"
"I'm afraid so."
Nancibelle looked frightened. She began to whimper. "We should have stayed in New Orleans. I told you so, Sally. We'll be murdered in our beds."
"Don't be a fool!" said Sally sharply. "We can take care of ourselves. We'll keep guns under our pillows. I can shoot as well as Father; and you know how to handle a pistol. Besides, there are Confederate troops in the neighborhood."
"Only a few scattered guerrilla bands," Sam told her. "The regulars have been withdrawn to Brasher City and above. Baton Rouge itself is daily expecting the Yanks." Some of his old fire came back. "If I could lay my hands on the troublemaker among my negroes I wouldn't need a Confederate force," he declared with grim intensity.
"Won't Cuffy or Easter tell you?"
"No. They don't follow, but they won't talk. That ju-ju business has worked on their superstitions. You saw how Easter hushed Cuffy up."
It was all very terrible and appalling to Sally. She had been brought up on the plantation and imbibed the plantation tradition. Negroes were made to be slaves and white people to be their masters. The Moon Hill slaves had been well and kindly treated. Elizabeth, when she lived, had tended their ailments and cared for them in sickness and death. The work in the cane fields, especially at sugaring time, was hard. But Sam Wailes was a fair and just taskmaster. He was his own overseer, and he saw to it that no one was worked beyond his strength or treated improperly. In all his management not more than three slaves had ever been flogged; and the floggings were for crimes against their own kind. One raping and two mayhems with the wicked sugar knives.
It was true that on some of the plantations, notably in the hot and steaming delta below New Orleans, there were harsh owners who worked their slaves practically to death. They claimed that it was cheaper to buy a new set every seven years or so than to coddle the ones they had. But these men were mercifully few, and no decent planter would have anything to do with them. Furthermore, in practically every case, the plantation was overseer-run, with the owner some absentee who cared only for quick profits and wasn't too inclined to worry how his overseer got them, as long as he got them.
Some of Nancibelle's obvious fright, some of her father's less obvious tension, infected Sally. From childhood she had been free to roam fearlessly among their slaves. Most of them had been born on the plantation. Sam never sold one, nor did he purchase them on the slave block. The one exception was Quash.
"How about Quash?" she asked.
"He seems to be all right. Sullen and not talkative; but then, that's his way. Does his work. I'd say that next to Easter and Cuffy—and Patsey, of course—I can trust him."
Sally wasn't so sure of that. Even as a child the one negro to whom she had felt an instinctive repulsion was Quash. That might possibly have been due to his gigantic size and his difference from the others. There was something elementally savage about him; something deeply sullen and lurking. He never grinned like the others; she couldn't remember once having heard him laugh out loud. He kept a good deal to himself, neither obsequious to the whites nor fraternizing with the negroes. But he did his work, as her father said.
She dismissed him from her mind in the press of greater problems. A murderer was loose among them; a secret instigator of discontent and possible revolt. The slaves along the river outnumbered the whites almost ten to one. If they ever should rise up...
"If only we had a few more strong, determined men in the neighborhood," she sighed. "But they've all gone away to fight. They've left the old and the little boys."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Sam suddenly. "I clean forgot to tell you. Andy Hilgard is back."
"Major Hilgard!" Nancibelle clapped her hands. "That's marvelous! He'll know how to handle these uppity niggers." She looked meaningfully at her sister. "But why did he leave the front?"
Sally pretended not to see the look. She felt quite calm about the bit of news; too calm, in fact, for exact analysis. She knew that her father had a soft spot in his heart for his handsome, reckless neighbor; and Nancibelle, of course, adored him. So did every woman out of short dresses, she thought with a touch of resentment. Certainly it wasn't because of her that Andy had come home. Yet the very denial caused her to feel a certain pleasurable excitement. She wouldn't have been a woman otherwise.
"He was hit with a piece of shrapnel at Winchester. It got him in the thigh."
"Oh, the poor man!" Sally felt a deep well of pity within her. "Is—is it bad?"
"Painful; but not dangerous. Anyway, General Jackson thought he could stand a furlough. They patched him up at Richmond; then sent him home to rest up. He's all right now. In fact," Sam smiled slightly, "I wouldn't be surprised if he comes riding over in half an hour or so. He does that every morning."
"Father!" wailed Nancibelle reproachfully. "Do you mean to say you've permitted us to dawdle here over breakfast when any minute he may appear? Why, I look like a positive frump, after that dreadful trip from New Orleans. Oh, Father, how could you?"
She rose precipitately and fled out into the reception hall. They could hear her flying up the long, central stairs; her voice trailing behind her. "Sally! You'd better hurry! You know your dress has a big tar spot on it and your hair is all messed."
Sally looked down, startled. The thick, gummy smudge on her traveling gown was quite noticeable. Coming off the boat she had pressed against the rail. She had changed to it in the morning. It wouldn't have done to have appeared in Moon Hill with the evening gown of the night before. That was an episode to be erased from her memory as speedily as possible. Her father must never know.... And her hair was damp and clammy.
She got up with as much dignity as possible under the quizzical eye of her father. Nancibelle was a child yet; she could act like a child. But Sally was a grown woman; and she didn't want her father to feel...
Once out in the hall, however, she lifted her dress and took the stairs like a boy. She dashed madly to her room, all pretense cast aside. "Patsey, quickly! My light blue organdie, my new satin slippers, my sheerest stockings. And get busy on my hair. Hurry!"
From Nancibelle's room across the hall she could hear impatient cries. "Silla! You lazy good-for-nothing! I told you the green poplin; not the white."
Major Andrew Hilgard was handsomer and more dashing than ever. He was thinner; and the bronze of a year's campaigning was overlaid with the recent pallor of illness. His fine gray uniform was worn, and the luster had departed forever from the gilt. But all this served to accentuate his undeniable soldierly bearing and to give him a seasoned, competent appearance that had been lacking in the civilian planter. He favored his wounded thigh with a slight limp that added to the glamor.
He met the girls with a warmth and admiration that left no room for doubt. He had come as the last frantic finishing touches had been given to their costumes; and they descended the stairs with just the proper air of casualness and surprise as Quash, in his dark blue coat and tight gray pantaloons, announced: "Majuh Hilga'd!"
But his admiration was chiefly for Sally. His greeting to the breathless Nancibelle was cordial; to Sally his eyes flashed gallant volumes.
"Your presence, Miss Sally, illuminates what was going to be a drab, uninteresting prospect. I had almost given up in despair any hope of seeing you before I went back to the front." He held her hand rather longer than propriety permitted. "I thought you were beautiful before; but your beauty has the happy faculty of perpetual increase."
Sally withdrew her hand. "As have your flatteries," she told him. "I understand the ladies of Richmond dote on them."
"The ladies of Richmond!" He dismissed them with a gesture. "I thought only of you."
"And of the enemy, I hope."
"How you go on!" Nancibelle was indignant at her sister. "Everyone knows what a hero Major Hilgard has been."
He smiled whimsically at her. "Thank you for defending my virtues, Miss Nancibelle. Your sister seems to think—"
"I'm sorry." Sally felt remorseful. She hadn't quite adjusted herself to Andy's presence. Being a forthright person, she was trying to analyze her feelings. Being a woman, she knew that he wanted her; that the absence of a year had not dimmed that desire. Being a woman, she had to confess that it was not unpleasant. The flatteries might have been a little too glib, too practiced; but she could not question that they were sincere—up to a certain point. Her own sensations were confused. He was attractive, without doubt. It was nice to feel that he had singled her out from all the women he had known. And he was a hero! He had fought for their land; would continue to fight. Without bragging; without large talk of sacrifice. He had been wounded....
"I did not mean anything," she went on quickly. "Your wound—"
"Just serious enough to induce the General to grant me a furlough. It's healed. In fact, I should have started back yesterday."
"Why didn't you?" Then Sally flushed. The words were out of her mouth before she thought. She knew what the answer was going to be; and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.
"Because—I hoped against hope you might return from New Orleans. You see how fortunate I am."
Nancibelle sighed. Major Hilgard was so wonderful. Only the night before she had thought Hugh Flint wonderful. But he wasn't as dashing; and his speeches were certainly not flattering. Oh, yes, she had almost forgotten! Poor Frazer! They had vowed eternal fidelity, and he had looked quite nice in his blue uniform. Oh dear! There were so many romantic men in the world! A girl had a terrible time in deciding among them.
Sally changed the subject. "You've heard about the destruction of your sugar, I suppose."
He waved it aside. "In a good cause, Miss Sally. I'm glad the Yanks didn't get their hands on it."
How like a gentleman he took ruin! The sugar had been his only chance to pay off his debts. The crop had been the best in years, thanks to her father's management. Yet, like a gallant Southerner, his first thought was for his country's welfare; not for the wretched money it would have meant. So different from Hugh Flint's attitude. She began to glow a little inside. She favored him with a bright smile.
"I'm happy to hear you say so, Major Hilgard."
"Please—you did call me Andy when I went away."
"Andy."
"That's more like it—Sally."
Suddenly she did not want him to leave. "It's a pity you have to go back in such a hurry."
"If he doesn't," interrupted Sam Wailes, "he'll be marooned here for good. The Yanks are already at Lake Maurepas in force."
"I'm not worrying about them," declared Andy. "I spoke to Verrell yesterday. He promised to accompany me to Pontchatoula. If we meet any Yanks so much the worse for them."
Sam Wailes looked anxious. "Do you mean Omega Verrell?"
"Yes. Why?"
"He's a bad one, Andy. I don't like to hear that his gang is in the neighborhood. They claim to be Confederates, but they're as ready to pillage as the Yanks."
"Verrell's all right. In fact, I told him we might need his guerrillas around here today."
"Why?"
Hilgard's face hardened. "It's about time we taught your niggers a lesson. Mine are bad enough; but they aren't impudent, and they haven't killed white men. The most that happened was that a few of them ran off to the Feds."
"What do you think of doing?" demanded Sally.
"I don't know," he said carelessly. "Flog a few, if your father is agreed. That ought to put the fear of God in their hearts. Scare the living daylight out of the rest."
Sam shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know as we ought to—"
"Only way to handle them."
"But you can't, Dad," Sally protested. "You can't flog anyone unless you're sure—"
Quash came in quietly. For all his bulk he moved like a gigantic noiseless shadow.
"Cap'n Verrell is waitin' outside."
"Good!" said Andy. "Now we can talk it over."
"Tell him to come in, Quash," said Sam.
Sally bit her lips. She had an uneasy suspicion that Quash had heard what they had been saying; though his granite blackness was as immobile and unenlightening as ever. Oh well, perhaps it didn't matter. Her father was pretty sure he could be trusted.
"Captain" Omega Verrell came in with a thud of boots and a swagger that was half-defiant, half-uncertain of itself. He was a tall, yellowish sort of man, with pale, watery eyes that kept continually shifting and a chin that tried to bluster even as it receded. Two tobacco-stained front teeth showed unpleasantly over his lower lip as he essayed a grin.
"Howdy, Mr. Wailes. Howdy, ladies. Howdy, Major."
"Good-morning, Verrell," Sam said coldly. He did not like the man. Before the war he would never have permitted such poor white trash into Moon Hill. Not because he was poor, but because he was trash. Omega had been a shiftless, lazy individual without any visible means of support. Trapped and hunted a bit; but chiefly, so indignant planters claimed, he instigated thievery among their slaves, and bought from them the products of their thefts for a swig of corn liquor or a chew of tobacco. Several times Sheriff Mount from Lutcher had investigated his activities, but without success.
With the coming of war Verrell became a fire-eater. No one in all the parish could curse the Yanks or the niggers with such copious fluency or effectiveness as he. The skeptical might feel that he would have done better by enlisting, but the smaller planters and the landless and foot-loose began to look up to him. The sudden appearance of the Yankees in New Orleans and their expeditionary bands along the river brought matters to a head. Verrell took upon himself the title of "Captain" and raised a band of irregulars to harass the Yanks. A good many among the planters, however—and Sam Wailes was one of them—were uncertain which was worse—Verrell's guerrillas or the Yanks.
"Well, Major," Verrell looked inquiringly at Andy, "how about it? Do we show them thar niggers—?"
"Just a moment," Sam interrupted. "All right, Quash. You can go."
"Yes, sir." The big black quietly left the room. Not a muscle on his face had changed at the guerrilla captain's loud voice.
Then Sam said: "There'll be no floggings on my plantation, Verrell. When we discover the actual murderer of Sheriff Mount's men, we'll know how to deal with him."
"Look here, Sam," Andy protested. "Unless you do something now, your niggers will feel they can repeat the crime. I'd hate to think what might happen to your girls—"
"We'll take care of ourselves," said Sally. She spoke more confidently than she felt.
"Suit yourselves." Andy shrugged his shoulders. "You see how it is, Verrell."
The man looked disappointed, sullen. "Yeah, I see. Well, I'll bid y'all good-day. My men's layin' along the bayou. Say, by the way, we're mighty short o' food an' clothes. Kin you give us something?"
"We haven't got much ourselves," said Sam. "But I think we can scrape up a little for you."
"So can I," said Andy. "I'll send my man Stud over with a cart later in the afternoon."
"That's fine. Well, I'll be goin'. In case you change your mind, Mr. Wailes, about them niggers, I'm hangin' round coupla days."
ANDY Hilgard spent more time that day and the next at Moon Hill than on his own plantation. He didn't leave until evening, and the next morning he rode over a little after dawn. Sam was out in the fields trying to get some work done. Whether it was his exhortations, or the presence of Verrell's band, the plantation began to hum with accustomed activity. The hitherto impudent negroes became suddenly obedient; and the long lines of small green shoots were hoed up, and the draining ditches rid of debris.
Sally went out riding with Andy. It was good to be on a horse again. The air was fresh and clean, and the war seemed far away. She was happier than she had been since Dabney's death. The two horses trotted slowly, side by side. Down the dirt road they went, past the great brick sugar house, toward the swamp that ran along the rear.
The fecund earth gave off a good, rich smell. A little grove of oranges was green-gold with small, unripe fruit. Cape-jasmine and oleander sweetened the air. Little naked negro children ran out from the row of cabins as they went by and watched them round-eyed. The comforting sense of maleness in Andy was close to her. Peace brooded on Moon Hill. They jogged silently on.
Sally felt no need for speech; and Andy was strangely silent. It wasn't like his usual self. He seemed preoccupied, and his face was a little set.
The road swerved along the cypress swamp and ended abruptly at a wooded plot of pines and oaks that divided Hilgard's from Moon Hill. The swamp was silent as death. The tall white trees shot ghostly trunks high into the air, ending in clumps of fern-like leaves. The long gray moss dropped fantastically from the branches, tangling with creeper vines that crept upward to meet them. The great cypress knees, gnarled and bent and staggering under the weight of the trunks they supported, lifted out of little islands of mud and slime, while the still, black water criss-crossed into impenetrable jungle. Trumpet vines splashed red across the white and the black.
Andy roused himself. He turned in his saddle toward the silent girl. "Sally," he started, "I'm going to—"
A man stepped out suddenly from the wood. He had a rifle in his hands and he staggered a little. "Halt!" he said thickly, waveringly. "Who goesh thar?"
His clothes were ragged and bare, dirty toes looked out from his shoes. A Confederate cap over his matted hair was the only sign of a uniform.
Andy frowned. Without stopping he rode at the man. "You're drunk," he said sternly.
The man peered up at him. Then he lowered his gun, swayed. "It'ssh Maj'r Hilgar'," he hiccoughed. "Didn't notish. Drunk? Sure, why not? Keepsh off fever. Ha, ha!"
Hilgard raised his voice angrily. "Hi, Verrell! I want to see you."
The quiet wood stirred. Men came out, as ragged and coarse-looking as the sentinel. All had guns; some were equally drunk. They blinked at Sally, and she felt a shrinking of the flesh. These were not her idea of Confederate soldiers. She was terribly glad that Andy was along. He sat on his horse so fearless and stern-looking.
Verrell came out a little later, wiping his thick, pale lips with the back of his hand. "Howdy, Major. What's the matter?"
"Matter enough. Look at that man. He's drunk. So are most of your men. What do you think would happen if the Yanks fell upon such riffraff?"
"We ain't riffraff!" shouted a man with a crooked nose and a long scar down his cheek. "You ain't got no call—"
"Shut up, Rafe," said Verrell. He grinned up at Andy. "We'd give 'em hell, Major. These here boys fit best when they got a skinful. It's a good thing you rode up, though. I was goin' to tell you. We's driftin' along tomorrer night. Felt we'd better. So ef'n you wants to git to Pontch'toula—"
Andy looked startled. "We made arrangements to go on Monday. What made you change your mind?"
Verrell slapped at a muskito. "Well, it's this way. I hear'n the Yank patrols is headin' for Bat'n Rooje. We's li'ble ta git caught—"
"I see." There was contempt in the tone. "You might have to fight." Andy wheeled his horse. "Come on, Sally. Let's ride back."
They had repassed the sugar house before she said anything. "I don't like those men, Andy. I'll be glad when they're gone."
"Riffraff! Drunken louts! I'd like to have them in my battalion for a couple of months. I'd whip the nonsense out of them." His expression changed. He leaned over toward the girl. "You heard what Verrell said?"
"You mean about leaving?"
"I'll be going with them. They're not much, but they might help if we do run into a Yank patrol." He laughed. "Anyway, I can trust them to slip me through back roads. I don't think Verrell's too anxious to meet up with any Yank." He became serious again; let his gaze drift over the wide, flat fields. "I—I thought you might be sorry to see me go. At least you might have pretended."
"But I am, Andy," she protested. "Really I am."
At the moment she felt like that. His nearness, the maleness that enveloped him, the way he had handled Verrell's men. Then, too, everything was topsyturvy; all old values gone and new ones still seething in a strange cauldron.
Suddenly she was aware that he was very close. The horses rubbed girths and his knee pressed against hers. His head bent over and his eyes burned. "Sally!" he said softly.
She looked straight ahead. She knew what was coming. Her heart pounded; her desires and her mind made a milling chaos. She was all confused.
"Yes?" she said.
"I'm going away tomorrow—for a long time. This war will not be over soon. It may be years. But if I can have the memory of you with me always, it won't seem so long. I don't say that I'm much good; I know I've done many things I shouldn't. But—oh, damn it, Sally—I love you. Will you marry me, today?"
She had known it was coming; yet it was a shock. An inner voice cried that she must have time to think. She wasn't sure of herself; she wasn't sure of anything. She liked Andy—in a way. She was sorry for him; sorry for all brave men who were yielding up their all for the benefit of their country. There were rumors about him—but then, about what Southern planter were there not similar rumors? If he were married, he would settle down.
She looked at him. He was so oddly appealing, humble. If he had been his usual aggressive, dashing self, she could have refused him; or turned him off with vague words. But this strange abasement.... A curious vision flashed across her—of Hugh Flint shaking her by the arm and calling her a fool! Of his quitting them on the deck of the Eleanor without even so much as a goodbye.
"Yes," she said.
Samuel Wailes was surprised. For a long, thoughtful moment he considered the matter while Andy Hilgard stated the case to him. Now that it had happened he wasn't so sure that it was the proper thing for Sally. It was true he had smiled benevolently on Andy's efforts before; yet when it came to the point he didn't know. He wondered how much Sally actually knew. Well, after all, a man had a right to sow some wild oats. He himself remembered certain passages in his youth, though they hadn't been anything like Andy's; and he had never gone out of his color, as the niggers themselves put it. He'd have to speak to Andy privately about that. There were too many little yellow children on Andy's plantation. They'd have to be gotten rid of; and their mothers also. It wouldn't do for Sally to have living reminders around her all the time. Besides, they had a habit of getting uppity with the mistress. There was enough of that around now without adding to it.
He shook Andy's hand warmly; kissed his daughter. She didn't seem too responsive; as excited as the situation warranted. But then marriage was a shock to a young girl. She had to have time to adjust herself. If only Elizabeth were alive. She'd be so happy, and she'd know just what to do and say.
But if Sally seemed strangely calm, Nancibelle made up for it. She squealed and clapped her hands and danced and threw her arms smotheringly around her sister. "Darling! It's so wonderful! A military wedding! He'll look so handsome in his uniform; and you'll be so sweet.... Now let me see, we'll have to invite..."
Andy chucked her under the chin. "We're getting married this afternoon, dear Nancibelle. There won't be time to invite a soul."
Sam shook his head slowly. "It doesn't sound right, Andy. And it's so soon after Dabney's death...."
"But this is war, Sam. I'm leaving tomorrow for the front. We can't observe all the proprieties that hold good in time of peace."
Sally went through the ceremony in somewhat of a cold, blank daze. She heard preacher Yellin, hastily called in from Lutcher, going through the ceremony. The words he intoned, still a bit breathless from his long gallop, were meaningless. Love, honor, obey, do you? I do, whom God hath joined—the words made a blurred pattern empty of all content. The faces of the small company that had gathered were equally empty, alien. Her father's fixed mask, Nancibelle's facile, excited crying, Tom Love and his portly, managerial wife from the neighboring plantation, the peering, self-important faces of the slaves—Cuffy, Easter Sunday, Quash, Patsey, Silla, Lissy, Chum; and Andy's man, Stud.
Stud! Somehow her vagrant mind stopped at him. He was a nondescript, bandy-legged, light-colored negro, with popping eyes and an unprepossessing grin. Yet the stories of his prowess had filtered down even to her virgin ears. He had not been baptized with the name of "Stud." Andy had flung it at him amid laughter and applause at a certain convivial party some years back, and the name had stuck. Half the female slaves of St. James Parish had cause to acknowledge the accuracy of the name; and half the children....
She caught herself up short. Was this what happened when one got married? Did one's thoughts open thus eagerly to certain matters that had been closed volumes before?
Then it was all over; and Andy's lips were hot and eager on hers; and everyone was crying and laughing and kissing her and talking all at once. She herself seemed numb; she moved and did things mechanically.
"It's wonderful how calmly she takes it," she heard Emily Love's stagey whisper. "Now, when I married Tom, I—"
Even when the few guests had departed, and the small feasting was over, the full import of what she had done had still not penetrated the numbed recesses of her brain. They were going to spend the night at Moon Hill. Sam had insisted on that; and Andy had agreed. His own place hadn't been properly prepared; and tomorrow he was riding away. She heard everything and agreed to everything as though it concerned some outsider; someone who was not herself. She even submitted to Easter's ministrations in her chamber and her chuckling advice without much protest. Some of the things Easter told her out of the depths of her own vast experience would at other times have shocked her immeasurably; but the words and the phrases slid off an outer shell as though they had never been said.
It was only after Easter withdrew, with a last cryptic admonition, and Patsey had gone, and Nancibelle had cried and giggled all in one, and she lay alone in the vastness of the bed, in her best lace-embroidered nightgown and her hair smoothed and combed and her stiffened body properly perfumed, that she began to be afraid.
"Don't leave me, Easter!" she cried.
But Easter Sunday only turned at the door, grinning. "Hush, Miss Sally; doan' you go inter a fret. Mistuh Andy —he'll know how ter mak de smile come on you' face." And, chuckling, she was gone.
How long she lay alone she had no after means of telling. Motionless, stiff, with a slow unreasoning fear welling in her. Then the door opened again, and Andy entered. He came to the bed eagerly, his eyes glowing and his red lips slightly parted. She stared at him and the fear grew greater. What had she done? Who was this stranger who dared enter her room and approach her bed? Oh God! It was all a mistake! A terrible, ghastly mistake!
Then he was under the thin muslin sheet and his arms were straining at her....
Sally Hilgard dressed alone the next morning. She wanted to be alone. She had pretended to be asleep when Andy got up. He would have to ride over to his own plantation, she knew, in order to prepare for his going that night. She had refused Patsey's offer of help and had thrust Nancibelle, bewildered and protesting, out of the room. She wanted time to think over what had happened to her; to weigh the future that stretched interminably ahead.
The sight of her naked body in the mirror filled her with a sudden shuddering distaste. It reminded her... Resolutely she tried to put all thoughts of the night out of her mind. But it wasn't easy. Little leering episodes persisted in flaming across her brain and would not down. Hastily she flung clothes upon her nakedness, as if to hide it from herself. Was this, then, marriage?
It wasn't that she had been wholly innocent. On a large plantation one saw much that one was not supposed to see; and the negroes had very little reticences, in talk or in action. But she had built up for herself certain vague, curiously delightful concepts which the brutal reality had sent crashing and tumbling.
She was a married woman—Sally Hilgard. She tried to face that with honesty and candor. She tried to face the fact of Andy, of life with him and the intimacies of the bed as honestly. She was not in love with him. Of that she was now definitely aware. Whatever had been her doubts before, whatever her temporary emotionalism under propinquity and stress of circumstances, were resolved completely by the stark actuality. She was not in love with him. What then?
Until death do you part. The words took on a terrible meaning, yet they had to be faced. Faced boldly, if all her life was not to crumble into ashes and despair. Half-heard, vaguely remembered stories began to shape and take definite form. Of other women who had married and found out the truth too late about themselves. Of women who had gone to the marital bed hating the man to whom they were irrevocably bound. Some had made life a hell thereafter; others had adjusted themselves and held their secret close-locked in their own bosoms. So well that not even their husbands knew the truth.
Sally brushed her hair with strong, firm strokes. She had made a mistake, but no one would ever know; not Andy himself. She would prove a good and faithful wife. She would do everything that was necessary to make their marriage a success. She felt comforted at that; more comforting was the unacknowledged knowledge that Andy was riding off this very evening, to be gone for a long, long time.
When she finally came out of her room, Nancibelle pounced upon her. "You—you scared me, wanting to be alone like that. Oh, Sally darling, are you really and deliriously happy?"
Sally patted her sister's pale-blond hair. "Very happy, my dear."
It was almost noon when Andy came galloping back, very straight and erect on his horse, his saddle-bags packed, and looking very handsome.
"You're a fine bridegroom!" Sam greeted his son-in-law. "Leaving your bride alone like that."
Andy swung off his horse, kissed Sally, kissed Nancibelle, shook hands with Sam. "Couldn't help it," he said gaily. "Lots of things to take care of before I leave. But now I've got a full six hours at your disposal, my dear."
He seemed quite self-satisfied and sure of himself, Sally thought. Please God, may he never know!
As soon as decently possible, they rode off together. Down toward the bayou, along the road they had taken the day before. Andy stopped every so often to rain passionate kisses upon her. She accepted them unresistingly, as became a good wife. He didn't notice her lack of response, or that his caresses evoked no answering fire. His masculine conceit couldn't conceive of such a thing; if he noted her passivity at all he laid it to a maidenly modesty that soon enough would melt. If anything, he found his wife a refreshing contrast to the hotblooded, experienced women with whom he had dealt in the past. There was something, he thought proudly, to this business of marriage, after all. He had, he admitted to himself, in his first approaches to Sally, been motivated to a large extent by the very practical consideration that she was part heiress to Moon Hill. But damn it! he'd have married her if she had been penniless. Well, anyway—if only half as rich!
They sprawled in the little wood where Verrell's men had encamped the night before.
"Do you think they've gone off without you?" Sally asked with a sudden fear.
He stretched lazily on the yielding ground. "They're wandering around somewhere. Maybe they're raiding some neighbor's chicken coop to replenish their larder for the journey." He chuckled. "They're worse than Yanks."
He turned and pinched her cheek. She saw the passion mount in him and she tried to rise. "We'd better get back," she told him hastily. "I've got to—"
But he pulled her down to him; and because she was his wife, she submitted.
It was more than an hour later that they rode slowly back to the great house. Andy's grin was more self-satisfied and smug than ever; and Sally's face was pale, immobile. "This must not happen again!" she repeated over and over to herself. "Not now! Not now! Not until after..."
"Look!" Andy said suddenly. "Look at that gunboat coming round the bend."
"She's a Yank, isn't she?" gasped Sally, startled out of her inner tightness.
"Of course. Look at those damned Stars and Stripes floating from her mast."
"Oh, Andy, do you think she's going to land?"
"No. Must be on her way to Natchez. There's been talk of an attack in force for some time."
He sat rigidly on his horse. His eyes narrowed and his lips were grim. "She's setting in pretty close to shore to avoid the current. By God, if I only had a couple of howitzers masked in that clump of live-oaks on the bend, I'd blow her to kingdom come."
The gunboat was pretty close inshore by now. She came along, puffing and snorting; so close they could see the blue-jacketed sailors on deck and the yawning portholes that pierced her sides.
"Oh, well," shrugged Andy, "there's no use in wishing. There's nothing we can do about her. When I get up North, I'll—"
Reminded thus of his imminent departure his eyes traveled to the slim, tempting girl at his side. A little pulse began to throb in his temple. There was so little time....
"Sally!" he said thickly. "Let's turn around and go back—you know where—"
"Oh God!" she thought. "He's at it again. I'll die... I must say something quickly; I must find some excuse—"
A sharp, clean spang cut through the hot afternoon. "Someone's shooting," she said hurriedly. The immediate implication did not strike her; it was a diversion, a means of escape....
A ragged rattle of firearms shocked her with swift realization. Puffs of gray-blue smoke spurted from the oaks, coalesced and spread. A tiny figure on the laboring gunboat jerked like a doll on a string, and fell forward. Another figure clapped hand with a crazy motion to his side. Other figures scattered like a nest of ants whose home had been upturned by a ruthless spade.
Andy began to swear. Lurid, vicious oaths. His face blazed and his lips were contorted. "The goddam fools! That lowdown bastard, Verrell! Trash! Goddam trash! Thinks he's smart, lying in ambush and peppering a gunboat with muskets and rifles!"
He dug his spurs deep into his horse's rowels. "Gallop, Sally! Gallop as hard as you can to the house. Get everyone out of it; get every damn soul back into the swamps just as fast as they can move. Oh God! What a bunch of thieving, no-good—"
"Where are you going?" she cried after his plunging rush. He turned half in his saddle, and she saw the battle blaze in his face. It scared her.
"Going? To the oaks, my dear. Someone's got to show that riffraff how to fight."
Then he was off, his mount smashing recklessly across the tender green of the sprouting cane, trampling it down, clearing drain ditches with wild, mad leaps.
For long seconds Sally sat on her motionless horse, rigid, unable to believe. She saw Andy swing into the moss-draped grove and disappear. She heard the tempo of the firing increase, and the smoke begin to rise in a muffling cloud. A sailor, running toward the forward gun, stumbled and slid along the deck. Then the gunboat straightened out in the current and steamed slowly along the shore. Men crouched on deck, close to the seven-inch guns. An officer, boldly upright, signaled with his arm.
There was a blast of flame, followed by a thundering concussion. The gunboat shook from stem to stern, wreathed itself in a storm of smoke. The next instant the clustered oaks on the bend seemed to leap apart. Branches, earth and levee geysered upward in one vast spasm.
Sally found her horse suddenly galloping. How it had happened she did not know. How anything had happened she did not know. The Yankees were shelling the wood. Verrell was in there with some fifty men. Andy was in there. Andy—was—in—there! The words made a kind of refrain, repeating over and over again.
Nothing was alive in there. Nothing, except trees and smoking fragments of men. Which way was the gelding going? Oh yes, toward Moon Hill! Andy—Andy had told her. They must leave! Leave at once. Those Yankees—
A huge, reckless, laughing voice issued startlingly from the shattered wood.
"Give them hell, you scum of the earth! You started something; now finish it! Shoot, you trash! Aim right. Make every bullet find a mark, or, by God, I'll give you worse than any Yank!"
The wood had come to life again, and the life was Andy! A shot rang out; another—one more. That was all.
She was past the sugar house, past the long street of cabins with their screaming, scattering flocks, riding like the wind toward the stately Greek temple that was Moon Hill.
As she raced around the front, and flung down from the panting animal, the gunboat flamed again. Her shouted words lost themselves in the larger sound. Earth and sky and the brazen sun smashed into a thousand shards. The little wood was a huge waterspout, whirling upward toward the tumbling sky.
Men came running out—running and stumbling and running again. She did not dare look. Was Andy among them? Then the doors of Moon Hill flung open and Sam Wailes came out, a long hunting rifle in his hands.
"Sally! Did they hurt you? The murdering, bloody—"
"Dad!" she panted. "We've got to get everyone to the swamps. Andy said so. It's all Verrell's fault. He started shooting. They're liable to shell us next."
Scared negroes poured out upon them. Patsey, Cuffy, Silla—crying: "We's gwine git kilt! Jesus gonter make up de dying bed!" Across the fields the men kept running—running straight toward Moon Hill. But Andy—Andy—where was he?
A pistol barked faintly, lonesome, defiant. Then a horseman spurred from the smoking ruins, came on a dead run. His sword was out and he beat at the fleeing men with the flat of it.
"Damn you!" he raged. "Haven't you made enough of a mess? Turn for the swamps, you filthy trash! Drown, if you must, but keep away from the house! Do you want them to shell Moon Hill?"
But the guerrillas were too far gone to hear or even feel the blows. Blindly, panting like hunted rabbits, they sped for the nearest shelter—for anything in which to burrow and hide against those death-dealing shells.
Sally gave a great sob of relief. In that single moment Andy was her husband, miraculously escaped from death. He was so brave, so righteous in his wrath against those cowards who had disgraced the Confederate name.
Sam lifted his gun as if to get the range of the gunboat. Then he dropped it. "They won't dare fire on a defenseless house," he said.
"We don't know," panted Sally. "They may. Those fools are running here. The Yanks will see them."
A single shell screamed from the forward gun, ploughed up the field. The terrifying shot gave added speed to the running men.
"Dad' You see? The next shell will be for us!"
Stubborn lines appeared on Sam's face. Lines Sally had come to know only too well. "I won't go," he said. "This is my house, and no Yanks can drive me away."
Omega Verrell was the first to dash upon the broad verandah. His watery eyes were bloodshot and his yellowish face the color of ashes. His cap had disappeared and a splinter had made a long furrow across his forehead. "We'll fit 'em from here. If'n they try ta land, we kin pick 'em off. The bastards! Fifer an' Horn an' Ayer's all blown t' pieces. The dirty—"
The guerrillas swarmed after him. Some were without guns, others trailed blood; one man held his shattered arm and moaned on a steady, terrifyingly monotonous note.
"I'm not going," Sam repeated stubbornly. "This is my home. I'll kill any Yank who tries to enter."
Her father was like a child, Sally thought with a strange clarity. He could not be depended on in this moment of terror and danger. Scores of lives hung in the balance—their own, and those of the shaking, fearful negroes who clung to them against the dropping shells. Across the fields, sword still in hand, Andy galloped, spurring toward them as hard as he could.
She turned passionately on Verrell. "Get out of here, you and your men! You've brought enough harm on us already. Silla, Patsey, Easter, grab whatever you can, and get out the back way. Cuffy, get Quash and harness the mules to the carts. Load up with the silver, the plate, clothes. Father, we've got to go. Where's Nancibelle? Find her, Silla."
"But look here, ma'am!" protested Verrell, his face a bloody smear. "There ain't no call—"
"I've no time to argue with you," she cried. Boundless energy flowed through her; a certain exaltation that banished fear. "Nancibelle, where are you?"
"Here I am." Her sister came flushed, excited, out of the house. In her left hand she carried a bird cage, in which a small yellow canary hopped around like mad, fluttering and beating its body against the bars. In her right was a huge, unwieldy Colt revolver. A long kitchen knife stuck like a sword through the sash of her dress. Her bosom bulged with an assortment of articles hastily stuffed under the whalebones of her corset.
"I've got the jewelry under my hoops," she gasped. "And I couldn't leave poor Dicky. Noise scares him half to death."
Andy sent his mount hurtling across the bed of flowers that colored the edges of the lawn. His blue eyes blazed with passion.
"Get started, everyone! Sally, where's your horse? There's no time to lose! That gunboat's coming into position to give us a broadside."
The warship was steaming in close to the levee. Every man, every move on its smoke-wreathed deck was visible in miniature. Small, terrifying, blue-clad dolls made ordered confusion. Long guns swung around, pointed jet-black orifices on Moon Hill.
Smoke and flame belched from the guns. Thunder of shot and a long, whistling scream. A shell smashed into the largest stable, exploded. A horse shrilled unhuman agony. Little flames licked out redly.
The negroes fled with cries of terror. Away from the doomed house, out into the fields, toward the cabins and the bayou. Small, half-naked babies were caught up, held dangling under arms as they ran and fell and staggered erect.
Boom!
A solid shot made a long furrow among the flowering shrubs, not more than two dozen yards from where they stood.
Sam shouted something indistinguishable. He lifted his hunting gun and fired. The ball buried itself harmlessly in the levee.
"Don't shoot, Sam!" cried Andy. "Get out of here! What are you waiting for? The next shell will tear the house apart. Sally! Sally!"
But she had already fled upstairs. "Please God!" she moaned as she flung into her bedroom. "Make me be in time! Make me get down again before it's too late!"
She ripped the white sheet from her bed, raced out into the hall, half-fell, half-leaped down the long, balustraded stairs. As she dashed out upon the verandah, everything was shrieking chaos. The stable was a roaring, billowing flame; trapped horses made a piteous clamor, the guerrillas had broken and were streaming across the cane, outrunning the horde of frightened negroes. Silla, her round black face knotted with terror, was plucking at Nancibelle's weighted hoops. "Missy Nancibelle!" she wailed. "Us'll gwine git kilt! Run, fo' Jesus' sake! Run!"
Sam stood on the balcony, his figure erect, gray-white hair all disheveled. He was firing and reloading and firing as fast as he could, saying over and over: "Murdering Yanks! Kill my horses, would you?"
The futile pellets did not even reach the river.
Andy was off his horse. He caught Sam by the arm. "Stop it! Stop it, I say!" Sam shook him off, raised his gun again. Andy grabbed at the barrel. They heaved and struggled for its possession, two maddened men, glaring and grunting at each other.
The air filled with sudden concussion. A shell shrieked in long parabola and thudded heavily into the stuccoed wing. There was a rending crash; a wall came down in a shower of plaster and falling beams.
Silla screamed, let go of Nancibelle, and ran wildly out upon the lawn.
"Andy! Help me with this! Quick!" cried Sally. She felt as though everything was about to burst. Her eardrums pounded with rushing blood; her limbs seemed wholly dissociated from herself.
Her husband gave a mighty heave, tore the gun from her father's hand, threw it across the balcony. He sprang toward her.
"Sally! Sally! What are you doing?"
She was climbing the railing, dragging the long white sheet after her.
"Help me! Hold out the sheet, so they can see it!"
"Surrender? Never! I'd rather—"
"We must!"
He snatched at the waving sheet. His blue eyes were full of fury. "We'll retreat; but we'll never—"
The solid shot did not make much noise. It was a little whine, followed by a dull thud, rather than the terrifying roar of a shell. But Silla, running blindly toward the side, gave a terrible scream and collapsed into a bundle of twitching, blood-spurting flesh.
"Silla!" shrieked Nancibelle. The bird cage dropped and bounced unheeded down the three wooden steps to the gravel path. The little canary slammed itself in a frenzy of terror against the bars and fell squeaking and gibbering to the floor. Nancibelle flew across the lawn, her hoops ballooning. "Silla!"
Sam Wailes shook his fist at the gunboat. "Damn murderers!" he yelled hoarsely.
Sally found new wells of unsuspected strength within her. She wanted to faint; she wanted to cry out her horror. But she held herself rigid on the narrow railing, and pulled on the sheet with a great pull. The linen tore; then she was waving the fragment madly, swinging it against the sun, shaking its fluttering folds with every ounce of strength she possessed. If they fired another shell, she would die!
Andy had raced after Nancibelle. Both were kneeling at the side of the poor, torn lump of flesh that had been Silla. Nancibelle was sobbing and calling upon her maid.
On the gunboat the sailors stood rigid at their guns. But they did not fire. They had seen the white token of surrender. A yawl lowered to the river. Men tumbled in; an officer sat in the stern. Oars lifted, and bit into the water. They were going to land.
Sally slid, rather than jumped from the rail. Now that there would be no more firing, the terrible strength that had held her up was gone. Every limb shook uncontrollably, her teeth made clicking, chattering sounds. She forced herself past her father, who still shook his fist and cried out curses upon all Yankees.
She got to the torn and bloodied Silla just as she died. Half her face was shot away, and the muscles and white bone of her shoulder lay gaping and exposed. The bright blood pumped from a torn and pulpy throat; then all blood stopped. A single convulsive movement; and Silla was dead.
Andy pulled Nancibelle forcibly erect. The girl was dabbled with blood and her look was wild. "They killed Silla! I hate them! I hate them!"
"It's war!" Andy said gently, wiping the shivering girl's face with his kerchief. "I've seen much worse. You can't blame the Yanks. If Verrell's men hadn't come here—" He saw Sally. "You were right, darling. You had to show the white flag. There was nothing else to do."
She tried to keep her eyes from the terrible thing that lay on the ground. "Andy!" she said. "You've got to go. The Yanks are landing—"
He spun around, saw the yawl breasting the current with powerful strokes. "By God! Didn't they do enough damage? You're right. We've all got to go. Let your father and Nancibelle take your horse. You'll hold on with me."
"We're not going, Andy. Only you."
He stared at her. "This is no time for foolery!" he said roughly. "Come on!"
"I won't; I can't. If we abandon Moon Hill, they'll loot and burn it. The blow would kill Father. Look at him now."
"All right, then. I'll stay too."
"You mustn't. You're in uniform! They'll shoot you, or take you away to rot in a Northern jail. Go! Hurry! They're almost at the levee!"
"But I can't leave you girls alone. They might try—"
"We'll be all right. They won't harm us. I'll put all the blame on Verrell."
"Enough of this nonsense!" he exclaimed in exasperation. He caught her in his arms, tried to lift her to the horse. She struggled. "I won't go, I tell you! Father will die—"
He put her down again, shouted angrily across, "By God, Sam, what a stubborn brood you have! Get started, man!"
Sam Wailes shook his head dully. "This is my home. I don't run from anyone."
"You see—" said Sally. "Now will you go? They're coming over the levee."
Andy flung a raging look around. If he stayed, he'd be shot, or captured. He'd be no good either way. The last of Verrell's troop was disappearing into the swamp. Their horses were hid on the single trail that led across it. If he didn't catch up to them now, he'd have to cut over to Pontchatoula alone. He didn't know the roads, and the back country swarmed with Yankee patrols.
He pulled Sally to him, kissed her; then sprang upon his horse. The first sailors were clambering down the sloping levee. The sun glittered on their guns.
"Goodbye," he said. "If they dare harm one little hair..."
Then he was gone, galloping full tilt around the great house, past the blazing stable. Sally caught her breath. She turned to face the advancing Yankees.
Lieutenant McKean was mad clear through. His glossy black mustache bristled with indignation and his voice was loud and angry.
"Search this damned nest of rebels from top to bottom," he ordered his men. "If you find any of those snipers skulking around, shoot them on the spot. Don't bother to bring them down. And you, there," he yelled at Sam, "come down here!"
Sam Wailes did not move.
The lieutenant swore. "Damn it, if you want to be shot—"
"He's my father," cried Sally. "He owns Moon Hill. Don't you dare shoot him, you—you Yank!"
McKean wheeled on her. His expression was still angry, but a look of interest crept into his eyes. "A little spitfire, eh?"
"You've harmed us enough." She stood her ground bitterly. "The stable's burning; our horses are burnt alive; the house has been bombarded; and look at your handiwork lying there. She's one of those slaves you're pretending to free. That's the kind of freedom you've brought her."
He stared down at the mangled, lifeless thing, and his expression changed. "I'm sorry! We don't war on women—black or white. But it was your own fault. Your guerrillas killed one of my men and wounded two others. They used your house as a rendezvous. There's been too much sniping from shore at our boats. It's got to stop, if we have to burn every plantation from New Orleans to Natchez, and string every tree with a rebel."
"We're not rebels!" flashed Nancibelle. "We're better than you are."
"We're not to blame for those men," said Sally. "They came up here only half an hour ago. They refused to leave when we ordered them off. We don't even know who they are."
One of the sailors came out of the house. "There's no one inside," he reported.
The lieutenant looked disappointed. "Just like those dirty cowards to shoot from ambush and run like rabbits. Very well, call down the detail."
"How about the stable?" demanded Sally. "Won't you put out the fire you started?"
He shrugged indifferently. "That's your lookout. All right, men, line up."
"Oh!" gasped Nancibelle. "My best red velvet cloak! And the silver punch bowl that mother brought with her from Virginia!" She darted at the man who had the cloak flung across his shoulder. "Give that back to me!"
He grinned and shoved her away. Each man was laden down with loot. Silverware, clothing, one with the great bronze clock under his arm, another with half a dozen of their finest leather-bound books imported from Paris.
Sam Wailes came at them very fast. "It's not enough that you rob us; you've got to lay your filthy hands on my daughter!"
Sally saw rifle muzzles come up. She flung forward, threw herself upon her father. "Dad darling! You mustn't! Everything's all right."
By sheer frantic strength she held him back, kept her body between him and those terrible guns.
"Your father or not," barked the lieutenant, "I'll have him shot if he tries that again. Johnson!"
The sailor with the red cloak said, "Yes, sir."
"Give that cloak back to the young lady."
"Oh, thank you, sir," Nancibelle said eagerly. "I knew you wouldn't permit this robbery."
"How about the other things?" demanded Sally, her arm tight around her father.
The lieutenant grinned. "Articles of war, ma'am. Some small reparation for the man your fellow-rebels killed." He lifted his voice. "Round up all the colored folk you can find. Tell them not to be afraid. I want to talk to them."
While they watched in stricken silence the stable burn down to glowing, twisted beams and embers, the sailors filtered back from the negro quarters and the distant bayou, herding along groups of thoroughly frightened slaves.
McKean looked them over. "Men!" he addressed himself to the males among them; the likely young buck negroes. "We're fighting this war to deliver you from your masters; to make you free men, equal in every respect to any white. At Camp Parapet General Phelps is organizing battalions of your brethren for service in the United States Army. The food is excellent; you'll be paid wages; and you'll be free men. Which among you want to join up?"
Sam said in a strangled voice, "You can't take away my slaves. They're my property. Your own President has said so—"
"Quiet!" snapped McKean, "or I'll clap you on board too. What do you say, men?"
There was a stir among the negroes. A big field hand swaggered forward. "You gib us free?"
"Absolutely."
"Den I gwine 'long."
"Adam!" Sally said in a shocked voice. "After Mother nursed your wife back from the grave!"
"Kain't help dat," he said sullenly. "I mus' win free. I hankers fo' dat all mah life."
Others stepped forward. "Me, too, boss!" "I gwine!" "Do nuttin' but tote a gun an' sleep!"
The contagion took them. Cuffy teetered on his big feet, rocking back and forth in an agony of indecision. His face screwed up with effort. He started forward. But Easter's huge hand caught him by the shoulder, shook him until his teeth jarred and his tongue lolled, and shoved him violently back into the huddle of indecisive negroes. "Ah'll break ev'ry bone you got, you wuthless, no-count little nigger. Am dat de way to ack before Mister Samuel an' Miss Sally? Stay wheah you is, or ah sho'ly am lettin' you hab it!"
That brought an end to the stampede. They all had a healthy respect for Easter Sunday's powerful arm, and her glare beat down the itch to be off. Lewis, the brown stableman, who had stepped out in front, sheepishly shuffled back, trying to pretend that he hadn't wanted to go away in the first place. But four negroes, headed by Adam, stood their ground.
"You're fools," McKean told the rest, "but if you want to be slaves, that's your hard luck. Come on, you four. Fall in, men. March!"
Sally watched them move down the gravel road toward the levee with a choking, impotent rage in her breast. They had burnt, they had smashed, they had robbed and killed; and now they were going away, smug and arrogant, with their slaves.
Nancibelle was crying. Sam Wailes stared after them with a fixed, stunned look. Easter's voice rose suddenly to lash the fascinated negroes.
"Wha' for y'all standin' doin' nuttin'? Pick up dat po' little Silla. We's gotta wash he proper an' lay he out. Cuffy, you black trash, git buckits an' put out dat fire, afo' he spread."
Under the whip of her tongue they scattered, obedient, scared. Sally noted Quash standing to one side, his arms folded over his magnificent chest. "I'm glad you didn't go with the Yanks," she said impulsively.
"They big fools!" he said contemptuously. "De Yanks make 'em work on de roads and build bridges. Den they make 'em fight an' get killed."
"Oh!" Sally was startled. "So you didn't stay to help us?"
Quash's massive face froze into inscrutability. "Of co'se I did, Miss Sally. Me, I got lots of t'ings to do on dis here plantation. Lots of t'ings!"
Sally didn't like the way he said it. There was something hidden; some secret which he was inwardly contemplating. But Nancibelle was saying: "We'd better get Papa inside. He doesn't seem well. Oh, Sally, it's all been so terrible. I don't know what we're going to do. If only Andy were here. I do hope he got away, though."
Andy! She had almost forgotten about him in this last tragic rush of events. Her husband! Married yesterday. It all seemed so infinitely remote. Mrs. Sally Hilgard, no longer Sally Wailes. How queer that name sounded!
"Oh, Andy!" she said. "He got away, all right. Come, dear Father. You're tired out. Tomorrow you'll start fixing things. Now you've got to get to bed."
Sam Wailes allowed himself to be led inside.
THE Flints lived on Prytania Street in a substantial yet unobtrusive house set back from the road by a small, palm-shaded garden. Its square white columns along the wide verandah upheld an open balcony on the second floor that could be used only in the cool of the evening. The wooden sidings had weathered to a drab gray and the white of the columns had merged with rain and dusty summers to a similar hue.
The interior was much too large for Stephen and Hugh. The shuttered rooms with their tremendously high ceilings gave off empty echoes with their passage and half the upstairs bedrooms had been tight-locked against intrusion ever since Hugh's mother had died many years before. The Flints did very little entertaining and their lives, especially old Stephen's, had centered chiefly in the great gloomy warehouse on Poydras Street. It had been an obscure streak of sentiment in Stephen that had made him cling to the huge house all these years though many of his friends, in similar circumstances, had found it infinitely more comfortable to sell and move into small furnished quarters in the Creole district, a stone's throw from their business and tended to by genteelly decayed Creole ladies for highly moderate sums.
The dining-room, with its ponderous mahogany pieces, was gloomy and semi-dark just now, even though the jalousies had been thrown wide to accommodate the maximum of light. The rain was coming down in a solid sheet, and the wind lashed it up against the walls in beating waves of surf. Captain Willis gulped down his second cup of coffee, squinted his eves against the flickering gas-jet and wiped the last drops off his lips and beard with a horny hand, though a spotless white napkin, neatly folded, lay at his elbow. He shook his head stubbornly.
"No. Mr. Flint. I'm sorry. But I ain't a-goin' to risk it again. Them Feds is gettin' too all-fired nosey." He wiped remembered perspiration from his forehead. "This here last trip up the Bayou Carta-bleu almost done for me. Twice't I got hails ta stop, an' then the cannon-balls started poppin' all around us. One o' my smokestacks is halfshot away."
Stephen crunched a crisp rabus, the Sunday morning breakfast cake, between his powerful teeth, sucked down a draught of coffee. "I don't blame you, Willis," he grunted. "I wouldn't be crazy about being shot at myself. Besides,"
he told Hugh, "we've plumb run out of gold. And that Yankee quartermaster wants gold, and lots of it, for the stuff."
"It ain't that I'm skeered o' my own hide," said Willis. "I ain't no better nor anybody else. But it's the Eleanor. The feller what owns it is skeered she's gonna be sunk or confiscated. Arter all, my share's only a quarter."
"He was willing enough to charge us plenty for each trip," Hugh reminded him bitterly.
"Sure, that's business. The risk is great, an' he asks accordin'. But when he seen that there smokestack, he near had a fit. Gave me stric' orders."
"That Yank is also strict business, as the Captain puts it," repeated Stephen. "No gold, no stores." He thrust another cake into his capacious mouth. "Can't say as I blame him, either. He's selling us Yankee guns and ammunition. If he gets caught, it's the firing-squad."
"An' what do you think His Majesty, Ben Butler, 'ud do to the kit an' kaboodle of us if'n he ever found out?" Willis inquired.
Hugh got up from his chair, began to pace up and down the long room. The gusts of rain made a certain rhythm to which he unconsciously adjusted his pace. "We can't let Governor Moore down," he said. "He depends on us for supplies. The troops up there are without guns, without bullets, without salt, without anything. They've been hanging on only because we've managed to slip those four shipments through."
"If only they hadn't burned everything we had in the warehouse," Stephen said savagely. "I could have sold the cotton and the sugar to Ben Butler's brother for honest coin. His tongue's hanging out for sugar and cotton, I hear."
"That's true," admitted Willis. "I had the devil's own job meself fixin' the leftenant on the Bienville wharf. He says Ben Butler's brother—"
Hugh stopped his pacing. Under the gas-jet his face showed strong lights and shadows. "Butler's brother! Butler's brother! Everywhere I turn I hear his name. That would be Colonel Butler, wouldn't it, Dad?"
The old man grinned. "'Colonel,' my foot! He's no more a colonel than I am. But he is a business man, and from what they tell me on Carondelet Street, a damn shrewd one. They say he and his brother, the General, are in cahoots. Anything you want in this town, you've got to see 'Colonel' Butler."
"I'm beginning to get ideas," Hugh said slowly.
"Forget them," warned his father. "He charges high; and I told you we haven't got a picayune left."
"I wonder. I'll bet many of the planters have sugar and cotton from last year's crop hidden away in the bayous."
"It's likely. What about it?"
"Suppose I could get you a pass through the Fed lines, Dad; could you make the trip up the river to Governor Moore's headquarters and persuade him to load that cotton and sugar on the Eleanor for sale to the Yanks?"
"Not the Eleanor!" Willis interposed hastily.
"You're crazy, Hugh!" exploded Stephen. "In the first place, I couldn't get a pass. In the second place, Moore's mighty sore about smuggling goods to the Yanks. Didn't you read his proclamation? Any Southerner caught bringing cotton down the river is to be shot immediately."
"I think you could explain to him. The cotton doesn't do him any good; but—if he should get consignments of—uh—certain merchandise in exchange?"
Willis said: "This here Colonel Butler may be itchy fer cott'n; but not that itchy. Arter all, his brother's the commanding Gen'ral."
But Hugh was already out in the hall, calling: "Barbette! My raincoat and boots."
To the rear, in the kitchen, they could hear the maid singing in her soft, Creole voice:
"Madame Caba,
Tiyon vous tombe:
Madame Caba,
Tiyon vous tombe;
Ah, la reine,
Piye la su' moi—"
"Barbette, you yellow rascal; don't you hear me?"
The song stopped, and a quadroon girl, very pretty and with a faint yellow tinge in her high cheekbones, popped saucily out from the rear.
"Oh, M'sieu!" she exclaimed with a flutter of slim hands, "I hear not'eeng. I sing de song—you like it, maybe?"
Her dark, round eyes had a peculiar lambent glow in the semi-dark. She arched her body up to him with a catlike grace, and the strong reek of mingled rice-powder, sweet olive and female odor distended his nostrils.
An attractive little devil! he thought; and she damn well knows it. They were all alike, these Creole niggers. A few years before she would have attended the Quadroon Balls and sought a substantial connection with some young white blade of proper means. Today service was her only outlet; with the possibility that her charms might bring an impressionable male to a more satisfactory arrangement. Ever since Stephen had hired her, on his return from the futile voyage to Vicksburg, she had preened herself and ogled and looked demure, all for Hugh's benefit. But Hugh had too much on his mind these days for casual dalliance.
"I'm not interested in your songs, Barbette," he told her coldly. "Just now I want my coat and boots. And, oh yes, have Peter saddle my horse and bring it around in front."
Barbette shrugged her thin shoulders. What manner of ice was this white man? For two months she had plied her bag of tricks; tricks that had proved effective in the past and had been imbibed from her handsome mulatto mother almost with the warm milk that had spurted into her eager little mouth.
And nothing had happened. Very well, then; there were other households. New Orleans teemed with opportunities. Those Northern capitaines, her friends had giggled confidences, paid most well. And they were easy....
"Where are you going, Hugh?" Stephen clumped from the dining-room.
"To get that pass for you."
Willis came out also, picking his teeth. He looked worried. "This here Butler's a hard man ta find. An' y'gotta be right keerful—"
"Don't worry," Hugh sang out. "I'll find him fast enough. His brother, the General, ought to know where he is."
"What!" Stephen exploded. "You mean you're going to ask 'Picayune' Butler point-blank?"
"Why not? It's always best to deal directly with the principal. I got that from you. Don't you remember?"
Hugh found General Butler at his headquarters. These had been shifted within the week from the St. Charles Hotel to the private home of General Twiggs on Prytania Street, only four squares away from the Flints' far more modest establishment. General Twiggs had not consented to this use of his home, but there was nothing he could do about it. General Butler did not think it at all necessary to ask the permission of a Confederate general who was just then somewhere to the north fighting the Union forces. The place suited him fine, and his wife liked it, too. It was much more homelike than the grand but rather stodgy suite at the St. Charles, and Twiggs had done things with a lavish hand, as both the General and his wife were pleased to acknowledge.
Look at that beautiful plate, for example. And the rich, soft carpets and the draperies and that lovely French furniture. Mrs. Butler just adored the little gilt chairs with their damask seats, though the General was always afraid when he sat down gingerly that they might collapse under his weight.
And those really gorgeous enameled jewel-boxes. What a pity that Twiggs had left them empty! But the plate was there, and so were the solid silver spoons and the exquisite dress swords with their finely tempered blades and intricately designed handles.
All rebel property, of course, and subject to confiscation. With something of a sigh, Butler sent the swords along to Lincoln. They might be considered as war material, and subject to embarrassing investigations. But the plate and the silver spoons were another matter. They would shine all the brighter in the simple surroundings of their own home in Lowell. So they were carefully packed and sent under the seal of General Butler's personal baggage on a United States warship to Boston.
Butler sat in the magnificent parlor which he had converted into his office. He looked up suspiciously on Hugh's entrance. He wore a blue cloth coat with blue-black velvet trimmings. His shirt was of the finest cambric and the wrought bosom was beautifully laundered. A heavy gold chain splashed across his waistcoat.
"Well, what do you want this time, Mr. Flint?" he rasped peevishly. "I'm beginning to wonder about you. You quit being a rebel at a most convenient time, I must say."
Hugh thought he had never seen a man who looked more like a walrus—a predatory walrus, if such a one could be conceived. The Yankee general had a ridged, retreating forehead that merged imperceptibly into shiny baldness and ended in a thick mane of hair that hung over the collar of his coat. His eyes were puffed and glittering, and a walrus mustache, coal-black with intervals of gray, drooped downward in sharp division from a boldly Roman nose.
"I resigned my commission on May 27th," Hugh said calmly, "as you've already been informed. You yourself were the first to agree that I had done the sensible thing."
"Hmm, yes. You said you were a business man, primarily. You didn't much care with whom you did business, as long as you made money. Then your father came through our lines. You did me a few small services, I must admit. That was why I didn't insist on your taking the oath of allegiance." Butler pulled on his mustache. "But my detectives have been coming to me with stories. I don't like them."
"What kind of stories?"
"Hmm. Rather vague, I must admit. Otherwise I'd have clapped you into jail and maybe put you up against a wall before this. However—what do you want now?"
So Butler had detectives watching him! Then certainly it was time to change their tactics. The slightest slip would mean the firing-squad, as had just been rather coarsely hinted.
"Don't believe all you hear, General," he said with an assumed lightness. "New Orleans is a sounding-board of all sorts of wild rumors these days. And I have enemies—lots of them. Every Confederate sympathizer thinks me a renegade to the cause."
"Well—come to the point."
"I would like a note of introduction to your brother—Colonel Butler."
"Eh—what for?"
"I have a certain business deal to discuss with him that should prove mutually profitable."
The General had risen to his feet. He frowned ponderously. "Why bother me with it, then? Discuss it with my brother."
Hugh smiled. "It's just that I don't know where to locate him. He seems to be quite busy. I thought perhaps that you might know."
Butler gnawed the end of his mustache. He looked keenly at his caller. "It's a profitable deal, you say?"
"Very."
"Hmm. My brother is an exceedingly busy man; but if—All right, I'll give you a note. You understand, of course, that I have nothing to do with my brother's speculations. They are entirely his private affair."
"Of course, General. I didn't dream of any connection."
"Hmmm—yes." Butler tried to probe Hugh's expression, but it was open and quite candid. He sat down and began to write. "There's been a lot of malicious talk going around, Mr. Flint. Petty gossip, started by people who have axes to grind. Would you believe it, they actually insinuate that I am a partner with my brother in his business deals?"
"No doubt the same kind of gossip that tried to poison the General's mind against me," Hugh said gravely.
Butler looked up quickly. "I don't see the connection," he said with some asperity. "Anyway, here's your note."
Hugh bowed and took it. "Where may I find Colonel Butler?" he inquired.
The General banged on a desk bell. An aide entered.
"Where's my brother now, Tracy?"
The aide looked over at Hugh.
"That's all right," said Butler. "This gentleman wishes to meet him."
There was a shade of unwillingness in the response. "I think, sir, Colonel Butler is now at Devoe's, out on Lake Pontchartrain."
"The devil he is!" Butler exploded, his brow darkening. "He's presuming too much on the fact that he is my brother."
"Yes, sir," said the aide.
"I didn't ask you for any comments, sir," roared Butler.
"No, sir." The aide saluted and went out hurriedly. The General's face was red. "Do you happen to know Devoe's?" he asked Hugh.
"I've heard of it. Somewhere at the end of the Shell Road, isn't it? An eating-place, I believe."
"Yes, an eating-place! Yes, of course."
The Shell Road to Lake Pontchartrain was famous for its hard, smooth surface of crushed clam and oyster shells. The dandies and the sporting men of New Orleans used it to pace their trotters and their elegant rigs and the ladies to display their gowns as they sat primly in their carriages behind blooded horses on fine, warm afternoons.
As Hugh galloped toward the lake, however, the long, straight road was deserted. The rain slanted downward in a driving, steady drench, and the flat marshes on either side steamed with vapors. The rain drove in under his upturned collar, and made a sluice of boots and the horse's heaving flanks.
It was clammy and warm and uncomfortable, but Hugh grinned tightly to himself. Devoe's an eating-place, eh? How his diplomatic phrase had smoothed down the embarrassed General! It was worth a hundred explanations.
He remembered George Devoe, the proprietor. The sporting man of the jaunt down the river, the calm, ready-witted gambler who had hired a dray to cart off for himself the goods of the frantic merchants on the day Farragut's fleet had arrived. Almost General Butler's first order on occupying the city had been to close the gambling houses and the race tracks. Devoe's—on the lake—had closed with the rest. But the man was resourceful. Within two weeks he was open again, more crowded than ever, and with a license to operate from the General himself. It was whispered around that it had cost him plenty, and that "Colonel" Butler was a partner in the proceeds.
In spite of the storm, the stables to which a dapper little negro led his horse was jammed to capacity. Big, rawboned cavalry horses munched oats next to sleek, nervous-legged racers. On three-fourths of the saddles were blazoned the insignia of the United States Army.
Hugh stalked stiff-legged across the yard toward the establishment. The lake stretched dim and vast into the distance, shrouded in mist and pelted with the thunderous drench. Lightning split the sullen clouds and the thunder went rolling and grumbling over the whitecaps.
Inside, however, where an obsequious darky in livery removed his waterproof and broad-brimmed hat, all was light and noise and the clink of glasses. The furnishings were ornate and the atmosphere lushly expensive. There were eating-rooms, where a rousing party might be entertained or a couple discreetly secluded. The food was famous, in a city where good food was a commonplace. Here one could order crayfish bisque, a delicious soup of crayfish boiled in white wine and then smothered in rich sweet cream, aromatic herbs and vegetables; pompano en papillote, the flavorish fish of the Gulf baked with rare spices in a sealed parchment bag; here were oysters in a dozen different shapes and sizes, on the halfshell, broiled on skewers with strips of sizzling bacon or baked on heated beds of rock-salt; shrimp in a thousand varieties, sauced and spiced, the ends of the earth ravished for rare and delicate flavors in which to steep the tasty crustaceans; and gumbos—gumbos into whose thick-stirred contents everything went—chicken and crab, shrimp and crayfish, ham and okra, parsley and bay, onion and garlic, thyme and slabs of golden butter.
At the bar, or brought to the table by soft-moving servitors, could be had sherry cobblers, plantation toddies, green-dripping absinthe, champagnes and vintage wines, sprig-adorned juleps and spiced punches, brandies and whiskey in various stages of distillation.
But the chief purpose of Devoe's was something else than mere food and drink. Through the heavy drapings Hugh could hear the muted noise of many people, the hushes alternating with smothered oaths and louder laughter. He passed into a long gilt and white room, in which the great crystal gas-jets multiplied themselves a hundredfold in innumerable wall mirrors, and every table was crowded with noise and confusion.
Fifty games were going on simultaneously. Draw poker, stud, three-card monte, faro, seven-up, bank, dice and roulette. The air was thick with seegar-smoke, the slap of cards and the rattle of the spinning ball. Waiters threaded skilfully among the tables, bringing interminable drinks. Chips stacked high before smug, impenetrable faces and made but a handful before flushed, oath-spewing men.
There were only a sprinkling of civilians. Chiefly these were men formerly unknown to New Orleans: the same aggressive, ferret-eyed individuals whom Hugh had seen supporting the lofty pillars within the rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel and ringing the spittoons with brown and yellowish slime. But the universal color was blue; blue and a dazzle of brassy buttons and thick gold. Union officers, from youthful lieutenants with the fuzz still upon their cheeks to bearded colonels who had been at Buena Vista and fought their way through the mountain passes to Mexico City. They sprawled at the tables with unhooked collars or sat hunched up over tight-held cards. On every face, young or old, pink or leathery, coldly intent or flushed with many drinks, was a similar glitter and greed, watching the fateful slap of the cards or the long spin of the tiny ball, cursing or grunting delight with a like distortion of mouth and cheek muscles.
"Which one is Colonel Butler?" Hugh asked a hurrying waiter. The mulatto pointed toward the long bar. "Dar he is, sah! De gen'mun wid de tall hat."
The "Colonel" was leaning nonchalantly against the mahogany bar and surveying the long confusion of the room with narrowed eyes that seemed supremely content. His pantaloons were a faultless gray and his pearl-gray coat was a lightweight frock. He was the only one in the room to wear his tall, gray hat, and it was cocked slightly over one ear to give him a rakish expression. He looked something like his brother, the General, except that he was slimmer around the waist and his mustache was glossier and trimmed to a more reasonable length. At his elbow, on the shiny bar, stood a glass, from which he sipped occasionally without the contents appearing at all the lower for the drinking.
A slow smile lit up his saturnine countenance as he turned to his companion on the left and said something in a low, almost inaudible voice. His companion turned his gaze over the crowded tables, shifted his long seegar from left to right, and nodded. Hugh recognized him at once—George Devoe, gambler, racing man and owner of the establishment.
Hugh made his way rapidly across the crowded floor toward the two men.
"Hello, Devoe," he said. "Last time I saw you you were laying in a year's supply of food." Hugh glanced around the place. "Looks to me as if you wouldn't need it any more."
The gambler's eyes were startled. They raked significantly Hugh's civilian clothes. "Why—uh—I don't believe I—"
"What, forgotten me so soon?" laughed Hugh. "Surely you must remember our little jaunt down to see the Union fleet pass the forts?"
Devoe thrust a swift, warning glance in the direction of Butler. "Well, now, let me see," he began with deliberate meditation. "You are—"
"Hugh Flint, naturally. Late Captain in the Confederate Army."
The gambler looked at him warily and said nothing.
"Oh, don't worry," Hugh assured him with a grin. "I've resigned. No money in it. Nothing but hard knocks and lice and lousier food."
"I see you're a very sensible man, Captain Flint," Butler said with a short, rasping laugh.
Hugh bowed politely. "It's curious that General Butler should have told me exactly the same thing, Mister—uh—"
Devoe ran his carefully manicured fingers inside his collar. "To be sure, to be sure. Meet Colonel Andrew Butler. The Colonel is General Butler's brother."
"Well! Now if that isn't a coincidence! I happen to have a note from the General, and it's addressed to you, Colonel."
"To me?"
"Yes. Now if Mr. Devoe would be kind enough to show us to a small private room where we could talk business..."
They sat comfortably in the small room to which Devoe had taken them, with cool mint juleps on the table before them. Butler read the note carefully, then raised his eyes sharply.
"What's your proposition, Flint?"
Hugh drank before replying. He noted that Butler never finished a glass. A cool hand, he thought; lets the other fellow do the drinking.
He put his glass down. "It's rather simple—and neat, Colonel. You've been having difficulty in getting sugar and cotton, I understand. I don't have to tell you how valuable they are at present. Or how badly the North needs them."
"I've been getting plenty."
"Not very much," Hugh contradicted. "I happen to know. That's my game—factoring sugar and cotton. The Confederates burned everything before you fellows landed; they burn the crops now as soon as your gunboats or armies heave into sight. Your North will pay any price you ask for supplies."
"You don't have to tell me that. That's my business. But come to the point, Flint."
"Well, suppose I can guarantee to you four thousand bales of cotton and eight thousand hogsheads of sugar a month. You could clean up plenty, couldn't you?"
Butler's heavy-lidded eyes began to glisten. He leaned forward.
"Ridiculous! Where could you get that amount?"
"From Governor Moore, of Louisiana."
"Are you trying to make a fool of me?"
"Not at all. Make inquiries about me among the traders of New Orleans. They can tell you I make no idle promises."
"Ridiculous!" Butler commenced to trace lines on the tablecloth with his fingers. "That's trading with the enemy."
Hugh said nothing.
Butler raised his head suddenly. "How much does he want per bale and hogshead?"
"He doesn't want cash."
"What then?"
Hugh leaned forward. "Shall we say—uh—certain stores?"
"Don't talk in riddles, man."
"Very well, then—rifles and ammunition."
Butler jumped up as if he had been shot. His face grew dark and bloodshot. "Why—why—you—how dare you sit there and make such a proposition to me! All I have to do is call the guard and there'd be a rope around your neck in no time."
Hugh took another drink. "No doubt about it, Colonel Butler; but you won't," he said equably. "The profit in six months would run to a million or more."
Butler paced agitatedly about the room. Then he dropped back into his chair with a thin smile around his lips. "Business—as you say—is business. But I can't possibly let you have rifles and ammunition."
"Why not?"
"First," very virtuously, "because I'm a Northerner and a patriot. I wouldn't dream of arming my country's enemies. Second," and the cloak of virtue frankly dropped, "because I couldn't deliver. There's been too much trouble up in Washington as it is. I couldn't afford to take the chance. Why don't you take gold coin?"
Hugh shook his head. "Don't need it particularly." He was disappointed, but there was no use in pressing the point. The man's agitation was too intense to be put on; he either couldn't deliver or didn't dare.
Hugh considered a moment. Then he said: "All right, then. That's out. But there are certain supplies Moore could use—not for his army," he added hastily to forestall any more virtuous protests; "for the civilian population."
Butler's face showed relief. "That's better. What, for example?"
"Salt. Thousands of bags of it. Medical supplies—bandages, chloroform, quinine, surgical instruments."
Butler smiled sarcastically. "Chloroform for your loudmouthed women, eh? That stuff wouldn't happen to be used for wounded Confederates by any chance?"
"You'd be surprised at the number of accidents on plantations," Hugh told him gravely.
Butler laughed and slapped his thigh. "Yep! Gunshot accidents and amputations on alligators." Then he sobered and looked shrewdly at Hugh. "Salt's worth its weight in gold to the Confederates. Last quotation was a hundred dollars a sack. As for chloroform and quinine—they just can't get it at any price."
"True! That's why I'm making you this proposition. You need cotton and sugar; we need salt and chloroform. Fair enough. At the trading price I'm ready to offer, your profit will be enormous."
"How will you trade?"
"Ten sacks of salt for one bale of cotton or four hogsheads of sugar. Medical and surgical supplies on the basis of 500% on current market quotations in New Orleans. Salt costs you down here $1.25 a sack; a bale of cotton will bring $60; sugar is $15 to $20 a hogshead. Figure your profits."
Butler didn't need much time to figure. He tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice. "Sounds pretty fair," he admitted. "But how can you deliver?"
Hugh sat back in his chair. "That's where you come in, Colonel Butler. We're not children playing a game; we're business men. I didn't need you at all in this deal if I could have arranged deliveries both ways myself."
"Yes?"
"I have control of a steamboat; nothing much to brag about, but with a fair loading capacity and a captain who knows how to keep his mouth shut."
"Well?"
"Suppose we load—shall we say—non-contraband articles like sugar-house machinery for the loyal planters upriver, every box and package to be plainly stamped. You will get the proper military permits for these shipments." Hugh rubbed his chin reflectively. "If the captain makes a mistake and runs the cargo up the Bayou Carta-bleu, well, mistakes do happen. In any event he comes back with cotton and sugar—from the—uh—loyal planters we were talking about."
Butler rubbed his chin. "Military permits are hard to get, Flint."
"Your brother issues them, doesn't he?"
"I have nothing to do with him," the Colonel said quickly. "This is strictly my own venture."
"Of course! I'd be the last to think of any tieup. But your speculation is a legitimate business venture. I'm certain you will have no trouble in getting the proper permits."
"Well, maybe. But not in my name. Remember, Flint, I'm not a party to this—uh—venture. The party with whom you'll do business is a Mr. Wyer."
Hugh got up. "Then everything's settled. When do I meet this Mr. Wyer?"
Butler got up, too. "It won't be necessary. I'll speak to him myself. Now, about the first shipment—"
"I'll make up a list within a day or so. The steamboat will be able to leave by the end of the week. Meanwhile I'll have time to get in touch with my—uh—client."
"It's a deal," said Butler jovially, and extended his hand.
Hugh had been hoping he wouldn't. He had played the part of the grasping business man to perfection; but Butler was not playing a part. Nevertheless he shook the proffered hand, dropping it as soon as he could. Somehow, the warm, moist palm and the twining fingers put him in mind of a water moccasin he had once grasped while swimming, thinking it was a cypress root.
Devoe was waiting for Hugh in the shadow of the stables. The storm had passed over and the lake lay like burnished bronze under the fierce sun.
"I want to see you, Flint," he whispered. "Come this way."
Hugh followed him to a small private office. The gambler shut the door, locked it. Then he wiped his face with a fine silk handkerchief.
"You had me flabbergasted there for a moment, my dear fellow," he said. "I thought surely you were heading for the Ship Island prison. It's not a very comfortable place."
"So I've been told."
Devoe lit a seegar, began to puff. "What's your game, Flint?"
Hugh countered. "What's yours?"
"You mean—this place? About fifty thousand a month. These Northern officers are a fine bunch of suckers. They have a pathetic belief in their ability to fill inside straights and to turn up the right card."
"You split, of course, with Butler."
Devoe's face was a beautiful mask. "If you weren't a Southerner, sir, I'd say you were crazy."
Hugh shrugged. "Fair enough. We all have our little secrets."
Devoe grinned surrender. "All right, then; so I split. Have to, or I couldn't keep open a minute. How about you?"
"It's still a secret."
The gambler took his seegar out of his mouth, contemplated the glowing ash at the tip. "I couldn't help in any way, could I?"
"Perhaps you could. Your customers talk a lot?"
"After a few drinks, yes."
"If they should ever happen to talk to the point, you can find me either at the warehouse on Poydras or at my home on Prytania."
Devoe put the seegar back into his mouth. "I'll keep it in mind, Flint. And—good luck!"
ON and on crept the fratricidal war. On and on, pacing the snail, the end a distant mirage. No longer was there talk of weeks or months—men to the North and men at the South spoke now wearily of years, of long eternities. And meanwhile the fields cried out against the periodic drench of blood and tears; Chickahominy gave way to Mechanicsville, and Malvern Hill beat down upon Richmond. Antietam and Fredericksburg, and the second Bull Run—everywhere the tide of blood rose higher, higher until the hills themselves reeled and panted and sought escape. In the North and to the South the dead lay on the fields in endless rows, eyes blind against the sun, tongues thick with unfelt thirst. In the hospitals the wounded lay in endless rows, shrieking against the approaching knife, crying for anodyne to ease their pain. But to the South there was no anodyne. The doctors shook their heads and cursed to themselves; the keen knives dipped into shrinking flesh and the saws ground horribly against the tortured bone. "Chloroform! For the love of God—chloroform!"
The cry beat outward, rolled like thunder over the helpless land....
The men at Richmond, the soldier on bivouac, the crouching companies in northern Louisiana, ate their tasteless bread, their putrid, uncured meat and spat it out in disgust.
"Faugh!" "Damned, stinking stuff!" "Look at those crawling worms!" "Not fit for a hound!"
"Salt! Salt! SALT! We want salt!"
Salt at a hundred dollars the sack. Salt at a hundred and fifty. Salt at any price!
Hugh Flint got to work at once. Old Stephen, armed with a mysterious pass, slipped quietly through the tight cordon around New Orleans and slipped as quietly into the camp that Governor Moore had established in the tiny town of Washington. He argued; and Moore argued. Their voices rose and battered at each other. Stephen's battered the hardest. He came back to New Orleans and smiled into his warehouse. Soon its emptiness would be filled, its ache appeased with swelling bales and firm, round barrels. No longer would its gaping maw cry out to him with clamorous tongues.
The Eleanor began to load. In broad daylight; not in surreptitious night. Military documents made a fluttering snow, soldiers paraded on the wharf and laughed and joked with Willis's crew. Boxes and barrels lumbered up on drays, disgorged their groaning weights upon the broad, black backs of negro stevedores. The crayon markings jiggled boldly in the sunlight. Steam kettles. Evaporating pans. Sugar apparatus.
Goggling youngsters shifted bare toes on the hot planks of the wharf and watched them disappear into the ship.
"Damn No'the'n planters!" they yelped to one another. "Stealin' our plantations whilst our pappies stahve!"
"Shet your dirty mouths," said the soldiers good-naturedly.
"Yah! Nigger-lovers!"
Then came sacks and sacks and sacks. Thousands, pouring and crunching along the planks. More crayon markings, black and firm for all to see. Steam kettles. Evaporating pans. Sugar apparatus.
The goggling youngsters nudged one another.
"Ain't never seen no pans in a sack!"
"Ain't never seen 'em myself. My pappy usta be 'n overseer onct. Hey, Yanks! Huccome them sacks—"
"Shet your damn mouths, an' get the hell outa here!" said the soldiers fiercely, and advanced the sharp points of their bayonets. The goggling youngsters fled, crying to one other:
"Wish to God I was old 'nuf ta enlist. I'd show them niggerlovers!"
The soldiers resumed their guard. Gone was their good nature. "Strikes me sorta funny, too," remarked one. "Sacks o' kettles, huh. Looks more like salt ta me, or I'm a Chinaman."
"Keep your trap shet!" undertoned the other. "An' your eyes, too, ef you don't want no trouble."
All that summer and into the fall the Eleanor sailed out of New Orleans laden, and puffed back equally laden. Mr. Wyer, a small, mysterious man with carroty hair and sharp, beady eyes, certainly did a terrific amount of business. He did more business than all the other traders in the city put together. But not Colonel Butler. Oh, no! Never! The brother of the General traded some—in the light of day, openly—but that was with New York and Philadelphia and Boston, with Havana and Matamoras; not with the rebel, Moore, or with Pontchatoula. Oh, no! Never! That would be treason!
There were rumors. Naturally! What great general has no gossip-mongers snarling at his heels? Rumors that Wyer was a clerk of Colonel Butler; a mere lackey whose regretful hands proved a funnel through which the gold poured into Butler's capacious bag. Scandal! Filth! The Colonel denied it; the General denied it.
But the rumors spread in a widening circle. Collector Denison, of the New Orleans Customs, heard and believed. He had no love for the pompous, arrogant General. He struck. The Eleanor was his victim.
Captain Willis had become bold with long security. His permits were in order; business was good and the day was bright with autumn splendor. Even the Mississippi was clearer than its wont and made peaceful, lapping sounds against the silent paddles.
"Yep," he told McVey, his sad-faced mate, with a snicker, "we's doin' prett' well fer all of us. When this here load gits away, we's in a cool thousand in gold, jes' for us. Added to what we already got; an' figgerin' what's a-comin'—"
"I got a feelin' in my bones." said the sad-faced mate, letting his red-flecked eyes wander out over the wharf where, as usual, the soldiers on guard made steady march, back and forth, back and forth, while the last sacks and boxes moved on board.
"You an' your feelin's, McVey! What's it now?"
The mate shook his head dolefully. "I got a feelin' there's trouble comin'. It ain't nach'rul fer luck ta hold out like it done."
"You're nawthin' but a Scotch croaker, McVey. You'd pizen a well with that sour mug o' yours, simply by starin'. Look you; we're loaded an' ready ta cast off. Git a-goin'."
"An' look you, Cap'n Willis, if ye be sa smart! What's that squad o' sojers comin' this way from the Customs House fer?"
"Ain't Butler got a right ta march his men?" demanded Willis. But his eyes squinted worriedly toward the quickstepping platoon on the levee. "Mebbe you'd better cast off immedjitly, McVey; seeing as how—"
A man in civilian clothes marched alongside the platoon. They moved briskly out on the wharf.
"Halt!" snapped the civilian. Then he cupped his hands at the vessel. "You on board; stay where you are. If you cast off, we'll fire."
McVey stopped in his hasty tracks towards the engine room. Willis leaned over the upper deck. "What's the matter, Mr. Denison? You saw our papers, an' our permits, didn' ye?"
"Never mind that," shouted Denison. "Haul out the stage. We're coming on board."
"Glory be!" whispered McVey. "I felt it in my bones."
"It's the rheumatiz ye're feelin'," snapped Willis. To the Collector of the Port: "Right ye are. Ye're welcome if ye wish."
Denison refused the papers that Willis thrust at him. "I know! I know!" he said impatiently. "I've seen them already." His angry eyes roamed over the bulging sacks. "Aha!"
Willis didn't like the way he made that sound. "Mr. Wyer's stuff," he explained. "Ev'ry bit's been inspected."
"Not by me. All right, men. Rip open that sack—and that—and that."
"Ye can't do that!" exclaimed Willis. "Ye'll spile the kettles."
"Go on, men."
Willis's jaws moved up and down in chewing motion as the soldiers slashed with their bayonets across the sacking. There were ripping, tearing sounds; and white, coarse crystals spilled out upon the deck in a damning stream.
Denison's face was black with anger. "Kettles, eh? Sugar machinery? I suppose those boxes hold vacuum pans, don't they?"
The Captain put on a bold front. "Look here, Mr. Denison. That's Mr. Wyer's stuff—"
"I don't care if it's God Almighty's. Rip open that box."
A bayonet sprang a slat. Denison went over quickly, plunged his hand in. He brought a bottle of chloroform to the light; then rolls of bandages; more chloroform.
He flung them down so hard that a bottle broke and the sickly-sweet contents splashed over the deck.
Willis waved his permits. "I tell ye ye've no right to go breakin' our cargo. When Gen'ral Butler hears o' this outrage—"
"He'll hear of it fast enough," Denison told him grimly. "You're all under arrest."
"Fer what?"
"Trading with the enemy; smuggling contraband; General Order No. 91."
Hugh Flint was feeling pretty good that day. It was three months since he had made his arrangement with Colonel Butler, and the arrangement had proved immensely profitable for all concerned. The North was getting sugar and cotton, the South received a steady stream of desperately needed supplies, the Eleanor was making fat charter fees, the firm of Flint & Son charged for warehouse handling and had already recouped most of its losses; and Butler had pocketed almost half a million. Hugh grimaced at that last; but there was no help for it. Without Butler, the whole structure he had laboriously built up would fall to the ground.
He walked down Canal Street with a springy stride. These late autumn days were glorious in New Orleans. Far better than the terrible heat of the summer, or the torrential rains of winter and early spring. Busy with his thoughts, he nevertheless noted the strange appearance that Canal Street made. Only a few of the once-bustling stores were open. Chiefly provision stores, tobacconists and liquor dealers. The horse-cars jangled down the middle ramp, bulging with human freight. These horse-cars were a never-failing shock to Hugh. For negroes jostled whites for seats within, and blue uniforms were everywhere. Most of New Orleans preferred to walk, or take a carriage, rather than suffer the indignity of contact.
The negroes swarmed over the city. They held the banquettes and did not give way, as formerly, to the whites. They swaggered and they strutted. From all the plantations, from the sugar coast and the delta, from the back bayous and the fields of cotton, they had downed hoes and knives and ploughs, and flocked to the Federals and freedom. Thousands, and more thousands, in increasing flood.
Butler had tried to stop the ingress; he was no abolitionist. But General Phelps, at Camp Parapet, was; and he sent the good news rolling over the land that all who came to him were thereby free. Butler was furious, and complained to Washington. He ordered Phelps to set his "contraband"
to work on the levees and the roads, pending instructions from the North.
Phelps yelled back, "I am not willing to become a slave-driver," and threatened to resign rather than yield.
Then came the thunderbolt from Washington. Emancipation Proclamation! All slaves in the enemy States forever free. Roars of answering hate. Negroes milling, confused. Some sliding out to seek that freedom. Others content with the known, the habitual; fearful of change.
New Orleans starving. Negroes starving; fed in vast camps by Federal soldiers contemptuous of the task. Raids on foreign banks, on consulates. Angry protests from foreign governments. Reprisals. Abandoned plantations. Sugarcane rotting in the fields; no one to harvest. Guerrillas, gunboats, looting and rapine. More starvation. A planter writing in his diary, in a crabbed, laborious hand:
"I pray sincerely to God that every Blacke Republican in the Hole combined whorl Either man women & chile that is opposed to negro slavery as it existed in the Southern Confederacy shal be troubeled with pestilencs & calamity of all kinds & Dragout the Balance of there exsistance in misry & Degradation with scarsely food & rayment enoghf to keep sole & Body togather and O God I pray the(e) to Direct a bullet or a bayonet to pierce The Hart of every northern soldier that invades southern Soile & after the body has Rendered up its Traterish sole gave it a trators reward a Birth In the Lake of fires & Brimstone."...
Hugh swung around the corner into St. Charles Avenue. He had an appointment with Tom Layton, president of the Southern Bank. A ragged little newsboy with a peaked, gamin face was crying an extra. "Extr' Extry! Here's the Ex'tery and Picayune! All 'bout the great Federal vic'try."
Hugh stopped short, anxious. "Here, boy, give me a paper."
The newsboy sidled up to him, glanced quickly up and down the street.
"Don't buy it," he said under his breath. "It's full o' lies. Yanks don't never tell de truth."
"Good boy!" Hugh approved. "But I'll take it anyway."
He walked into the bank, half-chuckling over the ragamuffin's perkiness, half-wondering if perhaps Lee had actually been defeated.
"Hell, Tom! Have you seen this last Extra of the Picayune?"
But Layton, a red-faced man with iron-gray hair, pulled him quickly into his private office.
"Hugh, I just got word from a fellow who tips me off to things down at the Customs House. Denison has attached the Eleanor and its cargo; and arrested Captain Willis and the crew."
"But that's impossible, Tom! Willis had all the proper permits."
Layton wiped his face. "I don't know anything about that. But if you want to do something, for God's sake, don't waste any time."
Hugh's face became hard as granite. He clapped his hat back on his head, started out from the bank.
"Hey! Where are you going?"
"To do something about it, Tom."
He found Colonel Butler at the St. Charles Bar. The Colonel alternated his time chiefly between the bar and Devoe's out on the lake. Not that he drank much. A glass was forever at his elbow, and forever unemptied. But at these two places he could watch his investments, meet the proper people and make swift decisions.
Butler followed Hugh's surreptitious nod into the back room where he usually transacted his "business." He looked quite pleased with himself; as nearly jovial as he could ever be.
"Well, Flint," he greeted, "another cargo off, eh?"
"Not this time, Butler."
"What do you mean?"
"Denison's seized the Eleanor and arrested Willis."
Butler's hawk-like face grew lean with fury. "He did? When I get through with that fellow he'll wish he was never born!"
"You'd better work fast, then. That cargo represents a lot of money."
Butler shoved his silk hat on his head, buttoned his black frock coat. "I'll see my brother at once. Wait here for me."
He was out of the door almost on the run. Hugh could hear him bawling down the stone steps for his horse. Hugh went over to the bar, ordered a julep. He needed one bad right then. Damn Denison! Just when everything was going smoothly. Poor Willis! Poor Stephen! Poor himself! If the thing broke wide open, a military prison was the least they could expect. Maybe he'd better warn old Stephen at once. Let him get out of town. He had a pass, signed by the General. No use his being captured. As for himself, he'd stay on. Couldn't let Willis down. He got him into this mess, and he'd have to try and get him out of it.
The drink was cool, but it didn't refresh him. Little things popped into his head. First time the Colonel had ever directly alluded to his brother as in on the deal. Showed how scared he was. Hugh took another drink. What was happening? Why the hell didn't Butler return? Willis sitting on a bench, with soldiers marching up and down. Oh God!
"Joe! Another julep."
Then Colonel Butler was back, and they were in the back room again. Butler looked worried.
"Speak up, man!" clamored Hugh.
"Denison got to my brother first."
Hugh groaned. "What did the General do?"
Butler rubbed his hands slowly. "Ben's an old hand, I must say. He was indignant; very indignant. Said he would investigate at once. Told Denison he'd send a squad right over to the Customs House to get the prisoners. They were too dangerous to be left where they might escape, or be rescued."
"Ah' What next?"
For the first time Butler's gloom lightened. "Everything will be all right. Tomorrow Denison will be told it's all a mistake. The markers had marked the wrong cargo. The Eleanor was bound for our troops at Natchez. The Eleanor will be released, and Willis and his men as well."
Hugh's hand gripped the table. Everything was all right, then. No one was going to be hurt. The supplies would continue....
"That's fine," he said. "We'll have to be more careful next time."
Butler put his thumbs under the armpits of his vest. His nose was pinched and his eyes angry. "Ben's scared. He gave me fits. Says I've brought him a lot of trouble. Told me I'd better pack and go home."
"I see."
"You don't see, Flint." Butler was angrier than ever. "There have been stinking spies down from Washington. A fellow named Reverdy Johnson among them. They've been sending reports. Ben's going to be superseded as Commanding General. Banks is taking his place. Damn politics being played!"
Hugh got up, suddenly sure of himself. He was glad; glad of everything that had happened. He had hated what he was doing, even though the Confederacy needed it. As long as this last load would go through, and Willis was safe, he didn't care. He was sick of Colonel Butler and General Butler and the whole kit and kaboodle of them. New Orleans was sick of them. Sick of their pomposity and arrogance and rotten speculations; sick of their confiscations and brutalities and river raids; sick of their negro troops and blatant corruption. He didn't know much about General Banks. But if Butler was being turned out, that meant a change of policy. Any change of policy could only be for the better.
"Goodbye, Butler," he said abruptly; and left. Left that worthy staring after him bewildered.
General Nathaniel P. Banks sailed up the river to New Orleans on December 14th, 1862, to take command. Several large steamers, crowded to the gunwales with soldiers, accompanied him. Bands played and the soldiers hung over the sides, swinging their campaign hats and cheering. General Butler left in a huff, burning at the slight that had been put upon him, knowing that New Orleans was glad to see him go.
The people hailed the change with general satisfaction. They hated Butler and hoped for the best with Banks. On Christmas Eve, in the crowded bars, toasts were drunk: "Confusion to 'Beast' Butler; and hurray for Jeff Davis!"
Banks sent out no platoons of soldiers; he ordered no arrests. He aimed at mildness and conciliation. Flies could more easily be caught with honey.
But Hugh Flint was not there to witness the change. Disturbing news had come to him—news that related to matters he had thought to cast forever from his mind. News that Moon Hill Plantation had been shelled and partially destroyed in reprisal for guerrilla fire from shore. This was bad enough. But one of the guerrillas, according to report, had been Andy Hilgard, convalescing from wounds received up North. Worse still. Sally Wailes had married Andy, the day before the shelling and his escape from the enraged Federals.
For a week Hugh had gone around stunned. His reaction astonished him; he fought against it with all the vigor of his being. He sought to prove to himself that it was the damage to Moon Hill that upset him. Then he abandoned all pretense and grew bitter. He and Sally had never got along together; but at least he had respected her intelligence and her utter independence. What the devil could she have seen in Andy? Were all women like that—romantic idiots who imagined that an ability to kill other men was a sure passport to marital happiness?
And look what the glamor-shrouded hero had done! Married but a day, he had brought death and destruction upon Moon Hill and the bride he pretended to love. Just showing off, of course; trying to live up to his reputation. Taking pot shots at a gunboat, heedless of the sure reprisal he must bring upon themselves.
The bitterness deepened. Hugh knew now that he had loved Sally. It didn't matter any more. She had married another and he'd make it his business to forget her. It was a pity, though, that her choice had fallen on Andy. She'd have trouble ahead; plenty of it—unless he died in battle. That was a possibility every Southern wife had to face. Then she could go through life hugging the illusion of her hero to her bosom, never knowing the truth.
When Hugh got that far in his wanderings, he called himself a fool and thrust it all aside. The Eleanor was due to sail that evening; and there was much for him to do.
In November, however, just after Denison's sudden foray upon the Eleanor, more news came. An order had been issued treating Hilgard's plantation as abandoned and decreeing that it be auctioned to the highest "loyal" bidder for use and cultivation. Sam Wailes sent a protest to Butler against the order. Andrew Hilgard, he insisted, had not abandoned his plantation. He had left Samuel Wailes in charge as his agent; and his wife, Sally Hilgard, was in actual possession. But Butler was adamant. Lieutenant McKean had filed a report to the effect that Hilgard had been the leader of the guerrilla band who had fired on his ship. The negro, Adam, testified in corroboration.
The same evening that Hugh got wind of the order he talked to his father. Stephen was mad clear through; but his wrath was directed rather at Hilgard than at the Federals who had issued the decree of confiscation. "That fellow hasn't got the brains of a jackass," he growled. "Never did have. First he ran his own plantation into debt; now he's ruining the Wailes's as well. Don't give a damn about him; but I feel sorry for Sam. There's Sally, too." He looked keenly at his son from under thick aggressive brows. "Seemed to me you were sorta sweet on the girl for a while, eh?"
Hugh stiffened. How the devil had his father known? There had been a kind of tough, practical relation between old Stephen and himself that had never lent itself to sentiment or confidential interchanges. They might in truth, as far as speech and gesture conveyed, have been merely the business partners which the gilt sign in front of the warehouse proclaimed. Yet now, suddenly, Hugh was disturbingly aware that old Stephen had been watching him, thinking little casual incidents over in the quiet of his own mind and piecing them together to gain a certain knowledge of his son.
"That's nonsense, Father!" Hugh said with just the right touch of annoyance. "Never thought of her at all except as a spoiled, cantankerous young lady who should have been well-paddled on occasion. Where did you get such an idea?"
It was hard to meet old Stephen's piercing gaze. "Didn't want to offend you, son," he said noncommittally. "Let it pass. Howsomever, let Hilgard stew in his own juice. We've got our own headaches. What's going to happen to Flint & Son? Now that the Butlers are being kicked out of New Orleans, our business goes to the devil with them. I got a line on General Banks from some fellows who used to know him. They claim he's all right; but not for us. He won't stand for a minute for what we've been doing." He sighed. "The Lord deliver us from men who are too good."
"It's about our situation that I wanted to talk to you, Dad. Ever since Colonel Butler told me his brother was due to go, I've been thinking things over. There's no further point in my staying here in New Orleans. What little business there'll be, you can easily take care of."
"You're not trying to tell me you're going back into the army?"
There was a sudden glint in the old man's eyes that made Hugh feel quite uncomfortable. He stared down at his hands. So that was it, eh? Stephen had never manifested by word or gesture any reaction to his son's resignation from Lovell's staff. But evidently, under his hard mask of indifference, the matter had festered. Hugh was learning things about his father.
"No; I'm not telling you that," he said quietly. "In the first place, I'd be subject to courtmartial. On two counts—absence from duty; and escaping from arrest. In the second place, the war is practically over."
"Bah!" his father snorted. "You yelled defeat even before there was any war. The South's going pretty strong now. Didn't Lee stop the march on Richmond?"
"Temporarily, yes. It will start again; and keep an eye on this new fellow, Grant, up in Tennessee. However, let's not talk about that."
"What do you want to do, then?"
Hugh inspected his fingers again. "You know something about the running of a sugar plantation; so do I. At least, we've seen good planters and bad ones."
"Well?"
Hugh lifted his head. "How would you rate Hilgard's? I mean soil, equipment and growing possibilities. You were up that way about six months or so ago. I've only seen it from the river."
"As good as Moon Hill, if it's handled right. He's got almost as many arpents of tillable ground as Sam Wailes has; and it's good rich bottomland. I remember old Roger Hilgard, Andy's father, used to send me some of the finest sugar on the Coast. The equipment is all right—or it was before that wastrel son of his got hold of it. Old-fashioned, but solid. Why do you want to know?"
Hugh got up. "I'm thinking of putting in a bid for the place."
Stephen jumped to his feet. "I've been telling you for a long time you're daft, son; but now I'm going to believe it. Hugh Flint, merchant and factor, turning into a planter!"
"Why not? Every planter had to start sometime. And we've been handling sugar long enough to know a thing or two about it."
The old man grew apoplectic. "The Feds won't give it to you. You're not 'loyal.'" The red faded into a sudden white. "Unless you—you're thinking of taking the oath?"
Hugh grinned. "I won't. I may be a damn poor specimen of a Southerner, but I'm not changing my coat, even for a plantation."
"Then how the devil do you expect to get it?"
"My good friends, the Butlers. Colonel Butler is going to act as my agent in the bidding—for a fee, of course. I'm certain that a little thing like the taking of an oath will not be permitted to stand in the way. After all, they're going away soon."
Stephen felt a bit relieved. There was no telling about Hugh any more. Flesh of his flesh he might be, but he was forever doing the damndest and most unexpected things. Stephen had a hard code of his own; but it was a code. Perhaps Hugh had one, too. If he had, Stephen hadn't yet been able to get the hang of it. But this new idea of his was going too far. There were certain things that one just couldn't do; and this was one of them.
"You'd become an outcast if you took over Andy's plantation, son. He may be pretty much of a poor specimen, but he's fighting for his country, and lots of people around these parts consider him high-almighty. They'd say you were twenty different kinds of a skunk, stealing his plantation when he wasn't here to defend himself. They'd treat you as a traitor, as something worse than the worst Yank. You'd be gall and poison as long as you live. Why, the Wailes's would go into fits. You forget, it's Sally Hilgard now. You'd be taking away what's rightfully hers; and her children's. Don't do it, Hugh."
Hugh winced. Whether it was at the picture his father had drawn, or at the sudden realization that Sally would have children—Andy's children—he did not know.
"Let them talk," he declared angrily. "Let them say what they want! Hilgard's is confiscated. If I don't get it, it will go to some Northern buzzard. There're plenty of them around smelling out good bargains to gobble up. People ought to be thankful that the place will remain in Southern hands."
Stephen shook his head. "They won't look at it that way. They'd expect a Northerner to grab it. That's war and there's nothing they could do about it. But with you, they'd feel it's a stab in the back. They'd hate and despise you a hundred times worse than if you were a Northern jackal come down to pick the bones. Don't do it."
Hugh picked up his hat. "I've made up my mind, Father. I'm seeing Butler right away." He grinned at the old man. "The old firm of Stephen Flint will have a new client. Mr. Hugh Flint, planter, of St. James Parish."
He made a sweeping flourish with his hat; and was gone.
THE frost was heavy on the ground and ice sheeted over the black swamp waters with a thin layer of silence. Snow sifted out of continuous gray skies, powdering the cane stubble with blotches of white. In the Mississippi ice floes crunched and ground against the shaky levee and continued on to the distant Gulf. The cold penetrated the bones. For more than a week it had registered ten below freezing.
Hugh Flint turned up the collar of his coat and felt sorry for the huddled negroes in the sugar house. They blew on their hands and shifted their feet and the mingled steam of their breaths made a fog that wavered through the tall brick building.
"Cupid Jackson!"
"Yassuh!"
"Zida Mitchell!"
"Dat's me!"
"Stud!"
"I'se heah!"
The Provost Marshal looked up from his list.
"You, Stud! What's your last name?"
The bandy-legged negro scratched his head. "Ain't got no las' name. Jes' Stud."
The Marshal growled. "Got to have a last name. You're a free man now. The law says you've got to sign your contract with your full name."
"Ain't got no las' name," Stud insisted.
"Got to." The Provost Marshal poised his pencil; then wrote down on the list. "Stud Poker!" He winked at Hugh. "That's your name now. Remember it."
"Yassuh."
The officer continued his roll-call. Men, women and children, down to the smallest baby.
"There you are, Mr. Flint," he said finally. "Ninety-six all told, including the young ones."
Hugh looked them over. They sat on long benches close to the boilers. Men, women and little children. Coal black faces, brown, yellowish, and some—especially among the younger ones—obviously mulatto. That would be Hilgard's doing.
They stared back at him with a certain sullen defiance. Stud openly sneered. He would have trouble with that fellow, thought Hugh. The hell with him, then! Either he'd do the work, or get off the plantation. Hugh didn't intend to stand for any nonsense.
"They're not a likely-looking lot, Lieutenant Carson," he told the Provost Marshal. "And there aren't enough of them. Hilgard used to have over a hundred and thirty niggers to run this plantation."
Carson shrugged. "The others went off. Can't do a thing about it. They're free now. Since the first of the year. They're cluttering up every camp we've got, begging for food, stealing, raising hell generally. If I had my way I'd horsewhip every damn one of them that won't sign a contract. But orders are orders. About the contracts, do you want me to lay down the law to them first? They'll listen to me faster than they will to you."
"Go ahead, Lieutenant."
The Provost Marshal raised his voice. "All right, all of you! Mr. Flint is going to run this plantation. You're no longer slaves. The President of the United States has given you your freedom. For five days you've been free as the air. You don't have to work; you don't have to take orders. You don't have to do a thing. But the plantation owner doesn't owe you anything either. He doesn't have to feed you or clothe you or give you a cabin to live in."
"Dat ain't right," mumbled an old woman. "How's us niggers goin' ta lib?"
"That's the point. Those who agree to work and sign contracts will get paid. No work; no pay. Now I'm here to see that you're treated fairly. There are certain requirements laid down in the General Orders which Mr. Flint will have to follow; otherwise you and he have the right to make your own terms. He'll tell you what he has in mind."
Hugh was keenly aware of their concentrated gaze. Suspicious, mistrustful, bright with hostility. He was going to have a lot of trouble with them, he could see that. They were slightly drunk with their new freedom; and the heady wine hadn't settled yet. They resented him as an interloper, too. With Andy Hilgard, their old master, the break wouldn't have been as sharp. Tradition, long submissive obedience, habitual association would have played their powerful parts, softened the delicate era of transition. But Hugh was different. A stranger thrust into their midst, ousting the old and accustomed, elbowing the absent master and his recent bride from what was rightfully theirs. Not even quality!
He began slowly. "Lieutenant Carson has given you the general idea. I intend to run this plantation and make a success of it. I intend to be fair to you; but you will also have to be fair to me. Together we can raise a proper crop; if, however, you don't do your share, no one will have anything. As the Provost Marshal has told you, no one can remain who doesn't sign a contract for one year. That is the law. It is also the law that you must work nine hours a day in winter and ten hours a day in summer. When you do not work you do not get paid. I will pay the men workers twelve dollars a month; the women workers ten dollars a month. Besides this you will get living quarters, wood and food. But when you quit work, all rations stop."
A horse-faced negro grumbled: "Whut's de use o' bein' free ef'n us gotta wuk so hawd?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask someone else the answer to that. I have the contracts here for your signature. The Provost Marshal has already approved of their terms. All you have to do is make your mark at the bottom of them, and he will witness it. Who is first?"
There was a shuffling, sullen movement among them, but no one came forward.
"Ah maks no sign wid anybody but Mistah Hilgard," yelled Stud suddenly.
A gabble of approval went up from the negroes. "Dat am true tawk!" "Mistah Hilgard, he know how us wuks. Dis place belong ta he, not ta you!" "Us free." "How 'bout me? Ah gits de mis'ry reg'lar. Don' ah gits paid?"
Carson started heatedly, "Now look here, you black—"
Hugh said, "You'd better let me handle this, Lieutenant. After all, you won't be around all the time." His voice beat down the gabble; yet he did not shout.
"Let's get this straight. I'm running the plantation now, not Major Hilgard. The Federal authorities took it away from him, whether rightly or wrongly I won't argue with you. Perhaps, when the war is over, he'll come back. I don't know. Then you will have a chance to prove your loyalty to him, if you wish. But in the meantime you will be working for me, if you stay. I'm not compelling you to stay. You've heard my terms. You can take them or leave them. Those who don't want them must pack up and get out by the end of the week."
Stud arose. His protruding eyes gave him a most unpleasant appearance. "Ah's quittin'!" he shouted. "Ah maks no sign."
"Go ahead," Hugh told him. "But remember, once you're off the plantation I'll never take you back."
"Dat suit me fine." And the bandy-legged negro stalked out of the sugar house.
Hugh surveyed the others. "Anyone else care to go?" he invited.
They looked at each other, and shuffled their feet. But no one moved to follow.
An old, white-haired negro said quaveringly: "I'se willin' ta wuk foh you, Misto' Flint, 's long's de good Lawd'll spare me; but I'se don' want ta sign no contrac'."
"Sorry, Pomfrey," Hugh said kindly. "That isn't allowed. I can't do a thing about it any more than you. You sign or you have to leave the plantation."
"Dis yere freed'm am a funny t'ing. When us slaves, us kain't do whut us want; when us free, us kain't do whut us want neither."
"It's for your own protection," Carson explained. "When the terms of your employment are written down, there can't be any dispute afterwards."
Shaking his head and groaning, Pomfrey came forward. "Ah still sez he don' mak sense. But ah wuz borned heah; an' ah 'spects to mak mah dyin' bed heah; so ah signs."
He made a shaky cross with the stub pencil that Carson handed him. Then Hugh signed; and Carson and a sergeant signed as witnesses.
Pomfrey's signing broke the resistance of the negroes. They had almost followed Stud out to defiant freedom; now, like sheep, they followed the old man to make their marks. In half an hour all had signed.
Carson shook hands with Hugh. "Glad that's over, Mr. Flint. You've been pretty lucky, I must say. Especially when you consider you're a newcomer. On some of the other plantations, half the niggers refused to sign. You had only one holdout."
"And I'm not sorry he didn't stay, Lieutenant. He looks to me like a bad egg. I know his reputation. That name Stud was given to him by Hilgard for a good and fitting reason. And it had nothing to do with the game of poker, either, as you seemed to think."
"You don't say! That bandy-legged runt?"
"No one else. He's responsible for half the younger generation of blacks within twenty miles of here."
"Well, I'll be damned! Maybe I'd better change his name then to something—uh—more appropriate."
"That would be gilding the lily," Hugh grinned. "However, it doesn't matter now. He's gone—"
The door of the sugar house opened softly and Stud came in, blowing on his hands to warm them and to hide his embarrassment.
"Well, what do you want?" Hugh demanded.
The negro wreathed his face in an ingratiating smile. "I'se been t'inkin', Mistah Flint; an' arter much consideration wid myself, I'se come to de c'nclusion I desires ta sign."
"You're too late," the Provost Marshal growled. "Mr. Flint has also come to the conclusion that he doesn't want you around."
Stud looked downcast. His eyes were those of a whipped dog. All his bravado had left him. "Ef'n Mistah Hilgard wuz heah, he wouldn' send me away. Nex' time I bites off de end er my tongue foah I opens my big mouf." He turned to go.
"Wait a moment!" Hugh called. Stud stopped.
"You can stay, Stud, as long as you behave yourself. But at the first sign of trouble off you go."
"And I'll see to it that you go," Carson said gruffly.
The negro's face broke into a bucktoothed grin of delight. "Dere won' be no trouble, Mistah Flint. Wheah am dat contrac'?"
The troop of soldiers reined in before the plantation house.
"Hope you make a go of it," said Carson. "If you have any trouble with your niggers, send down to Lutcher and I'll be up to put the fear of God into them." He sighed. "I used to be a halfway abolitionist before I came South; but now, I don't know. There's much to be said on both sides."
"That holds good, I suppose, on every question. How about you and your men coming in for a drink?"
"No time for it now; thanks. I've got to get over to your neighbor now that you're settled. Know them?"
Hugh's heart pounded suddenly. "You mean Sam Wailes?"
"The same; and his two daughters. Mighty pretty girls; especially the older. She's about the best looker I've seen since I came South. Too bad she's married. Know her?"
"A little," Hugh admitted.
"Say! I didn't think of it. It's going to be pretty uncomfortable, being such close neighbors."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, after all, this place was hers. From what I hear, she's fit to be tied over your coming." The Provost Marshal looked serious. "So are all the other planters around. I wouldn't put it beyond them to do you dirt. If you want me to leave a few men—"
"Thanks, but I won't need them. I'll get along. About Moon Hill, though. Anything wrong?"
"Plenty. The old man's as stubborn as all get out; and the girls are the worst Southern diehards I've run up against. Especially that Mrs. Hilgard. She's a caution! Practically chases me off the place every time I come over. Says if I come as an enemy conqueror, that's all right. She yields to superior force. But I can't come just to pass the day. I'm not welcome." Carson grinned. "Whew! I'd rather face your men any day."
"But what's wrong?"
Carson sobered. "They just refuse to believe that their negroes are free. Won't sign any contracts; won't do anything but cling to the old ways. As a result, half their hands have gone down to New Orleans, and the rest of them are raising hell instead of crops. Wouldn't surprise me if some day they'll fire the house and kill the three of them. Then I'll have to hang a few niggers—if I can catch them." He saluted, said: "I'm trying them again. Maybe I can beat some sense into those fire-eaters. Goodbye, Flint."
It was cold, and the snow made a fine mist that stung his face and insinuated itself down his neck, yet Hugh sat motionless on his horse, watching the soldiers ride down the road to the levee and vanish toward Moon Hill.
Why had he done this thing? Old Stephen had warned him against it; the few remaining friends left to him in New Orleans had shaken their heads and passed him blindly in the streets. Carson was right. Every planter in the parish was hot with helpless rage. They would make trouble; all they could. Let but the Yankee soldiers quit Lutcher and there'd be no telling what they'd do. Even Carson, the bluff, forthright Provost Marshal for the district, hadn't been able to make Hugh out. A Southerner turning jackal on his own kind. If he had only been a secret Union sympathizer; a passionate believer in the justice of the Northern cause. But Hugh wasn't; he had made no bones about it in his preliminary arrangements with the Provost Marshal. "A decent sort of a fellow, otherwise," thought Carson. "That's human nature, I suppose." With which profound observation he clattered his men into Moon Hill.
But Hugh could not dismiss himself so cavalierly. Why had he done this? He used to think of himself as hard and direct; setting his goal and allowing nothing to stand in the way until it was reached. But now his motives were complex, composed of infinite and contradictory strands that he himself found it almost impossible to unravel.
He had steeled himself against the scorn and passion with which he had expected Sally to greet him on landing at the plantation wrested from her husband. But Sally remained at Moon Hill, an invisible, yet somehow all-pervading presence. Not a single item that might be associated with her remained behind. He had sighed relief; and yet—her nonappearance, even though it would have been to lash him with contempt and wrath, was a disappointment.
Was he then still in love with her? She was the wife of another man, and he had done the very thing that must seal her hatred for him forever. Was there a secret motive to his action? Was this some impossible nobility of self-sacrifice such as one met continually in fictional accounts of men who never existed? Was this his method of rescuing the confiscated plantation from alien hands so that, when the war was over, he could return it with a flourish and a magnificent gesture to Hilgard—and to his wife? Hugh rejected the thought angrily. He wasn't such a fool.
He let his eyes wander over the cold, frosty stretch of fields. It was something deeper, something more satisfying. Obscure springs in his nature began to flow at the sight of that flat, interminable stretch. He loved the land, and he loved sugar. This was reality; much more than the handling of the end-product, the white crystals of commerce. Here the ground swelled and fructified; and the seasons passed; and life came into being. In the outer world men shrieked their hate and lusted for destruction; here creation was eternally in the making.
Hugh grinned at himself, and this sudden hunger that stirred in him. A restless longing moved over his body, aching to start the work at hand.
Stud came up. He seemed a little timid. "Dat mare you ridin' look moughty cold, Mistah Flint. Mebbe ah bettah put he in de stable."
Hugh dismounted, threw the reins to him. "Yes, you'd better," he agreed. "I sort of forgot myself for a while."
He went into the house. It was time to take stock of his new possession. It was a commodious, one-story affair in the old plantation manner; but the paint had peeled and the stucco was cracked and scaling. Four fluted columns along the deep front verandah upheld the gabled outthrust of the roof; and these too had deep, irregular cracks making unsightly their chaste design.
Inside, however, Hugh was surprised to find a pretty fair state of preservation. Old Roger Hilgard had been something of a connoisseur and traveled man; and he had brought back with him from France much booty in the form of furnishings for the new home he was building. All they required now was a liberal use of soap and water and cleansing fresh air to bring back their pristine freshness.
A long reception hall divided the house into two sets of rooms. Here, on comfortable chairs and sofas, and flanked with tables and generously filled bookcases, the ordinary visitors were entertained. For more formal occasions the great parlor to the left was thrown open. In this room old Roger had mingled the ornate magnificence of the French with the simpler, but splendid solid pieces of early America. The block-printed floral wallpaper, alternating with white plaster panels into which were set appliquéd figures of dainty maidens, was imported from France. So too was the marble-topped white mantel that enclosed a glazed, but rather ineffective fireplace. Flanking the mantel were long gilt mirrors that extended to the floor, so that the feminine contingent of visitors might view themselves at every angle while hearkening to the heavy political conversation of their husbands.
The master bedroom, on the right, was equally splendid. The huge four-poster bed with its silken canopy and dropped muskito netting could easily have accommodated half a dozen sprawling sleepers. The armoires, with their mirrored doors, were so tall that a small ladder had to be used to reach the upper shelves. What especially interested Hugh was the prayer bench at the foot of the bed, with its comfortable rest of red velvet for the kneeling penitent. Evidently old Hilgard, or his wife, or both, had been much more pious than their son. Discreetly in a corner, behind a figured screen, stood a raised throne seat for the natural necessities of the night. This was a luxury not to be found in many of the plantation houses along the Delta.
A dining-room in massive mahogany and heavy plate, two smaller bedrooms, and the usual dependency of kitchens where thick steaks could be broiled in the hearth embers and game and chicken turned on spits, with the juices dripping hot and savory into iron pots beneath, completed the tale of rooms. It was not a large house, certainly not as large as Moon Hill—but for Hugh's purposes, once it was thoroughly cleaned and aired, far more desirable.
He ate in solitary splendor, poured himself a drink of bourbon against the cold, and went down to the stables. He found Stud diligently currying the mare.
"Stud," he said abruptly, "you know the hands pretty well."
The stableman grinned. "Yassuh, Mistah Flint. 'Specially de gals."
"I expect to make a go of this plantation. That means hard work—for all of us. Do you think I can rely on them?"
Stud scratched his head. "Well," he said judicially, "dere be dem whut's nat'chally lazy an' no-count; dere be dem whut wuks when dey kain't git out'n it; dere be dem whut gits de itchin' foot; an'—"
Hugh grimaced. "I see what I'm up against. You can tell them for me, though, that I expect proper work. They signed the contract, and Lieutenant Carson will back it up. If they have any grievances, they can come to me and I'll straighten them out. If they haven't they'll either work or get off the plantation."
"Dey ain't usta dat," Stud ventured. "Mistah Hilgard—"
"I know; but you're free now and being paid wages. I intend to get an honest return."
Hugh turned to go; stopped suddenly. "What's the matter at Moon Hill?"
Stud's face went blank. "Dunno. Ain't nuthin' de matter."
"Yes, there is. The Provost Marshal told me. There's been trouble ever since New Orleans was taken. More trouble than on any other plantation on the Sugar Coast. What's in back of it?"
"Dunno nuthin'," Stud repeated in a wooden tone.
"Mr. Wailes was about as decent to his slaves as anyone I can think of," Hugh insisted. "So it isn't that. Yet there have been murders committed on Moon Hill and the negroes seem altogether out of hand. It's not natural. Who's stirring them up?"
The blankness changed to mobile fear. "Please don' go on askin' me an' askin' me lak dat, Mistah Flint." Stud caught up the currycomb and scraped at the mare with furious energy. He started to sweat. "Ah kain't talk nohow; ah'd be kilt sho'."
Hugh stared at him in surprise. He hadn't expected such a violent reaction. His inquiry had been general. The Provost Marshal's comments had made him feel a trifle uneasy. Carson himself, being a Northerner and an alien, couldn't be expected to understand the full implications of the situation. But Hugh had lived all his life among the negroes, and knew their ways and their superstitions. Something was brewing over at Moon Hill; and he, as a neighbor, was directly interested.
Nevertheless the way Stud acted denoted something far more serious than he had anticipated. It was more, then, than mere restlessness or impudence or the intoxication of freedom. It was something that dug deep into grim, superstitious roots; something that had frightened Stud almost out of his wits. There was no use questioning him any further. He wouldn't talk; and neither would any other negro on the plantations. The Wailes's were in danger!
Hugh's first impulse was to ride over to Moon Hill to give warning. But he couldn't do that. He was emphatically persona non grata. Sam Wailes would without doubt order him off the place; and Sally—well, there'd be no telling what she would say or do. He couldn't blame them. In their eyes he had done an unforgivable thing. Then, too, what could he tell them? Nothing. Only that Stud had turned a pasty yellow when questioned and had talked wildly of being killed if he said anything. Put thus baldly, it would sound foolish; as if he were using the warning as a transparent means for insinuating himself into their society again. He straightened his shoulders. He'd be damned if he'd undergo any such humiliation!
The Yankee Provost Marshal? Even less chance there. Certainly he wouldn't understand. He'd say it served the Wailes's right. They didn't know when they were licked. If they had treated the negroes properly, they'd get along.
And anyway, there was nothing he could do until trouble actually started. Hadn't they made it plain to him that he was a damyank and not welcome? Of course, when the trouble came, it would be too late. He couldn't help that. In fact, if the Wailes's didn't tone down their attitude altogether, Moon Hill would very likely be confiscated, the same as Hilgard's. The authorities had it on their list.
Whereupon Hugh decided there was nothing to be done but watch and wait. Meanwhile, there was his own plantation. Plenty of hard, desperate work ahead. He'd better attend to his own affairs.
During the night the south wind blew strong and warm. The thin covering of snow melted and the ice cracked and shattered in the swamps. Hugh woke with the morning bell at five and saw the warm steam rising from the ground, and the sun lifting over the cypresses. He dressed hurriedly, gulped down the breakfast Zida Mitchell had prepared and went out to find his mare standing quietly at the entrance, saddled and sleekly groomed, with Stud holding the reins.
The stableman was grinning and shouting an obscene pleasantry toward the back of the house. Hugh turned his head, just in time to see his plump housekeeper and cook vanish hurriedly into the brick kitchen. Stud whirled, his jaw agape.
"Mistah Flint; ah sho' didn' 'spect you dis soon. Mistah Hilgard, he nebber—"
"I'm not Mr. Hilgard!" Hugh said sharply. "We've got work to do. And, Stud—"
"Yassuh."
"I don't wish to interfere in your private gallantries, but I don't want them visible around the house; and I don't want to hear any such expressions as you just used, either."
"Yassuh."
"Now that we've got that straight, let's get started."
The "turn out to work" bell rang at 6:30; at 7 a.m. all hands were supposed to be actually at work, on penalty of being "docked" a fourth of the day's pay.
But only half of the hands showed up at the sugar house, the first morning's point of assemblage, on time. The others were from fifteen minutes to half an hour late. Three didn't show up at all.
Hugh faced them grimly. This morning would decide their future relations. If he yielded now, he'd never be able to regain control. He'd have to be firm as well as fair.
"I see that you didn't quite understand what I said yesterday," he told them. "You're working now on wages; as free persons, not as slaves. Therefore you must earn your pay. The rules and regulations of employment as set forth in your contracts were read to you by the Provost Marshal. Yet half of you have come late to work; and some didn't even take the trouble to show up. In accordance with the terms of the contract, therefore, I am deducting a quarter-day's pay from those who were late; and those who aren't here by now will lose the entire day—and their rations of food."
A growl went up from the men, mingled with high clamor from the women.
"Dat ain't fair!" shouted a field hand, who had shuffled in twenty minutes after the work bell. "Ah had a mis'ry in mah belly. Ah kain't help it ef ah couldn' walk no faster."
"If you're that sick, Cupid," Hugh retorted, "then you should have remained in your cabin altogether. At noon I make the rounds of the sick."
"Dat's right," Cupid declared eagerly. "Ah's too sick ta wuk. Ah's goin' back."
He got up groaning and staggered toward the door, doubled up as in terrible pain.
"But remember," Hugh shot after him, "when you go to the cabin, you lose the whole day's pay, and a half-pound of pork will be taken from your week's supply. There'll be less bread and molasses, too, naturally."
Cupid stopped in consternation, straightened up. "You ain't gonna do dat?" he exclaimed.
"I must. It says so in the contract; and I've got to do exactly what it says in there."
Cupid rubbed his belly with a reflective hand. "De mis'ry, he 'pears to be moughty better. Mebbe ah better wuk he off." And the round-faced field hand walked briskly back into the sugar house, to the accompaniment of delighted chuckles from his fellow hands.
Hugh took a deep breath. The crisis was over. He had won the first round, and discipline would be easier on the plantation thereafter.
Swiftly he went among them, portioning out the work.
The women were to clean the great house under Zida Mitchell's supervision. And he meant clean, he told Zida. He might be a bachelor, the same as Major Hilgard, but he couldn't abide musty rooms and dust and rat droppings.
Zida was coffee-colored and plump and not bad to look at. She simpered, "Et'll be so clean de moster kin lay heself down on de floor 'steada in bed an' not get heself any dust." There was a certain invitation in her eyes that Hugh was beginning to recognize.
"Oh, damn!" he thought wearily. "She thinks I'm like that precious hero, Andy Hilgard. Expects to get herself a nice, soft berth in the house. Well, she'll damn well soon find out she'll have to content herself with Stud. Between the Honorable Andy and Stud, this must have been one hell of a place."
He divided the men into two groups. The lighter, more active ones were set to work repairing the fences, cleaning out the draining ditches, and chopping wood in the swamps. The heavier, more powerful ones were sent to the levee. He couldn't start early enough on that. The cracks were so big in some places you could wriggle through from end to end without any difficulty. Luckily the river was low; but if this unseasonable thaw continued, the floods might roll down upon them within a week.
The sun was hot now, and the frozen ground fast became mud and quagmire. Yet he splashed his horse tirelessly from gang to gang, eying sharply what was being done, quick to detect signs of slacking or malingering, and just as quick to praise the worker.
At first they tried to shirk, thinking Hugh was a city man and easily fooled. But they soon found out their mistake! His knowledge was chiefly theoretical and the result of casual observation, but he took to the soil with an eagerness and gusto that surprised himself as well as the negroes. He was a planter born.
Within the first week he called in Carson to remove two defiant hands from the plantation. He could have done it himself, without aid; but he thought it better to let the Yankee soldiery take the onus of the ouster. There would be no such situation arising on the Flint Plantation, he determined, as had obviously taken place at Moon Hill. Rumblings came to him; but the job of starting a run-down plantation into production again kept him busy day and night, and gave him no time for thought or other considerations.
The routine was exhausting. He was up at dawn, and out riding upon the fields after a hasty breakfast. At noon he hurried back for a quick meal; then, with medicine kit fastened to his saddle, he went to visit the sick among negroes and livestock alike. He soon achieved a certain rough-and-ready skill at dosing—calomel for belly cramps; quinine, infinitely precious, for agues and fevers and malaria. Bleeding also was a regular procedure for men and animals both. If a mule had the colic, he applied "inductions" of cold water and bled it in the mouth and neck. If the animal developed the "charbon," deadliest of all mule diseases, then the treatment consisted of a pint of whiskey diluted with an equal amount of water every six hours. But this rarely helped. The unfortunate mule got drunk and died just the same.
What with Yankee confiscations and negro stealings, the livestock had been terribly depleted. Outside of the single mare he rode, there wasn't a horse left; and the mules were down to a scant dozen. The hogs had mysteriously vanished, with the exception of a few who were found snouting for mast in the muck of the swamp, and the remaining cows gave barely enough milk for ordinary cooking. He'd have to start from scratch to build up the place again.
But Hugh flung himself into plantation life with a deep sense of satisfaction. The sight of the great level fields thawing out under the slowly warming sun filled him with keen delight. The smoke curling from the row of cabins, the youngsters who wallowed unconcernedly with the pigs in the beginning mud, the ghostly cypresses and the blackwater swamp, the pert calls of wintering robins and the flashing whir of the cardinals, even the yielding smell of the halffrozen soil, gave him a sense of contentment that he had never before experienced.
The war grew farther and farther remote. Vicksburg fell, cutting the Confederacy neatly in two. The Mississippi became a Northern river. Gunboats steamed up and down incessantly, keeping well to the middle to avoid guerrilla fire. Lee moved northward from Virginia in a last terrific effort to win the war. At Gettysburg the thrust smothered in blood and death. But Hugh held steadily to his appointed tasks; and paid no outward heed. Even the constant reminder of the Federal troops at Lutcher did not weigh unduly on him. He had come to rather friendly terms with Carson; and they never spoke of war or military matters.
Sometimes, it was true, his conscience rested uneasily on him. Was he in reality the renegade that he seemed? On far-flung fields men were suffering, dying for a cause. Men he knew—Dabney Wailes, who was dead; Andy Hilgard, whose exploits were fast becoming legends; Beauregard; Sherman, even.
Occasionally he felt an irritable stir; and old Stephen, down in New Orleans, glowered and grew peevish with his clerks. Business was bad; but it was not that which made him sound like a wounded bear. He had quarreled with his son over the purchase of Hilgard's; and it was hard to meet the averted looks of his old business friends. He knew what they thought.
So did Hugh. Not only in New Orleans, but all along the Sugar Coast the name of Hugh Flint had become anathema. No one ever visited him; he never visited. Moon Hill, next door, might have been on the moon itself as far as he was concerned. The interposing border wood was an impregnable wall.
Yet on the whole Hugh was content. When the stir seized him, he worked all the harder and dropped into bed at night exhausted. Going to battle now would be noble, but utterly futile. He had done his part for the Confederacy, he felt. He would do it again, should the proper occasion arise. But he saw, with increasing clarity, that no possible effort could win for the South. There were victories and thrusts and concomitant optimism; the North made incredible blunders; but slowly, surely, the strangulation process went on and on. There could be only one possible end.
Life, he felt, must go on. The earth must yield and men must garner the fruits. A prostrate South was in prospect; a South bled white of men and goods and the will to live. Every plantation that survived, every plantation whose equipment remained intact and whose fields had not reverted to the wilderness, was worth a regiment in the harder, more grueling days to come. So at least he thought and took for himself what comfort he could.
IN the middle of January Hugh Flint began his crop. The south wind blew steadily and the ground softened to the proper consistency for cultivation. There had been no flood, though the river had risen fairly high and the back bayous sent their overflow into the sugar house pond. The worst crevasses in the levee had been filled and the banks strengthened. By May, when the real floods came, Hugh hoped to have the barrier solid and in shape for holding.
First he cleaned out the long, parallel ditches and the cross ditches to insure proper drainage against seepage and floods. Then he checked on his cane. There wasn't much seed on the land. The troubles of the preceding year and Sam Wailes's desperate struggle to rebuild his own partly-shattered home had engrossed most of his attention.
Hugh found only a few mats of the precious seed-cane laid away. He would have to content himself this first year chiefly with the stubble cane; which meant that his crop wouldn't grow as fast or as tall. Fortunately, old Roger Hilgard had used the Bourbon variety, which was hardy, darkpurple in color, with a strong, thick cortex to protect it against the frost, and furnished a rich yield in sugar and rattoons. He'd do the best he could.
He started with the planting of the seed-cane. Since Stud's duties as stableman had become something of a sinecure with the disappearance of most of the horses and mules, Hugh decided to make him his boss driver to handle the field hands directly, subject to his own supervision. He was coming to like Stud, in spite of his unprepossessing appearance and initial attempt at rebellion. That, he discovered, had been due to the negro's sense of loyalty to his absent master. Fair handling, however, brought Stud to an increasing loyalty to Hugh. Major Andy was gone; Mr. Flint was in his place. The discipline was stricter; but there was less caprice and unaccountable bursts of passion of which to be wary. Furthermore, Mr. Flint kept his hands strictly off the womenfolk. Too often Major Andy had poached on what Stud considered his own rightful province. There was the matter of Zida Mitchell, for example. Stud had been casting sheep's eyes at her for quite a while; yet she had been uppity because of Major Andy's manifest favor. Now the field was clear.
Hugh never could understand what there was about Stud that made him irresistible with the negro women, from coal black to lightest mulatto. But then, he was beginning to realize that the ways of all women, white and black alike, were complete mysteries to him. Nor could he understand how it was that some other negro, whose wife or "gal" had succumbed to the fascinating Stud, had never whipped off his head with a sugar knife. Yet none of the bucks, most of them much bigger and stronger than the black Don Juan, seemed to harbor any resentment against him.
Because of the lack of mules, Hugh ran a single plough for the initial furrows. Four long-eared mules, whipped and exhorted along, pulled the iron instrument, digging deep into the fertile soil. Then came the double plough, or "fluck," widening the furrow and smoothing the slanting sides. Eight feet apart ran the drills.
Now the mats of seed-cane were opened. Hugh felt a strange excitement as the gangs heaved away the upper layers of dried husks and uncovered the precious seed beneath. On the state of this cane depended to a large extent the success or failure of the year's crop.
Stud, sweating in his shirt, though the day was raw and cold, grinned up at him.
"Look't dem dar cane," he crowed exultantly, holding up a cutting about six feet long. "Juicy an' ripe lak it was jes' laid down. Dat am a good sign, Mistah Flint. Yo' sho' gonna hab luck."
Hugh inspected the stalk, checked over the others in the mattress bed. His heart leaped. What little Sam Wailes had been able to do had been well and conscientiously done. They were the finest purple-colored stalks, moist and tender, as thick as a man's wrist, with the eyes swelling at the joints, all ready to burst with stirring sap. From each of these eyes a new plant-cane would shoot, tall and straight and ripe with sugar liquor.
Hugh did not delay a moment. As soon as each mat was uncovered, he had the seed-cane placed carefully in the waiting cart so that the delicate cuttings should suffer no bruise. Then the brace of mules was whipped up, and the load carted to the freshly prepared drills. Here a "light" gang, among whom were the stronger women, took out the stalks, an armful at a time, and walked along the furrows, laying them laterally, in three rows four inches apart. Another gang moved behind them, covering the planted furrows, tamping the moist ground down.
It took three weeks to finish the planting, while the air grew steadily warmer and the Southern spring burst full-grown upon them. It took three weeks because the work tools were few, the number of field hands half of normal, and because it took Hugh time and much patience to overcome the strangeness of the negroes and their still heady sense of freedom. But when he was finished, he had a hundred and thirty arpents under plant cultivation. Which wasn't bad, considering the difficulties and the lack of seed-cane.
With the new planting out of the way, he started on the stubble cane. It was none too soon, for the weeks of warm weather had sent the rattoons bursting through the old tops and leaves that had made protecting layers through the wintry months.
For days the hoe gang and the plough gang raked the tops and leaves into the "middles" between the stubble rows and ploughed them under for fertilizer against a depleted soil. Stud was in his glory. He followed the gangs, his voice raised in magnificent exhortation. "Put yo' plough inter de groun', niggers; an' dribe dem mules. Put yo' back inter et, foah ah tak de stick tuh he." And mingled with his exhortations were sly ejaculations and double meanings and frank repartee that had the gangs, especially the women, gasping with laughter.
Then the stubble was "barred off" with a plough so shaped as to throw the earth away from the sprouting cane. Next it was shaved close to the mother plant by a scraper so as to leave a bare inch of earth as a cover for the plant. Meanwhile the ploughing proceeded at top speed, the hoers moved steadily between the rows, loosening the soil, putting down the grass and keeping the cross ditches clean of rubbish and debris.
By the end of May the cane, both "plant" from the seedcuttings, and "rattoons" from last year's stubble, was sufficiently forward to be earthed. The hot sun beat down upon it, and the rains burst torrentially. The land was a long green carpet, sprouting from day to day, blessing the eyes of Hugh with its plenitude and succulent powers. The cane swayed and rippled in the breeze, and the negroes, with their red bandannas and battered hats, sweated and swayed with the life they had drawn from the steaming ground.
The fine, multi-ploughed and multi-hoed soil between the rows was humped against the thin green shoots in broken ridges, and the middles were sloped into shallow drains to connect with the cross and the main ditches that carried the heavy rains down into the swamp and bayou to the rear. More ploughings then to give final lightness to the intervening soil, taking care, however, not to cut too close to the "collet" or vital cane joint underground. For the slightest bleeding of this delicate bulge meant a fatal, irremediable wound to the growing plant.
From this time on, until the harvest, no further cultivation was required. The crop was "laid by."
But this did not mean that the plantation work was done. Work on a sugar plantation never came to an end.
Already cowpeas, corn, yams and pumpkins had been planted, and these required incessant cultivation. New ditches were dug and the levee was a constant trouble. Boils and blowholes had to be searched out and excised; new crevasses formed almost as fast as old ones were filled. Steadily Hugh raised the top and banked the earth against the inevitable floods.
All day long the sound of the axe laid against cypress and sweet gum resounded in woodland and swamp, and the carts brought the chopped wood back for fence-posts and fuel for kitchen hearths and sugar furnace.
The negroes strove among themselves for the job of cutting wood. Hugh had granted to the axe-men the right to keep the gray moss-streamers from the fallen cypresses for themselves. This was a valuable privilege. They buried the moss in the ground until the outer gray husk rotted away and left only the strong black hair-fiber within. It was then dug up, cleaned and sold at a good price. The moss-hair was used for chair-stuffings, mattresses and for a variety of other purposes.
Even when the rain fell so heavily that the fields turned to liquid mud and the drains were swift canals, the work did not cease. The women poured molasses and mended clothes, the men shaved shingles and made hoop-poles of tough, springy ash and the coopers fashioned hogsheads. This was the time, too, for repairing the sugar house, for making new brick to replace the crumbling old, and for cleaning and resetting the machinery so that the grinding might go full speed ahead when the time came.
In the late spring, when the river came sweeping down, swollen with the raging Ohio and the swift-pouring Missouri, filled with the surge of northern melting snows, all other work halted and everyone hurried to the levee. Up and up, remorselessly, pushed the waters. Higher and higher, right to the very rim, battering and snarling, roaring and growling, ramming with tremendous blows and seeking underneath in stealthy silence. Then Hugh's voice grew harsh and strained, and he forgot the dignity that became the white. Side by side with the negroes he toiled, digging and shoveling and spading, carting and driving and cursing, hurling themselves at the encroaching flood, lifting the levee, thrusting new earth against the sides, watching the great water come up until, finally, there was no further rise, and the levee held. Then, exhausted, caked with mud but jubilant, they trooped back to house and cabins, where Hugh ordered out a keg of potent corn and they drank and sank into sodden sleep.
In the late summer, just before the harvest, the hay was cut and stacked away, all odd jobs completed. Once the harvesting commenced, and the grinding began, nothing else must interfere.
As the spring turned into summer, and the crop was "laid away," Hugh felt the warmth of contentment steal into his veins. He looked out upon his land and it was good. The cane stood high as a man and the air was heavy with the smell of sap and bursting sweetness. The negroes in the patch of corn and among the potato vines greeted him with sweaty, grinning faces.
Perhaps, after all, slavery was an overrated institution. For the first few weeks he had had difficulties with his hands, freed by the ukase of a military enemy. But by a combination of firmness and patience, of swift discipline and justice, he had managed to win their confidence. In this task Stud had helped enormously, singing his praises, exhorting, working more subtly but none the less effectively through his smitten paramours.
They toiled harder now than they had ever toiled as slaves, and more willingly. At the end of each month Hugh paid them half the wages to which they were entitled, saving the remainder against the store goods which they purchased through him, and for a lump sum payment at Christmas time. If everything went right, and no untoward accidents occurred, such as flood or lashing storm or drought, there would be a good crop to deliver down the river to the firm of Stephen Flint for sale.
The first small cloud fell upon his contentment at the thought of his father. The old man hadn't written him since Hugh had come to Hilgard's. He hadn't answered the letters that Hugh continued to send in spite of the silence. From passing steamers that paused to drop supplies at the plantation he received some news. Old Stephen was well; but business had fallen off considerably. There were two reasons for this. First, very little sugar or cotton passed down the river to New Orleans. Governor Moore, harried into the northern reaches of Louisiana, had clamped down his embargo again. In fact, it had never been lifted. The transactions through Hugh had been surreptitious; connived at rather than avowed. Second, the defection of Hugh Flint, erstwhile partner in the firm of Flint & Son, had hurt Stephen considerably with his former clients. And he grumpily refused to handle the sugar of the Federal-operated plantations.
"I suppose he'll figure me in with them," Hugh thought bitterly. He made up his mind to run down to New Orleans some time to see his father. Perhaps he could make him understand what was in his mind. He hated to have old Stephen feel that way about him.
The day was hot, and even the cool cottonade of his suit did not soften the heat. He reined in his horse at the crossing of the public road and the path that led back to the house, and sat there motionless. A new coat of paint and whitewash had brightened the place considerably, and the smell of jasmine and oleander drifted into his nostrils. He stared up the winding dirt road as it paralleled the levee. Above, hidden by the deep bend of the river, and masked by a heavy stand of cypress and oaks, was Moon Hill.
The contentment slid altogether from him. He frowned and squinted against the sun. Things were pretty bad over there. The Provost Marshal would sometimes ride in on routine checkup and talk over a drink. That Wailes had stubbornly refused to make any contracts with his hands, insisting that they were still his slaves and that no power on earth could alter the God-given relationship between white and black.
Carson had crossed his booted legs comfortably and said yes to Hugh's query about another julep. "I don't know what to make of him," he went on. "I've seen pride—the Lord knows the other planters in my district have enough of it—but Wailes is the limit. His plantation is literally falling into ruins. The niggers won't work, yet they insist on being fed and housed and clothed. Wailes can't do a thing about it, either, because he can't call me in to compel them to work, and he can't flog them or sell them or put them in the slaveprison as in the old days. And what he doesn't give them voluntarily, they just take. They've run his hogs off the place and his cattle and his horses. They steal his food and take his mules to ride off to town whenever the whim seizes them."
"Why can't you put a stop to the stealing?" Hugh demanded.
Carson grinned. "Can't. Wailes won't sign contracts or take the oath or submit to our jurisdiction in any way." He shook his head. "If it weren't for his daughters I'd say the hell with him. Those niggers are getting bolder and bolder. I don't know how it will end."
"It's you Northerners that are stirring them up."
"Not in my district. I'll admit it's happening elsewhere; but I warn every civilian that comes around with ideas of agitation to keep away from the niggers. I've got enough trouble without killings and burnings and general hell-raising to take care of."
"I know the negroes pretty well," Hugh asserted. "They don't act like that unless someone is stirring them up. They might do a lot of muttering and some petty stealing, but what's going on at Moon Hill sounds organized to me. If you're certain there're no white men in back of it, then there's someone of their own race doing it."
The Provost Marshal chuckled. "You Southerners always did like to scare yourselves out of your boots with talk of a black insurrection. That's how you helped justify the institution of slavery to yourselves. There's nothing to it. I've seen plenty of niggers in the last six months, and I haven't seen a one that could lead even a corporal's guard. That's why I don't hold with those fellows who are talking about giving the blacks the vote later. They ought to be free, yes; but it's a laugh to think they're on a level with white men." He rose. "No, sir; the trouble at Moon Hill is all that damn fool, Wailes's, doing. Let him stew in his own juice. Your niggers all right?"
"So far."
"They'll stay that way," Carson said confidently. "You're treating them right. And they know I'm on your side if they start raising hell. So long, Flint."
But, from Stud, Hugh got another and different report. Stud talked obliquely; nothing direct. Nothing that could be pinned to him. Casual droppings, sidelong looks, hints, a word here and a word there. Hugh, however, was able to piece together a terrifying picture. It might be exaggerated—and doubtless it was. Stud, like most negroes, loved to dramatize; especially when he was scared. And there was no question about his being scared whenever Moon Hill was mentioned. Yet there was sufficient residue to make Hugh feel profoundly uneasy. He told himself he wasn't worrying particularly about the Wailes family. Why should he? They had ostentatiously drawn apart from him; whenever they had met, even before this new venture of his, they had made trouble for him. He couldn't forget how Sally flared up when he had risked so much to get her out of New Orleans. A wilful, unreasonable girl—and married.
But he was their neighbor. And trouble among the blacks might spread. So far his own hands had behaved all right; but there was no telling about them. They were like children—easily led and easily swayed by superstition and the contagion of their own kind.
Obeying a sudden impulse, he turned his horse's head up the road toward Lutcher. It was the first time he had gone that way. He had deliberately avoided the town, because the road led past Moon Hill.
He jogged slowly along. The river was hidden from view by the sloping levee; but he could smell the clean breeze and hear the slap of the water against the point. The bright cane wavered tall greetings to him and spoke of golden molasses and white, sparkling sugar. The dust of the road puffed in little clouds underneath the horse's hooves.
His heart beat a little faster as he rounded the bend and the screen of separating trees. He hadn't seen Moon Hill since that fateful journey to the Seminary almost three years ago. He hoped he wouldn't meet any of them. He was going to Lutcher, some seven miles up the river. That was what he told himself.
And then he saw Moon Hill. Straight down the long avenue of trees, with the sun hot and merciless upon it and the fields barren and weed-choked on either side.
The muscles tightened in his thighs. His knees gripped the belly of his mare so hard she whinnied and stood still. All the talk he had heard, all the headshakings of the Northern officer and the shuffling evasions of Stud, had not prepared him for this. Somehow the picture of that earlier Moon Hill had misted the talk and the headshakings.
The great house was a ravaged lady; a once-regnant belle mourning the ruin that had overtaken her. One wing thrust broken, stuccoed walls against the jagged background of the sky. Somewhat to the back, where once a stable of fast, blooded horses had reared neat and trim, only a few crazily sagging timbers remained. The graveled road, once level and smooth as the Shell Road in New Orleans, was a rutted, weedy upheaval.
The wide, flat fields, that should have been a sea of singing green, gladdening the eye and making the heart to swell, were barren and dead. Coarse, wild grass and thorny growths made scrub patches on a caked and ragged surface. Here and there a limp rattoon, sun-yellowed and sere, had struggled from the stubble cane through the uncultivated earth. A scene of desolation and despair.
Smoke curled upward from the distant cabins, the only sign that life existed on the place. Smoke, and faint, drunken jubilation mellowed by distance. From the house itself there came no sound.
It was the silence of the house, more than anything else, that stirred Hugh to action. A quick, strong jerk on the rein brought a whinny from the mare, then he was galloping up the unkempt road, straight toward Moon Hill.
The knocker sounded brassy and dull. He slammed it down hard again, scarcely waiting for the echoes to die.
Then the door opened.
Quash stood in the doorway, clad in his tight gray pantaloons and blue coat with the shiny buttons. His great frame filled the oblong and his magnificently savage head inclined inquiringly.
"Yass, Mistah Flint?"
A curious revulsion of feeling swept over Hugh. His sudden gallop up to the house had been almost instinctive. He hadn't quite known what to expect; certainly he hadn't expected this. Quash, the butler, opening the door as usual, inquiring.
For a moment Hugh was wholly at a loss. He wasn't welcome at Moon Hill. Neither Sam Wailes nor his daughters wanted to see him. What could he say now that he was here? The obscure fear that had sent him galloping up the road dissipated. The feeling that he had made himself ridiculous took its place.
"Why—uh—" he commenced to stammer.
Quash stood silent, still filling the door, still with that calm inquiry on his face.
Hugh pulled himself together. He was making more of a fool of himself than was needful. Since he was here, he determined to see Sam Wailes and thrash the whole sorry matter out. He wanted to explain; and in the process, to explain to himself as well.
"Tell Mr. Wailes that I wish to see him, Quash," he said.
The gigantic negro did not stir. "What you want to see him 'bout?" he demanded.
Anger moved up in a wave. Hugh wasn't used to being asked his business so cavalierly by a negro. Quash might consider himself a free man now; but Hugh didn't intend to stand his impudence.
His tone took on a sharper edge. "Never mind why I want to see him!" he said. "I'll tell that to Mr. Wailes himself. Stand aside!"
The big black considered him a moment. Then, without a word, he made room for Hugh to enter.
Hugh walked in; and Quash closed the door softly behind him.
The first thing he noted was the dirt and refuse that littered the once-polished floor. The place hadn't been cleaned for a long time. The second was the reckless flare of the gas in the hanging crystal candelabra and the glow of the hurricane lamps on the rosewood table.
"Where is Mr. Wailes?" he asked.
Quash should have taken his hat with a bow; should have preceded him with a request that he wait in the entrance hall until he could be announced. Quash did none of these things. He stood at the closed door, watching Hugh expressionlessly, saying nothing.
Anger stirred again; became a smothered unease. He strode to the parlor door, opened it. It was not the proper thing; but Hugh was beyond formal courtesies just then.
There were men in the parlor. Half a dozen of them. Negroes. They lounged on the long sofa and sprawled in the leather-backed chairs. They smoked seegars and a bottle of whiskey was open on the marble-topped stand. They stared at him; but they did not move.
Four of them Hugh recognized. Field hands of Moon Hill. One was Adam, big and insolent. The other two were strangers to him. They weren't from Moon Hill; nor from any of the other plantations that he knew.
The shock of it halted him in the doorway. What were niggers doing in the formal parlor, making themselves at home with seegars and whiskey? What was Adam doing here? Hadn't he enlisted with the Federals at Camp Parapet? Who were the strange niggers?
Behind him he felt the sudden presence of Quash. He turned. The huge butler, soft-treaded for all his bulk, had followed him.
"What's the meaning of this, Quash?" he said. He felt curiously empty around the waist. For the first time he regretted the lack of his uniform and the big Colt revolver that went with it. "Where is Mr. Wailes, and his daughters?"
The negro's eyes gleamed. "You want Wailes?"
Hugh said: "You are insolent, Quash. Your master is Mister Wailes."
A hoarse snicker ran around the seated men. Quash towered above him, and the gleam deepened. Hugh was tall and well-built himself, but Quash dwarfed him by four inches. There was the strength of a bull and the muscular litheness of a tiger in his frame.
"I hab no master," said Quash. "De black race is free."
"I won't go into that now. You haven't answered my question."
"Tell de white man whut's whut?" Adam chuckled deep in his throat.
"You hush your mouth, Adam," Quash blazed at him. "I'm de one what does de talkin'."
"Ah din' mean no harm, Quash," Adam said hastily. "Ah mak' shutmouf."
The glare died. "De answer is easy, Mistah Flint," Quash went on equably. "Us black folk hab moved into Moon Hill. He belongs ta us. De sweat frum our backs done do de buildin'; de rackin' ob our bones done plant de crop. We took what belong ta us."
"And Mr. Wailes let you?" Hugh exclaimed.
The seated negroes went into ecstatic guffaws, slapped their thighs. Quash did not move a muscle of his powerful face. "De white man, Wailes, ain't been asked," he said softly.
Hugh managed to control himself. Anger, rage, would be singularly futile right now. Quash alone could tear him to pieces with those great hands of his. And a new fear gnawed at him. Had these devils done anything to their former master? To the girls?
"If you don't tell me immediately where Mr. Wailes is, I'll take it up with Lieutenant Carson," he said boldly. "The Provost Marshal is a friend of mine."
The erstwhile butler appeared to consider that. The guffaws died into a sullen silence. Then Quash said: "De Wailes folk, dey lib in de wing. Dey feelin' fine. Yassuh, dey sure fine!"
The sudden sneer drove Hugh quickly into the hall again and out upon the verandah. A subtle change had come over the former slave who had been sold "down the river" for his crime. He had always given the impression of a latent savagery that might some day go on a rampage; but now there was something added. Restraint, an inner, tortuous control, and an iron will over his fellow blacks. The way he had shut up Adam, himself a big, swaggering buck. And Quash hadn't told Hugh where he could find Sam Wailes because the threat had frightened him. Hugh had the feeling that he had been played with, deliberately kept on tenterhooks. Then, when Quash had had enough, he told him. It was disturbing; rather, it was frightening. Quash was a man to watch.
Hugh walked fast to the close-shuttered wing that was still intact. This time he did not stop to worry about his welcome. He had to make certain that they were alive—and well.
The small brass knocker made quite a racket in the hot, still sun.
"Who am dere?" asked a frightened voice.
"Mr. Flint."
"Who?"
"Open the door, Patsey," said another voice, clear, firm, strong. "Whoever it is, it doesn't matter."
Hugh leaned suddenly against the door-jamb. He was surprised to find himself trembling. Sally was alive, then.
The door opened cautiously, and Patsey's thin, birdlike face peered out. The fear gave way to wide relief. "Mistah Flint," she exclaimed joyfully, "ah din' heah propah. Ah's been so skeered."
Then Sally stood in the doorway.
She was no longer a girl. The stamp of mature womanhood was upon her. Within the year since he had smuggled her on board the Eleanor she had changed. Marriage had come to her, and the sight of death, and the suffering of a new order of things. They had not cowed her; her head lifted proudly and unsubdued. But there was a new thoughtfulness in her eyes and an added dignity. Experience and strange memories had worked their alchemy and given her a depth of beauty that made her former loveliness now seem a trifle superficial.
She looked at him quietly, yet with something of bitterness. "Have you come to gloat over us, Mr. Flint?"
"God forbid!" he assured her earnestly. "I had heard that things were not well at Moon Hill; but I hadn't expected to find—that." He indicated with a gesture the main house from which, he was positive, the negroes were watching.
"That was your doing, and the doing of men of your kind."
"I won't argue with you—now, Mrs. Hilgard," he said formally. "I came only to offer my services. If I can help—"
"Who is that?" Sam Wailes called out.
"Mr. Flint come to offer his services, Dad. At least, so he says."
"Tell him I don't want any part of them. Tell him to get out!" Sam's voice was stubborn, narrow.
A squeal interrupted him. "Hugh Flint! Hugh Flint! Don't go away." Nancibelle darted out of the dimness of the interior, peered over Sally's shoulder. She hadn't changed to maturity. Very likely she never would. But her face had thinned considerably, and there were frightened rings around her eyes.
"Hugh Flint, thank God you've come! I'm scared. I've begged and cried that something be done. I wanted to come to your place for help; I wanted even to go down to Lutcher to see the Federals. But Dad and Sally won't let me. It's their pride." She began to sob. "I'm sick and tired of pride. I'm sick and tired of everything! Every night I lie awake, scared every time something moves outside. That awful Quash comes into my dreams like a beast...."
Sally put her arm protectively around her sister. "Hush, dear. There's nothing to be afraid of. We still have our guns; and there's Cuffy and Easter. She's worth a dozen of that trash. You wait until the war is won, and Andy and all our brave men come back."
"I can't wait that long," sobbed Nancibelle. "You told me the same thing months ago. I wish I had never left New Orleans. I wish I had never left Frazer. If he were here, this would never have happened."
Sally's eyes grew hard. "I don't want to hear about that Northerner again. As for you, Mr. Flint, you heard what Father said."
"This is utter nonsense," Hugh said roughly. "Nancibelle is right. You're all too full of stubbornness and you fondly think it's pride. It's about time you realize what a mess you're getting yourselves into."
"You will please go, sir. I have no desire—"
"I'll go when I'm through. In the first place, don't delude yourself into the belief that we're winning the war. We've lost it."
"Damned renegade!" Sam Wailes shouted from inside.
Hugh clenched his hands to hold back his anger. For a moment he was tempted to go away from there and leave them to the fate they courted. But those negroes in the main house!
"Father, please control yourself!" Sally looked ashamed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Flint, but Father is not quite himself since we—we were told to get out."
"When did that happen?"
"Last week; just after that fellow Carson was here, trying to persuade us to take that dreadful oath and treat with our slaves as our equals. This was his revenge."
"You're wrong about Carson. He's a pretty decent fellow. If you'll let me talk to him, I think I can get him to forget about the oath. All you'd have to do would be to recognize the fact. Your negroes are free, whether you like it or not. You might as well adjust yourself to the situation and make the best of it."
"Never, sir. Not as long as we live."
"That may not be long," Hugh said gravely. "You can't keep it up indefinitely. Just now Quash is willing to let you stay on in this wing. That's his vanity. It flatters him that he, the former slave, lords it in the big house and you, the whites who once owned him, stay on at his sufferance. But that won't last long. I shudder to think what those niggers may do next."
"I've been telling that to them, Hugh," cried Nancibelle. "But they don't listen."
Sally looked a bit shaken. Her face paled. Then she faced Hugh. "Dad has said a thousand times that he would die rather than yield."
"And you?"
"I feel the same way about it, Mr. Flint."
Hugh bowed, put on his hat and mounted his horse. There was nothing more to be said; nothing more to be done. The hell with them!
But, once more on the highway, he turned toward Lutcher instead of home. He had to see Carson, if only for poor Nancibelle's sake.
The Provost Marshal listened carefully; then shook his head. "Sorry, Flint. If we started to interfere in cases like that, we'd have our hands full. According to Headquarters, the negroes have a right to take over plantations where the former owners won't submit to our jurisdiction. Your Wailes's are lucky they weren't thrown off altogether."
"You don't know this fellow Quash," Hugh protested. "He's different from the rest of the niggers. He's a born leader and he's got some strange thoughts revolving in that tremendous skull of his."
Carson laughed. "That's the Southerner in you again, Flint. First you tell us there isn't a nigger that has a mind above an animal. Now you tell me with equal emphasis that this Quash scares you because he has thoughts."
"I'm not afraid for myself," Hugh said quietly, "but for the Wailes family. Don't forget, there are two women there." He looked meditatively at the laughing Provost Marshal. "By the way, I found some strange negroes on the place."
"They wander. They're free folk."
"How about Adam, then?"
"Who's Adam?"
"A former slave of Moon Hill. I understand he went down to Parapet with one of your gunboats to enlist. He wasn't in uniform."
Carson swore. "You can't trust those niggers," he said inconsistently. "They enlist; get tired and desert. They do it all the time. I'll send a squad up there in a hurry to pick him up."
"Do me a favor, Carson. Leave a guard on the plantation. If anything should happen to the girls—"
"All right! All right! You're a damned insistent fellow, Flint. There must be Vermonter blood in you somewhere. If it'll make you rest easy, I'll station two men at Moon Hill."
Hugh Flint heard nothing further. The situation on the neighboring plantation seemed to have hardened into a status quo. The negroes lived in the house and in their cabins. The Wailes's continued to inhabit the wing and to shut themselves tight against intrusion. The Provost Marshal dropped in at Flint's for a drink and a chat a week later. "Got two men there as I promised. They say everything's quiet. The niggers are eating what they found in the smokehouses and planting some patches of corn and yams in the back for their own use. What the Wailes's are eating, I don't know. My men say they hardly ever go out. They just keep themselves shut up; won't pass the time of the day even with my guards. Maybe they slip out at night."
"I doubt it. They can be stubborn as the devil when they want to be."
"But how do they eat?"
"Three of their former slaves are still faithful. You leave it to them. They know where to get victuals." Hugh didn't tell him that Stud regularly slipped a basket of food to Easter across the dividing line in the dark of the night, with strict orders not to tell the Wailes's where the manna had come from. Some of the other plantation owners, too, were sending supplies from their own scanty stocks. They had outwardly submitted to compulsion, but the stubborn resistance of Sam Wailes excited their admiration.
Carson drained his glass, wiped his face. "By the way, Flint, you sure you saw that nigger, Adam?"
"Of course. I'd seen him before when we used to trade for Moon Hill. I recognized him at once."
"That's funny. I sent a squad up right after you left. He wasn't there; neither were there any strange niggers around. And that big fellow, Quash, denied the whole thing. Claimed you were mistaken."
"I can understand his denying Adam's presence," Hugh pondered. "He was a deserter. But those other fellows—they didn't belong around these parts. Maybe they were also deserters, and they all slipped into the swamp when they saw your men coming."
"Maybe. Well, goodbye, Flint."
"Goodbye, Carson."
OCTOBER came with rain and wind and coolish nights. Every morning Hugh Flint got up and studied the heavens. Every night before he went to bed he checked carefully over the sky for signs and portents. The barometer was his constant companion, and thermometers studded the fields. He held long, grave conferences with Stud and old Pomfrey, whose seventy winters and rheumatiz qualified him as a prophet. All life on the plantation narrowed down to a consideration of the weather. When the sun shone bright and warm, and the tall cane expanded its leaves to the sap-sweetening rays Hugh was jubilant. When the skies lowered and the night grew shivery, Hugh grew
correspondingly depressed. The first thing each morning he rode into the fields and took random samples of the cane. With a sharp knife he cut across the firm, juice-bursting stems and sucked the welling liquor.
"Getting pretty sweet, Stud."
The bandy-legged negro chewed reflectively on the yellowgreen pulp. "Ain't sweet 'nuff," he pronounced judicially. He cocked an inquiring eye at the gray, rain-bellying sky. "Ef'n de sun do shine, mebbe take 'nuther two weeks."
"I hope we can wait that long. There was almost a degree of frost last night."
Stud examined the long, firm stalks. "Dey ain't be'n hurt none. Hit's when dey turn yaller, dat's de time ta git scairt."
In Louisiana the sugar planters do not sleep of nights during the month of October. In fact, they do not sleep at all until the middle of January, when the refining comes to an end. Always it is a race between the frost and the ripening of the cane. If the frost comes heavy before the sap has sweetened, then the cane turns yellow and the sugar spoils and the work of a long, hard year is ruined—and the planter is ruined. If the race is run and the sap is sweet and clear, then the planter smiles and the crop smiles—and the amber molasses and the crystalline sugar float softly down to New Orleans.
Like any good planter, though, Hugh dared not wait until the final ripening. The frost controlled. At the first sign of the grim white rime on the ground the work began. Better to take less of a yield than lose the crop entire.
The tension increased as October moved on its chilling way. Forgotten was the curious state of affairs on Moon Hill, forgotten were the new relations between white and black, forgotten the blue-clad soldiers at Lutcher and the occasional foray of desperate Confederate bands, forgotten the agony and travail of a nation split asunder—nothing mattered now but the elemental facts of wind and rain and sun and cold and the renewed miracle of growing cane. Even the negroes forgot their new-found freedom and slipped unconsciously into the old, respectful ways of master and slave. Reality was here, and the inexorable processes of nature that waited not on the quarrels of man with man.
On the twentieth it grew cold and hovered for a day and a night around the perilous mark of frost. The white hoar sparkled in the morning sun, and drifted up in a thin exhalation.
"We'd better start," said Hugh, worried.
But Stud said, "Mebbe wait. De sun gittin' bright. De sap still ain't got de sweetness." And Pomfrey nodded his gray head and agreed.
On the twenty-fourth the sun blazed hot as though it were mid-August. Hugh was glad and his heart sang. Another two or three days like this and every cell would be packed with luscious sweetness.
But Pomfrey shook his gray head from side to side and limped a bit. "De time am kum ta cut de cane, Mistah Flint."
"Why? We need every hour of this sun."
The old negro massaged his withered shanks. "He gonna turn berry cold dis yere night."
Hugh went to the barometer. The glass showed fair and clear. "Nonsense! Look at the glass."
"Ah don't keer 'bout no glass," Pomfrey declared stubbornly. "Mah rheumatiz, he knows better'n no glass. He gwine git berry cold."
But Hugh was of no mind to lose the ripening power of this late heat, and kept his crews putting the last touches to the sugar house machinery in preparation for the grinding.
He went to sleep that night after a last look at his weather instruments. The temperature was seventy-six and the barometer read Fair and clear. Pomfrey's rheumatiz! Bah! Nothing like these modern instruments as against man's unstable twinges.
About two in the morning he awoke. He was shivering and the thin coverlet was an icy winding-sheet. Still drugged with sleep he reached for the cotton blanket that lay neatly folded at the foot of his bed. His teeth chattered as he sat up and the flesh ridged on his bare arms like a hoed-up canefield. A cold blast whipped through the still-screened window and ruffled his hair.
The shock brought him to complete awareness. His whole body seemed to freeze—and this time it wasn't the outer cold. He flung out of bed, feeling the chill of the floor beneath his bare feet, and ran to the window.
The moon was dying into the west, and long silver streamers flooded the waving fields. But not all the silver came from the moon. Patterns of frost made intricate designs on the window-glass, and a thick, sparkling powder silted over the broad, green leaves. The cold had come. Pomfrey's rheumatiz knew better than his instruments.
Hugh slept no more that night. Before the dawn he had gulped down some steaming coffee and had harried Stud to wakefulness. Stud looked more pop-eyed than ever in the flicker of the hurricane lamp.
"Hurry, Stud! Rouse every hand we've got! Get out the women, too. Everyone who can wield a knife or gather a stalk. Every minute's going to count!"
The sun was just moving over the cypress swamp as the plantation burst into feverish life. Men, women and children streamed to the fields. Even the house negroes in their blue bandannas, still clinging to that insignia of caste over the red-bandannaed field hands. No one was exempt now.
To old Pomfrey's everlasting glory he hobbled along with the rest, favoring the twinges in his shanks and saying not a word, as well he might, about the respective qualities of rheumatiz and instruments as weather-prophets.
They poured like the Mississippi in flood over the plantcane fields. Faster growing, they would feel the blighting frost the first; and from the plant-cane came the best seedcuttings for the following year.
Hugh pushed his horse between the long, tall rows. So tall were they that only head and shoulders moved above the broad, flat leaves. A man on foot was swallowed up entire in the swaying forest. Stud followed behind, sugar knife in hand, shivering in the morning cold.
The frost made a vapor under the slanting sun. It began to rise in a steady, drifting mist. The ground beneath was coated with thin hardness, but Stud's heavy shoes crunched through into the softness below.
"Is it spoiled?" Hugh looked back anxiously. "I see some yellowing spots."
Stud sliced down a stalk, chewed. In the dry mist his face puckered up, then broke into a grin. "Sweet's sweet, Mistah Flint. Glory be! Ef'n we wuk fast, de seed-cane be all right."
But Hugh had already turned his horse, and sent him crashing through the thick rows back to the assembled gangs.
"Seed-cane first!" he shouted. "We can save it. Cutters into the fields! Take only the straightest and most vigorous cane for the seed."
"Git along!" whooped Stud. "Git in dar an' cut dat cane. An' don' gwine fumblin' de gals in dar, nuther. Swing de knives an' swing nuthin' else. Ah's Stud, an' ah'll tak keer ob all dat. Git along, yo' bandy-legged, pop-eyed niggers."
The men whooped obscenities back at him and the women giggled and shook all over with mirth. Wasn't Stud the strutting buck? He sure knew how to tickle the gals and make the menfolks like it. Wasn't another like Stud on all the Coast. Why, up in Natchez they heard of him; and down in New Orleans. And so they went into the cane rows, chuckling and shouting, forgetful of the cold, putting their muscles into the long task ahead.
First went the cutters, armed with the sharp, curved sugar knives, tapering gently to each end. With swift, sure slashes they sliced selected cane close to the ground. Carefully they laid them down, making certain that they took no bruise in the green and purple stalks; for this was the precious seed, the cane from which new crops would rise tall and straight and strong the following year.
The carters followed slowly down the middle rows, the mules shaking their ears against the cold. The women and the older children lifted the long stalks, placed them in the carts. Geehawing, keeping pace with the cutters, moved the carts.
Then, loaded with the tender seed, the carters turned toward the stubbled field, and the house men laid the cane down in serried layers, building up each row so that the broad leaves covered the juicy stalks of the layer beneath. Two feet high they builded them and went on to lay new "mattresses" to protect the seed against the coming winter cold and keep the sap from freezing.
All day long they worked, and late into the night, cutting and slashing and "mat-laying" by the bright flares of piney torches. The day grew warmer and the night hovered above the frost. But Hugh took no more chances. The cold had come, and would come again. Only a few of the stalks had spoiled with the first wintry night; more and more would yellow with the next.
The following day, as the dawn wind blew, the toilers swarmed to the fields again. This time the cane for the mills was cut. In solid ranks the cutters advanced against the long arpents of cane. Now they stripped the leaves and sheared the tops. Then, at the knobby root, they laid them low and placed them in long windrows, covering the stalks with the trash and wilting leaves of the cuttings. There they left them and went on to the stands, cutting and slashing and topping and slicing, stopping only for a meal snatched from the baskets of the little children and swilling an occasional dram of white corn liquor against the damp and the cold.
It rained on the fourth day, cold and chill and gray. But there was no stopping. Neither rain nor frost nor hail nor blizzard could stop them now. Each hour snatched from frantic labor meant the spoil of that much sugar when the real ice came. Long oilcloth and blanket coats kept out the rain, and the whiskey drove away the cold. They sloshed through the yellow pools and sank ankle-deep into the mud, but the knives rose and the knives fell without a pause.
And now the sugar mill began to stir and smoke. As the cutters advanced, the windrowed cane was lifted behind. The mules strained and the carts slipped and slithered down the road to the sugar house. The windrows would hold against a frost, but the weather had turned mild again, and the warmish damp would sour the juice in the dripping gashes.
Hugh left Stud in charge of the field gangs and hastened to the sugar house. Here the mechanics and the more expert negroes were gathered. Pomfrey, wise with many years of sugar-making, was the boss. When the crop was garnered, all must come to the sugar house. The grinding and the boiling must go on day and night, night and day until the last of the windrows was safely changed to syrup and the loss from frost and damp curtailed. No season passed without some spoilage as November lengthened into December and the year began anew. A few days saved might mean the difference between a gladdening profit and the wastage of a year's long toil.
The great sugar house was divided into three connecting rooms, with a gallery running overhead for the overseer. A small sleeping-room with a cot was at each end of the gallery and an open space between served as a place for meals. For the next two months Hugh lived, ate and slept in the sugar house, ready for trouble at any hour of the day and night. He slept in one gallery cubicle and Pomfrey in the other; while beneath, the sugar hands toiled and sweated in shifts.
The first room was the mill. Here the engine thundered and clanked, and steam for its ancient pistons was fed from the brick furnace. There had been some "bagasse" left on the plantation from the previous year. This was the dried, crushed refuse of the cane from which the juice had been extracted. It made an excellent burning fuel. But there wasn't enough of it, and the cypress and pine cut through the summer were flung endlessly into the roaring belly of the furnace.
Close to the engine stood the great crushers. The engine thumped and turned the ponderous rollers. The long cane stalks were fed between the turning cylinders and ground into spurting pulp. The dark juice swirled into the troughlike spout and flowed into vats, while the "bagasse" emptied into an apron for latter drying and burning in the furnace.
From the vats the juice was ladled into buckets and carried to the second, or "boiling" room. Here it was poured into a train of open iron kettles imbedded in masonry, and lime water was added to clarify and remove the impurities. A fire was laid under the kettles, and the heat and the lime brought the thick scum to the surface where it could be ladled off and thrown away.
Thicker and thicker grew the syrup and the brew boiled and bubbled and frothed. At night the torches flared their light and the negroes, stripped to the waist, their black skins shiny, bent over the steaming pots, turning the wooden paddles in the foamy syrup with long, regular thrusts. Then the sugar house looked like an inferno, with the steam and the sap and sweet, penetrating odors, and the long shadows wavering on the brick walls, and the fires red-glowing and the pine-knots dancing and sputtering, while black, glistening figures toiled and moved gigantesque from lights to shadows and emerged suddenly again.
On more modernly equipped plantations vacuum pans had already superseded the open kettle method of boiling, but Andy Hilgard never had the money nor the desire to install these latest adjuncts to sugaring.
When the syrup had been clarified and boiled down to the right consistency for crystallization, it was conveyed to the "filtering" room. Here it was first passed into a large vat and stirred with bone black; then it was filtered through mesh bags and allowed to cool.
As the syrup cooled, sugar crystals began to form, browned over with a thick scum of molasses. It was now ready for the final process.
Luckily Andy had yielded to necessity and the times sufficiently to invest in a centrifuge. Hugh blessed that solitary act of business acumen even as he cursed the old-fashioned nature of the other equipment. Without a centrifuge crystallization would have been a long, tedious affair, with hogsheads in the bottoms of which holes had been punctured and sticks of cane inserted to reach above the liquid contents. As granulation proceeded, the cane contracted, and through the vents thus formed around them the thick molasses dripped.
With the centrifuge the process was swift, clean and efficient. The drum revolved rapidly on its axis, whirling the thick syrup at a speed of a thousand revolutions per minute. The crystallized sugar remained inside, while the mother liquor, or molasses, was forced out through tiny holes in the drum and carried off into barrels by a spout.
The sugar was then removed and dried, sparkling and glittering with white pinpoints of flame. The molasses was returned to the centrifuge for another whirl; and another; to salvage the last possible crystal of sugar. Then the clear, golden-hued molasses was poured into the final barrels, and the tops hammered down. The sugar went into hogsheads. Both barrels and hogsheads were now stacked away to await the coming of the river steamboat to take them down to New Orleans.
Day and night, night and day, while Hugh grew haggard and thin, and the negroes in their coarse woolen pantaloons and battered straw hats worked and sang and shouted and followed Pomfrey in full-throated chorus as he lined out the songs. He had a high, sweet, quavering voice and he stood on the gallery and sang the verses. At the beat of his hand and the jerk of his head they rolled out the chorus, keeping time with their paddles in the soft syrup, falling in readily with the rhythmic clank of the engine and the swish of the crusher.
"When my leader leave me, Lawd—
When my leader leave me, Lawd—
When my leader leave me, Lawd—
Jesus gonter make up my dyin' bed."
Hugh ordered extra rations of drip molasses, cornbread and whiskey to keep them going during this final furious rush to finish the crop. November faded into December, and the cane was almost in. A few flakes of snow fell and ice formed a film over the back bayou and the sugar house pond. Spoiling weather. But only five arpents of standing cane remained to yellow and burst their delicate cells.
December drifted along, and rain alternated with killing frost. The windrows, sheltered against the cold, yielded partly to the rain and began to rot and sour. But only a few were left. As fast as a strike of sugar was made within the roaring, turbulent mill, the gangs went out and brought in more. Endless cane, squeezing through the mill, dripping endless life into the gaping vats. When, one furious night, the engine banged to a sudden halt, Hugh and Pomfrey and Reuben, the mechanic, hurled themselves upon the recalcitrant thing of metal and steam and probed its vitals until, with a wheeze and a cough, the ancient machine groaned back to sullen life. Nothing must stop the grinding of the cane, the boiling of the sap, the whisking away of the thick molasses.
On the twelfth of January, in the new year of 1864, the last long stream of cane went on the appointed round, and the final hogshead of sugar was nailed securely and stacked high among its brothers.
Hugh, from the gallery, blew a whistle. At once there was silence—silence for the first time in two long months. The furnace died down to a whisper, the engine stopped its thumping and the rollers their growling. The kettles showed dark and empty and the centrifuge hushed its whizzing rattle.
"The crop is in!" he shouted. "And now—"
But what he was going to say was drowned by a singing, jigging madness that seized upon the negroes. A battered concertina appeared as if by magic, an equally battered fiddle began to squeak, and a mouth-organ wheezed along.
From every cabin, lured by the yells and lift of music, poured the little children and the women and the ailing, racing across the bare, stubbly fields, reckless of the keen wind and the hint of snow in the air, racing to join the "sugaring" jollification, the prized and most eagerly awaited event of all the year.
The women cried: "Yoho!" and "Watch dem hands o' yourn!" and the men stamped and whirled them round and jigged and flung their legs up high. Stud flung the highest and whirled the likeliest gals. His eyes glowed and his twisted mouth was a perpetual shout. Pomfrey was the fiddler and he bowed and scraped and stamped out the tune with head and foot.
Work was over; and Lord Jesus took care of his own; and the new season was more than a week away. Why worry about that? Now was the time for fun and gleaming teeth and rolling eyes, and a chuck under the chin of the prettiest gal and a secret rendezvous for tomorrow. Now was the time to eat and drink and be merry.
Hugh called for more bread and 'lasses and sides of pork and gallons of powerful "corn." These were their perquisites and they were entitled to them. They had worked hard and faithfully for him, while other plantations had fallen into decay and there would be no crops. He had come in with suspicion and mistrust, a stranger white in a sea of blacks; and he had won them to a driving labor far beyond the lackadaisical pace to which Hilgard had accustomed them.
Standing there, looking down upon that shouting, whirling riot, himself sagging with a weariness of many sleepless days, he wondered. Perhaps, in what he had just accomplished, lay the future of the South. Slavery was dead—dead whoever won. It was a bitter pill to swallow; yet it must be swallowed if the states of the South were to survive. To Hugh the moral issue was not important. Moral issues rarely decided the course of a nation. But now, with a sudden clarity, he saw the answer. The reason for the industrial superiority of the North, with no greater resources in men or in materials. Free labor—even though, in essence, the factory worker of New England had less than the meanest slave. Free labor—and a flexible economy not bound to the wheel of plantation thinking.
His negroes had worked. They were free—free to wander and swagger as insolently as their fellows on Moon Hill and a dozen similar places. But he had treated them as men, with fairness and a firm discipline; and they had responded. He stared through the haze and the clamor at the neat stacks of barrels. Eight hundred and twenty of sugar and sixty-two of molasses. Better than any crop Hilgard had ever taken off, with a bare few mats of seed-cane to start with and a desolation from the year before.
Fortune had come to him—fortune through hard work and an ability to seize the future. Sugar at $20 a hogshead down in New Orleans; molasses selling at $8.25. Figure it out; add it up. Real money; plenty for expansion and the new vacuum pans and a mechanical feeder to the crushers. One had to keep up with the new machinery—that was the way to get ahead.
He felt a surge of pity for the Wailes's and the Hilgards of the South. They didn't know that they were beaten; that no matter what took place on the field of battle, their kind was through. The modem world moved on, and they sought desperately to hold to the old way of life. Well, let them. There were new Southerners to take their place; a younger, newer generation who would win through, not with arms in their hands, but with a new accommodation, an ability to adjust themselves to the forward spirit of the times.
Suddenly he grinned—grinned at himself and all the smugness and braggart boasting of himself. He must be tired; deathly tired. The little cogs of self-restraint had slipped and whirled his thoughts into strange channels.
It didn't seem possible that the hands could keep up the dancing and bussing and clapping of hands and gobbling of food and the endless drinking! Yet the fiddle increased its mad tempo and the concertina wheezed and the mouth-organs blurred across puffing lips. He looked with aching eyes at the fiddle player: Pomfrey, withered and dried with seventy winters, yet spry and fresh as though he had just arisen from dewy sleep.
Sleep! Sleep! Blessed word! With half a groan and haff a sigh he sank down upon the chair, his body sprawled forward across the table. Head pillowed on outflung arms—and in that instant he was asleep.
THE signature on the cheque stirred curious, unsuspected depths in Hugh Flint. It was bold and flourishing and almost illegible in its curlicues and sprawling vastness. It was said that handwriting showed the man—and there was no doubt that the signature was Stephen Flint to the final sputtering dot.
With the cheque was the statement of account, in the precise, fussy handwriting of the precise and fussy Hardy. Stephen Flint, Sugar and Cotton Broker, in account with Mr. Hugh Flint, Planter. Correct to the last detail, the proper commissions deducted. Hugh had supervised hundreds such in the past.
But no letter came with it, no personal note of inquiry from an affectionate father. Strictly business. Formal. So old Stephen was still obdurate; still hard and sullen against this last vagary of his son.
Hugh sighed. Perhaps they were both stubborn; flinty counterparts. He should have gone down to New Orleans when the sugaring was done. He had made excuses to himself; irrelevant excuses. In back of it was pride. Pride against his father; pride against the conquered people from whom he had cut loose, perhaps irrevocably.
The plantation was his domain, a solitary island in a sea of turbulence and despair. He had no visitors; he paid no visits. Only Carson came officially and for an occasional friendly chat. He liked the Northerner. He was a military man, doing his duty in an enemy country; but he did it with a measure of tact and understanding. Not all the Provost Marshals were like him. Tales filtered in from other parishes and other districts. Of confiscations and arrogant brutalities and stirring up of the negroes, only too anxious to catch the spark. Of rifling of homes and theft of cattle; of burnings and devastation.
Yet even in Lutcher district trouble was brewing. Hugh tried to warn Carson, to enlist his aid before the trouble spread too far. But the lieutenant was a Northerner and he laughed. Southerners, he averred, saw bogies in every bayou. The niggers were all right. He'd act the same if he was a nigger. Look at the Wailes's. Still living cooped up in that small wing with their three still faithful niggers. What did they gain by it? Plain ruin! Yessir, one of these days an order was going to come up the river to take the whole blamed place over and lease it to someone who was willing to work it properly. He looked at Hugh hintingly.
"No," said Hugh. "I wouldn't take it."
Well, there were plenty who would. Fellows down from the North, just ready to jump at an opportunity to make money. Quash? He'd never seen such a big hulk of a nigger, so coal black and shiny. But there was no harm in him. Why, those two soldiers he had placed on guard said the niggers were harmless. Sat around in the big house, talked a lot and ate a lot; but that was all. Once the food ran out they'd either enlist or get to work. In fact, things were so quiet he had removed the guard. Niggers were people, like everybody else. This Quash, now. He'd spoken to him himself, and found him pretty intelligent. Knew how to read and write, he did. Very polite he was, and soft-spoken. More so than most of these damned whites around here. No offense to Flint, of course. He was different.
Hugh squirmed at that. It didn't sound so well when a Northerner said it. He changed the subject.
Spring came again. And with it all the hard, ever-recurring routine of planting, of ploughing and hoeing, of mending of fences and cleaning of ditches. High water and desperate onthrusts at the levee, crevasses and frantic shovelings, rising of swamp waters to inundate the sugar house. News came, too; distorted, diametrically opposed. News of great Federal victories in the Wilderness from Carson; tales of equally great Confederate victories through the negro grapevine from neighboring exultant planters. It was all very confusing. The only certain thing was that the war went on and on, interminable, bloody, hopeless.
Hugh had occasional twinges, strange soul-searchings at the part he was playing. Hilgard, the man he had displaced, was a colonel now, leading a regiment. At Gettysburg he had galloped across the terrible wheatfield; at Spottsylvania he had held a trench against overwhelming lines of blue. Then, as the June sun blazed and the heat beat down upon the uplifted cane with physical blows, came a rumor.
Hugh first noted the change as he returned to the fields from lunch to lay the crop away with the final ridging of earth around the purplish stalks. It would be a good crop; better than last year even.
But the gangs were not working. They stood in little knots and their voices were a sullen whisper. They stared at him with sudden-sullen eyes; as though he were a stranger in the tightness of their kind. Even Stud did not greet him with his usual unpleasant-pleasant grin.
"What's the matter, men?" Hugh demanded sharply. "Why aren't you getting on?"
They dispersed slowly, reluctantly. Stud started to follow. Hugh called him back. The man's eyes were blank.
"What's wrong, Stud?"
"Nuthin'!"
"What's wrong, Stud?" Sharper, demanding.
Stud was all unpleasant now; as Hugh had first seen him. "Kunnel Hilgard's got heself caught. Dey put 'im in er Yankee jail."
"I'm very sorry to hear it. He was a brave soldier."
Stud did not look at him. "Mistah Hilgard be'n a berry fine massa."
"I don't doubt it, Stud."
"He usta own dis yere place."
"I see," Hugh said slowly. "So that's it."
"Yassuh." And Stud moved after the others.
Hugh let him go. He sat on his mare, frowning. A strange race, the negroes. He had thought he knew them thoroughly; but could any white man penetrate the outer walls of their beings? Andy Hilgard hadn't been a particularly good master. He had flogged them when the whim seized him; he had taken their daughters and wives when desire overcame him. The plantation had been run with slipshod hands; and the slaves had sometimes gorged and sometimes starved. Yet now, for some obscure reason not fathomable to him, the news of his capture had turned them from the man who had taken over his plantation and treated them with justice and fairness.
Well, they'd get over it. It was lucky that the crop was practically laid away. By the time the sugaring started they'd forget this nonsense. He wasn't worried.
He wondered how Sally would take the news, though. She must have loved the dashing Andy; otherwise she wouldn't have married him. He hadn't returned since their hasty marriage and the shelling of Moon Hill. The glamor would still be upon him.
He caught himself up abruptly. These were petty thoughts. What business was it of his, anyway? Sally Hilgard meant nothing to him; and her life was her own. Yet the little ache persisted as he rode after the gangs.
The negroes went back to the accustomed routine; but everything had changed. They no longer greeted Hugh with cheerful salutes and they did not sing as they worked. They were sullen, secretive, furtive. They spoke only when spoken to, and then in monosyllables and without their former expansive loquacity. They did not work as hard; yet what they did was sufficient to justify sour-visaged surprise that he had expected more.
Stud disappeared of nights. Ordinarily Hugh would have thought nothing of it. Stud was accustomed to prowl and poach on strange territories. He always came back mornings. But others went with him now, quitting their cabins when the moon was low and the whippoorwill shrieked his incessant note. Like blacker shadows they made their way warily along the edge of the swamp, merging into the trees that bordered Moon Hill.
What was going on? Hugh knew better than to ask direct questions. He brought it up obliquely, in an offhand, casual manner with plump, light-colored Zida Mitchell, his housekeeper. Stud had quit her with his usual nonchalance for other and further pastures. She had resented it. And, once Hugh had made it plain that his bed was inviolate against intrusion, Zida had dropped her roguish looks and giggling hints and accepted his curious aloofness without further ado.
But Zida knew nothing. None of the women did. Hugh was soon positive of that.
The matter worried him. Something was going on at Moon Hill; something that concerned him greatly—and the Wailes's as well. As long as his own negroes had been faithful he hadn't been too anxious. They had stood aloof from Quash and his followers. If real trouble should ever arise, he had expected Stud to give him proper warning. But now things were different. Stud was involved in whatever storm was impending. So were the others.
Only Pomfrey still greeted him with some of the old feeling, and Pomfrey was a badly frightened nigger. He was too old to follow new gods; but he was also old enough to keep shut-mouth before a white.
July came; and the night was filled with heated clouds that brushed the cypresses and bellied with rumbling thunders. There had been a long-continued drought and the cane was growing sere and parched; and the panting soil had baked into an iron mold. Rain was in those clouds and in the sultry night. Rain in sluicing torrents to gully the land and beat down the heavy stalks.
Hugh was restless. He could not sleep. The anxiety over his crop; the growing aloofness of the hands, their sudden cessation of talk when he approached; the impending rain.
He thrust back the muskito curtains, got out of bed. A muskito whined down upon him, plunged a red-hot needle into his arm. He slapped viciously and found an inordinate satisfaction in the bloody squash it made. He went to the window, stared out through the screen.
The night was black and the thunder growled and rumbled. He stared out irritably, seeing nothing.
Damn it, he was getting tired of it all! He felt suddenly lonely. The plantation seemed to close in on him, to choke him with its constricting bounds. He had been a fool. The whole game wasn't worth the candle. Supposing he had made a success of being a planter. What had he gained by it? The contempt of everyone he had known; a hermit-like existence. And now, even the negroes had turned against him.
The unthinking, the followers of the herd, were always happier. Andy was happier, even though he languished in a Northern prison. At least he had a wife, loving him, worrying about him, waiting for him to come home. A wife? Perhaps that was what he needed. At least one person in all the world to stand by you; to think that you have done the right and proper thing.
He had had casual affairs, of course. But that wasn't what he wanted, even now. No one had stirred his senses unduly, or his mind. Except Sally. Curious, that. Every time they met she had exasperated him; and without doubt he had exasperated her. Yet underneath that constant antagonism, her presence had always done things to him. She had been a torment; he had cursed her out; and yet there had been a strange contentment even in the scorn of her voice.
What the hell! He wasn't going to wallow in self-pity. She wasn't having a particularly good time of it, cooped up in Moon Hill with Nancibelle and Sam Wailes, watching their former slaves ride roughshod over the great house and the once-fertile fields. Why didn't they bow their heads to the inevitable—or get out, as many another irreconcilable had done? That must be Sam Wailes. The girls stayed on simply because he refused to go. Oh, well—
He lifted his head suddenly. Was that thunder? It must be. But there it was again, flat, recurring. Boom! Br-r-ruhm! Boom!
The thunder came then, masking the sound, crashing louder than before. A wide gap of light broke the darkness and became extinct. The thick night drew closer against the coming storm.
But the dull rolling throb continued.
Boom! Br-r-r-r-uhm! Boom-boom-boom!
Drums! Drums rolling and muttering, masking themselves against the background of the elements, throbbing in the great swamp that ran to the rear of all the river plantations.
Hugh dressed hurriedly. The clothes clung damply to his skin. He fumbled in the dark for them, making no light. He did not want the house niggers to know that he was up. Very likely, though, only the women were around. The men had crept out to join that muttering, repetitious sound. His groping fingers found the small locked chest in which he kept his papers and valuables. The key to it was always in his pocket. He opened it, took out his heavy Colt, thrust it into his belt, and relocked the chest. He hoped to heaven he wouldn't have to use it, but it was good to have along.
Then he slid out into the night, making no noise. The house was dark and silent. So were the cabins. The thunder moved along the sky, and the lightning began to take form and substance. But the drums had stopped. Their sudden quiet was more terrible than their throb.
He went down the road that led to the stables, stumbling against the ruts, into mule dung. He did not dare carry a lantern.
The mare whinnied softly and rubbed inquiring nose against his sleeve. He saddled her by touch, chiefly; once he scratched a lucifer and by its quick flare managed to insert the bit into the blinking animal's mouth.
Then, with a whisper of encouragement, he led her to the door, locked it behind him, and swung into the saddle. He felt better with the firm, smooth flanks lifting gently beneath him.
He cut across the fields rather than pass down the long row of cabins. He wished no witnesses; and no alarm to be carried. The cane came up to his middle, and he had the sensation of being adrift in a green, turbulent sea. A wind had come up, and it thrust hot stickiness against his dampish face. There were ditches in the way, but the mare knew the fields and took the jumps without a stumble.
As Hugh rode warily toward the looming cypresses that etched themselves against the intermittent lightnings, his first instinctive action gave way to a queer, choking fear. What he had dreaded for the past few months, what he had vainly warned Carson against, was about to come to pass. Ju-ju talk was the beginning; but the ju-ju drums meant that the negroes had worked themselves to the final, unreasoning pitch. What would they do? Where were they intending to strike?
The thought of the proud and stubborn Wailes's—of Sam and Sally and Nancibelle, huddled in their cramped quarters, hearing the distant drums, helpless before the rising frenzy of the blacks—dug his spurs into the mare. The horse gave a great bound and scrambled just in time from the crumbling earth of an unseen ditch.
At the edge of the swamp Hugh looped the reins around a low-hanging branch, patted the mare's heaving flanks, and made his way cautiously through creepers and yielding, sucking earth toward the low sing-song of voices that vanished with each growl of sky and rose in the following silence.
He had to be careful. The path was treacherous and zigzagged unexpectedly. On either side the black mud and blacker water waited. Moccasins inhabited the warm slime and the muskitoes rose in clouds.
But the increasing glow of the fire ahead guided him safely. They were on a little island of lifting tree roots and infiltrated hummocks of coarse swamp grass. The fire made a central redness of embered cypress logs and the light-shot shadows danced outward over the faces of the negroes who squatted on their haunches in a wide, rapt circle.
There were more than a hundred of them. Men of the Congo and the Ivory Coast and the deep, tangled interiors, coal-black and coffee-colored and yellow with admixtures of paler blood—but all reverting to the gods of their ancestors in this moment of passion and ritual.
Over the red-glowing embers an iron pot swung from a tripod of sticks. Something bubbled within and gave off a thick steam. To the rear, indistinct in the shadow of a huge cypress, a wooden something rose formless and unmoving.
Hugh crawled stealthily as close as he dared. The central fire flared and illuminated the upturned faces. Many he recognized. Moon Hill negroes; many of his own. Cupid Jackson, Ned, Anthony—and, with a shock, Stud. It shouldn't have been a shock. He had known Stud would be here; yet he had come to like the bandy-legged, priapian negro, and he had hoped against hope that Stud's nightly absences might have been due to other and softer causes. But Stud looked ill at ease and a little frightened, and his eyes rolled nervously from side to side.
There were a good many stranger negroes in the tense circle—big, muscular bucks whom Hugh had never seen before. That was bad. It meant that whatever was taking place was not local. Those men came from other plantations, where the whites had no thought whatever of impending trouble. The wind stirred up the fire and the light flared out, etching sharply the small, weazened face of Cuffy.
Hugh pushed the moss hastily back into place. The dampness that flowed over him was not all from the coming storm. Cuffy was the Wailes's particular house nigger. He had stayed with them in their enforced exile; he was the only male nigger who had remained faithful. If he was here, that meant only one thing. The Wailes family was betrayed!
The thunder racketed and the heavens split into a river of fire. The negroes moaned and rocked on their heels. Then a gigantic figure moved into the center of the circle, coming out of the darkness.
It was Quash.
But he was no longer the house-servant that Hugh had known, encased in tight gray pantaloons and bright blue coat. His powerful torso was bare and it gleamed with reflected light. The muscles in his folded arms leaped and rippled. He stared around at the suddenly silent negroes, turning his great head slowly. His eyes blazed like those of a savage animal in the dark. The tight folds of his skin had come loose and supple, and shifted with dramatic play as he spoke.
"De time has come," he said. "De hour has struck. De black race am about to come inta its own. We been waitin' a long, long time; but dat's all ober. We got tuh strike now; an' strike hard."
Two negroes, squatting on their hands, lifted sticks and pounded twice on stretched skins over sugar kettles. The hushed circle broke into a mutter of ejaculations and approving cries.
Quash lifted his hand and they died abruptly.
"De white folk took us long time ago frum de homes we had. Dey dragged us ober de water an' dey gabe us chains an' whips an' wormy bread tuh eat. Dey sold us lak hawgs an' dey made us inta slaves. Dey said we wasn't human; dey said de black color showed us'n tuh be wuss denn de hawgs."
"Dat's right!" shouted a hulking negro. Hugh saw his face briefly as he thrust it forward from the shadows. It was Adam, who had gone with the Federals to enlist, and who had returned.
"Dey wukked us an' dey whipped us. Dey tuk our wimmen an' dey broke up our famblies. Whut did dey care? We was black; we was niggers; an' dey owned us."
"Dat am de troof. Lissun to he tawk!"
Quash raised his arms, and his face broke into passion. He seemed gigantic in the play of shadowed light.
"But dey said lies. We got souls; whiter denn dey. We got bodies, stronger denn dey. We got feelin's; an' we ain't gonna be slaves no more." He whirled; showed them the broad, flat sculpture of his back. "Looka dat," he cried. "'Cause I told 'em ah was a man lak dem, dey whipped me. 'Cause ah wouldn' bow de head an' kiss de groun', dey chained me an' sold me down de ribber."
"True tawk!" Stud interrupted timidly. "But we am free now, Quash, ain't us? Lincum's sodjers made us free. Dey kain't whup us no more."
Quash swung on him and he looked like a thunderhead with the lightnings flashing at the edges. "You sit dere an' tawk ob freedom, Stud," he said sarcastically. "Whut freedom? De freedom tuh wuk an' slave lak you always done! De freedom tuh git de measly wages whut de whites gonna gib you. De freedom tuh be kilt in de white fight, lak dey did wid Adam."
Adam grunted. "Dey gib me a shobel an' made me dig. Dey wuk me till ah lak tuh drop; denn dey put me in jail an' gib me stinkin' bread cause ah tol' de cap'n ah wanted free frum de army."
"Dat's de way it am," said Quash. "De No'thern white folk am no better denn your old masters. Dey try tuh fool us wid words. Dey pretend tuh mak us free; denn dey gonna mak us wuk fo' demselves. De name mean nuttin'. It am whut it am dat counts."
"Denn whut am freedom?" queried a strange negro.
"Freedom?" exclaimed Quash. "Dat's whut I'se gonna tell you now. Dat's whut de white folks hab. Plantations ob dere own; horses an' carriages an' guns. Fine clo'es an' fine food an' nobuddy tuh tell you whut ta do. W'en de sugar grows an' de molasses is made, who gits de money? De whites. Not us, who wukked an' sweated all de year. Us gotta git dat now; whut we makes we keeps."
The dazzlement of that vision spread shining over their faces. They swayed and shouted approval and the drums took up a quick rumbling.
Stud looked also dazzled, but with a trace of uneasy skepticism in his protruding eyes. "How us gonta git de plantations?" he demanded. "Dat No'th'n cap'n, he don' allow sich things."
Quash withered him with scorn. "Stud, you am de bigges' fool. Who gonna ask dat white man Carson?"
Stud scratched his head. "But he de boss of de Lincum men round heah."
"Didn' ah jes' tell you all de whites is alike. We ain't gonna ask nobuddy excep' ourselbs. We tak ober de plantations—not jes' dis one an' dat one; but all ob dem. De whites, dey been de masters too long; frum now on de black people gonna be de masters. Dis is our land; we made it wid our sweat an' our labor. Dere be millions o' blacks; dere be only a few white folks. We gonna dribe dem out; we gonna mak laws foah ourselbs an' be our own rulers. Whut we do heah, our people'll do all ober. Dey'll rise up an' take de land; an' all de cotton an' all de sugar an' all de 'baccy an' all de rice gonna be ours forebbermore."
"Quash, he know de troof!" yelled a stranger negro. "Ah comes f'um Natchez, an' de cullud folks, dey jes' waitin' foah Quash to mak de sign."
"An' ah cum from Thibodaux, an' us say de same."
"W'en does us sta't?"
Quash made a huge gesture. "Now! De time has struck." He whirled toward the shadowed thing under the trees. "De gallows am ready. Fust we strikes dat ol' man, Wailes, an' dem two gals ob his'n. Dey mak de mostes' trubble in de parish. We string 'em by de necks till dey is dead. Denn we goes—"
The sudden jerking of Hugh's hand on the long, gray streamers of moss almost betrayed him. He had been listening with growing horror to the careful, skilful unfolding of Quash's plot. He had expected to hear of trouble, of an incitement of these easily swayed, childlike negroes to uprising and loot. But this was different. Quash was no mere rebellious, sullen black. He was more, and therefore infinitely more dangerous. Long, slow thoughts had moved for years within that gigantic skull of his. Smoldering embers of rage and resentment against the whites who had enslaved and whipped him, carefully covered and kept alive against the day they could be roused to flame. Neither the brutal beatings up in Carolina nor the kindness shown him by Elizabeth Wailes had swerved him from his purpose. He had intelligence and enormous strength. He had a certain knowledge of reading and writing. He was a ready orator, skilful at whipping up prejudices and painting glowing pictures for the simple blacks. Mere freedom was not enough for him; he grasped at a black empire in the South. He was right. The negroes outnumbered the whites more than two to one. Set them on the warpath, and there would be terrible times ahead. This was what the abolitionists had done. They had unleashed forces that would overwhelm every white. Quash was not the one to make distinctions. All whites were hateful to him.
But when the huge black with his last dramatic gesture pointed to that dim-seen structure and called it a gallows for the Wailes's Hugh went cold all over. The man was devilish in his cunning. Murder, more than any other crime, must cement the perpetrators firmly to his plans. There would be no backward path, no further hesitation.
The whole thing was fantastic. The down-pressing sky with its rain all ready to empty, the drums with thunder obbligato, the central fire and the streaks and flashes in the heavens, the bearded trees standing sentry, the excited blacks risen from their haunches, crowding forward, and Quash, like a black, primeval statue—it was the stuff of nightmares.
Hugh's hand moved down toward the gun. If he shot Quash right now, the whole affair might be nipped in the bud. But would it? He'd be torn to pieces by the enraged negroes, and Adam looked like a likely lieutenant to take over. He'd figure they had already committed themselves with the slaying of Hugh; and certainly the three unsuspecting whites at Moon Hill would not be permitted to escape.
The picture of Sally rose again to haunt him, as it had done so many times in the past. And Nancibelle, still on the verge of life, ardent for romance. There was no telling what dreadful things might happen to the two women before death would come as a merciful release.
His hand came away. He turned cautiously. He'd have to get them away first.
Then he heard Cuffy's shrill voice. "You ain't gonta kill Miss Sally an' Miss Nancibelle, Quash? I'se agree 'bout de plantation; but dey be'n good ter me; an' ter you, too."
Then Stud's nervous laugh. "Ah 'grees wid Cuffy. An' ah wants ter say 'bout Mistah Flint de same. He—"
"You bofe still slaves in you' hearts!" Quash blazed. "Dey gotta die! Whut you t'ink dey gonna do w'en you tak de plantations? Ah'll tell you. Dey'll raise de whites an' come at you wid guns an' shoot you down. De fust whut kills de others gonna be on top. An' ah says us black people gonna be on top."
"Et don' sound right ter me," Stud insisted stubbornly. "Ah don' want ta kill nobuddy nohow. Ah's quittin'."
Quash moved to the bubbling kettle on the fire. "Yo' kain't quit," he said ominously.
"Why kain't I?"
"Because if'n you do, I put de ju-ju on you. You knows whut I got in dis pot?"
Stud fell on his knees, his face working with terror. Cuffy began to tremble and whimper.
"Don' put de ju-ju onter me!" screamed Stud. "Ah'll do anyt'ing; ah'll—"
It was time for Hugh to get going. The climax was coming; and every second was precious now. Luckily the thunder began to drum heavily overhead and the first wet splash of rain fell on his heated forehead. Twice his stumbling feet went into black mud, and pulled out just in time from the bubbling froth. He reached his tethered horse as the rain began to fall. By the time he spurred through the intervening woods and hit the Moon Hill road, the storm had unleashed its fury. The night was a solid wall of slanting water, and the heavens cascaded with blinding fire. The negroes would be coming now. The storm was their ally. Under cover of lashing rain and thunder they could swoop down upon the plantation houses and murder the whites without warning. No one would be abroad on a night like this.
He forced the mare to a wild gallop up the road that was already a quagmire, bowing his head low against the bucketing torrent. The horse splashed and heaved and the water pelted Hugh's thighs and tight-drawn face.
They came in a spatter of mud and rain to the silent wing of the great house. The lightning blazed and died away. The place was shuttered, and darkness gripped it. It was about two in the morning.
Hugh swung from his horse, ran to the door and banged on the wood with fist and knocker. The storm howled and the thunder racketed. If they didn't hear, he'd smash the panels with the butt of his gun. There wasn't a moment to waste.
In a momentary interval he heard a shuffle of feet; and Easter Sunday's strong voice. "Who dar?"
"Open, Easter!" he shouted. "It's Mr. Flint. Get Mr. Wailes! Murder's on the way."
"De Lawd save us! Whut tawk am dat? Ah'll go an' see—"
"Who is it, Easter, knocking like a madman at this hour of the night?" That was Sam Wailes, peevish and angry.
"Says he Mistah Flint He—"
"That fellow? Is he mad? Tell him to get the hell—"
"I've come to warn you, Sam!" yelled Hugh. "Quash has roused the niggers. I just saw them. They're going to kill you and your daughters."
"You have a queer way of displaying your talent for malice, Flint. Get away from here, or I'll get my gun."
"I'm telling you the truth. They're got a gallows set up in the swamp from which to hang you."
"I'm telling you for the last time—"
"And I'm telling you I'll break your damn door down if you don't listen. If you want to be hung, that's your lookout. But you've got to get the girls away."
More quick steps and Nancibelle crying out: "Father! Father! What's the matter?"
Sally's voice, firm, without a tremor of fear. "I'm opening the door, Father. I want to hear what he has to say."
"Don't, Sally. It's a trick."
"I've got a gun."
The sound of a bolt squeaking back, and the door opened. Sally stood there, wrapped in a hasty cape, her rounded bosom swelling under the thin stuff; and a small, ivory-handled revolver was in her hand.
Behind her stood Sam Wailes, his hairy shanks protruding from under a short flannel nightgown; with Nancibelle huddled to him. The candle in Easter's uplifted hand was shaking and spilling hot tallow over the floor.
Hugh did not bother to take off his drenched hat. The water streamed down his sodden clothes, accentuated the urgency on his face.
"I've always spoken the truth to you in the past, haven't I?"
Sally studied him. The gun in her hand did not move. "Yes; I must admit that, Mr. Flint."
"Then believe me this time also. Quash will be here in ten minutes. I managed to outrace them because I was on horse. He's worked them up to such a pitch that they're ready to kill you all; and kill every white they can lay their hands on."
"Who are they?"
"Your niggers; mine; niggers from as far away as Natchez. It's an uprising; not just a local flurry. You've got to get away; down to Lutcher where there are soldiers."
Nancibelle began to cry. Sam said: "What? Go to them niggerlovers for aid? Never!"
"You must. Carson's the only one who can help you. I'm included, too. I'm next on the list."
Sam Wailes said stubbornly: "I still don't believe—"
"Damn it, man!" Hugh yelled in exasperation. "Stay and see, if you wish. But I'm taking Sally and Nancibelle—"
Easter said suddenly: "Where am dat fool nigger, Cuffy?"
"He's with them."
Sally steadied herself against the door-jamb. "Cuffy—with them—to murder us? Now I don't believe you."
"I saw him. He was duped into it. He tried to back out when he heard they wanted to kill—but Quash threatened him with the ju-ju."
Easter lifted the guttering candle high, both hands uplifted. "Now ah knows whar he be'n eb'ry night. Ah done tol' he no longar mah husban'. Ah only waitin' till ah gits anothah man whut am a man."
The storm was like a battle now. Shot and shell and drum artillery crashed and reverberated; and the rain fell in a solid sheet.
Hugh said, "Are you coming or do I have to carry you?"
Sally gripped her cloak tighter. "We're coming. Take us a minute to dress. Come in out of the rain—Hugh."
It was the first time she had ever called him that. The sensation tingled through his veins. He stepped inside. Already Nancibelle was running barefoot to her room; and Sam went grumbling and muttering, half-convinced. Easter set the candle down, hastened after Nancibelle. Patsey stuck her frightened face into the hall, vanished again.
"A minute's about all you've got, Sally," said Hugh. "Have you horses?"
Sally flung back: "Only one. You'll find him in the shed in back of this wing. He's not much good; that's why they were kind enough not to steal him, too." Then the door closed behind her.
Hugh turned up his collar, darted out into the howl of wind and rain again. The horse shivered at his touch, but submitted quietly to the saddle. Three lucifers were necessary to locate his gear. I he gelding's head drooped sadly and the ribs stuck through his roughened coat. But he was better than nothing.
By the time Hugh had forced him out into the gale and to the front, they were ready. The girls were wrapped in long cloaks and their faces were dim within stout, serviceable bonnets. Sam had thrust himself hastily into boots, a greatcoat and gripped his hunting rifle.
"Two horses only," he said. "Sally, you get on behind me; and—"
"I'll ride with Hugh," she said. "You take Nancibelle, Dad."
Patsey began to wail. "How 'bout me, Missy Sally? Dey kill me."
"Damn!" said Hugh. "That's right. We can't leave Patsey and Easter behind."
Easter framed in the doorway. The candle was steady in her hand. "Doan' you fret 'bout us, Mistah Flint. Ah'll tak keer o' Patsey. Ah ain't afraid o' Quash. Ah kin handle he. Jes' you git agoin'."
"But-"
She thrust the candle at Patsey, and came down into the storm. "Git!" she commanded. "Ah tells you we's safe. Quash, he know better ta start wif me."
Looking at her powerful body Hugh could well believe it. He had to believe it. The seconds were slipping by. There was nothing else he could do.
He sprang into the saddle behind Sally, gripped the reins in front of her. Sam and Nancibelle were already mounted, and moving down the road. "Good luck, Easter; Patsey. You're all right. If the worst comes to the worst, cut and run to my place. You'll find Zida; she'll take care of you."
"Git a-goin! Heah dey is!"
Hugh swung slightly in his saddle. A blaze of lightning made a sudden glare, smearing the sodden fields with a yellow brush.
Figures sprang into view, men coming steadily down the back road, heads bowed against the rain, sloshing through the mire. Some had guns in their hands; others swung the long sugar knives as they moved.
The figures yelled and stumbled into a run. Hugh dug his spurs deep. The mare gave a great bound and broke into a gallop. Darkness—and the howl of wind and rain—settled down again.
Behind they could hear Quash's great, raging voice. Then shots; more yells. Hugh felt the sleeve of his coat tug sharply, just above the shoulder.
"Were you hit?" gasped Sally.
"Just a nip out of the coat. No flesh."
And then they had swerved out upon the main road, wading and slipping in the mud after Sam and Nancibelle.
"We're all right now," said Hugh assuringly. "They can't catch us on foot." Then they were abreast of the others. Hugh slowed up so as not to get ahead of the plodding, staggering gelding. Brief lightning showed Sam's haggard face.
"Sorry, Hugh," said Sam. "I'm a damn fool! You saved our lives."
"Saved my own as much as yours. But we've got to get to Lutcher in a hurry. Those devils will be in a frenzy at our escape. If there's any chance to rescue Easter and Patsey, we'll have to get Carson's troop here on the jump."
"Carson won't do a thing," Sam said bitterly. "He's in back of them."
"Don't you believe it. You wait and see."
The storm was dropping as suddenly as it had come up. The rain scattered to an intermittent splash and the thunder died away. The lightning gave a few, half-hearted spurts, and then deep blackness enveloped them. Behind, everything was silent.
"Poor Patsey!" Nancibelle whimpered. "Poor Easter!"
"Easter can handle any bunch of negroes," asserted Sally. "They'll be all right."
Then the darkness closed into silence again, except for the grunting of the laboring horses as they sought their way over the liquid road.
Hugh held the reins loosely, giving the mare her head. He sat as erect as possible, striving not to seem to crowd the girl in front of him. But her body was close to his, and his arms perforce were half around her. They both were dripping, and her long coat swathed her in; yet somehow Hugh felt the lithe softness and the warmth of her. She sat still and silent; yet she made no attempt to pull away from him as on that carriage ride in New Orleans.
The blood sang softly in his veins. She had called him Hugh, and she had chosen to ride with him. Almost he forgot the night, and the insurrection that must be scotched before it had a chance to spread. If the ride could go on—and on...
He stiffened. Damn fool! he told himself; and pulled a little back. She's a married woman, and she loves Andy. She's just grateful for the moment; the same as anyone would be. Don't start getting silly ideas, Hugh. Get back to the business at hand. Get to Lutcher and raise the Federals; raise every plantation on the Coast. Hurry!
The Provost Marshal was asleep when they trotted into Lutcher. So was the whole town. It was a small, straggling place with a few houses irregularly along the river road and plantations running into the back-country in rather thick profusion.
He came down into the parlor of the house he had commandeered, hair rumpled and with the sleep still upon him. But he came wide awake at Hugh's hurried words. A single swift, sharp glance at Sally's pale, taut face and Nancibelle's trembling form banished his initial skeptical annoyance. His lazy good-nature dropped from him; his eyes glittered and his lips grew hard and straight.
"I apologize, Flint. This nigger, Quash, is dangerous. Kill all the white people, will he?"
"Northerners, too," Hugh interposed with irony. "He's drawing no distinctions. A color is a color."
Carson grimaced. "Don't rub it in." He raised his voice sharply, "Harrick!"
His orderly came in.
"Call out the troop. Get them into the saddle in five minutes. Sabers and carbines. We're riding."
"Yes, sir." The orderly saluted and went out.
"You folks make yourselves at home," said Carson. "I'm getting dressed. The ladies will find beds upstairs. I'll rout out the servants. You men can use the sofas down here."
"We're not staying," said Hugh.
Carson stopped in the doorway.
"Why not?"
"We re rousing the planters. This is our fight."
"You'll do nothing of the sort, Flint," the Provost Marshal said sharply. "My men are perfectly competent to handle any number of niggers. We want no Confederate whites to go around shooting blacks. That's an order, do you understand?"
"Order or no order," Sam burst out. "I'm going back to the plantation. That's mine!"
"And I've got to take care of my place, too," Hugh added.
Carson said. "All right, the two of you can come along with my men, where I can keep an eve on you. But no one else."
Within five minutes, almost to the second, the troop went galloping down the single street, back to Moon Hill. There were twenty soldiers, cavalry sabers swinging at their sides, carbines resting across the pommels of their saddles. Carson, Hugh and Sam Wailes galloped in front.
The storm was over and the stars mingled with ragged wisps of clouds. The sodden fields glimmered as they flung past, and a hoot-owl set up a mournful cry. Hugh sat his horse in grim silence. If anything had happened to Easter and Patsey, he'd blame himself for it the rest of his life. Yet what could he have done? Put them on the horse, while he and Sam held the negroes off? Then no one would have got away; Easter couldn't ride and her added weight would have broken the back of any horse. If it hadn't been for Sally and Nancibelle... He roweled his horse's flanks in his agony to get on.
Moon Hill was ominously quiet as they pounded up the road. Dark, unstirring, quiescent. Hugh could hear Sam's whistling breath; Carson's low curse. Hugh and Sam flung from their horses, ran to the wing. The Provost Marshal barked a command to his men.
Then the door opened and Easter stood silhouetted in the flare of a lamp. Her vast bulk and shiny face had never looked as welcome as it did now.
"Easter!" Sam's voice was strangely broken. "Thank God you're all right! Where did they go?"
She broke into a wide grin. Her body heaved and rumbled with chuckles.
"You mean Quash?"
"Yes."
"He gwine away. Gwine away berry fast."
"Scatter, men," Carson ordered. "Search every inch of the plantation."
"Ain't gwine tuh do de leastes' good, Mistah So'jer," Easter declared. "He mak tracks in de swamps. He trabb'lin' berry fast." And again she shook with laughter.
Carson looked suspicious. "I thought you said there was an insurrection, Flint. If this is supposed to be a joke—"
Hugh was bewildered. "I know as much about it as you, Lieutenant."
"Speak up, Easter," said Sam. "What happened?"
She led the three men into the house. In the small bedroom they had converted into a parlor was Patsey, her thin face still ashen—and—
"Cuffy!" shouted Sam. "You black scoundrel! How dared you come back?"
Easter laid a brawny arm on the cowering negro. His coffee-colored countenance implored them all; and he would have sunk to the floor at the sight of Carson's uniform if Easter had not supported him. "Cuffy the bigges' fool nigger," she announced, "but he been scairt wid dat Quash's ju-ju. He ain't gwine huntin' trouble no more. He gwine stay an' mak me a husban' a lil while longer."
"But we don't understand, Easter."
She stood protectively over the speechless Cuffy. "Ain't much ta say, Mistah Wailes. Ah jes' met dis yere Quash at de door, an' ah says: 'Quash, yo' bettah mak feet.'"
"'Wha' for,' he say berry mad. 'Whar de white folks?' 'Dey gwine ta Lutcher ta git de so'jers,' I say right back. 'All de planters an' all de white folk comin' heah f'um miles aroun'. Dey heered all about you, an' dey ridin' wid guns an' dawgs.'"
The memory shook her with new laughter. "Quash git madder'n ebber. 'She lie!' he yells, but de odders dey am skeered. Ah kin see he all ober dem. Dey begin ta move away. Quash, he yell an' he shout; but dey jes' not stayin'. I seen dis yere wuthless Cuffy making feet too, an' ah yells ta him ta kum back."
She looked down at him with a half-tender grin and gave him a playful shake that sent his head bobbing like corn in a wind. "He knows whut's bes' foh he; an' he shuffles back on dose big feet ob he. I shouts arter de rest as dey begins ta run. 'You fool niggers stay in de swamp, an' ah'll fix he so's you kin come back an' ack sensible agin. But you, Quash, an' you, Adam, an' you strange niggers, you better keep on runnin'. Dey ain't gwine ta show you no mercy.'"
"Damn right we wouldn't," grunted Sam.
"Quash, he mad fitten ta bust. He lift he gun lak he wanter shoot me, but Cuffy fo'gits he jes' a rabbit an' he taks a sugah knife ta he. 'Git out!'he yells. 'You leab Easter 'lone, er ah cuts de heart outer dat big chest o' yours.' An' Quash, he gits out!"
"You're a brave woman," the Provost Marshal said admiringly. "We could use a few of you in our army."
"Nossuh. Ah stays right heah an' taks keer ob Cuffy an' de missies."
Carson looked inquiringly at Hugh. "Any chance of catching up with them?"
"None at all. They know every inch of the swamps. Your men would bog down in no time. I don't think they'll bother us any more."
"I'll leave ten men here anyway; just in case. Now about this Cuffy—"
"Don' you go touchin' mah husban'!" cried Easter, getting her bulk in front of him.
Carson bowed. "I wouldn't think of it. In fact, I was going to suggest that I would leave him in your capable custody, under a sort of parole."
She looked suspicious. "Dem's fancy words; but ef'n—"
"He's learnt his lesson, the Lieutenant means," Sam assured her. "Now about the others. Do you know where they're hiding? I mean Mr. Flint's hands and mine."
"Cuffy do; exceptin' Quash an' Adam an' de strange niggers."
"Of course. Well, Cuffy, you go and get them back here."
Cuffy straightened his thin shoulders. "Not ef'n you wants ta put 'em in de jail."
Sam shook his head. "No, Cuffy, I think they've also learnt their lesson. They were misled by Quash. You tell them to come back, and we'll fix things up. Right, Lieutenant Carson?"
"Well, if neither you nor Flint makes any complaint against them—"
"As far as I'm concerned," Hugh said promptly, "my men have been sound asleep in their cabins all this while."
Carson made a wry face. "I wish I could say as much for myself. Now about the Moon Hill negroes, Mr. Wailes. Are you going to keep up this nonsense of yours indefinitely? You see what the result was."
"All the fault of you Yanks! But I've got a proposition to make them."
"Good!"
"I won't pay them wages. They're no damned Northern factory workers. But I'll sign them a share in the crop—one barrel in every twenty."
The Northerner hesitated. "I think that can be arranged. I'd have to communicate with General Banks, though."
"But mind you," Sam added vehemently, "when you Yanks get licked and chased out of here, they're going to stay my property."
Carson grinned. "When we get chased out, Mr. Wailes, you're welcome to do anything you want."
THE summer rolled swiftly by, and the fall came. Once more the feverish harvesting commenced and the sugar house bubbled and steamed and the hogsheads jounced in the wagons down to the levee for loading on the steamboat. It was a good season, thought Hugh, as he fluttered the cheque and scanned the accompanying statement of account. Twenty-three thousand dollars in good Northern currency in the Southern Bank, after all expenses had been met, and with a train of vacuum pans installed in place of the clumsy old open kettles.
The negroes, too, had worked doubly hard as if to make up for their yielding to Quash's influence. Stud was particularly sheepish. It had been the ju-ju, he claimed. Quash had threatened them with slow death at a distance—he had shown them the crude mannikins he had made and which were themselves. If they refused to obey, he would crush the mannikins under foot and they would rot away in sympathy.
Hugh was now on calling terms with Moon Hill. He had not presumed on it, nor had he had the time, even if he wished, to pay more than an occasional visit. During the harvesting and the sugaring there was barely time for sleep, let alone social engagements.
Moon Hill was struggling back to a fresh start. There was, of course, no crop for the year. But Sam had set the returned negroes to work rebuilding the stable and cleaning away the debris of the shattered wing. He decided not to rebuild that; he had no money. All his funds had been in Confederate paper and Confederate bonds; and neither was worth a hoot in hell. Hugh offered to lend him cash, but Sam refused with a firmness that left no room for argument. He did not intend to be beholden to anyone, he said. He'd manage, somehow. What with the yam and corn patches that the negroes had grown for themselves, they'd get along. Once the new crop got started and was a bit under way, he could borrow against it at the bank. Thank you, just the same!
Hugh understood and did not insist. In spite of his services to the Wailes's he was still not a loyal patriot. Andy was languishing in a Northern prison, Dabney and many another brave Southerner had died for their country; and men still died by the thousands in what everyone knew now to be a hopeless cause. Yet the darker the days and the more desperate the news, the more Sam Wailes clung to the tattered but gallant Confederacy. His fervor for the bleeding, reeling cause was all that was left to him; all that remained between him and total collapse.
Sally did not speak of the war. Her lips were sealed against all but casual, everyday things. Her greeting to Hugh was neither cold nor effusive. He was a neighbor—nothing more. Somehow that was worse than her former hostility. It left a hurt. Perhaps that was why he didn't ride over as often as he might. Nancibelle, on the other hand, was warm and eagerly friendly. Almost effusive, in fact. She had recovered quickly from the terrible experience of that stormy night; and her gay, restless nature sought new romance and laughter. But there were few men of marriageable age left in St. James Parish. They were away, dead or still fighting. Lieutenant Carson was in his thirties—an old man—and anyway, he had a wife and two children somewhere to the North.
That left Hugh. She set out to snare him, with too obvious an effort. She was a child yet, in spirit if not in body, and her wiles had the frank effect of a child acting grownup. Hugh liked her—she was wholesome and friendly and bouncing, like a kitten—and evaded her maneuvers with grave smiles and innocent face. She'd be better off down in New Orleans, he thought, than stuck away on the plantation. So, as a matter of fact, would Sally.
Ring out, wild bells! Toll, sad bells! Lee surrenders and Richmond is fallen! The Confederacy is fallen! The war is ended—is ended—is ended! What intendeth the victor—how prostrate the vanquished! Down arms and go home—ride if you can; walk if you must; limp with old wounds and eat of the dust. How different from the return they had fondly anticipated. Back to the burnt shells that once had been homes; back to pinched faces and tremulous smiles; back to a land that is alien and grim; back to a future where they no longer are masters. The war is ended; and the war begins.
To Sally the days that followed were gaunt reminders of an ancient pain. Dabney had died; Moon Hill had died; the South had died. Her father took with an ague and lay shaking and shivering in the warm, quiet air. She nursed him and did the proper things. Nancibelle said with defiant gesture she was glad it was over and that now perhaps there would be time for life and love and laughter; and Sally reproved her with mechanical words that held no inner meaning. She walked the road between the stunted rattoons that had been forced from worn-out stubble because there had been no seed-cane, and their ragged stalks set no echoes pounding in the death of her heart. She stood on the levee and watched the river sweep interminably by, with the sunlight dappling its placid bosom. She heard the song of the careless birds in the trees and smelled the odor of magnolia and honeysuckle. And she wondered that there had been no change.
White men came from New Orleans. Men with fanatic faces and furious oratory. They gathered the negroes in hearkening clumps at the crossroads, in the fields and on the levees, and exhorted them with strange phrases. "Why work for the men who had made you slaves?" they demanded. "Why bow your heads to the lash again for a mere pittance of food and wage? We are your friends and we tell you this: At Christmas time the land will be yours. Each man of color will get for his share forty acres and a mule. Forty acres of good, rich land and a mule. Do you hear?"
"Yassuh—us hears."
"But the men who were your masters are treacherous and sly. They'll try to keep this rightful thing from you—this forty acres and a mule."
"Huccome dey will? Ain't gonta 'low no sich t'ing. Fo'ty acres an' a mule! Jesus Lawd, us hungry foh dat!"
"Ah, we knew you'd feel that way about it. We knew you'd see it the right way."
"Ain't gonta 'low no secesh trash take our land. Whut us hab ter do?"
"Just what we were coming to. Down in New Orleans, up at Washington, we're trying to get you the vote. When you vote, vote for your friends, both white and black. We are your friends."
"De vote? Whut's dat?"
"We'll tell you when the time comes. Right now you must organize. Get arms in your hands. The rebels will try to fool you with soft words and fancy promises. Don't listen to them. Listen to us."
"Us lissen. Fo'ty acres am' er mule! Jesus Lawd!"
They formed in bands and moved restlessly over the countryside, with bundles on their shoulders and arms in their hands. Exhortations excited and mirages beckoned. They were free; and the freedom moved them over the land. The planters pleaded in vain, pointed to the ruining crops, to the contracts on which they had made their marks. They paid no heed. When they hungered, they took the pigs and the sheep and dug the yams from the fields. When they thirsted they raided the cisterns and stole whiskey from the stores. Quash appeared, gigantic, powerful. He came up the river from New Orleans, where he had fled. Down in New Orleans, the free were freer, he told them. Down in New Orleans there was food in abundance. Down in New Orleans the colored people were come into their own. Down in New Orleans the land would be divided. The whites from the North were right; but the negroes had to watch out for their own. Follow Quash! Follow Quash! Follow Quash!
Lieutenant Carson was transferred from Lutcher, and Captain Mahaffy took his place. He was an angular Connecticut Yank with a keen eye for himself. He encouraged the agitators and he encouraged Quash. He laughed indulgently when the planters rode into Lutcher and begged that the agitation be stopped. He smiled and grinned when Sam Wailes, haggard and thin from illness and the collapse of the world, told him of Quash's murderous plot and of the former shooting of the sheriff and the sheriff's men from ambush. To his followers Quash had boasted.
Why should Mahaffy interfere? In Connecticut he had quit a country store with a pitiful stock and a more pitiful living to join the army. Nothing beckoned him back. But here in Louisiana huge fortunes might be made, if a man knew what was what. Let the agitators agitate and the nigger Quash stir them up. Let the niggers quit the land and go down to New Orleans; to hell, if necessary. Without niggers the planters couldn't take the crops; without the crops the planters must starve or listen to his terms. Take him into partnership; sell him the land for a song. Once he was a partner, once he owned the land, then he'd put the niggers back to work. How? Easy. Wasn't he the Provost Marshal of the District? Wasn't he the agent of the Freedmen's Bureau? They'd work for him or he'd damn well show them who was the boss. Bayonet steel was a potent argument. He rubbed his hands and figured how many plantations he could swallow. He saw himself kingpin of the Sugar Coast. Yes, sir, he'd raise a family. Yes, sir!
Sally wanted time to think things over, to heal the sullen wounds that had carved her innermost being. The negroes drifted off the plantation and the cane stunted for lack of hoe and plough. Only a few remained—Cuffy and Easter and Patsey; barely a dozen more. Her father rose from bed and walked around with a crushed stare and a hopeless head. Nancibelle yearned for New Orleans where life went on. Hugh Flint stayed away, watching his own plantation, holding his hands in line, not inflicting his presence. She was grateful for that. He had done them service, but his ways were not their ways, and his look disturbed her thought. She wanted time—desperately.
Andy was coming home! The war was over and the Northern prisons were disgorging their unburied dead. Every day she walked to the road that led down to New Orleans; stood on the levee and watched for sign of steamboat pushing nose toward the shore. Which way would he come—by road or by river? Oh God, she wanted time!
It was three years since she had seen Andy—her husband of a night and half a day. Three years in which the thought of him had faded, and the old virginity returned. And now marriage would once more engulf her. She'd have to become accustomed to that. She was a married woman. By the power of a few words, and the greater power of a night and half a day. She needed time in which to prepare herself. She would be a good wife; yes, she would. No one must ever know that the touch of him was a repulsion; that deep down within her, half unsaid, the touch of Hugh Flint had stirred her as all of Andy's caresses had never done. There, it was out; and she was sorry and she was glad. The memory of that storm-night's ride, with the lean, vibrant thighs and hips of Hugh close to her, had been locked against even her private thought. It was shameful; she was Andy's wife and Hugh was strange in deed and speech. Andy was a soldier, a gallant fighter for his own. Hugh had served himself as well as his country; he had stolen his neighbor's land and said the South was lost. What if he had foretold the truth? The truth then was shameful and should never have been told. Mrs. Sally Hilgard! Time, time—she needed time!
Then, one day, Nancibelle came running and crying out a name up the weed-choked path from the river. And behind her, walking a bit stiffly, favoring his leg, came a man.
He waved his hat and he cried, "Sally!" and he broke into a stumbling run. Then his arms were about her and his lips hot and hungry upon hers. She felt herself engulfed, enfolded, and his eyes were as hot and hungry as his lips.
"Sally! Sally!" he cried. "I'm back! The war is over. The prisoner is returned. Aren't you glad to see your husband?"
For two months and more Sally had steadied herself against the shock of the meeting, and now that it had come, now that she was in fact the married woman, it didn't seem so bad. A sense of pity, of maternal fondness even, responded in her to this thinned, unshaven, ragged man with the pallor of long absence from the sun yellowish-white upon his face.
"Yes, Andy," she said, "I am glad."
They fed him with what they had, which wasn't much. But they made a ritual of it, hauling out from hiding their best figured plates and setting the long mahogany table with the single damask cloth remaining from the negro occupancy. Easter made hot compones and biscuits from the last handfuls of meal and Cuffy went out into the fields to seek for yam tubers that were still undug. The last chicken was butchered for the occasion and the everlasting slab of fatyellow bacon made its due appearance on the table.
Nancibelle served, with much giggling and some curious glances at her brother-in-law. "I should really have blacked my face," she giggled. "Then you'd think I was your Zida, and you'd feel quite at home."
Andy stuffed his cheeks with compone. "I'd trade a dozen Zidas for a gal like you," he told her gallantly, and stretched his legs comfortably under the table. "I haven't eaten pones like this in years."
He had bathed and exchanged his tattered, verminous uniform for old clothes that Sally had brought over to Moon Hill. His gauntness was accentuated by the loose folds of their envelopment. He was changed, Sally decided; and yet he had not changed. There was a new hardness and a new bitterness in his voice when he spoke; and yet his eye still roved and sparkled when it rested on her—or on Nancibelle.
Sam Wailes had roused at his return. The creased furrows smoothed somewhat and his voice grew firm and hearty as of old. There was no doubt that he was glad to have him back. Some of the crushing load that had weighed him down might now be shifted. There would be two men—instead of one.
The meal was finished with small talk and casual phrases; as though no one wished to be the first to plunge into the grim chaos of their lives and old experiences. But the last wing of the chicken was gnawed, and the last compone put away. They could no longer avoid the words that lay deep underneath their seeming indifference.
It was Nancibelle who first demanded the saga of his exploits and his long captivity. But he passed them by with careless vagueness, as if they were of no account. Sally, watching him, weighing him, examining this man who was her husband, liked that. Whatever Andy might prove to be, he was no braggart. Nor was it the mere face of modesty that he assumed; he had fought as any Southerner would have fought; and he had been taken prisoner; that was all. Prison life had not been beer and skittles; but he refused to dilate on breathless horrors or conjure up vast sufferings for their delectation. Nor had he walked the long way home. As a colonel, the Yanks had given him passage from Philadelphia to New Orleans. At New Orleans he had been lucky enough to find a boat that would stop at Lutcher.
"So all I walked was a mere seven miles," he ended his short, hasty account. "And that, my dear, is more than I've ever walked in my life. But that's about enough for the hero come back from the wars. Tell me about Moon Hill, and my plantation. I suppose you've managed to lay aside a rather neat sum. I heard sugar's being sold at around twenty-five dollars the hogshead; and I don't mean shinplasters, either."
He settled comfortably back in his chair, unbuttoning his coat from old force of habit, though his slack frame had ample room in which to expand, and an expectant gleam moved into his eyes.
Sam Wailes looked suddenly down at his empty plate, and Sally felt a queer suffocation around her heart.
The silence surprised Andy. He stared at them. "Didn't you?" he demanded, a note of uneasiness creeping into his tone.
"Didn't anyone tell you at Lutcher?" Sally said with an effort.
"No. Didn't stop to speak to anyone, I was so damned anxious to get back to you. There wasn't anyone to speak to, anyway. Only a lot of niggers standing around, resting their backs against the stores."
Sally took a deep breath. "There isn't any money, Andy. There weren't any crops."
He searched her face, searched Sam's averted countenance. "No money! No crops! Then what the devil—"
"Things have been happening," said Sam. "Lots of things, while you were away. We've been conquered territory."
"Even so—"
"It's hard to explain. But the negroes are the top of the fence now. We're only the bottom rails."
Andy's face darkened. "I warned you we ought to flog a few of them, Sam; but you wouldn't listen."
"You don't begin to know what's been going on," Sam said wearily.
Andy thrust him a swift glance; stared at his wife. He pushed back his chair; arose. "Come on, Sally," he said.
"Where to?"
"Home, of course. To our own plantation. I'll shake the nonsense out of those niggers. You watch me, Sally."
Nancibelle began to cry softly, and Sally found it difficult to talk. This was even harder than she had expected. Was it possible that Andy didn't know anything? Had he really come home expecting everything to be exactly as when he had gone blithely away? Had the events of four long years of blood and agony left no impression on his facile mind? She had known that he was careless enough about money matters and the running of a plantation, but this childish inability to understand that the old order had passed forever was almost incredible.
"We have no home, Andy," she managed at length. "Except—Moon Hill."
"What do you mean?"
"The Yankees confiscated the plantation. Because of what happened when—when we were married. They said you led Verrell's men."
For a long moment Andy said nothing. Sally was dreadfully sorry for him; yet something clamored within her. She must know how he was going to take the news; what he was going to do and say. Much of their future relations depended on the way he would act now.
"Point number two against the Yanks," he said finally, in a queer, harsh voice.
"Point number two?"
"Yes. Point number one was the way they treated their prisoners." It was the first and last time that Andy made any mention of his prison experiences.
"I'm very sorry, Andy," Sam said heavily. "There wasn't anything we could do."
"Of course not, Sam. No one's blaming you." Something of Andy's old reckless grin returned. "All right, Sally my dear, we're going."
"But where?"
"Didn't I tell you? To the plantation. I want to meet these Yanks who've been making free with my land." He misunderstood her expression. "Don't worry, sweet. I've met a tougher breed of them in the Wilderness than I'm likely to find down here."
"You don't understand," Nancibelle cried out. "The Yanks sold the place."
"Sold it? To whom?"
Sally went up to him, put her hand gently on his arm. "To Hugh Flint."
She felt him stiffen under her hand. "Hugh Flint?" he exploded. "You don't mean the Hugh Flint we know?"
"The very same. Let me tell you the whole story."
When she was finished, she awaited his reaction. All of them awaited his reaction, anxiously, with much misgiving. Nancibelle said hurriedly, "Hugh's all right, Andy, in spite of everything. He's done a lot for us."
But still Andy sat in his chair, somewhat sprawled, hands deep in his pockets, saying nothing. Then suddenly, he began to laugh; wild, loud, reckless laughter. Sam started and looked at him in amazement. Sally said, "Andy, Andy! There's nothing to laugh about."
He jumped up then, hauled her to him, kissed her gaily, still laughing. "Very well, then, my dear, we're going over to see Mr. Hugh Flint."
"Don't hurt him!" Nancibelle cried sharply.
Sally began to tremble. Fear welled in her. "You—you mustn't go, Andy." Breathlessly: "You mustn't fight. There must be no duel."
He stared at them. "Duel? Who said anything about a duel? I have something else in mind. Got any horses, Sam?"
"Two. Had only one until March. Then Cuffy found a roan gelding bogged down in the swamp. Don't know who it belonged to. But neither one's much good."
"They'll do. One for Sally and one for me."
Sally rode along in silence. She was still trembling. Andy had said he would fight no duel; but could she trust him? She tried to pull herself together; to understand herself. Andy had obviously been flattered by her sudden pallor. He had assumed that she was afraid for him. But was she? The shock of his return was still too overwhelming a fact for her to know exactly what she felt about him. There had been a momentary surge for his manifest sufferings, for the bleak prospect that he faced. It was difficult for her to realize as yet that his future was her future; that whatever was to come must be faced by both of them together.
But the momentary warmth had passed. His kisses, the looks that kindled as they roamed over her, awakened no answering fervor. Then this strange fear.... No, it couldn't be for Hugh. He was an outsider, one who had done her infinite harm as well as service. Even now, Andy and she were homeless wanderers, torn from the roots of the land because of him. Even if her father managed to salvage Moon Hill in these days of stress and urgency, her pride forbade her to stay on with her husband as pensioners on his bounty. And she hoped Andy felt the same way. Or did he?
Wrapped wholly in thought, she came upon Hugh Flint unaware. He was riding slowly down the road from the rear of the house, and his horse turned the edge just as they cantered up to the entrance.
All three riders pulled simultaneously to a halt. Sally heard Andy's quick grunt beside her. Her eyes lifted and her heart began to pound. Hugh saw her first and his face twisted curiously. She had never visited the plantation that had been Andy's—and hers—since the day the Yankee officer, Carson, had come clattering down with a platoon of soldiers to tell her that a new owner was taking over.
He started his horse forward. "Miss Sally!" he cried. "This is indeed—"
Then he saw Andy; and his horse pulled in abruptly. For the moment things blurred before Sally's eyes. Strange, that he should have called her Miss Sally now. It had always been the formal Mrs. Hilgard, or—on rare occasions—just Sally.
Without knowing quite what she did, she moved her mare suddenly forward, in between the two men.
They sat their horses stiffly, facing each other. Hugh Flint's first look of surprise had changed to a frozen mask. Andy's face was invisible to her. "Good God!" she thought in sudden panic. "I've got to say something; do something. There'll be an explosion. Then everything will go to pieces. Andy promised—but I can't trust him. He's hotheaded; he'll—"
Then Andy said: "Hello, Flint. It's been a long time since we saw each other."
Hugh seemed to relax, but his expression was wary. "Hello, Hilgard. Glad to see you back. Yes, it's been a long time."
Andy let his eyes wander over the spreading fields. The cane was sprouting thick and tall, but the tops were feeble and a little wilted. As though they hadn't been laid away properly; as though the ploughing and the hoeings had been too few to let the air in at the roots.
"Nice crop you've got there."
"Not bad, considering. Would have been much better if there hadn't been a little trouble."
"So I hear." Andy ran his eyes appraisingly over the front of the house that had been his. "You've done a power of fixing. I never got around to painting the old house."
"It needed it. Care to come in and have a drink, Hilgard? And I think Zida can fix up some punch for Mrs. Hilgard."
"Don't mind if we do." Andy dismounted nimbly, approached Sally. "Let me help you, my dear."
Hugh called sharply, "Stud!"
"Yassuh. Coming!"
The bandy-legged negro came shuffling around from the rear.
"Hello, Stud," grinned Andy. "Still wenching it as much as ever?"
"Nahsuh." Stud shook his head mournfully. "Dey ain't—" Then he stopped short and his eyes protruded and his jaw went slack. A gray pallor spread over his face. "Kunnel Hilgard! Yo' ain't—you ain't er—"
"Ghost? Nonsense! Never was more alive."
"Take the horses, Stud," Hugh said quietly. "You'll find some oats in the stable. And curry them down a bit."
Stud chattered: "Nossuh. Ah means yassuh. Ah's pow'ful glad ter see you again, Mistah—ah means Kunnel—Hilgard."
"You're looking pretty hearty, Stud." Then the door closed on them, and the house had swallowed them up.
Stud stood there with the reins gathered tight in his hand. He gaped after them. Then he shook his head. "Ah ain't nebber gonna unnerstand white folks. Dere dey goes, lak dey's de bestes' frien's. Ah sho' 'spected Mistah Hilgard ter come a-shootin' fer Mistah Flint." He was still shaking his head as he jerked on the reins. "Come erlong, you fool hosses, an' git yo' oats. White folks is funny, ain't dey?"
Sally found herself seated in the formal old parlor, heard Zida's outburst of exclamations and giggles, heard somehow Andy's jesting retorts and undertoned innuendoes, and was sipping a tall glass of punch without quite knowing how it all had happened. Bewilderment struggled with a wild relief. All the way over she had dreaded this meeting; yet now that it had come, no outsider would have suspected what tense, waiting forces underlaid that casual surface. She sat numbly, holding herself tight, afraid. This couldn't keep up. They were like two skilful fencers, feeling each other out, courteously poising their foils, seeking an opening. She'd scream if they kept it up. Her shaking fingers spilled a little of the dark purple drink on the spotless linen.
"Oh!" she gasped. "I'm so sorry. It was very clumsy of me."
"Don't mind it at all," Hugh assured her. "Zida's good at getting stains out of the linen."
Andy laughed, and the laugh shook Sally with its implications. "You're right, Flint. She had plenty of practice with me. Why, I remember—" And he went off into certain reminiscences that skated so insinuatingly over curious little episodes that Sally felt herself go hot and freezing cold in turns, and her hands clutched desperately in her lap.
Did he think she didn't understand? Did he think his wife had no ears to hear, or mind to trace the double meanings in back of those chuckling tales? She felt, rather than saw Hugh's swift sideglances at herself, the frowning little furrows in his brow. He was embarrassed for her; he pitied her. A hot surge of anger swept over her; at Hugh, rather than Andy. She didn't want his pity; his condescension. What did he mean by pitying her? She'd thank him to mind his own business. She had married Andy, and they would get along. Andy was just careless in his talk. She was reading things into his words that were not there. Anyway, that was all in the past. He was a married man now. It was the drink that spoke; not he. That was the third tall tumbler of whiskey straight. She'd better get him back to Moon Hill, before he got drunk. In a way, she should be glad. It was better this way. There had been no fight; and there wouldn't be. She started to rise.
Then she heard Hugh's suddenly grim voice cutting across the disturbing flow of reminiscences. "I think, Hilgard," he said, "we'd better get down to business."
Andy put down his glass, empty, and stared in seeming surprise. "Business? What business?"
Hugh's hands were on the table and Sally noted, in a queer, absent sort of way, how competent they looked and yet how white the knuckles were.
"I'd been expecting you ever since the war came to an end, Hilgard."
Andy laughed. "Naturally. You didn't expect me to die in that hell hole the Yanks call a prison, did you?"
"I had hoped not. For your sake; and for Sally's. Let's understand each other. This used to be your plantation."
Andy helped himself to another drink, wiped his lips carelessly with a handkerchief. "Used to?"
Sally sat frozen. Now it was coming! The very thing she had hoped to avert. They'd be flying at each other's throats in a moment. She should have known it had to happen. Oh, why couldn't men let well enough alone? Andy was right. It was his plantation; but Hugh was right, too. If he hadn't taken it, someone else would. It was all so mixed up. But the end was terribly clear. Both were excellent shots. She had a vision of two sprawling figures, very still on the soft, warm grass, each clutching a pistol from which the smoke drifted lazily.
"Andy!" she managed. "We'd better be going. Father is waiting—"
But Hugh paid no attention to her futile attempt at deflection. He leaned slightly across the table.
"That's what I said, Hilgard. The Federals confiscated the plantation, and I bought it."
"It was very decent of the Yanks; and of you, too."
Hugh disregarded the patent sarcasm. "I'm not going into the merits of the confiscation," he said quietly. "During wartime all sorts of harsh measures are taken. But the war is over now."
"Well?"
"I paid a good price for the place. It wasn't so much the official figure; but I had to give quite a sum to a certain highly placed individual."
"Bribery, eh?"
"Call it that. If I hadn't done it, there were several Northerners who had their eyes on your plantation. They'd have snapped it up."
"Why do you tell me this?"
"Wait until I finish. I've made money here; something you never did. There's more to be made."
Andy flushed; got halfway up from his chair. Then he dropped back with a curious grin. "I don't doubt it. I never was cut out for a planter."
"You weren't," Hugh agreed equably, "but there's always a possibility of change. I've installed a good many improvements. There are vacuum pans in the sugar house. The mill was falling to pieces; it's been repaired. So has the levee. You may have noted that the house is in considerably better shape."
"Are you trying to brag over me?" Andy's voice grew taut, dangerous.
"Not at all. Just talking as a business man. I've a proposition to make."
"A business man's proposition?"
"Why not?" Hugh was unruffled. "I never pretended to be anything else. The place is mine now, legally if not morally. But I'll turn it back to you for the cost of the improvements. I'm willing to consider what I paid the Federals rent for the use of the place. But the improvements are in, and you should have had them long ago."
Sally had been listening in growing amazement. Everything was topsy-turvy. She hadn't expected anything like this. "Andy," she said impulsively, "take it. I think it's fair."
But Andy began to chuckle. "Fair, eh? In the first place you just told me I didn't have a picayune to my name."
"The bank will lend you the money. I'm sure Mr. Layton will consider the place good collateral."
"In the second place, Hugh Flint is still the shrewd business man, isn't he?"
"What do you mean by that?" Hugh's voice was now the one to grow dangerously sharp.
Andy poured himself another drink; crossed his legs. "I may be a fool; but not such a fool, Flint. I've seen and heard enough in the last few hours. There isn't a single plantation around here that's worth a damn. The niggers have all gone to New Orleans; and what niggers are left don't want to do a lick of work. I saw your cane. It's going to rot on the stalk. Moon Hill's washed up. So is this place. It was a neat scheme, Flint, to palm off on me the cost of your improvements and then pull out."
Hugh got to his feet. His eyes blazed.
Sally jumped up, crying, "Andy! Hugh! Stop it!" She flung around on her husband. "You had no right to say that, Andy! I think Hugh's proposition was eminently fair. He has made this place profitable, and he can do it again. So can you."
"Oh, I can, can I? Then why didn't your father make a go of Moon Hill?"
"Because he was stubborn. We were all stubborn. I see it clearly now. Hugh is right. The war's over, and we'll have to accommodate ourselves to the new times. We can start afresh and—"
A glint crept into his eyes. "You seem mighty quick to take Flint's side, Sally. What's been going on while I was away?"
Hugh took a step forward. His face was white. He said in a strangely calm sort of way: "You had better explain just what you mean, Colonel Hilgard."
"Glad to." Andy lifted from his chair. "I mean that while I was fighting for my country, you—"
Sally's voice cut through them both like a knife. "Andy!"
He stared at her. She had grown pale as ashes. She held herself rigid and her hands were stiff at her side. He grinned sheepishly, said, "Sorry! I'm a fool, as usual. I'm just talking to hear myself talk." He sat down again. "Mind if I take another drink, Flint?"
Hugh said, "No," and remained standing. So did Sally. She was shivering now. He was sorry, was he? Everything was all right again. Casually, just like that. Did he think he could wound her to the death, and then pass it off with a grin and a so sorry? She knew that Hugh carefully avoided looking at her. Didn't he know that was worse than staring at her shame with bold, frank eyes? She had seen him quiver to the terrible insult; but what did it mean to a man? He could forgive; but a woman....For better or for worse! She sucked in a shuddering breath. A wife must suffer, and a wife must forgive. Preacher Yellin had said that. All preachers said that. Suffer—and forgive! Andy had already forgotten what he had said; he was certain his sorry had set everything to rights. He was looking at Hugh.
"You've made me a proposition, Flint. Now I'll make you one."
Hugh said nothing.
"I'll sell you the plantation."
Hugh still said nothing; just stood there, motionless, rigid.
Andy seemed undisturbed by his silence. "Your title isn't as good as you think. Those confiscations won't hold water. But I never was much of a planter, as we all seem to agree. I'll sell you the whole place, lock, stock and barrel, for five thousand cash."
Hugh's eyes turned slowly toward Sally. She said: "It doesn't matter." Nothing mattered any more. She was beyond all caring just then.
Without a word Hugh went to his writing desk. He pulled out a drawer and took out an oblong strip of paper. Then he picked up a steel pen, dipped into the inkhorn and began to write. In the sudden silence the steady scratch of his pen was unbearably loud.
Very carefully he blotted the paper; then he arose and brought it over to Andy. Still without a word he gave it to him Andy looked at it. A pleased smile broke out on his face. Five thousand dollars! Good Northern greenbacks; not shinplasters. A draft on Tom Layton's bank. And free and clear, too. The debts he had left behind him in New Orleans before the war troubled him not a whit. The war had wiped everything out as far as he was concerned. Five thousand dollars to do with as he pleased! Why, that was more than he had ever had. He folded the draft, placed it in his pocket.
"That's that," he nodded easily. "Wish you luck with the old plantation, Flint."
"Thanks!" Hugh's tone was cold, passionless.
Andy tossed off another drink. The decanter was dry. "Come on, Sally. Wait until your father hears about this."
On the ride back to Moon Hill Andy was in high good humor. He slapped his pocket and laughed and slapped his pocket again. The crisp cheque paper crackled every time he did it. The sound seemed to amuse him, and he tried it again.
"My dear," he said for the fifth time, "we're going to New Orleans, we are. To hell with planting and hoeing and sugaring and free niggers. A planter isn't what he used to be. I can see that. Look at your father; look at Moon Hill. The hell with it. I'd kill a nigger before I'd let him tell me what to do. No, my dear, the only place for white men now is down in New Orleans." He rubbed his hand over his pocket, and listened to the rustle inside. "Down there we can get together. We can put the niggers into their place, Yanks or no Yanks. Yes, sir; I think I'll go into politics. Why not?" he demanded loudly, though Sally hadn't said a word. "I know plenty of people. They'll vote for me. How'd you like to be the governor's wife, sweet? You're pretty enough, all right."
And he rambled on, paying no heed to the fact that Sally rode stiff and silent, her face set straight ahead. Already he was deep immersed in the schemes he had conjured up, and they were pleasant. So was the touch of the draft in his pocket. Maybe the war hadn't been so bad, after all.
ANDREW HILGARD found new Orleans much to his liking. The luxury-loving, cosmopolitan city had always been a lodestone to draw him away from the hard monotony and too earthy preoccupations of the plantation; but now, after four years of war and marches and prison stinks and lice, he positively wallowed in the gaieties and splendors of the town. He had money in his pocket—something he had never had before. Five thousand dollars in crisp new greenbacks. And the city beckoned and invited.
Sally had wanted to stay at the Wailes's town house, but Andy would have none of it. The town house meant management and gardening and taxes. Heavy taxes. Taxes for the upkeep of carpetbaggers and reconstruction and extravagant repairs. Taxes that were such an insupportable burden that half the planter owners let their houses go for barely nothing to the canny Northerners who came down to New Orleans seeking their fortunes.
"We're going to live, my sweet," he told Sally gaily. "And staying on Fourth Street won't be living. You and I both deserve the best, and by God, we're going to get it."
"But, Andy, how long do you think your money's going to last? New Orleans is horribly expensive; especially the way you're going about it."
"Don't you worry your pretty head about that, my dear. Something will turn up." And with that vagueness she had to be content.
They took a suite at the St. Louis Hotel. Andy would have preferred stopping at the St. Charles, but that famous hostelry was overrun with Northern soldiers and Northern carpetbaggers. And Andy wanted no part of either. The actual war had not soured his easy-going disposition or embittered him against the North. He had fought them and respected the equal bravery of the enemy. His prison experience, though, had not been pleasant. It was not so much the brutality of the guards as the overcrowding, the vermin, the stinking food and the terrible confinement.
Even this, taken alone, might have finally faded away. But the confiscation of his plantation, the deliberate instigation of the negroes, the manifest attempt by the Freedmen's Bureau and politicians to submerge the conquered whites with blacks, and a raucous tribe of fortune-hunters from the North roused every combative instinct in him. By God, let them beware! We'll deluge the land again with blood before we'll submit to such nonsense! Down with carpetbaggers and down with Southern scalawags, traitors to their race and to their color!
And with the latter he now lumped Hugh Flint. He had never thought particularly about the fellow one way or another before. After all, Flint was a tradesman, and their relationship had been one of dollars and cents. But now he had assumed to set himself up as a planter—on Andy's plantation.
He was an upstart, trying to worm himself into the society of folk who really mattered. He had stayed at home to make money while his betters had died in battle and rotted in jails.
And there was the matter of Sally, too. He hadn't liked the way Sally stood up for the fellow. She should have treated him with furious contempt for what he had done to them; yet she had stood up for him. True, she barely spoke of him any more, but a husband gets to be sensitive about certain things. Of course, she was just being grateful because the fellow had warned them away from Moon Hill in time to save them from the niggers; but he was saving his own skin at the same time. Andy knew nothing of how Hugh had smuggled Sally and Nancibelle out of New Orleans. Not even Sam Wailes knew that story.
The St. Louis Hotel wasn't bad, though. It stood in the heart of the Old French Quarter, fronting solidly on St. Louis Street and extending all around on Royal and Chartres. Its proportions were simple yet magnificent. The lower story was of granite, and the upper of stuccoed brick. A great, copper-plated dome surmounted the whole, glistening in the hot, semi-tropic sun. Its huge inner rotunda was paved with varicolored marbles over which soft-stepping Creoles whispered with delicate steps. There was none of the heavy-booted thumpings and the raucous merriment of the St. Charles Bar, but there were other compensations.
Andy loved to be awakened in the morning by a soft-voiced Creole negro who, thank God, still knew his place with his betters, pushing away the muskito-bar to hand him a cup of coffee in bed; then to return noiselessly with a glass of iced Congress water, oranges and the morning Picayune and the Bee, neatly folded for luxurious reading. With a bow and a smile, and a few deft swirls of the palmetto-fan suspended from the ceiling to circulate the air and chase away possible flies and muskitoes, he'd withdraw, assuring Moosieu de Col'nel and Madame his wife that he'd be back later to inform them when it was time for them to get up.
Andy loved the enormous eleven-o'clock breakfasts in the little Creole cafés, presided over by invariably withered husks of men, languid and polite, and their as invariably huge, bustling dames, fat and garlicky and free with voice and gesture.
But best of all were the dinners at Antoine's, at Victor's and at Moreau's. Andy ate the shrimp and gumbo and redsnappers and oysters and drank the rare wines with the utmost gusto. For four years he had hungered and thirsted for the incomparable dishes of New Orleans, and now they were his in profusion. He took Sally and Nancibelle every day to another restaurant, to another café, and urged the finest wines and the most expensive food upon them. Nancibelle had come down with the Hilgards from Moon Hill. Andy had insisted upon her coming. "This is no place for you, my dear. Come to New Orleans where there's life and laughter and maybe a good-looking young man for such a pretty girl as you."
Andy was generous with money. As generous for Sally and Nancibelle as for himself. Money was meant to spend; not to hoard. He was no trader, no huckster to whom money was the be-all and end-all of life. He insisted that the two girls trick themselves out at Olympe's, on Canal Street, with the latest silk walking dresses from Paris, and at Stiewel's just across the street, with the daintiest satin slippers. Then to Griswold's, on the corner of Royal, for some lovely onyx pendants outlined in gold scrollwork.
Nancibelle pirouetted and clapped her hands joyously at the sight of herself outlined in flattering mirrors. She loved her handsome, good-natured brother-in-law for the vistas of fine clothes and fine times he was unfolding. Sally tried at first to stop the ceaseless outflow of greenbacks. But that, she soon found, was impossible. Andy was not to be denied. He ordered half a dozen suits of the finest material from Payan's on Canal Street near Magazine; he placed a standing commission with Masich, the tobacconist on Gravier Street, for a dozen of his most expensive Havana seegars to be delivered to the hotel daily; and with Muller, on Customhouse Street, for a like delivery of a magnum of champagne and a bottle of Rhenish wine.
Whereupon Sally forgot her own misgivings and succumbed to the easy life and the delicious sense of a luxury that few women can resist. She was more beautiful than ever, and the lovely, shimmering dresses and the long gloves and the tiny little slippers that peeped only occasionally from under the swirl of silk heightened her beauty and caused every masculine head to turn for further admiration at her passing. It was pleasant enough, and she desperately needed compensations. Already she had penetrated the superficial amiabilities and specious attractiveness of the man she had married, and judged him.
Yet she tried, in day to day living, to be the proper wife, to hide from him the inner play of her own thought, to make the best of this her marriage.
She succeeded at first. Andy took a vast delight in dressing and accoutering her, in displaying her for the benefit of his friends and boon companions. These he picked up again quickly and easily. Some were of war and pre-war vintage; others were attracted by the trail of fluttering greenbacks.
New Orleans swarmed with returning soldiers. Every train of cars, every boat, every dusty road, brought them back to pick up the broken threads of their lives. Ragged, limping with old wounds, with not a picayune in their pockets, they sought surcease in jollity and remembered faces and noisy cries of welcome and much backslapping and handshaking. Carondelet Street was their rendezvous, where the Provost Marshal's office was daily crowded with tattered warriors seeking their parole that they might stay unmolested by suspicious Federals.
Andy had his official discharge from Libby Prison, and required no further parole. But here, in the ceaseless throng, he met former comrades in arms, men with whom he had bivouacked and charged and retreated, and each meeting called for a drink and each drink called for another. Some might envy his seeming affluence; most considered him an excellent fellow who had also proved himself a gallant soldier.
They swapped old stories and snarled epithets at the horde of negroes that had descended like locusts upon the city. The negroes came from the camps and the plantations, seeking the freedom that shone with a brighter light in New Orleans; they came in squads and platoons under the canny surveillance of politicians; they lived in squalor on the swampy edges of the town and congregated on the street corners, swaggering at the whites and shouldering them off the banquettes.
But the little worms of decay began to gnaw at the fruit of his contriving. Sally! As the days passed into weeks the first bloom of marriage faded, and Andy grew increasingly discontented. She was beautiful enough in all conscience; there wasn't a prettier girl in New Orleans. But his expectations had been disappointed. For one thing, Sam Wailes had lost all his money; and the great plantation at Moon Hill, instead of adding weight and solidity to his position, was now rather a liability. For another thing, Sally had withdrawn herself into a queer shell of reserve from the protection of which, he was uneasily aware, she was constantly appraising and judging him. She submitted to his embraces, it was true, but her submissions were limp and passionless and without that heated fervor to which he had been accustomed.
If this were marriage, then to hell with it! Andy had never been exactly a monogamist, but he had made certain vague commitments in that direction at the moment of his union with Sally. To an expert eye, such as his, she ought to have developed into an ideal mistress as well as wife, chastely passionate, wifely tender, yielding all the blisses of the flesh together with the solidities of an avowed marital state. He didn't, of course, pretend even to himself that there would be no backslidings on his part. That would be too much to expect from a man of his temperament. For example, during the three years of his absence, a man would have been a fool not to accept whatever came his way. But these had been casual, momentary affairs, to be dismissed from mind as soon as consummated, and not affecting the inner core of marriage as he conceived it.
Sally's queer limpness in his arms, however, her unyielding yielding, drew at first bewilderment, then anger from him. His roving eye returned. He'd walk the street with Sally, half-jealous of the quick masculine admiration that his wife stirred in her wake, and half-speculative over every pretty face and inviting swell of bosom that drifted past their sedate-seeming progress.
He began to stay away a good deal. He had to meet a lot of people, he'd say vaguely, if he expected to get along in politics. And, without doubt, he did meet a good many. He met them at the various bars, in the gambling establishment of Devoe's out on Lake Pontchartrain, at the water-front taverns; but especially at Devoe's.
George Devoe greeted him warmly. Andy had laid an occasional bet in the old days, but he had never had much ready cash. Now, however, the greenbacks burned the linings of his pockets. He played vingt-et-un and he hung fascinated over the spinning wheel. He began to lose.
There were not many real Southerners to be found at Devoe's. They didn't have the money, and people without money were not exactly welcomed. But the place swarmed with Northerners. Northern officers who had managed to pick up a bit of change in the discharge of their duties, Northern government agents who hunted for Confederate cotton and found it where there wasn't any and overlooked it where there was—all for a proper consideration; and Northern carpetbaggers who already had discarded for far more lavish raiment the single collar and threadbare change of socks with which they had hurried South.
Andy didn't mind too much losing his money. Money was made only to spend. But he hated to lose it in the company of such vulgar, pushing upstarts who flung their new-found wealth in the faces of all decent people and who moaned and whined when the turn of a card went against them, and bellowed with loud joy when the whirling ball stopped on the right number.
He protested vehemently to Devoe about it! But the gambler shrugged his shoulders. "They're the only people with money in town, Colonel Hilgard," he said. "I'd have to close up my place if I had to depend on our own kind. Outside of a few scalawags, of course." He looked shrewdly at Andy. "Don't mind my saying so, but one Northern gentleman—he used to be a Yankee drummer of pins and needles before he became a gentleman—thinks that you're a scalawag because you appear to be pretty free with your money. He expressed a desire to meet you. Perhaps you might be able to devise some new villainy together."
"Damn his black, abolitionist pretense for a soul!" Andy exploded. "I'll meet him all right; with a horsewhip in my hand."
"You misunderstand the gentleman," Devoe said softly. "He used to be an abolitionist. But that was before he came into money. Now he abuses the niggers and nigger-lovers as vehemently as any fiery Southerner. He yearns for gentility and dreams of buying up a plantation cheap."
"The hell with him!" Andy snorted. "We've got to do something about him and his kind, Devoe; and do it quick."
"Not we" the gambler corrected. "You. I make a very nice living from them." He smiled quietly. "I'm doing my share in my own way. I see to it that they leave a good part of their tribute on the South in my coffers."
It was time to do something, Andy thought. His money, at the reckless pace he was going, was slipping rapidly through his fingers. Within two months, what with fine clothes, hotel bills and gaming, more than half of his funds had vanished. And the situation in New Orleans was rapidly getting worse.
During the occupation, the native scalawags had taken advantage of Lincoln's "ten percent plan" to reorganize Louisiana as a state within the Federal Union. Under the military control of General Banks and the military governorship of G. F. Shepley, these old Douglas men, Irish Unionists and political opportunists proceeded with an election in the early days of 1864. Only those were permitted to vote who took the oath of allegiance to the Union, and the election bristled with Federal bayonets.
Inasmuch as the number of votes so cast just about exceeded the ten percent of the 1860 vote required by Lincoln's proclamation, the men elected were recognized as the true and only government of Louisiana. Michael Hahn, a Bavarian by birth and a Douglas Democrat in 1860, became Governor and James Madison Wells, a cotton planter of Rapides Parish, Lieutenant-Governor.
Hahn immediately issued a call for a Constitutional Convention in April. Delegates to this convention were chosen under the aegis of Federal bayonets and very few votes were cast, and these only in parishes occupied by the Federal forces. For seventy-eight days they sat, during which period they managed to spend $125,000 for liquor, seegars, fine stationery and carriage hire. In the course of their arduous duties, the Convention obediently abolished slavery, approved negro education, authorized lotteries and moved the capital from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. This Hahn Constitution was ratified by a pitifully small number of votes in September.
But the Radical-controlled Congress of the United States took the bit in its mouth, and refused to recognize the "Lincoln State" of Louisiana. Vengeance was required against the rebels, and Lincoln's plans were entirely too mild and conciliatory for Thad Stevens, Sumner and Ben Wade.
Hahn, who had resigned as Governor to take a seat as United States Senator, was denied admission and found himself out in the cold. Wells, the Lieutenant-Governor, became Governor. He was a plain, elderly, affable man who had been a Unionist during the war, but who wished to conciliate his fellow Louisianians. For the moment he received the support of those Southern whites who had taken the oath in order to regain their political rights but who were determined to obtain control of their State for themselves and to deny to the negroes any vestige of political and social equality.
Whereupon the Legislature, wholly white and almost entirely native, passed a series of Vagrancy Laws. These Vagrancy Laws, or "Black Codes," as they came to be known, purported to deal with the negroes on a realistic basis. All laborers were required to enter into yearly contracts, by the terms of which hours and conditions of labor were rigidly determined, with fines for feigned sickness, disobedience, impudence, swearing and absence without leave. Any negro who failed to sign such a contract might be sentenced by the local Justice of the Peace to enforced labor without pay for one year on public roads. If he did sign, and failed to show up for work three days running, he might be sentenced to similar labor until he decided it was better to return to his contract.
These provisions were stringent enough, but many towns enacted even harsher local ordinances. No negro was to be permitted within town limits without the written permission of his employer; no negro might appear on the public streets after ten at night without like permission; no negro might rent or keep a house within town limits; negroes might not carry arms or attend public meetings of any nature—all on penalty of fines, confiscations, evictions and forced labor.
A storm of indignation swept the North and the Radicals of the South. This was, they declared, a return to peonage; a deliberate attempt by the Southern whites to nullify the fruits of the Civil War. The agitators and agents of the Union Leagues, the negro leaders like Quash, moved and stirred among the freedmen, shouting them to arms against the arrogant whites, calling on them to help defend their newfound liberties; while the South defended the codes as the single method by which whites and blacks could live together on peaceful, amicable terms.
The storm grew in intensity and the atmosphere became ever more murky and tempers more bitter. Epithets and taunts were bandied back and forth, men cut each other dead on the streets, and whatever camaraderie had existed between Federal soldiers and returned Confederates came to an abrupt end. Each side girded its loins grimly for the peace that was worse than war.
Andy Hilgard met his friends now in secret and behind closed doors. Jalousies were fastened securely and passwords formulated. In air heavy with smoke and liquor fumes they orated and spoke of new rebellion. Because of his war record and known reckless daring Andy rapidly became the head and front of the new movement.
"We've got to organize," he exclaimed time and again. "Otherwise life won't ever again be worth living."
"It ain't worth living very much now," agreed a former captain in Johnston's command mournfully. "The Yanks burnt down my house and drove away all my cattle. The niggers stole the rest and insisted on cash every month if I wanted 'em to work. The damned Freedmen's Bureau backed 'em up; and when I naturally took a whip to one of the most uppity, I had to get out of the parish in a hurry. There's a warrant out for me."
"They seized all my cotton," chimed in a planter from around Waterproof. "Claimed it belonged to the Confederacy, though every boll of it represented my sweat and blood and the sweat and blood of my whole family. Sure, for a big, fat bribe it 'ud of been all right, but who the hell had any money to give those leeches?"
"We gotta do something about the niggers," said a St. Bernard man indignantly. "Why, only yesterday my wife was riding down Canal Street in the horse car, and a big, stinking buck comes in and plumps hisself down almost in Letty's lap. Poor Letty looked around the car for help. But nary a white man paid any 'heed. She hadda git off, while that black nigger jest spread hisself an' grinned after her. If I'd of been there, s'help me Hannah, I'd of shot him dead."
"Mark my words," interjected another with conviction. "If the niggers and the carpetbaggers aren't put in their place soon, there'll be a race war. Them niggers are being organized while we're sleeping. I hear they drill nights, and they got plenty of guns. Fellow named Quash is leading them. I hear tell he's a regular giant of a nigger; killed a couple of men in his day. They say he comes from up your way, Hilgard."
"Belonged to my father-in-law, Sam Wailes," Andy said bitterly. "I told Sam he ought to have taken the whip to him; but no, old Sam just wouldn't bullwhip his niggers. Stubborn chap, Sam is."
"Used to have a pile of money, didn't he?"
"Lost it all. Didn't know how to pull out in time, the same as I did."
"Well, anyway," ventured the Waterproof planter, "you got a mighty pretty wife out of it, Hilgard. I ain't never seen as pretty a woman as she is."
"Oh, Mrs. Hilgard's all right," Andy said with some irritation. "But we'd better get on with what we expect to do."
The former captain shook his head. "There ain't much we can do. Not with Northern bayonets every way a fellow turns."
"We might try working with Governor Wells," suggested a New Orleans ironmonger timidly. "He seems to want to be fair."
"That scalawag!" Andy declared with scorn. "Never! We've got to rely on our own kind. How many of you took the oath so you can vote?"
About half of those present raised their hands.
"That isn't enough. Every one of you must vote. When the next Legislature is up for election, we want to get every member from our own kind."
"I sort of hate to take that damned Yankee oath," said the St. Bernard man.
"You must," Andy asserted. "There's no use fighting over the old war. There's a new one coming, and the vote is the gun and ammunition both."
"But they're gonna give the niggers the vote, too. They'll outvote us every time."
"We'll take care of them when the time comes. If we're properly organized they'll vote the way we tell them, or—"
Andy paused significantly, but the crowded men seemed to know exactly what he had in mind. The man from St. Bernard slapped his thigh uproariously. "Count me in on that, Colonel Hilgard," he laughed, and winked.
The meeting had taken place in the rear of a residence on St. Ann Street, belonging to Antoine Labatt, a relative of the widowed Madame Ducros. Colonel Ducros had fallen at Missionary Ridge. Andy had chosen Labatt's for the rendezvous because, in the narrow streets of the Quarter, the men could slip in singly and without arousing suspicion. They were admitted through a small wicket gate on the proper low-toned response to the proper question; then they went silently down a vaulted passage to the courtyard. Through the courtyard with its fragrant blooms they passed to a winding outside stairs that led to an iron-grille balcony and into the seclusion of the inner house.
Andy was the last to leave. The men dispersed one by one, so as to arouse no comment in a passerby. Andy sipped the iced orange water which a little darky brought to cool his parched throat after the numberless absinthes he had downed. Then he went.
The street was deserted and the night was dark. He walked to the corner, intending to turn toward the hotel where Sally was waiting for him. But at the corner he hesitated. It was almost ten and the night was warm and stirring. And his body was heated with the potent absinthe.
Suppose he went to Sally. He knew exactly what would happen. She'd question him about the meeting. Oh, she was as hot a patriot as he was! But somehow her clear, pointed questions punctured the phrases and the resolutions that had seemed so fine and brave in the making. He resented that; he resented her even questioning him. It was a woman's place to run the home and make her husband comfortable and happy; not to assume to know as much or more about politics and man's work than he did.
Then there'd be some comment about money; always about money. He still had almost a thousand left; why did it have to bother her? It didn't worry him in the slightest. Something was bound to turn up.
Then they'd go to bed. His heated senses leaped at that; subsided. Oh, she'd submit, all right. Sally was quite a dutiful wife. But he didn't want that sort of thing any more; he wanted more than mere submission. She was such a damned stick; withdrawing herself and making him feel like a fool. And judging him; judging him every minute!
By God, he'd had enough of that! He'd been faithful ever since he had come back. Now, standing there on the corner, smelling the lemon and the rose as they drifted from the blank-walled courtyards, and with the green liqueur seething in his veins, he said: "To hell with it! A man's got to have his fun!"
He turned swiftly on his heel and walked in the direction of Toulouse Street.
Sally refused to question Andy the next morning. Her pride forbade that. He had come home late before, but never as late as this. It was almost dawn when he stole softly into the great hotel room and undressed without lighting even a candle. She had been awake—had been staring at the dark all night, thinking long, dreary thoughts—but she pretended to be asleep. Then, as he commenced to snore, she lay still awake, thinking, thinking.
She had tried to be a good wife, and she had failed. Andy had sensed her failure, and now he had taken his revenge. Perhaps it wasn't the first time; certainly it would not be the last. Wherein had she been at fault? Wherein was she to blame?
The fault, she realized clearly enough, had been in marrying Andy. She hadn't really loved him; it had been merely a swift propinquity, a romantic thrill for the hero who had been wounded and was immediately to return to the field of honor. She smiled bitterly to herself at that. Nancibelle was supposed to be the romantic one in the family and she the clear, level-headed one. Yet she had been swept along like any silly, addlepated little fool.
What was to be done now? She could not pretend love where love did not exist. Some women could do that; she had heard of instances. But she was not one of them. No matter how she tried, there was a certain transparent honesty about her that gave her away. She did not scold and she did not rail; she held her judgment of Andy tightlocked in the fastnesses of her bosom. She knew that he had been gambling at Devoe's and had lost considerable sums of money. Yet not once, by word or gesture, had she betrayed that knowledge. Occasionally she had spoken of their slipping funds, as she must, if they were not to sink shortly into utter poverty; but always she had spoken without heat and without nagging.
Andy was a generous man, she admitted, according to his lights. He had insisted on taking Nancibelle along, and had been wholly extravagant in buying them dresses and shoes and bonnets. He was amiable and had never spoken harshly or insulted her in words. Yes, once he had; that time when he had sold the plantation to Hugh Flint. The memory of it stiffened her as she lay by his sprawled side, and listened to his somewhat drunken snoring. Yet even then he had immediately apologized, and thought that thereby he had made an end of it. Most women would have considered him a splendid catch, and have gladly forgiven his peccadilloes for the privilege of his amiable qualities and reckless good looks. It was a pity she was not one of them.
She might leave him, of course, and go back to Moon Hill. But that would be an acknowledgment of defeat and a brand to mark her through life. Wives simply did not leave their husbands, except under stress of the most outrageous circumstances. Physical brutality, for example, that actually endangered life. Nothing else. No, she couldn't do that, and wouldn't if she could. She had assumed certain duties, and perform them she would to the best of her ability. Andy and she... she and Andy... dry-eyed, staring, she lay by his side, facing the future.
Nancibelle found New Orleans quite exciting after the terror and the confinement and the grinding hardship of Moon Hill. The fact that it was a prostrate city, still swaggering with men in blue and populated by a loud-mouthed, arrogant race of newcomers bothered her not a whit. She loved the color and the movement and the slow stares of the Northerners; and above all, she delighted in the finery that Andy found a good-humored delight in buying for her. He was the best of brothers-in-law, she thought. Sally ought to be wildly, utterly happy with him. If she wasn't, she was a ninny. And Sally evidently was a ninny. Oh, she never said anything, but Nancibelle had eyes. Sally might still consider her a child, though she was all of—well—it was about time she began conveniently to forget her age.
That was funny. She had really forgotten that she was getting on in years. A small panic invaded her exuberance. Why, when she was seventeen, she'd have considered a woman of—well, anyway—quite an elderly person. And if she wasn't married, with at least one or two babies to her credit, why—that meant she was doomed to everlasting spinsterhood. She remembered distinctly, when she was fifteen, the visit of Aunt Mamie from Virginia. Poor Aunt Mamie was a spinster—twenty-five to be exact—and the Dabneys had shipped her down to her elder sister, Elizabeth, on the desperate chance that in a new environment she might be able to get herself a husband. Nancibelle could remember the headshakings and the long conferences and the picnics and the balls and the hunts that her mother had organized in the vain hope that something might come of it. And she remembered her father's loud, heated protests that he'd be damned if he'd inveigle any of his friends into matrimony with such a dried-up battle-axe as that sister-in-law of his. And she never forgot the look of hopeless tragedy on Aunt Mamie's prim face, or the tearfulness of her mother when, after six months of unceasing effort, the unwanted spinster was shipped back to her Virginia relatives.
A sudden fear tugged at Nancibelle's heart. She stopped almost in mid-traffic on Canal Street to stare at her reflected image in the shiny windows of D. H. Holmes. Ordinarily she would have become breathlessly interested in the new styles of hoop skirts that were on tempting display, and compared the flower-embroidered hats with their long, floating ribbons to her own saucily-perched little straw; but now she examined her face as though she had never seen it before.
The smooth, fresh skin, the limpid blue eyes and the netted club of straw-blond hair that hung low on her neck in the very latest fashionable "water-fall" might have belonged to a girl of eighteen instead of a woman of...
"Nancibelle! Miss Wailes! But this is wonderful!"
She whirled guiltily at the male voice, confused at being caught in a seeming act of vanity. The voice sounded familiar; but—Then suddenly her knees were trembling and shaking crazily underneath the spreading hoops, and the blood was rushing in all directions at once.
"Frazer—I mean, Lieutenant Scott!"
He was older, more mature than she had ever thought possible. His thin, sensitive face had filled in, his mustache was strong and black and sturdy, and he carried himself with a confident, masterful air that was far removed from the slender, shy youth in uniform she had known—oh, so many years before.
But his eyes had not changed They were eager and sparkled with joy. He caught up her limp hand and kissed it.
"Please!" he begged. "It's still Frazer. And I'm not a lieutenant any more—or rather—a captain. Don't you see, I'm not in uniform?"
She steadied herself against the window. It was too much, coming across him like this, just when she was getting afraid.... She had dreamed of him many times, wondering what had happened to him. And now he was here, glowing on her, somehow frightening in the way he had changed.
"Nancibelle! You're more beautiful, more wonderful than ever. You don't know how I've tried to find you ever since you and your sister vanished from New Orleans."
Life flooded through her again. Did he mean that; or was it just the empty gallantry of the male? "We were at Moon Hill—Frazer. Surely you might have known, if you really wished to find us."
"Moon Hill?" he exclaimed. "Why—I made inquiries through Headquarters. They told me Moon Hill had been shelled and destroyed, and that the plantation had been confiscated and taken over."
She shook her head pertly. She was fast regaining confidence. "You didn't inquire hard enough. Moon Hill was shelled but it wasn't destroyed; and it was the neighboring plantation that was confiscated."
But he looked so remorseful and stricken that her pertness vanished in a flood of tenderness. The boyish lieutenant was still there, underneath the man. "I swear to you that was the way the records had it. Nancibelle, my dear, I've thought of you constantly. I—"
He was holding her hand, squeezing it, unmindful of the thoroughfare and the curious glances of people. Her fingers tingled, but she withdrew them hastily. "You—you mustn't," she gasped.
He laughed at her, gayly, confidently. "I'm not letting you go now that I've found you again. Suppose we go into Moreau's for something to eat and a chance to talk."
She shook her head. "Not Moreau's." There was always the chance of finding Sally and Andy there. It was one of Andy's favorite eating places.
Frazer glanced at her sharply. "Oh, I see!" He knew what was in her mind. He was a Yank and she was a Southern lady. No Southern lady might be seen walking or talking or eating with a Yank. The war was over, but the bitterness of the Southern women had increased, if that was possible. "All right, then," he said with a queer smile, "how about the St. Charles? You'll find only—uh—carpetbaggers there; no one you'll know." He looked down at her. "After all, Nancibelle, I suppose I'm a carpetbagger, too."
"You are not," she said indignantly. "Why, carpetbaggers are—are horrid creatures, and—"
"They have tails and horns, of which I disclose no visible signs," he finished with a half-grin. "But I'm afraid your friends, and your sister, would think differently. The last I saw of Miss Sally—"
"She's married now. I'm staying with them at the St. Louis Hotel." A certain defiant determination possessed her. "I'll eat with you at the St. Charles, if you wish."
"Do I wish? Why, nothing could make me happier."
They crossed Canal Street. And while they walked he told her what had happened to him since 1862. He had fought with Banks against General Taylor along the Red River and been promoted to a captaincy.
With war's end came the necessity to decide on the future. He liked the South; he had grown quite fond of New Orleans; and—he told her—he hadn't given up hope of finding her again.
Like a good many of his comrades, therefore, he determined to remain. There was nothing to return him to Medford and much to keep him here. His sister was happily married and both of his parents were dead. And Medford was a quiet, conservative place where nothing ever happened, and the practice of law must soon fix itself into a narrow groove. Oh, yes, hadn't he ever told Nancibelle? He had read law for a while in Boston.
It was easy enough to open an office here in New Orleans. He had a small inheritance that was sufficient to tide him over the initial difficulties. Yes, his office was at 124 Canal; quite a building for lawyers. The firm of Sullivan, Billings & Hughes was right next door to him. They were pretty prominent. Then there was a fellow named Warmoth—Henry Clay Warmoth—a Northern officer like himself. He was getting mixed up in politics, though, instead of tending to law. Now take himself. He was sticking solely to law. He felt he had no right, coming down here as a stranger, to interfere in the South's affairs. They had fought a war, but he had no hard feelings against Southerners. He looked at Nancibelle and said softly: "Especially when you are a Southerner, my dear." Lincoln had been right, and so was the new president, Johnson. Those Radical fellows in Congress shouldn't act the way they did. Anyway, he had picked up quite a bit of law business. Chiefly cases involving confiscations. "Would you believe it, Nancibelle, I've got almost as many former Confederate clients as Unionists? They think that, being a Northerner, I have some influence with the Federal Courts. They're mistaken, but luck's been with me so far. But look how I'm chattering on like an old woman. Let me hear all about yourself, my dear, and don't leave out a thing."
THE crop had been a bad one. A very bad one. Hugh Flint stared unhappily at the few hogsheads of sugar and the fewer barrels of molasses he had been able to salvage from the wreck.
Stud said: "De cullud fo'k wanta know whut dey gonna git. Dey moughty oneasy 'bout he share."
"I don't blame them, Stud. They'd have done better to have stuck to wages. Yet they were the ones who insisted on a tenth of the crop when they signed contracts for this year."
Stud shook his head. "Dat was counta las' year, yo' made er lot ob sugar. Cap'n Mahaffy, he tell 'em dey fools ter wuk foh wages, an' let yo' git de rest."
"Captain Mahaffy's been a troublemaker," Hugh told him sharply. "He's out to line his own pockets and get control of the plantations. It's about time your people realized that those Northerners are no friends of yours. He forced Mr. Love to take him in as a partner. He bought up half a dozen others for practically nothing. Have the negroes got it any easier on his plantations?"
"Nassuh. Wuss. De cullud fo'k gotta wuk all de tahm. Ef'n dey tries tuh run away, he whups 'em and gits de sodjers arter 'em. Ah tells dat tuh dem fool niggers, but dey jes' don' lissen."
Hugh stared again at the pitiful barrels that represented a year's hard labor. "Well, I suppose it isn't their fault. Things will work out after they get used to the idea of freedom and how to handle it. But it'll take years, I'm afraid. And in the meantime the plantations will fall into ruins."
Stud shifted uneasily from one foot to another. "De cullud fo'k dey ast me tuh tawk ta you, Mistah Flint."
"What about?"
"Dey sorry 'bout dem contrac's. Dey ast mebbe yo'd gib dem de wages lak de las' year. Dey owes er lot foh sto' goods an' dey won't be nuff in he shares ta pay."
"Oh, no, I won't," Hugh said grimly. "They made their contracts against my advice and they're going to live up to them. I'm just as badly off as they are. I lost money on the year—a lot of it. The drought and early cold helped some, but if you fellows hadn't been running off every other day to listen to Quash and the white agitators, we might have got a lot more of the crop in."
"Ah didn' go gallivantin' none," Stud protested.
"You didn't, and Pomfrey didn't; but most of the others did. We were shorthanded practically all the time." Hugh sighed. "I'm beginning to think that Mr. Hilgard knew what he was about when he sold out to me."
"I hearn Cap'n Mahaffy, he say down in Lutcher he willin' tuh gib yo' an' Mistah Wailes a li'l somefing foh de bot' plantations."
"I don't doubt it." Hugh's voice was harsh, stubborn. "He's been aiming for that ever since he came here as Provost Marshal. But we're not selling. I spoke to Mr. Wailes about it only the other day; and he feels the same way as I do."
Stud looked downcast. "Den whut us gwine ter do? De sto'keepers—"
"You tell all the hands, Stud, that I'll take over their debts, provided they're within reason; and provided they'll sign contracts for this year on the proper terms. I'll split the amounts in twelve, and deduct that much each month from their wages."
Stud considered that. "Ah'll tell dem," he promised.
After much haggling and patient explaining the contracts were finally signed on that basis. Mahaffy looked black as a thundercloud and tried to bully the negroes into refusal, but Stud argued with each recalcitrant hand and his more amenable wife until the documents were duly marked with wavering crosses.
A definite conviction was slowly growing on Hugh. The fate of the plantations, the delicate balance between whites and blacks, depended rather on New Orleans than on the plantations themselves. A Homeric struggle began to take shape and form down there that was in effect a revolution. The war itself had been a mere prelude to this more momentous battle. On the outcome depended the future of Louisiana, of the whole South perhaps. Ex-masters and ex-slaves were engaged in working out a new set of relations. So far they were not managing very well. The Southern whites resented their downfall and sought blindly to reverse what had happened. The negroes were still milling indecisively. Some few, like Quash, were dangerously definite in their aims; but the vast majority were just plain bewildered, mere tools in the hands of Northern whites who wished to supplant the old order with a new domination of their own.
Down in New Orleans was the battle; and down in New Orleans the battle must be lost or won. But how could he get away? The plantation would go to hell if he left; and he'd be damned if he'd sell out to Mahaffy.
February, 1866, was fairly warm. Hugh ordered his scanty force out into the fields to start the ploughing. There were all too few of them for the work, but they'd have to do. He rode over the soggy land, watching, directing, speaking sharply to the sullen and the laggards, encouraging the willing.
As he rode along the fresh-turned furrows he saw a steamer breasting the swift turbulence of the waters. Its smokepipes were belching smoke and it was veering in toward shore.
"Taking advantage of the inshore current," he thought, and bent toward Stud. "Better get the first mattress of seed uncovered."
Then the boat whistled. He raised his head again. The shrill sound screamed across the upturned loam. All work stopped; the mules' ears quivered and their legs planted solidly, and every negro lifted black eagerness toward the levee. The coming of a steamboat was always an excellent excuse for resting.
"He am gwine ter land, Mistah Flint," said Stud.
"So it is," Hugh agreed. "Looks like the Natchez. Wonder what they want."
He turned his horse and galloped toward the levee. The huge three-story boat was already pushing its nose into the soft mud. The captain stood firm-spraddled on the forward deck. He was a square-jawed, chin-whiskered man with mouth tight and slightly askew.
"Howdy, Captain Leathers," Hugh sang out. "Got anything for me?"
The captain said, "Howdy!" without any of his usual heartiness. "Got a letter here for you. Catch!" He heaved with his hand. A small white oblong corded to a leaden sinker flashed across the intervening water. Hugh caught it deftly.
"Thanks!" he shouted, and glanced down at the superscription. It was addressed to him, in the fine, spidery handwriting of Simon Hardy. A queer feeling struck him. Why should Hardy be writing to him now? He hadn't shipped his crop down yet. Well, maybe it had something to do with shipping directions. "It's from my father's office," he said unnecessarily.
"Yep," answered the captain shortly. He signaled and the Natchez began to back away with a turmoil of waters and a thunder of engines. As if it were an afterthought, Leathers yelled across the widening breach: "We're only goin' up to Bat'n Rouge this trip. I'll stop by on the way down, to-morrer morning."
"Now why should he have said that?" Hugh wondered. "No reason for him to stop at all."
He stared down at the letter, unwound the sinker and placed the lead weight in his pocket. Then he ripped open the envelope; unfolded the sheet of paper.
"Dear Mr. Hugh," wrote Simon Hardy. "It grieves me to be the messenger of sad news, but I have to tell you that your father is not very well. He suffered a stroke this morning and Dr. Williams thinks it is quite serious. In fact, he advised me to tell you that if you wish to see your father alive you had better come down immediately." The word immediately was underscored twice with fine, ruled lines. "Fortunately, the stroke has not yet affected your father's powers of speech, so that—"
The words blurred and the sun was strangely dark. Old Stephen was sick—was dying! To Hugh he had seemed eternal, incorruptible. From a little boy he had looked upon his father as forever the same—vigorous, hard, with the lustiness of a man who would never die. And now he lay in bed, stricken, paralyzed, unable to turn or move.
Numbly Hugh pushed his horse toward the house. The negroes stared after him curiously, wondering. He stumbled inside, the letter crushed in his hand, and took a long, stiff drink from the decanter. Then he sank into a chair, stared long at the opposite wall.
He hadn't seen his father in more than two years. Somehow or other he had never managed to get down to New Orleans. His father had silently cast him off, without words, without outward heat. Hugh had gone against the code of patriotism the old man had set for himself, and was no longer his son. Nevertheless Hugh was going down now. Between Hardy's lines he read the unexpressed desire. Captain Leathers had known the contents of the letter. That accounted for his abrupt manner and his offer to stop by in the morning.
Hugh pulled hard at the bell rope. Zida came in, plumply substantial.
"Pack my trunks, Zida. Put in all my town clothes. I'm leaving for New Orleans in the morning."
Zida's eyes widened. "All de clo'se, Mistah Hugh? Ain't yo' comin' back?"
"No, Zida."
"But de plantation!"
"To hell with the plantation." At her astonished look: "I didn't mean that, of course. I'm putting in an overseer."
"Fo' de Lawd sake! Who?"
He got up. "Mr. Wailes," he said.
Captain Leathers was as good as his word. Hugh boarded the Natchez in the dank mists of the morning, and Sam Wailes saw him off. He had ridden over to Moon Hill the afternoon before and proposed to Sam that he act as his overseer.
"It's worth twenty-five hundred a year to me, Sam. What with this trouble down in New Orleans and everything, I don't know whether I'll be coming back."
Sam demurred. Hugh would come back; he had work enough of his own on Moon Hill; and twenty-five hundred was more than the job was worth. But Hugh overrode each objection in turn, pointing out that the only alternative was to sell to Mahaffy for whatever he'd offer. This last decided Sam. Turn over another plantation to that scoundrel! He'd see him in hell first. All right, then; he'd do what he could. Hugh left a draft for a year's salary in advance. "That way," he said, "you'll be better able to take care of my interests, not having to worry so much about your own. You'll be able to buy some seed-cane and pay your niggers regularly. Maybe they'll work then."
The Natchez was a big boat, with an ornamental gilt ceiling and a dazzle of chandeliers to its saloon. Corps of lightfooted waiters attended the tables and spread spotless linen, crockery and silverware for each meal.
About the stove and the bar crowded the male passengers, talking and arguing and getting heated about politics, and spitting impartially at the brass spittoons and the dull-red belly of the stove. Seegar smoke rose in dense clouds and drifted down toward the ladies' cabins at the other end. They sat at tables and played cards and everyone drank. The planters, mostly clad in coarse "domestic," swore tremendous oaths and talked of mules and Yanks and niggers and the Freedmen's Bureau and cotton. Federal officers, in uniform and gold lace, drank as hard as any and sought to enter the conversations. But the planters froze up immediately, and drifted away to form new knots. The soldiers looked black and sought the society of the ladies at the other end. But the women gathered up their skirts and sailed haughtily into their staterooms, leaving the officers to curse all Southerners and to salvage their pride with another round of drinks.
It was late evening when the Natchez landed at the Canal Street levee. The stage was barely thrust ashore before Hugh was off. He had been filled with a consuming dread all the way down. He had to see his father before he died. There was so much to say; so much to explain. He hailed a cab and exhorted the driver to lash his horse to breakneck speed. He flung out at the familiar home on Prytania Street, rushed up the low stairs to the verandah. A light was burning in the parlor, filtered by heavy drapes.
The door opened to his violent pull and an elderly Irish woman servant confronted him inquiringly.
"I'm Hugh Flint," he said harshly. "Is—is my father—?"
Then Simon Hardy was peering at him in the glow of the hall light, his frail body ageless and his near-sighted eyes filled with respectful pity.
"Mister Hugh!" he quavered. "I knew you would come. If you will please—"
Something turned sickeningly over in Hugh. He took off his hat, held it in hard, tight hands. There was no longer any need for hurry.
"Father's dead, isn't he?"
The old bookkeeper inclined his head. "He died at 1:45 this afternoon. It came very peaceful and quiet, I must say. He went just like a Christian gentleman should, without pain and with his senses clear until the very end." He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. "It's hard on me, Mr. Hugh. Man and boy I've been with Mr. Stephen for nigh on forty years. I—I don't know what I'll do now."
"Let me see him, Simon," said Hugh; and went into the parlor.
Old Stephen Flint was laid out in decent black, his face gaunt and strong even in death. Nothing had changed from the time Hugh had seen him last. His shaggy brows were drawn slightly together, just as they always had done in life. No, nothing had changed; except that he was dead.
Hugh stood there in the light of the candles and wondered. Wondered at the meaning of life and death, and thinking deliberately vague thoughts to soften the hard ache of the thing. Hardy's words rose about him like a cloud; meaningless, gabbing. He wished the old bookkeeper would go away and leave him there, alone, with his father. Then the words took on form and meaning.
"He asked for you, Mr. Hugh, at the end. He knew you would come. He said he was sorry for what had happened; he understood you now. He wanted to tell it to you himself."
The hard ache melted and for the first time tears came to his eyes. So old Stephen had finally understood!
It took several months for Hugh to get his affairs properly settled. His father's funeral had been well-attended; Stephen Flint had been a prominent citizen and the substantial men of business turned out for the occasion. Under stress of circumstances Hugh was favored with certain brief nods and brief, carefully worded condolences. But he knew, and they knew, that there was nothing more in common between them. In their eyes he was a scalawag and a renegade; and the lines of demarcation were clearer now than even during the war. The sheep stood apart from the goats, and all were counted and labeled.
Once more he entered the old warehouse on Poydras Street and sniffed the familiar smells. Nothing had changed; except that the battered desk in the rear office looked curiously lifeless. Once it had seemed to possess a life of its own—but now he knew that the life had been infused into it by old Stephen. It was just a thing of wood and decrepit stillness.
The business, he found, just about hobbled along. The South had no crops to offer; and what little cotton there was the Yankees managed to lay hands on and route through their own kind. It was chiefly sugar that the re-installed firm of Flint & Son would handle; and not too much of that. The crop had been bad, as Hugh knew only too well.
But Hugh figured there were compensations. He had another job on hand, a bigger and more important one. A fight to rehabilitate the State, to save it from the inevitable ruin that must follow if events kept on their present course. Just how he would go about it, he didn't know yet. He was anathema to the embittered Confederates, and he had no intention of joining forces with the Radicals and the carpetbaggers. There must be a middle party—sensible, understanding men of both the North and the South. He must find them out.
But the finding was not easy. New Orleans hummed with hate and politics and mutual recriminations. The Mardi Gras was celebrated for the first time since the beginning of the war. The Mystic Crewe of Comus walked the streets of New Orleans again and swung with sputtering torches and garish floats to represent the Past, the Present, the Future and the Court of Comus along Royal Street and into Canal. A bedlam of noise beat about the prancing masquers in their march. All bars were down. Men and women danced wildly in the streets and blew on horns and shrieked away the last vestiges of restraint. But underneath the abandon and the desperate gaiety there was emptiness. Underneath the wild laughter there was fear. New Orleans was a stricken city.
The Radicals were determined to frame a new government for the "territory" of Louisiana and to oust the returned Confederates from the Legislature. To accomplish their aim they reconvoked the old Convention of 1864, in which they were supreme, and set the meeting day for the thirtieth of July.
"Mark my words, Hardy," said Hugh, spreading the Picayune open on his desk. "There's going to be trouble over that—lots of it."
"Yes, sir," agreed the old bookkeeper. "Now if you'll look at these statements of account—"
"The Radicals are smart; maybe too smart for their own good. Those Vagrancy laws gave them the chance. Now they can tell the negroes that the South wants to put them back into slavery, and that they've got to stick by their Northern friends. They'll push through a new constitution giving the negroes the vote, and then there'll be bloodshed."
"Yes, sir," said Hardy. "Now about Mr. Erwin. He's a bit overdrawn and—"
Hugh looked up. "Damn it, Hardy, can't you ever get your mind off business? Don't you realize that we're going through a terrible time? The whole future of our land, North and South, may depend on what is taking place right here in New Orleans."
"Yes, sir. No, sir," the little man stammered in some bewilderment. "But Mr. Erwin is overdrawn, and I've got to know what you wish done about him."
Hugh laughed. "All right, Hardy. Business is business, I suppose. Write and tell him we're willing to keep the account open until next harvest, but we regret we can't make any further advances."
But the matter preyed on Hugh's mind. New Orleans was perched precariously on a powder keg, and the match might any moment be applied. The aims of the proponents of the new convention were not concealed. They were simple and to the point: To enfranchise the negroes and disfranchise every white man who had fought for or sympathized with the Confederacy.
Over in the negro districts the, name of Quash was spreading fast. The gigantic ex-slave held a profound influence over his fellows. They swayed to his oratory and they feared his immense strength and supposed familiarity with the dreaded ju-ju. He worked together with inflammatory white agitators of the stripe of Dr. Dostie, a dentist who had come to New Orleans from the North some twenty-five years before to practice his profession. During the war his openly avowed Unionist sympathies had forced him to flee to the Federal lines, but now he was back, embittered against those who had driven him out.
Time was getting short. If any middle-of-the-road party was to be organized, it would have to be done soon. Hugh sought out his old acquaintances. But everywhere he met rebuffs. The events of the past few months had driven the ex-Confederates of New Orleans into a frenzy. They suffocated with the sense of oppression, and writhed under the growing power of the Radicals and the aggressiveness of the negroes. They spoke darkly of a determination to wipe out all damned nigger-lovers and Northern sympathizers and stared angrily at Hugh when they said it. One man, a cotton broker down on Baronne Street, said bluntly: "If it weren't for General Baird and his bayonets, we'd clean all you scum out of New Orleans tomorrow and make this place once more fit for a white man to live in."
It was discouraging. Hugh managed to keep his temper, though the provocations were many. These men were beyond reasoning. They had brooded on their wrongs and squirmed under the sneering triumph of their opponents until they no longer were able to think straight.
A defiant attitude, an unreconstructed opposition, Hugh argued, played into the hands of the Radicals. They had fought a war and lost. They couldn't go on fighting that war forever. Whether they liked it or not, the Union had been reestablished, and the North and the South had to learn to live together on terms of amity and decency. There was no sense in keeping all the old wounds open and pustulant. Of course it was hard to be conciliatory. But they must realize that it was the only way to bring an intolerable situation to an end. The Radicals, in Congress and in New Orleans, fed on every sullenness, on every act of defiance on the part of the South. They flaunted them before the North and kept public opinion inflamed. There were decent people in the North, strange as it might seem. The South had to give them a chance to come to the fore. Why, President Johnson himself was on their side. Yet every time he tried to help, the South managed to give his opponents in Congress just the right pretexts to circumvent him. Take those Vagrancy laws, for instance. Didn't they realize they had practically forced the negroes into the arms of the Republican politicians and fellows like Quash? With a little sympathy and a little understanding they might have brought the negroes to their own side. Sure it was hard, to meet your former slaves on a sudden plane of social equality; certainly many of the negroes abused their change of status; but most of them would have preferred following their old masters to strangers if they had been given half a chance.
But always Hugh met a steel wall of refusal and a thinly concealed suspicion of himself as a scalawag who wished to toady to the victors.
One warm, dampish day in May he walked into the St. Charles Hotel, discouraged yet not defeated. They'd have to come around to his way of thinking if they were not to perish forever. It had been a long time since he had come for lunch to this haunt of the invaders. The North had taken it over, bag and baggage. No self-respecting Southerner ever ventured within its unhallowed precincts. But then, Hugh thought, he was of the damned too.
The spacious rotunda, with its marble pillars and wide staircase, was thronged. Idlers and sharpers leaned against the pillars and surveyed the crush with a similar meditative gaze. Yanks in uniform jostled hard-faced men who seemed unused to the expensive clothes they wore. Though the day was warm, silk hats were ostentatiously in evidence.
River men in jackets, travelers come to the conquered South, drummers loud in plaid waistcoats and checkered trousers, planters down for a hasty carouse before returning to the hard monotony of unproductive fields, merchants seeking profitable trades, gamblers, and overseers without jobs, sat around the unlit stoves, moved in endless circles, leaned against walls and pillars and talked and spat and talked again.
Hugh viewed them with distaste and started toward the dining-room. He was a trifle sorry that he had come. But a raucous hail compelled him to halt.
"By God, if it ain't Flint!" Captain Willis, his leathery face beaming, quit the bar and was shaking his hand as though it were a pump-handle.
Hugh was glad to see the round-bearded mariner. "Well, Captain," he greeted, "I was wondering what happened to you. Haven't seen you since—"
Willis winked. "Yep; since the Butlers quit town in a hurry, and you decided tuh become a planter. The Lord knows why."
"It wasn't so bad. But you haven't been in New Orleans yourself."
"This calls fer a drink, Flint." After they downed a couple, Willis wiped his beard. "The Eleanor's been making money."
"How?"
"Me an' the owner, we decided there wasn't no more pickin's here when Banks tightened things up, so we tuk tuh haulin' cott'n from Natchez way up the Ohio tuh Cincinnati; an' bringin' back machinery an' tools an' a sight of wheat."
"But that was trading with the enemy!" Hugh protested.
"Mebbe. But both sides needed the stuff, didn't they? An' ain't that what ships is for?"
"As you say, maybe. Been back long?"
"'Bout a week. Expect tuh stay now. The Eleanor needs repairs bad, an' I got some money in the bank, so—How's your pa?"
"Dead. Died back in February."
The Captain's face screwed up. "Say, I'm real sorry tuh hear that. He was a fine man, Mr. Flint was. There ain't many left like him."
"No, there aren't," Hugh said hastily and changed the subject. He hated to talk about his father; it brought up too many overwhelming memories. "What do you intend doing?"
"Dunno." Willis sucked noisily on his gums. "Spend some of my money, I guess. A man's got a right tuh take it easy onct in a while."
"Sure."
Willis chuckled. "Been dropping a few greenbacks at Devoe's. Not much; jest enough to keep my hand in. We sorta figger I owe 'im a chanct ta get back at me fer that time I plucked 'im up Red River way. He ain't never fergotten it, neither. Tells me it was the only time anybody, amatoor or professional, ever got the best o' him. He ain't a bad feller, Devoe ain't. But what you doing, Flint?"
Hugh told him. Told him of his determination to stem the strong tide that was running in Louisiana and that must lead to its utter ruin. "But I haven't been able to find a single Southerner to agree with me, Willis," he ended wearily.
The Captain finished his third long drink. His seamed and jovial face screwed itself up with unaccustomed thought. "Y'know, Flint, darned if'n I don't believe you're right. I ain't been thinkin' much 'bout what's goin' ta happen, but the way you put it—"
"You're the first man that's agreed with me," Hugh said with a wry grin. "And the last, no doubt."
"Dunno about that." Willis shook his head. "There oughta be a lot of other fellers like us." He slapped his thigh suddenly. "By God, Flint, I'm your man. I'll wuk with ye."
"Will you?" Hugh felt a sudden elation. Willis was a good man; steady, resourceful and with a wide acquaintance among the river men.
"Yep." The Captain grinned. "We didn' do so bad together running that stuff through tuh Gov'nor Moore, did we?"
"Not so loud. No, we did pretty well."
"An' I think I got another good feller for ye."
"Who?"
"Devoe."
"That gambler?"
"You ain't goin' virtuous sudden-like, Flint?"
"No, but—"
"I tell you he's all right. I been talkin' tuh him a lot since I got back. He thinks a lot o' you, too, Flint. An' don' ferget, he's got a power o' influence. 'Mong the army men an' the carpetbaggers, too." Willis chuckled in his beard. "He oughta, seein' as how he's got their notes fer quite a bit."
Hugh was no strait-laced reformer. A man's business was his own, as long as it did not interfere too much with other people. And he remembered Devoe's offer to help that time when he first met Colonel Butler.
"All right," he said, "bring him around."
"Good! How about another drink?"
"Not now, thanks. I've got to eat first; then get back to the warehouse."
He made an appointment for Willis and Devoe, if he agreed, to meet him at his house; and went into the dining-room. He felt better now. He had made a beginning; broken through the wall of resistance that had surrounded him for weeks.
The dining-room was crowded, but a waiter threaded Hugh Flint through a maze of tables to a small one at the farther end. It was set for four, with only two people seated at it—a man and a woman. Hugh sank into a chair without looking at them. His thoughts were preoccupied and he wanted to get back to Poydras Street in a hurry. The waiter hovered solicitously, waiting for his order.
"Hugh! Hugh Flint!" It was almost a squeal of joy.
He looked up quickly.
"Nancibelle!" He was on his feet, bowing over her hand. "Why, you're prettier than ever."
She was dressed in the height of fashion, with her blonde hair in a netted club and her stays tight-laced under her smart, low-cut gown. But she had matured. Her eyes, sparkling though they were, held a little of defiance and a trace of remembered wrongs. And her mouth was firmer and tighter than it had ever been. The child was gone.
"Thank you, Hugh," she said gratefully. "And you haven't changed a bit." Then, for the first time, he noticed her companion. The man had risen to his feet at the girl's exclamation; he stood there, waiting.
Nancibelle's expression shifted suddenly. "Oh!" she exclaimed with a little breathless laugh. "I want you to meet Frazer—Frazer Scott, my husband. Frazer, honey, this is Hugh Flint. I've spoken to you about him."
The young man extended his hand frankly. "And everything of the best," he declared, smiling. "I'm glad to meet you, sir."
Hugh took a deep breath. "Why, Nancibelle, you're married? Why, of course, I'm—"
"Wait a moment." The girl's voice was abrupt, strained. "Frazer is a Northerner. He was a Captain in the Federal army." She looked at him with half-defiant, half-appealing eyes, while Scott stood rigid, hand still extended, ready to withdraw it.
Hugh smiled. "Glad to know you, Captain Scott. I'm awfully happy for both your sakes."
They shook hands and sat down. The girl's eyes were suspiciously bright. "You know, Hugh," she said tremulously, "you're the first one of my old friends to—to—"
"To what?"
"She means, Mr. Flint," Scott explained, "that she did the unforgivable thing—marrying me. Everyone cuts us dead—Southerners, that is. And she was afraid—"
"That I might do the same?" Hugh laughed. "You forget, Nancibelle, that I'm a bit of a pariah myself. So we pariahs have got to stick together."
To the waiter, still hovering: "Shrimp remoulade, please, trout Marguery, coffee and a bottle of Chablis." The waiter bowed and hurried away.
"Now tell me, Nancibelle, about it."
He listened quietly, saying nothing, studying her and young Scott. He liked the Northerner at once—he was young, not much older than Nancibelle, he judged; but he looked as though he knew how to handle himself and there was no question that he adored his wife.
And all the while Hugh was thinking of Sally. What was she doing? How was she getting along? New Orleans had swallowed her up as far as he was concerned. Even Sam, her father, had received only a brief, occasional note.
"Frazer and I had to meet in out-of-the-way places," she concluded. "You know what the attitude is."
Hugh nodded. "I know."
"Well, we finally decided to get married." Her face took on a resentful expression. "I never expected Andy to take it the way he did. I used to think a lot of him. But he just went into a rage. He called me names—terrible names—said he never wanted to see me again."
Scott's good-natured face tightened. "He'll never call you anything while I'm around, darling."
"I don't know what's come over him," Nancibelle declared. "He got to staying out all night and coming home drunk. He's mixed up in some sort of organization, too. He used to bring people home and they'd rant about the niggers and the Yanks and what they were going to do to both of them some day." She shuddered. "It became pretty terrible. Then he lost what he had left of his money, gambling, and they had to quit the St. Louis Hotel and move into our town house—you know where it is, don't you, Hugh?"
"Yes, of course; on Fourth Street."
"But they have no money for servants; and Sally's too proud to ask anyone for help; and only Patsey's with her. The place is falling to pieces, and the two of them have to do all the housework and the marketing and the cleaning." Her eyes filled. "Poor Sally!"
There was an ache inside of Hugh. Sally, who had always had a dozen slaves for her slightest whim, living in poverty with a man like Andy!
His voice was a little unsteady. "Did she cast you off, too?"
Nancibelle looked surprised. "Who, Sally? Why, the idea! I don't go to their house, of course; but she comes to see us. Sally's wonderful."
"She really is," Frazer agreed. Then he smiled. "I even believe she's getting to like me a bit; that is, as much as a Southern lady could ever let herself like a damyank."
Nancibelle stopped his mouth with her hand. "You mustn't talk that way, Frazer, even in fun." She glanced swiftly at Hugh. "She'd have done much better marrying you, Hugh."
"What?" He was startled, jolted out of himself.
"Oh, don't pretend! You know you were a bit sweet on Sally; and I don't mind telling you now she thought of you more than was necessary. I declare, all men are stupid." She beamed on her husband. "Even you, honey. I think the only reason she married Andy like that was because you acted so rough to her when you got us aboard the Eleanor that time. Remember?"
Frazer looked at Hugh's stricken face and got up. He placed his hand firmly under his wife's elbow. "I've got to get back to the office, dear. I have an appointment with Warmoth. He wants me to act as counsel for him on a case. He's too busy with politics. Come along, darling."
He did not appear to notice that Hugh remained numbly in his chair. "I would be honored if you would come to visit us, Mr. Flint. We live in the Pontalba Apartments. We haven't had a chance to get ourselves a house yet; and the view over Jackson Square is rather nice. And please drop in at my office. I'm at 124 Canal. You know the building. Regular warren of legal lights."
Hugh barely knew that they were gone. He stared down at the crisp trout in its bed of sauce as though it were something loathsome. He wanted no food. He wanted to think. Nancibelle was a fool! There was nothing to it; Sally had never thought of him except as someone to scorn. And anyway, it didn't matter now. It was too late!
HUGH FLINT dropped in on young Scott within the week. He met him in his office; and then both of them at their little suite of rooms. Nancibelle had managed to pretty the conventional Creole furniture into a tasteful setting. Hugh liked her; and he liked Frazer Scott. He met others at their home. Northerners, chiefly; or New Orleans men who had been openly or privately Unionist during the war. The lines were sharply drawn these days.
He met Henry Clay Warmoth. A dangerous carpetbagger, everyone said. But Hugh found him a handsome young man of assured presence, decidedly affable and winning in manner. The tales about him conflicted sharply. A native of Illinois, some said he had been dishonorably dismissed from the Union army for conduct unbecoming to an officer; others maintained that he had been reinstated and the charges declared unjust.
However that may have been, the end of the war found him in New Orleans, the same as Frazer Scott and hundreds of other Northerners. He, too, decided to stay on and practice law. But, unlike Scott, he threw himself at once into the sea of politics. He addressed meetings—Republican, of course—and was one of the organizers of the Union Republican party in the State.
Hugh adopted from the first a wary attitude toward the young politician. There was no denying his personal charm, and his understanding of the very tangled skein of politics in Louisiana was considerable. Also, he set himself out to captivate Hugh as a man who might be of great help to him in his career. No small part of his attractiveness was in the candor with which he confessed to it.
"Of course I'm after your support, Mr. Flint," he avowed with a smile. "That's part of every politician's job, isn't it? But I think we have much to offer each other. You, as a born Southerner and with your knowledge of conditions and prestige—"
"Prestige?" Hugh laughed. "I'm practically alone in New Orleans. I'm considered a scalawag."
Warmoth's smile grew shrewd. "I'm not so sure of that. How about your friends, Cap Willis and Devoe? I hear they're pretty active circulating among folk."
Hugh stared. "What do you know about them?"
"Oh, I pick up information here and there."
"Warmoth's got a regular intelligence service," Frazer interjected. "It's lucky I pay no attention to politics. Otherwise, I'd be scared he'd set his spies on me, and the Lord knows what he might find out."
"Only that you have a very lovely and charming wife, Scott." Warmoth glanced admiringly at Nancibelle.
"I declare." She handed him a drink with a mock-warning gesture. "If you're not careful, Mr. Warmoth, you'll be taken for a Southerner."
"You forget I lived quite a time in Missouri."
But the matter troubled Hugh as he went thoughtfully home. There had been several sessions with Willis and Devoe. The gambler had come into the scheme quite readily. And these sessions had broadened as they brought others along—hardbitten river men, chiefly, and certain level-headed bankers who, surprisingly to Hugh, had financial interests in Devoe's race track and gambling establishment.
The bankers wanted conciliation, an end to recriminations and mutual revenge. Trade suffered, and money was not safe in unsettled times. The rivermen wanted cargoes. The levee was deserted, and their boats rotted at the wharves.
The meetings had been secret, almost oathbound, in fact. Yet Warmoth had already discovered what was up and, with the quick readiness of the politician, was scheming how he might turn this new development to his own account.
Hugh's face tightened. He wasn't throwing in with Warmoth or anyone else except on his own terms. This wasn't a matter of politics or self-advancement to him; this was life or death to the South, to the whole nation. He'd better watch Warmoth closely; and watch his own lines as well.
As the day of the convention neared, New Orleans grew more and more tense. The two factions girded their loins. Mayor Monroe declared he would order the sheriff to arrest every member of the forthcoming convention. General Baird, in command of the Federal troops, retorted that he would release the arrested men and seize the arresting officials in turn. Judge Abell charged the grand jury that the Radical assembly was illegal and revolutionary and called for indictments. Governor Wells, suddenly become prudent at the storm that was rousing, absented himself from the city. Lieutenant-Governor Voorhies backed Mayor Monroe in his determination not to permit the convention to assemble. A thousand special policemen were sworn in and armed—to keep the peace, they said.
The Radicals were equally active. Against the threats of the embattled whites they interposed Federal bayonets and the aroused passion of the negroes. From every camp, from every village and plantation within fifty miles of New Orleans, the negroes came pouring in. A black tide moving, threatening to overwhelm all whites in a surging sea of color.
Herded into huge mass meetings, their tempers were whipped up to fever pitch. Dr. Dostie shouted to them: "I want the negroes to have the right of suffrage and we will give them this right to vote. On Monday I want you to come in your power. I want no cowards to come. I want only brave men to come, who will stand by us and we will stand by them. Come, then, in your power to that meeting, or never go to another political meeting in this State. We have three hundred thousand black men with white hearts. Also one hundred thousand good and true Union white men, who will fight for and beside the black race against the hell-bound rebels. We are four hundred thousand to three hundred thousand, and we can not only whip but exterminate the other party. If we are interfered with, the streets of New Orleans will run with blood."
To which the benches swayed and shouted back in acclamation. But if they shouted to Dostie's call to arms, they screamed and contorted and foamed when Quash arose. Hugh got the report from the sad-faced, redneck mate, McVey, whom Willis had sent as an ostensible Union man to spy on the meeting.
McVey's lantern jaws worked steadily with the chaw of 'baccy in his cheek and the slow trickle of words. "That feller Quash is a caution, Mr. Flint. Why, he act'ally scared me the way he stood up thar on th' platform; an' you know thar ain't never was a nigger I couldn' take a club to."
Hugh remembered that terrible night in the swamp when Quash proposed the murder of all whites. He said grimly, "I can understand, McVey. He's a dangerous man."
"Course, I kain't give you 'xactly what he said. But it went somethin' Like this: 'You cullud men ain't no cowards. That am slave talk. You're all brave; 's brave 's white folk. Braver than any secesh trash. They was brave only 'cause they had whips an' dawgs an' guns, an' you had nawthin'. They's more o' you, too, like Dostie here said, an' you kin git guns now.
"'This yere convention comin' Monday is all right. Some white folk say they is your friends, an' they gonna give you the vote. That's good. But remember, you gotta rely 'pon yourselves. Them as goes arter whut they wants, gits. An' you wants plenty. You wants land, an' mules and horses an' fine clo'se an' all de good things whut the white folk useta have. An' you wants power. That's the word—power!'"
"Mr. Flint," McVey almost gulped down his chaw in his earnestness, "the way those niggers jumped and worked themselves up into a lather got me mighty oneasy. That feller Dostie 'peared mighty sick too, even though he thanked 'im fer his fine speech. He must of felt like I did, that Quash was a-sneerin' an' making game o' him. Them niggers shore is riled up."
Devoe took out his pocket derringer, examined it carefully. "I think it's time to put an end to Quash," he said.
"That would be the worst possible thing to do," Hugh said sharply. "We can't afford to start any killings. Up in Washington Congress is only hoping that we lose our heads. That would give them the justification they needed for any repressive measures they saw fit to inflict."
"But this feller's wuss than Dostie an' his gang," protested Willis.
"I wonder. The more Quash talks like that, the more he'll scare the whites. Even the Radicals will begin to scare and feel maybe they're playing into his hands. They don't really want negro domination; all they want is to use them as tools for their own political purposes. And Quash is worth a thousand of our arguments to show them that the game isn't worth the candle."
But Hugh privately wasn't so sure of his own reasoning. It was Sunday night—the night before the convention. The others had dispersed, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his forebodings. It was a hot, sweltering night, not conducive to calm or steady nerves. The coming and going of his friends had brought a buzz of flies and muskitoes into the house, and their steady whir and intermittent landings exasperated him to the breaking-point.
New Orleans was a vast powder barrel. He could feel it in the breathless air, in the silence that lay moveless over the usually turbulent city. Forces were gathering tonight, laying the trains, lighting the lucifers to set to the fuses. Mayor Monroe was determined. Dostie was determined. Quash was determined. General Baird was determined. Everyone was determined and knew just what he was going to do; except himself.
It was with difficulty that he had persuaded his own men to a policy of watchful inaction. Devoe had advocated direct methods, and Willis had been inclined to agree. "Let them fellers git started in convention, an' there ain't no tellin' where they's goin' tuh finish," he had declared.
Hugh wished he were sure of his course. Rioting was not the answer. That way lay troop action and political reprisal. Reprisal that would grind Louisiana into the dust. And yet—inaction?
He poured himself a final nightcap. Perhaps it might help get him to sleep. He had lifted it to his lips when a clamor resounded through the still house. He set the glass down again. That was the bell-pull. Who could be wanting to see him at this hour of the night? It was after eleven. Oh, yes, it was very likely one of the men returned for something he had forgotten. He looked around the room in the light of the flickering gas. There was nothing. His irritation mounted. He wasn't in the mood for more talk—interminable talk. He wanted to get to sleep. He grumbled as he went to the door. Mary was in bed. He flung it open, said impatiently, "Now what the devil do you want?" and stopped.
Sally stood framed in the doorway. Her slender form was muffled in a cloak, though the night was sticky hot, and a bonnet shadowed her face. In the reflected hiss of the hall chandelier her face was a strange blur.
"Hugh! Hugh Flint!" she said in a half whisper. "Aren't you going to let me in?"
Stunned, thinking it was all a dream, Hugh said huskily: "Sally! You can't—not at this hour!"
"Don't be a fool, Hugh." Her voice was clear, vibrant now. "I've got to speak to you."
Queer thoughts stirred in him at the sight of her. He had not seen her in a year. Their paths had been separate, distinct. The times he dropped in at the Pontalba to visit the Scotts, he never admitted to himself that there was a chance of meeting Sally there. Yet always he left with a vague sense of disappointment.
That prattling speech of Nancibelle's still burned in his thoughts, though he had tried vainly to rid it from his memory. Nancibelle had never enlarged on it—her husband must have given her a talking to—and Hugh dared not bring it up. And now Sally was here, at night, alone, begging admittance to his bachelor home.
His pulses pounded. Had she come to him then—? By God, he was being an utter ass! He had no right to think—
He was surprised at the cool, even quality of his voice. "Come in, Sally."
She slipped past him like a ghost. He closed the door, followed her into the parlor. Her quick glance was roving over the massive, old-fashioned furniture. No change had been made in the room since his mother had died. That was twenty-six years ago.
Her face, under the full light of the gas, was pale and her breath came and went in little spasms, as though she had been running.
"Are we alone, Hugh?"
"Only my housekeeper, and she's fast asleep."
"Good!" She slipped off her bonnet, flung her cloak over a chair and sat down.
Again Hugh's senses stirred. She was beautiful. Hardship and poverty had not roughened her, nor left their marks. "Nothing can ever beat her down," he thought.
"Shall I get you some orange water?" he asked.
"Nothing at all, thanks. Hugh, I need your help."
He sat down on the sofa facing her. "If it's money—"
"Money? How could you think—you know I'd never come to you for that. It's about—Andy."
"Ah!"
"Don't misunderstand. It's nothing personal. It's about tomorrow."
Hugh got up quickly. "What do you mean?"
The words came pouring from her now, as if she were afraid to stop. "There'll be trouble, Hugh; more trouble than anyone dreams of. You wouldn't know Andy any more. He used to be careless, easy-going, full of laughter and a zest for living. That's all gone, now. All that's left is his old recklessness. He's involved with a group of fireeaters. They're determined to keep the whites—our kind of whites—supreme in the State. They've been talking and holding meetings for some time now, but I never worried about it. In fact, I sympathized."
Her head went up proudly. "Perhaps you don't feel it as much as we do, Hugh. We're being submerged; deliberately held under until we drown."
"I suppose I have given you the right to say that."
She was instantly remorseful. "I'm sorry. I'm just mixed up; confused."
"Never mind. What happened tonight?"
"There was a meeting at our house. All the hotheads. Andy is the leader. This time it wasn't just talk. They brought their Colts—the big pistols from their army days. They were deadly serious. There wasn't going to be any nigger convention tomorrow, they declared. There wasn't going to be a carpetbagger alive by tomorrow night. The time had come to fight. They shunted me out of the room when they started their talk, but I listened from the back bedroom. Andy was organizing them as though they were a regiment, giving each man an assigned position."
Hugh felt a hot surge of anger. The fools! The hotheaded, romantic fools! They were going to start a revolution with a few Colt pistols. Wouldn't these people ever grow up? One might have thought that the four terrible years of war would have brought them to their senses; but no, they still lived in a dream world of the past where a Southern gentleman was worth an army. An overwhelming sympathy for Sally swept him. He tried to keep it out of his voice.
"You're afraid of what might happen to Andy?"
She rose from her seat, stood very straight and erect. "Of course I am! Did you think I wouldn't be?" It was an accusation flung at him like a challenge.
Hugh was bewildered; stumbled. "I didn't mean that. I—"
"I'm his wife," she went furiously on. "How dare you stand there and intimate that I do not love my husband!"
The ways of women are beyond comprehension, he thought in desperation. "I didn't intimate anything of the sort; and you know it!" he flung back in anger. "I merely asked a civil question; and if—"
She collapsed into the chair, all the passion ebbing from her. Her face was pale and miserable. She seemed frightened, as if she had just disclosed some unexpected, hitherto safely hidden aspect of herself.
"I'm sorry again," she whispered. "Of course you didn't. I just flare up; it must be my nerves are jumpy."
Pity came to Hugh once more. He said gently: "Why do you come to me, Sally?"
"Because you're the only one I know that has some sense left."
"Thank you."
Her spirit flared again. "It isn't that I don't approve of their ultimate aims; or that I approve of yours. It's just that what they want to start tomorrow can end only one way. They're only a handful, with pistols; and the Yankees have a regiment of soldiers and bayonets."
"And the whole weight of a victorious nation behind them; and half a million men still under arms, and big guns. But you don't think I could persuade Andy not to try it. My advice would have little weight with him."
She crushed her handkerchief in her hand. "I know that, Hugh. I tried it myself, before—before he went out with the others. He just laughed at me and said it was man's business, not a woman's; and not to bother my head about it."
"I see. The war just ended wasn't woman's business either; except that they starved and died and saw their menfolk killed, and their houses burned down and their babies crying for food that wasn't to be had."
Sally was wide-eyed. "Why, that's true, Hugh! Women did suffer as much as the men."
"If not more." He began to pace up and down. "Don't think that I haven't worried over tomorrow. But there's nothing we can do, now. We've got to wait and bide our time. We've got to try and act together with the moderate Republicans, to work toward some semblance of unity. I believe that an overwhelming number of people, North and South, are anxious to forget the past and build up the nation again. It's only a few extremists on either side that are making all the trouble. Each strikes sparks from the other. If the Andys of the South would stop yelling 'niggers and carpetbaggers' all the time, the Radicals would have no sparks to ignite their own powder and they'd fizzle out."
Sally put on her cloak, tied her bonnet strings. "Is that all you can do now—talk words?"
"What else is there to do? Stop Andy by force? That would be hard. Denounce him and his crowd to the Federals?"
"You wouldn't; you daren't—"
"Of course I wouldn't, Sally. I'm just putting the alternatives to you."
She bowed her head. "I—I thought you might be able to think of something. But I see I was mistaken. Goodnight."
He took her to the door. "Did you come in a carriage?"
"No; I walked."
"But it's so late now. You mustn't go home alone. Let me take you—"
"I wouldn't think of it. It's not far; only a few squares; and I'm not afraid—of that."
Before he could stop her she was hurrying down the moonlit street, erect, vibrant, her bonnet defiant against a world of fears.
With a queer sense of emptiness Hugh saw her turn the corner; then he closed the door. She had come to him in her hour of need, and he had failed her. He always failed her. That seemed to have marked their relationship right from the very beginning.
With something of a sigh he lit a candle in the flame jutting from the chandelier; then he turned off the gas, and, with the candle throwing fantastic shadows of himself upon the wall, went upstairs to his room.
THE Mechanics' Institute reared solitary and granitic on Dryades Street, less than a square away from Canal. Here the artisans of New Orleans had made a meeting-place for themselves to while away a social evening, to play a game or two, to listen on occasion to the cultured discourse of some itinerant lecturer.
But on July 30, 1866, no mechanics lounged in the great lobby or drowsed in the assembly rooms through a droning description of the Holy Land—with pictures. Instead, important-looking men with important-looking portfolios paced up and down the granite corridors of the newly christened State House in restless waiting for the hour of noon, wondering secretly why their numbers were so few and encouraging each other with loud talk of late arrivals.
There were negroes aplenty. Negroes gaping at the massive inner halls, unused to anything but low plantation houses and the simple brick of sugar mills; negroes of more sophisticated eye, speaking French with a Parisian accent and ranging in hue from deepest black to faintly yellowed ivory. But there were only a handful of whites; and whites there must be in greater numbers to give the Convention the aroma of legality it so desperately required.
Walking down Canal Street, Captain Willis mopped his streaming forehead with a huge red handkerchief. "It don't appear to me like there's goin' ta be any trouble," he grumbled. "Didn't you read Mayor Monroe's proclamation this mornin' callin' on all good citizens ta unite an' preserve order?"
"I wouldn't put too much faith in that, Willis," observed Devoe with a faint smile. "Notice anything about those special police you see all over Canal Street?"
"Nawthin', except that their uniforms ain't much of a fit."
"That's all?"
"Whut else might there be?"
"Devoe's right," Hugh Flint said grimly. "There's a lot of toughs from the waterfront among them. Don't you recognize them?"
A policeman in a uniform sizes too small for him lifted his club in a gesture. "Hi, thar, Cap'n!"
Willis stopped with a grunt, squinted at the man. "Well, I'll be damned! Whut in blazes is a thievin' dockloafer like you doin' in uniform, Shoner?"
The policeman whirled his stick, grinning. He didn't seem at all resentful of the captain's pungent description. "Ain't you read th' papers, Cap'n? Law 'n order, that's me."
"Didn't know ye could read in the fust place," snorted Willis. "An' never mind th' second place."
"Looks to me as though Monroe's hunting for trouble," remarked Devoe as they moved on.
Hugh shook his head. "I don't think so. Naturally, when you swear in almost a thousand men in a hurry, you're going to get a lot of rough ones in the lot. It was a bad move, though."
"Sure was," agreed Willis, coloring the curb dark-brown with tobacco expectoration. "That feller Shoner's a bad 'un. But I hearn Voorhies has asked Gen'ral Baird ta send troops inta the city ta keep things in hand."
"They'd better hurry then." Devoe surveyed Canal Street with placid interest. "There's a lot of people beginning to show up." He took his heavy gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. "It's five to twelve right now. That Convention's supposed to meet at noon sharp."
The three men paused at the corner of Baronne. A minute before, Canal Street had been curiously empty, except for knots of police idly swinging their clubs and displaying revolvers as their coats flapped open. The stores that lined the great thoroughfare were shuttered and the doors locked as though it were Sunday instead of Monday. No cars moved along the central elevation, and the usual shoppers and pedestrians were not in evidence.
But now, at five to twelve, from every side street men poured into Canal like cloudbursting freshets into the Mississippi. They came suddenly, as if on signal—shirtsleeved in the broil of sun, each with a white handkerchief knotted around his throat. Hundreds of men, similarly attired, with curious bulges in their pantaloon pockets, sullen of face and buzzing like a swarm of angry bees.
Mere boys of fourteen and fifteen were among them; older men who hiccupped as they swaggered along; longshoremen from the levee and diggers from the canals, out-of-work roustabouts and burly draymen. Swarming into Canal Street, shoving along the banquettes, spilling into the highway, pouring over the central rails of the horse-cars. Men in striped cottonade moved swiftly among them, whispering a word here and dropping a quiet comment there.
This was what Hugh had been afraid of. Mobs, rioting, a death or two—then Federal soldiers taking over, declaring martial law. Anger burned in him; anger at all hotheaded, unthinking men; anger especially at Andy Hilgard. If he were in back of this, as Sally had said, then his childish recklessness might prove fatal to the South he pretended to protect.
"Them police don't seem to be botherin' none," said Willis.
"In fact," observed Devoe, "they're fraternizing. Nice picture—police and mob passing each other the time of day. Wonder what they're waiting for?"
"Waitin' fer the soldiers, o' course. I'm ashamed o' ye, Devoe."
"General Baird's men will make mincemeat of this mob," the gambler said deliberately. "I think it would be wise for us to get out of here, Hugh."
"What?" yelled the captain. "When there's a fight comin'? Not me! I'm stayin'. Hey, Flint, where're ye goin'?"
"Wait here for me; I'll be back," Hugh shouted above the multitudinous growl of the crowd and plunged headlong into the street. A small knot of white-clad men was pushing swiftly through the shirtsleeved mob. Men moving purposefully, going up Canal Street toward Dryades, headed by a tall, soldierly-looking man who limped slightly as he walked.
The police ostentatiously looked the other way; the swarming men fell back to yield a path; then closed ranks behind and followed with a swelling roar.
"Hurray fer Hilgard!"
"He licked the Yanks ever' time; an' he'll do it again!"
"Down with the Convention!"
"Try ta take our votes away an' give 'em to the niggers, will they?"
Then all cries merged into a single screaming shout. The sound rolled up and down the street, swelled by a thousand yelling men. A sound to tighten the throat and lift the heart; wild, reckless, reminiscent of a hundred battlefields.
The Confederate yell!
Hugh felt the crash and thunder of it. For a moment he was one with the mob, stirred with a similar patriotic frenzy, animated with a like fury against the assembled traitors at the Institute who sought to crush their fellow whites beneath a black-supported tyranny.
Then his fury cooled and channeled into anger against Hilgard. At any moment Baird's regiment would swing down the street, coming from the barracks, rifles loaded and bayonets ready. Death faced Andy—and all his poor dupes; death by gunfire or death by hanging. He had to stop them; he had to beat some sense into that reckless head.
He battered his way through the storming crowd, caught up with the little group of men who headed it. He recognized most of them—gallant, hotheaded fellows incapable of seeing beyond their noses. But Andy was their leader—and Andy was the man to stop.
They turned slightly at his plunging onslaught, lifted eyebrows at the sight of him. They never had quite labeled Hugh; and being forthright, uncomplicated fellows, the matter angered them. Was he scalawag, renegade—or what?
Andy turned his head and grinned a half-sarcastic welcome. He did not slacken his pace. "Hello, Flint. This is a surprise. Finally decided to join the South, did you?"
Hugh planted himself directly in front of him, compelled him to a momentary halt. He held his voice low; yet it penetrated the clamor of sound.
"You've got to stop this mob," he said. "You've got to stop them fast."
Andy laughed. "Why should I? Over there in the Mechanics' Institute are the ones to stop. The traitors who are trying to steal our liberties away from us. Let me pass."
"You're a fool. Leave them alone, and the whole scheme will collapse. They can't even raise a quorum. But use violence and Washington will force through the very thing you're trying to avoid."
In back of them the mob was rolling up, pushing, yelling. "What's holding us up?" "Keep moving!" "It's noon; the bastards 're starting to meet!"
Hockett, the man from St. Bernard Parish, said in a rage: "Get out of the way, Flint! We know how you stand."
Hugh disregarded the planter. "If your own fate and the trouble you're bringing upon your State mean nothing to you, at least think of Sally. She knows what this will end in."
Andy's face grew dark and his mouth twisted. "So that's it?" he said. "She went to you, did she? Well, by God, neither you nor she nor anyone else can stop us now. We'll sweep that scum into the Mississippi once and for all; and be careful you don't go along with them." He raised his voice, shouting: "Come on, boys!"
Hugh found himself thrust aside by a cheering, yelling rush of men. He tried to follow Andy, but someone grabbed him from the banquette, pulled him up over the curb.
"Easy, Flint; there's no reason to break your neck now."
Hugh wrenched violently loose, whirled. Then, "Oh, it's you, Devoe. What do you mean—no reason now? In half a minute there'll be bloodshed."
Devoe was placid, unruffled. No one had ever seen him annoyed or excited, or his gambler's face shift its expression. "No, there won't," he said.
"Why not? Once that mob breaks into the State House—"
"There's no one inside. The Convention adjourned five minutes ago. They didn't have a quorum. McVey just brought me the news. He was hanging around, according to orders."
Hugh took a great breath. "Thank God! Then everything's saved." Already the surge of men had spent itself against the granite portals of the Institute. A figure had stepped out to meet them, was shouting something Hugh could not hear.
But Devoe shook his head. "Not saved," he disagreed. "Just put off. They adjourned—to one o'clock. They expect to round up more of the old members by then, and jam things through."
"They'll never get a quorum," Hugh said with conviction. "And anyway, by one o'clock Baird's troops will be here. Where's Willis?"
"Willis? He's in that mob somewhere, shouting his fool head off like the rest of them. The contagion got him."
"Find him, then. We mustn't let him get mixed up in this."
But they didn't find Willis, and General Baird didn't come. Only after it was all over did they discover that the gallant General had made a mistake. The Convention, he thought, was called for six in the evening. So he didn't march his men into town until two-thirty in the afternoon; and that was much too late!
The mob did not disperse. It shifted uneasily through the streets, a sea of muttering, sullen faces, waiting. The special police moved slowly up and down, opening paths for infrequent carriages and the horse-cars that crawled with clanging bell through the press. They grinned at the shirtsleeved men and bandied joshing words. Andy Hilgard and his fellows were not to be seen.
Hugh and Devoe stood silently on the corner of Canal and Dryades, surveying the mob. "You couldn't find Willis, could you?" Hugh observed.
"No; he just disappeared. Can't stay out of a fight, it seems."
"And I thought he was level-headed. Here comes McVey, though. He ought to have news."
The lanky mate had plenty of news. He came sidling through the crowd, his lank visage working with excitement. "I jes' came from th' Institute," he said. "Them Radical fellers 're driftin' in the back way. I spotted Dostie and Hahn, a feller named Fish an' the preacher, Dr. Horton, who oughta know better. They's about thirt'-forty of 'em."
"Nowhere near a quorum," said Hugh. "They'll quit again."
"Not them fellers." McVey's excitement made him stammer a bit. "Th-they got somethin' stewing. I hearn 'em b-buzzin' away in th' halls. They ain't waitin' for the troops."
"Want to be martyrs for the cause, eh?" observed Devoe. McVey looked scornful. "Not them fellers. They's goin' ta use the niggers fer pertection. They got Quash down in niggertown raisin' 'em."
"What!" Hugh was incredulous. "Either you're crazy, or they are. Put negroes around the Institute, and it wouldn't be a riot any more. It would be a race war."
"Maybe that's what Dostie and his bunch want," murmured Devoe. "For here they come."
A drum rolled ominously over the suddenly hushed street. A quick, thrumming note that jerked Hugh back to the ju-ju meeting in the Moon Hill swamp. It burst loud and arrogant out of a side street, flinging the folds of the Stars and Stripes into view, heading the thump, thump of marching men.
Across Canal they marched, pushing straight for Dryades—hundreds of negroes—old and young, white-polled servitors and loose-muscled plantation hands—keeping time to the bristling drum, flaunting banners that shouted their demands, marching toward the State House to join their comrades, the Radical whites.
"And there goes Quash at the head of them," said the gambler quietly. "I don't know why it is, Hugh; but that fellow gets under my skin." He took out his ornately engraved derringer. "It would save a lot of future trouble if I'd shoot him now. It's a good two hundred feet, but I think—"
Hugh caught his wrist, forced it down. "Have you gone crazy like the rest?" he cried. "That's murder!"
Devoe sighed, pocketed the vicious little gun. "It would save a lot of later murder, Hugh. You're just an idealist at heart, I'm afraid. Like all idealists, you're going to get hurt in the end."
The first shock of the negro procession momentarily stunned the whites. They gave way sullenly, slowly, making a lane through which the black men thrust. Quash strode along, gigantic, his huge, rough-sculptured head lifted proud and scornful. He looked like some savage jungle animal, wholly unafraid. Behind him poured his fellows, coming in an endless stream, emptying the negro quarter beyond Rampart Street of all its males.
The police began to converge, swinging their clubs, tugging at their guns to make sure that they would come out smoothly and easily. The first stunned moment gave way to a growling, rumbling undercurrent.
White men now stood their ground, were jostled by the advancing blacks, shoved back in turn. The rumble lifted a notch. The crowd moved forward.
But still the negroes marched, Quash paying no heed. The head of the column pushed into Dryades, with the State House a bare half-square away.
The jostling and the shoving became more violent. Angry epithets rose and snarled from jostled negroes and shoved whites. Hugh caught sight of Willis's round beard bobbing and wagging in the very forefront of the crowd. The Captain, his hat planted firmly on his head, thrust a square-built shoulder vigorously against a marching negro. "Ye will shove me, ye black scum!" shouted the Captain, though he had not been touched. "I'll teach ye ta shove at your betters."
"Tsk! tsk!" clucked Devoe. "The worthy Captain sort of forgot your teachings pretty quick, Hugh."
Hugh called sharply: "Willis! Come here!"
But he was not heard. A newsboy darted suddenly into the pushing, heaving throng and flung his heavy bundle of papers squarely into the face of an elderly negro, crying out an obscene epithet. The black man stumbled and went down.
Three policemen flung themselves toward the spot, clubs lifted. Afterward they claimed they had intended to arrest the offending newsboy. The negroes maintained they thought they were about to be attacked.
A shot blasted suddenly. It beat down the confused babble of cries and grunting oaths; it shattered Canal Street with sinister sound.
Someone screamed in pain; white or black, no one ever knew.
Suddenly Canal Street and Dryades were seething, rocking maelstroms of madness. Guns flashed, heavy clubs brandished and stones hurtled in the air.
Hugh said, "The fuse is fired. We've got to get Willis out of it."
"We'd better get ourselves out. I don't mind shooting; if I can return the compliment. But to stand here and be potted like this—"
Hugh started into the street. Devoe hauled him back. "Don't worry about the good Captain. He can take care of himself. You'll only stop a bullet or a rock out there. Got a gun?"
"Yes; but we're not using guns, Devoe."
He spun around. Overhead, standing on the balcony of their law offices, he saw Frazer Scott and Warmoth. Warmoth looked excited; his face was flushed and wrathy, and he was tugging at his pocket. Young Frazer had caught his hand, was expostulating with him.
"Both of you get inside!" Hugh yelled to them. "You make splendid targets up there. Everyone knows you're Northerners."
Warmoth cried out something indistinct, for Frazer pulled hard on his arm and dragged him back into the house. Then, suddenly, the clamor crashed into a roar. The struggling negroes, submerged in a sea of angry whites, had broken and fled.
Most of them scurried up Dryades Street, toward the State House. Within its granite walls were their Radical friends—and safety. After them pelted the inflamed whites, carrying the police along with them like helpless chips in a flood.
But not all the negroes reached the portals of the Institute. Cut off singly and in little groups, terrified blacks ran screaming down Canal Street. Their faces were gray with fear and they ran aimlessly, lifting feeble hands to ward off the blows that rained upon them, moaning, begging for mercy.
But the enraged mob was beyond all thought of mercy. A young white boy, no more than fourteen, pistol in hand, chased a fleeing negro lad no older than himself directly past Hugh. Hugh shouted and tried to knock the weapon away. But he was too late.
The gun flamed and the little negro screamed and fell into a twitching, bloody heap. Horror stabbed through Hugh. He caught the white boy's arm in a crushing grip. The gun went off again, harmlessly. Hugh twisted and sent the weapon spinning and clattering into the street.
"You bloody little beast!" he breathed hard. "You've killed him!"
His captive snarled with pain. "Little black bastard! Good fer 'im. Tryin' ta steal my vote, he was. Leggo my arm!"
"Oh no, I'm turning you over to the police."
He dragged the kicking, biting youngster over to a uniformed man. "He just shot that little boy," he said. "I want you to take him in custody."
"And why should I?" snapped the policeman. "Served the nigger right."
Devoe came up alongside. His pale eyes flamed. "You do as Mr. Flint says, Colton."
"You mind your own business," started the policeman angrily. Suddenly his manner changed. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Devoe. Why, sure, of course. Anything you say." He grabbed at the squirming youngster. "Come along, you young scoundrel; or I'll give you a taste of this club."
Hugh said, "Thanks, Devoe! What's your influence?"
The gambler stared down expressionlessly at the huddled form of the little negro. "You mean, with Colton? He used to work for me on the river. His job was to get around and find out how much money the suckers had."
Hugh said, "My God, look at that, will you?"
A burly special policeman was methodically beating his club across the skull of an elderly negro. The black howled with pain and lifted his arm over his head. The club smashed down heavily. There was a crunching, terrifying sound. The arm dropped suddenly, dangling, swaying like a broken twig. A frightened animal cry burst from the old man. He sagged, fell to the hard cobblestones. Blood streamed from his forehead, dabbled stones and grayish hair with indiscriminate red.
The policeman raised his club again. It came down with terrible force. The old man's head burst open like a smashed eggshell. Gray ooze spurted out, mingled with bright red blood. The policeman laughed, pulled back his foot to kick the jerking, twitching mass.
"Damn you!" A cold, hard fury possessed Hugh. He ran out into the street, just as the kick rammed home into the shuddering body. His fists were knotted and there was murder in his heart.
The policeman turned belligerently. "Mebbe you want a taste of it too, yuh damned carpetbagger!" he growled and lifted the club for a quick downward lunge. Hugh swerved and the club whistled harmlessly past him. Then he stepped in and smashed his fist hard into the man's face.
He felt bone and nose-gristle give under his knuckles. The policeman made choking sounds and fell forward over his victim.
Hugh stepped back, breathing hard. "Get up, you damned beast! I'm not through with you. I'll see to it that you—"
Then Devoe was dragging him away, losing him in a swirling whirlpool of men.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Hugh said angrily, struggling to get back. "I want that fellow to swing!"
"You'll be beaten to a pulp first," the gambler told him. "I got you out just in time. There were three other police-friends of his—coming at you. I'd have shot him myself, but you said no guns, didn't you? Now where are you going?"
"To the State House. It'll be wholesale massacre there."
Devoe shook his head in wonder. "And just what do you think you're going to do to stop it?"
"I don't know. I'll find out. Come on."
But Dryades Street was almost impassable. The great open space in front of the Institute was black with mob. Regular siege was being laid to the great stone structure. A tall man in white cotton suiting moved across the front of the square, deploying men, giving orders to similarly attired individuals who seemed in command of organized groups, heedless of bullets and stones that whizzed past him.
"That's Andy!" exclaimed Hugh. "He's taking charge of the attack."
"He's got courage, whatever else you might say about him," Devoe said admiringly. "And military sense, too. Look at the way he's fanning out his men."
There was firing on both sides. Little flashes came from the upper windows of the Institute, followed by gun roar. Pistols spurted from the street, and the bullets flattened themselves against the stone walls.
"He's getting ready to rush the building," said Devoe.
"The police are fighting among themselves," Hugh said. "Look at those against the building, trying to press the mob and their own fellows back."
"Those are the regular police. They still have a sense of duty."
Andy suddenly raised his hand. A vast shout shook Dryades Street. The horde went forward. The windows flashed gunfire but no shots came from the attacking force. They surged against the State House in a solid, irresistible mass, pushing the vainly battling police before them.
Another roar of savage exultation thundered up.
"They're inside!" cried Hugh. "The firing's stopped. My God, it's sheer massacre!"
"There isn't anything you can do about it."
"No," said Hugh dully, "there isn't." He felt sick. The sight of those two poor negroes—one a little boy, the other a white-haired, harmless old man—lying unheeded in the gutter of Canal Street, had shocked him into his first realization of what a mob in action really was like. He had seen a mob before—when the Federal gunboats had come steaming up the river. But that was mere child's play—the destruction of goods and chattels by the very people who owned them.
Here, however, new forces were being brought into action. Dark, sanguinary passions unleashed in otherwise normal human beings that must inevitably leave indelible marks on all concerned. Each side considered itself in the right. Each side justified its action by appeals to abstract words. Justice, equality, freedom, suffrage, white supremacy, honor of the State, honor of the Nation! Words that had a glorious ring to them, stirring trumpets to the soul. Yet in their name a little boy and a feeble old man had been done to death, thrust smashed and broken into the blaze of a decomposing sun. And hundreds more, white and black alike, were even now being shattered and torn in the service of those self-same words.
Hugh found himself suddenly running. Devoe's restraining cry was only another note in the infinite chorus of cries and shots and screams. The forward rush of the people had left the street comparatively bare, except for the wounded and the dead. Men with faces streaming blood, men with hands clapped to sides staggering to the safety of the banquettes, men moaning and dragging themselves along on hands and suddenly sagging knees through the dust and the trampled mud from the nightly rain.
Firing commenced again, sporadic, irregular. The gunshots made muffled sound within the solid walls of the State House; sound more terrifying than volley thunder. Shrieks, curses, savage yells, screams for mercy, howls of pain. Then a concerted wedge of police ripping through the portals, out into the street, bearing within their compact ranks white men, knifing them through the angry roar, beating off attack with fists and clubs, hurrying them down toward Canal Street.
They passed Hugh on the run, police and prisoners alike with wounds on their heads and clothes disheveled. One in particular Hugh saw and recognized. A man named Fish, notorious in Republican ranks. He was half-supported, half-dragged along. Abject terror mingled with the blood that smeared his face. He waved a handkerchief with jerking, mechanical movements, his arm bobbing above the helmeted surge of police, dropping from sight, twitching up again—in token of surrender.
The mob, faces inflamed with victory, erupted from the State House, pursuing blacks with individual venom, hunting them down as they scurried over the square, shooting, clubbing, kicking their victims with heavy, booted swings. But the greater part followed the flying police, roaring for their prisoners, shouting: "Kill them! Hang them! Don't let them get away!"
Hugh kept on running toward the State House. Why he was going there he hardly knew. He had no time to analyze his sensations; the horror of the massacre, the shambles of the dead and dying that must be inside spurred him on.
Dr. Dostie had not been among the rescued, the minister Horton was still inside—and Andy was in there, directing the maddened men of New Orleans. That there was danger in the square from flying bullets, that either desperate side might strike him down, did not once occur to Hugh.
He was half across the open space when the doors of the Institute spewed out another struggle of cursing, shouting men. The knot spun and gyrated around a central axis; then it burst asunder, flinging wide in a sprawling, kicking spray. Out of the upheaval catapulted a giant negro.
"Quash!"
The name tightened the muscles of Hugh's throat. The huge ex-butler was something elemental, something raw and bleeding from the flanks of the fecund jungle. His clothes hung from him in shreds, his ebony torso streamed with sweat and blood, his great lips snarled back from grinding molars like those of a beast at bay. A single moment he stood there proudly, surveying with fierce scorn the weakling whites who had tried to bring him down; then he started to run across the square. The men he had shaken off were stumbling to their feet, pawing for the pistols that had fallen to the ground, bringing them to bear on the fleeing figure with cruel oaths and mouthings.
Quash, running hard, head low, saw Hugh in his path and swerved. A strange, wild look leaped into his eyes; proudly imploring, savagely hating.
Hugh cried out: "Into Common Street, Quash! I'll stop them!"
The negro turned in a single motion, fled without a word toward the narrow thoroughfare that ran parallel to Canal and came abruptly to an end in Dryades.
Hugh's hand dived into his pocket, brought out his heavy Colt repeater. He swung it threateningly on the pursuers. "You've done enough murder for one day," he said loudly. "I'll shoot the first man who raises a gun."
The half-lifted pistols wavered, went down. Angry cries flung out at him. "We know you, Flint. Turned niggerlover, hey?"
"Get out of our way and let us get that nigger bastard. He's made us more trouble than all the others put together."
"Sorry, men. You can't kill him in cold blood like this."
The men moved stealthily forward, faces inflamed, eyes cunning, figuring.
"Stand back," Hugh warned, "or I'll shoot!"
But they came on, slowly, spreading out, no one lifting a pistol, but each man ready to jerk gun upward and pull trigger at the slightest motion of the single man who tried to hold them at bay.
Hugh warned them again, but they paid no heed. They were many and he was one. He dared not shoot. The first concussion of sound and every weapon would flame with hurtling bullets. They knew it and Hugh knew it.
He backed away, holding his gun steady, watching their forward sliding thrust toward him, knowing he had no chance. Quash had escaped, and he was left alone to bear their hate. He was a scalawag to them, sure now instead of doubtful, and they hated scalawags with a more consuming hatred than Northern carpetbaggers or even niggers.
Now that it would soon be over, and he'd be sprawled in a limp little huddle in the dirt of the street as those other unmoving figures that dotted the way, Hugh wondered with a sudden cold clarity at himself. Why had he laid down his own life to rescue Quash? Wasn't Quash the man who had sought to murder him and Sally? Hadn't he stirred up the negroes and made of them a dangerous weapon against all whites? Wasn't he more deadly by far than even the carpetbaggers? If anyone deserved death at the hands of enraged white men it was Quash. In good part those poor dead men were his responsibility, his provocation by flaunting an arrogant procession in the face of the mob. Yet he, Hugh Flint, was soon to die that Quash might live! Through the cold sweat on his face Hugh laughed out loud, mocking himself for a fool, for a sentimentalist who had conceived of himself as realistic and hard. His father had been right. His father? Would he see him now?
He was still moving slowly back, desperately tense, knowing that this couldn't last forever. They had fanned out, never once stopping their forward shuffling. He couldn't hold them off much longer. On Canal Street he heard a new note above the dying screams and scattered shouts. The quick thunder of iron hooves on Belgian granite. Federal troops finally from their barracks, coming into New Orleans to put an end to rioting and further slaughter. Coming in too late for scores of human lives, because General Baird had misunderstood. Coming in too late for Hugh Flint, last of all to die.
Hugh laughed again, not knowing that he had laughed. The gorgeous irony of it! The brutal waste of it! The men had heard the cavalry, knew as well as he that soon it would be over. Guns moved upward as if by common signal. No one gun by itself that he could single out and shoot at. Coming up inexorably, half a dozen in a scattered arc. He might kill one before he died. What did it matter? The whole thing made but little sense. If he turned to run...
Horses clattered suddenly behind him, coming out of Common Street. Wheels, as of a carriage, grinding in the dirt, made squealing sound. The men's eyes before him wavered; their guns wavered.
"Jump, Horatius! Jump in, quickly!"
Wonder filled Hugh. Wonder at the woman's voice, rich yet soft, warm in the hot sun, filled with strange, throaty laughter. Then plunging hooves were almost upon him. He flung sharply around. His free hand caught at the swerving carriage and his feet barely made the narrow step as the matched brown horses swept onward and around in a screeching curve. He swayed a moment, then tumbled sprawling into the leather seat next to the girl at the reins.
"Good work, Horatius!" she approved, not looking at him, swerving the racing animals still to the left with strong, sure pull.
Cries sprang up behind them; cries of rage at this sudden escape. Bullets followed their plunging progress, spattered in the dirt around them. A dull, splintering sound showed that one had imbedded in the carriage. Then they were galloping up Common Street, forcing scattered members of the mob hastily to the banquettes, ignoring the curses that followed in their wake.
They whirled on skidding wheels into Baronne and headed south. Behind them the riot and the clatter of troops faded into indistinct rumbles.
At Poydras the girl slowed her trembling horses to a walk, handling them with expert ease. Hugh righted himself, gulped down deep draughts of air to fill his laboring lungs, stared at the gun in his hand, put it stiffly in his pocket. Then he glanced sidewise at his rescuer.
The speed and suddenness with which the whole thing had taken place had left him breathless, his thoughts a churning chaos. A bare minute before the black shape of death had beckoned somberly; now he was in a carriage, alive, his dazzled eyes filled with a different vision.
Her face was still forward, watching her horses. She had said nothing more since those first few abrupt words.
Now she turned, smiling at him with her eyes, her hair, her lips, finding food for mocking laughter in the man she had saved from death. He stared at her dumbly, saying no word, trying hard to catch his breath.
She was vital, alive, exuberant. It wasn't mere beauty; it was something more vibrant and compelling. Her bronze-gold hair tumbled free and unconfined, neither clubbed nor carefully ringleted nor flat and smoothly drawn over the contours of the head. No hat or bonnet or lifted parasol shaded her demurely from the sun. Vulgar, yet somehow piquant freckles made a darker gold on the tip of her generously tilted nose and spotted here and there the warm tan of mobile cheeks and broad forehead. Her mouth was a little too wide and frankly sensuous for ordinary beauty, but it fitted the flashing texture of her face.
She returned his stare with frank, direct appraisal that held in it some secret half-amusement, half mockery. No hint of the shambles that was Dryades Street, no seeming awareness that she had paced her horses through a lash of bullets and oath-sped yells showed in her quizzical glance.
"Well, Horatius," she challenged finally, "are you tongue-tied as well as somewhat stupid?"
The shock of it stiffened Hugh, brought him swiftly back to his senses.
"I suppose I owe you thanks for saving my life," he said with some heat. "That, of course, gives you the right to pass judgment on the state of my intelligence without further ado. As for the name you've seen fit to charge me with, I confess I recognize the classical allusion; nevertheless—"
She threw back her head and laughed. The movement revealed the white, firm line of her throat as it lifted above the fringed lace of her dress. "Touché!" she cried, and brought her eyes down again to survey him with a new and franker interest. "But you were holding the bridge, weren't you? And it was a bit stupid, don't you think, for you to strike a sacrificial attitude in behalf of a fleeing negro. I call that a bit of romantic chivalry that even you would be hard put to it to justify."
The shadow of remembered death chilled Hugh. He twisted in his seat, looked down the narrow street. The horses were at a walk now, stepping high and daintily as became thoroughbreds. Four squares back he saw the lift of the Mechanics' Hall, hiding within its grim, curving walls a freight of dead and dying. The sun glinted on blue uniforms and back-slanting steel as the troops deployed in front of the building.
"I suppose you're right," he acknowledged with a strained, yet sheepish grin. "I am somewhat stupid. Especially when you realize that that big black fellow once tried to murder me. But now that I've confessed, pray tell me how you rate yourself for dashing into danger to save a man as stupid as myself."
She favored him with a teasing laugh. Her eyes—startlingly flecked with amber gold—lit up with an inner excitement.
"As an adventuress, my dear sir. I came down to New Orleans seeking new worlds to conquer, and I was tired of sitting there watching others have all the fun." Her long, thick lashes dropped over her eyes and she glanced at him secretly from behind their covert. "Don't think for a moment I did it for your precious sake; I'd have done the same for anyone in your place. Perhaps even for that splendid negro you call Quash."
Hugh looked at her in astonishment. The carriage had turned into Poydras, was pacing slowly toward the levee. This girl—woman, rather, for that full-blown beauty of face and form could never have come to such fruition in less than twenty-five ripening years—was something new in his experience. Her free and easy ways, her freer and easier speech, would have been incredible in any Southern woman. No lady of any pretensions, not even a lady without pretensions to the name, would have dared to violate with such careless, open frankness all the conventions. Her windblown, unbonneted hair, her driving alone, without a coachman, through the public streets of New Orleans, her tart, unfettered talk with a man who was an utter stranger, her unashamed avowal that she had deliberately watched a rioting mob and bloody massacre for the sheer thrill of it, left him gasping. Gasping, yet stirred. There was something heady about her to the senses; something equally heady to the mind.
"I didn't even give it a thought," he assured her. "If you had dashed out in time to pick up that splendid negro, I wouldn't have made a bit of a fool of myself and I'd have thanked you more for it."
"But you wouldn't have had the chance then," she pointed out. "And now that I think of it, I rather prefer your sitting next to me than the black fellow."
He moved hastily away, only now aware that some of the tingling of his senses had come from the warm proximity of contact.
"You needn't squeeze yourself into a knot against the carriage side to prove that you're a proper gentleman." Damn it, she was playing with him, trying deliberately to shock him! It made him feel—well—
The familiar sight of the warehouse with its faded golden legend, Flint & Son, brought him sharply into the present.
He said, "Stop the horses here, please. This is as far as I go."
He jumped down easily, took off his hat, bowed. "I really haven't thanked you properly. After all, you did save my life, and—"
She cut across his formal speech with an impatient gesture. "Out of sheer boredom, as I've been trying to tell you." Her glance fell speculatively on the gilt sign. "Do you happen to be the Flint of this firm?"
"Hugh Flint, to be exact."
Her glance rested more closely on his well-set-up figure, the strong lines of his face. There was approval in her look. "Hugh Flint, eh? I've heard of you, sir."
"Not too much of bad, I hope."
She flicked her silver-handled whip lightly over the horses' flanks. They quivered to the touch and started forward. She half-turned in her seat, smiled provocatively. "For a Southern gentleman, Hugh Flint, you are a bit of a boor as well as stupid."
"Eh, what's that?"
"Isn't it the correct thing at least to ask the name of a lady who has just saved your life?"
"Why—I—I—"
"Save your stammering, sir. Since you won't inquire, I'm forced to tell you unasked. It's Jessie—Jessie Tait. I occupy a very nice suite at the St. Charles Hotel—and when I'm not out, I'm usually in."
The whip came down with a sharper urge. The blooded horses sprang to the blow and the carriage dashed swiftly upon the levee, turned toward Canal Street.
Hugh stood there, gaping after them, bewildered, feeling more than a trifle foolish. Then, with a little shake of his head, he went into the warehouse.
THE tragedy of July 30th left New Orleans shaken and frightened. The dead were buried and the wounded carried into homes and hospitals. Thirty-seven killed and one hundred and forty-five wounded, said one report; forty-eight dead and one hundred and sixty-six wounded, claimed another.
"St. Bartholomew's Day!" shouted the Radicals in Congress and snorted fire and reprisals. "An absolute massacre!" said General Sheridan, investigating on his own. General Baird sent his belated bayonets bristling through the city. The mob melted away, fled into hiding. Charges and countercharges thickened the air. Quash disappeared; Andy Hilgard disappeared. Soldiers banged on doors, searching for the leaders of the embittered whites. None was found—and protestations by indignant, sharp-tongued womenfolk harassed the searchers. Prominent Unionists, fearing new outbreaks, prudently quit the State, never to return. The negroes no longer swaggered on the banquettes or forced their way into the horse-cars. The peaceful, ordinary folk huddled against the inevitable vengeance that the North would take.
To make matters worse, first the cholera came; then a visitation of smallpox. Wherever Hugh went he found people wearing little black silk bags, filled with camphor, garlic and incense as a certain protection against the plague. He didn't think so much of the bags himself, and refused to wear one in spite of the exhortations of Captain Willis. He had other worries on his mind. The levees and his warehouse were loaded high with unsold goods. The world market for cotton suffered from a terrific glut. Prices tumbled precipitously; Federal taxes added to the trouble.
Hugh went up the river twice to see how his plantation was getting along.
"Just about breaking even," mourned Sam Wailes. "We're shorthanded, the June flood spilled over the levee, sugar's low, foodstuff's high—I don't know what we're going to do, Hugh."
"Grin and hope for better times," Hugh said with a cheerfulness he didn't feel. Would there ever be better times? Everything seemed to be in conspiracy against the prostrate South. Cholera, smallpox, floods, massacres, carpetbaggers, negro unrest, an impending election in the North.
Back in New Orleans he held his forces quiet. The riot of June 30th brought some accessions to his group: men shocked into moderatism by the excesses on both sides. But nothing could be done now. Passions were still too high and minds inflamed against all counsel.
Both the toil of organization and his private affairs kept Hugh busy right into 1867. If Flint & Son was not to sink under the strain, he had to keep moving night and day. Even politics submerged in the face of financial ruin. He scoured the State for new commissions, tried to reestablish contacts with old buyers in New York, in Boston and Philadelphia. He practically lived on steamboats, and the lamps in Poydras Street flickered far into the night. Gradually, very gradually, he built up again, making new connections, widening his lines. He meditated a journey North to see what could be done.
In the stress and strain of circumstances he lost sight of Nancibelle and her young Northern husband. Rumors came to him. Andy was still in hiding, waiting for things to blow over. Sally lived alone with her maid, Patsev, in the big town house on Fourth Street. Several times Hugh wanted to ask Sam about her when he stopped at Moon Hill, but each time he hesitated too long and went away uncomforted. Sam spoke of business and the plantations, but never of his daughters. The passage of the years, the cataclysms through which he lived, had narrowed and channeled him. His hair was white now, and his once solid frame was terribly shrunken. He lived, ate and breathed sugar. The state of the seasons, the condition of the crop, the minutiae of soil and planting and refining, were all that mattered to him now. He had no other interests; no family, even. His eye lit up only when the talk veered to ploughed fields and improvements in cultivation, and filmed over when men spoke of politics or the outside world. He just sat there, head bowed, unlistening, unstirring, until the narrow world he had builded for himself once more embraced the conversation.
Hugh felt dreadfully sorry for the old man; yet he was glad to get away from the monomania of his talk. He kept him on as overseer. He was doing as well at that as anyone else.
More than once the tantalizing, irritating thought of Jessie Tait came to him. She had saved his life; yet curiously enough, he never thought of her in that connection. She was something from a different world, a gorgeous, exotic creature without counterpart among the women he had known. Sally had been vital and compelling, too; but she fitted within the framework of the scheme of things. Her beauty was understandable, her decisive action and flashing independence never overstepped the bounds. But this Jessie Tait....
Who was she? How had she come to New Orleans? She had practically invited him to her rooms at the St. Charles. A Southern lady would have died rather than make such a brazen offer to a man. He was shocked, yet titillated. He wanted to go—and didn't. Why he didn't, he didn't know. If he had had time, he might have thrown convention to the wind, but he was now out of New Orleans more than he was in it, and the months slipped by unknowing.
Once he saw her driving along Canal Street. He had just come out of Camp Street, where he had made arrangements to get rid of some upcountry tobacco which had been on his hands for half a year, when the shiny equipage plunged down the crowded street at a breakneck pace, the matched thoroughbreds striking fire from the cobblestones with their hooves.
She was sitting very straight and free in the driver's seat, her bronze-gold hair fluttering unconfined in the wind of her own making, flicking the horses on to ever-increasing speed, avoiding seemingly inevitable collisions with other carriages by the merest twitch on the proper rein. She was laughing and talking with animated, mobile face to the man who sat somewhat tensely at her side, holding onto his tall, shiny hat with one hand and clutching the side of the carriage for support with the other.
The man was Henry Clay Warmoth, rising young lawyer and carpetbag politician.
The first tug of pleasure at the renewed sight of her died then in Hugh. Already the dashing carriage was down at St. Charles, swinging in toward the hotel—her suite, to which once he had been invited, alone. An unreasonable resentment filled him. Evidently her invitations were scattered as casually as she scattered unwary pedestrians with the recklessness of her driving. Bitter epithets—epithets appropriate to Basin Street and Toulouse—crossed his mind, and were immediately erased in shamed apology. What right had he to name her so? What right in any event... ?
A week later he set sail on the daily packet to New York. He had had some success in making connections with buyers by mail and telegram, but he felt he would be able to do much better by personal arrangement. And he wanted to get away from the sodden, depressed atmosphere of New Orleans for a while. He wanted to get the Northern reaction to the problems of the South at first hand.
Sally Hilgard knew that she was pregnant. She had known it in agony and wrestlings of the spirit that night she fled to Hugh Flint to seek his aid against what the quickener of her womb intended; she had known it when Andy burst into the house, bloodsmeared and grim, to snatch up a scatter of clothes and thrust them into saddlebags, to peck her hastily on a frozen cheek and depart on a borrowed horse before the searching soldiers might arrive.
"I'm off for Waterproof, my dear," he told her. "Jim Barnwell says we can hole up safe on his plantation until this thing blows over. I won't be gone long."
Even then Sally did not tell him of the burden that had come to her, of the seed that was burgeoning in the ripe fastnesses of her body. He was going away, escaping from the consequences of his reckless acts, leaving behind wife and unknown child without a thought that they could not so easily escape, without a thought that the great town house was empty of food and money. Sally and the faithful Patsey had managed up to now, and it never occurred to him to wonder at their managing or feel any qualms about the future.
Then he was gone, with a gay, backward wave of hand, as though he were off for a hunt or turkey shoot.
"Whut us gwine tuh do, Missy Sally?" asked Patsey in a frightened sort of way. Andy had meant extra cleaning, heavy washing to keep his frilled shirts spotless and fresh, miracles of scrimping and cooking to feed his capacious appetite; but to Patsey he was the male, the master of the household. Without his solid presence, his flung words at her, she felt suddenly alone, helpless. Miss Sally was brave, courageous; she made two meals spring full-blown where there hadn't been enough for one; but Miss Sally was a woman and therefore of no spiritual comfort to the frightened soul of Patsey.
"We'll get along. Don't worry about it, Patsey," said Sally.
"Ah don' know why yo' don' speak tuh yo' father er tuh Miss Nancibelle," Patsey grumbled resentfully. "Dey 'ud sho' help yo' if'n dey knowed how t'ings is."
Sally held herself tightly erect. "I'm not asking anyone for help."
"Yo're jes' full o' fool pride. In yo' kindition yo' gotta hab lots er greens an' good milk an' plenty o' rest."
"What do you mean by that?" Sally demanded quickly.
A knowing smirk spread over Patsey's small, thin face. "Yo' kin fool Mistah Andy an' mebbe yo' kin fool eb'rybody else, but Patsey knows yo' gwine ter hab er chile. If'n yo' dad er Miss Nancibelle knowed it too, dey'd tak berry good care—"
She broke off suddenly. Her mistress had come upon her fast, was gripping her by the shoulder.
"If you dare to say a word about it to them, or anyone, Patsey, I—I'll turn you out," she said fiercely. "Do you understand?"
Patsey shrank away from Sally. She was frightened. She had never seen her look like this before. "D-don' say dat, Missy Sally," she blubbered, appalled. "D-don' say dat turr'ble t'ing agin. Ah won' menshun ut to a libin' soul; ah swears it."
Neither one of them noted the irony of the threat. Patsey received no pay, had but little to eat and did the work of a whole staff of former slaves—work that once, when she was a slave and not a free woman, she would have scorned to do as beneath her station as Sally's personal maid.
Then Sally was suddenly holding tight to Patsey, shaking all over with dry, tearless sobs; and Patsey was crying and weeping in pity for herself and for her mistress. "Dere! Dere! Missy Sally, don' tak on so. Mistah Andy, he'll be back soon, and eb'ryt'ing's gonta be all right. Ah knows et's gonta be er fine big boy lak its paw."
But Sally had torn loose and was running blindly to her own room. She couldn't stand Patsey's clumsy comforting. How could Patsey know? God knew she hadn't wanted this child—especially now. What kind of future would it face? What could life possibly hold for the child who lay moveless and unstirring in her womb? She beat upon her pillow in an access of rage. She hadn't wanted it! She hadn't wanted it! Andy had bred upon her as carelessly, as casually as he had bred upon God knew how many other women. There had been no love in the process; nothing of the fine and almost holy fashioning of which she had dreamed. And now she was alone with her travail and suffering.
Alone? Slowly she rose from the bed, moved her hands wonderingly over herself. No; she wasn't alone. Another tiny life was on its way to keep her company, to help her bear the hard road upon which she had set her feet. Tenderness stirred in her, broke the hard, choked feeling, became an over mastering flood. She was the bearer of life! Her own baby—man-child or girl-child, it did not matter. Her own!
The days passed. The soldiers came and went, not finding Andy. The officer was a little abashed in the presence of this beautiful, aristocratic woman who faced him without anger and without fear. He glanced quickly around the great, empty house, noting the scrupulous scrubbing of every floor and window-frame, the crying need for repairs. "These Southern women!" he thought admiringly. "I bet she does her own washing, yet to look at her—"
Patsey tried to spare her mistress the rigors of housework because of her kindition, but Sally would have none of it. "You can't do everything yourself, Patsey," she said kindly. "And, besides, I understand hard work is good for a woman who—It makes her muscles strong and supple, and it keeps her figure down."
"Yo' shuh lookin' bu'ful, Missy Sally. If'n ah didn' know, ah jest wouldn' know."
Sally looked down at herself with a little complacent smile. She was trim, slender, without a bulge to mar her loveliness. "It really isn't bad," she admitted. "Take Miss Nancibelle, for instance. She's only a month beyond me, yet it's quite noticeable, isn't it?"
"Lak er sack," chuckled Patsey. "Ah keep tellin' she she gwine tuh hab er pair; but Mistah Frazer, he say he hope so. Funny, dat."
"What's funny?"
"Ah means 'bout Miss Nancibelle not knowin' nuttin' 'bout you?"
Sally did not visit too often, and she never asked Nancibelle to visit her. She loved her sister and she had come to like Frazer Scott a lot, though in the beginning her whole world had collapsed at the thought that a Wailes had married a hated Northerner. But young Frazer, on better knowledge, was not much different from the wholesome youngsters she had known. He avoided politics and tended strictly to his law business, at which he was doing quite nicely. And he was crazy about his wife. You could see it in the way his eyes followed her around; in the way his voice took on a deeper note when he spoke of her. Sally was glad; yet something stabbed her when she saw that look and heard that note. Especially when she went back to her own empty, draughty house and lay wide-eyed through the night, thinking, thinking...
"But whut us gonta do now 'bout money?" Patsey insisted. She spread the skimpy contents of her market basket before her mistress's eyes. Some wilted greens, a few shrunken yams, a stale loaf of bread that she had haggled from reluctant marketmen for the few silver picayunes she had in her purse. "Dat am purty near de last."
Now that it was upon them, Sally felt curiously strong. For nights she had lain awake, wondering, planning, figuring. She'd never ask Nancibelle or her poor father; she'd never go to any friend. Most of her friends, in fact, were in very little better state than she was. They met in their carefully best clothes, darned and ironed and washed down to the last bare thread; and never once remarked that the styles were ages old. Sally was in better state than they as far as clothes were concerned. She still had the tremendously expensive finery that Andy had lavished upon her in those few months of affluence. Far better, she thought bitterly, if he hadn't been so generous.
"I have a plan," she told Patsey quietly.
"We's gwine back tuh Moon Hill?"
The eager hope in Patsey's voice stung her. "I told you hundreds of times we're not doing that. This is something for us to make money on."
"Whut's dat?"
"I used to be pretty good at making pies. Remember how Easter Sunday would laugh and say I was better than she was?"
Patsey smacked her lips. Her mouth was watering. "Ah 'membahs. Yo' usta gib me er nice big hunk. Dey was nut pies, an' gooseberry an' peach and sweet pertater an'—"
"Stop! You're beginning to make my mouth water, too. I'm sure I haven't forgotten how. Suppose we make pies for sale; nice, flaky, homemade pies. There must be a lot of people who'd be willing to pay a good price for a real plantation pie, instead of some of the soggy things we've had here even in the best eating places."
Patsey's eyes widened. She looked shocked. "Missy Sally, I'se s'prised de way yo' tawk. You, er Wailes an' er Hilgard, bakin' pies an' sellin' 'em tuh people! Ah neber hearn de like in all mah bohn days."
"Well, you're hearing it now," Sally said determinedly. "The day of the Wailes's and the Hilgards is over. I'm beginning to think that Hugh Flint was right."
"Whut he say?"
"Never mind. How much money have you got left?"
Silently Patsey fumbled in her pocket and brought out a single, well-worn silver quarter.
"We can't start with that." Sally glanced speculatively around the huge living-room. Her eyes fell on a pair of silver candlesticks, massive, heavily ornate. They were family heirlooms. Once they had graced a royal governor's table in old Williamsburg.
"Miss Sally, yo' ain't thinkin'—?" Patsey began in alarm.
"I'm not thinking any more; I'm doing." Sally swept them up, thrust them into Patsey's thin, black arms. "Take them down to Griswold's and tell him to give you his best price on them. Then go over to the French Market and get these things—" She sat down at the writing table, snatched a sheet of paper and pencil and rapidly made out a list. She almost flung the paper at Patsey. "Hurry now. I want to have a batch of pies made up by this afternoon." She caught the goggle-eyed, protesting maid by the shoulders, literally thrust her out of the house. "And if you're not back in an hour, I'll skin you alive. Take the horse-car down. Hurry!"
Then, suddenly alone, she sat down, weak, trembling. She had made her decision. God give her the strength to carry it through! Softly she slid her hands over her slimness, trying to feel the life that was growing from day to day. "For your sake, my dear one!" she whispered to herself.
Sally's pies caught on immediately. The few she baked the first day and carried around as samples to households where all money had not yet disappeared were an instantaneous success. The first bites into the flaky, crunchy crust, the rich, golden meltingness of the yam fillings, spiced just right, the luscious smoothness of the pecan batter, the warm, glinting succulence of gooseberry and peach, brought eager demands for recipes from the women and solid smackings of lips from the men.
"Why, Sally, I didn't know you could do anything like this! It was wonderful of you bringing us a present—"
"It's not a present, Clara Layton," she said calmly enough, though her heart was hammering.
"Why—why—"
"I brought it as a sample. I'm—selling them. If—you really like it, I'm taking orders."
"Why, Sally Hilgard, do you mean to sit there and tell me—?"
Tom Layton, President of the Southern Bank, looked up quickly. He cleared his throat. "I know—ah—Andy's unavoidably away just now. If I may be permitted to—ah—tide you over—"
Sally shook her head firmly. "Thank you, Tom, but there is no tiding over. This is a business matter, and I would like it to be treated as such."
"But, child, you can't!" Clara Layton exclaimed. She was a wrinkled, motherly old lady who had been accustomed to look up to Elizabeth Wailes in some awe as an aristocrat of aristocrats, while she was merely the wife of a banker.
Tom Layton cleared his throat again. "As you say, Sally, business is business. What do you charge for these—ah—marvelous pies?"
"A quarter apiece." All the spurious calm quit her. Her knees were shaky. She scanned their faces anxiously. "Or is that too much?"
"Too much?" Layton smiled. "I consider it very cheap. We'll take—uh—four for tomorrow. Which kind would you prefer, my dear?"
He turned to his wife, who was speechless.
The fame of Sally's pies spread rapidly. She received more orders than she could handle. The great kitchen stoves roared with wood fires, then with coal, from early morning to late at night. And still the orders came flooding in. People bought at first out of pity, because they were a tight-knit group against the tragedy that had beaten them down; but later they bought because of the incomparable quality of the pastries.
Twice a day, at noon and just before evening, Sally dressed herself in her most fashionable walking dress and, accompanied by Patsey, who carried the great covered basket of fragrant odors on her arm, went out to make deliveries. Six days a week they baked, and on Sundays they rested and paid visits.
"Yo'll harm yo'self," Patsey would declare disapprovingly. "Dis ain' no time fer yo' ter be a-standin' over hot bakestoves lak dat. In yo' kindition—"
"It's grand for my condition," Sally said. She actually felt stronger, happier. For the first time in months there was money on hand—money to buy food, to prepare little things against the day when the child would come.
Twice a note came from Andy. He was comfortable and well in Waterproof. The Bamwells sure set a good table.
He was getting reports from friends in New Orleans. The business of July 30th was dying down; he expected to be able to return in another month or so. She was not to worry about him.
Sally crushed the note in her fingers. She began to laugh. It was a hard, frightening laugh. Worry about him? Not a word about her. Not a word to show that he understood what might be passing in her own mind. Not a word about money; about the state in which he had left her.
She flung the crumpled paper into the roaring stove and turned to Patsey. "Roll the next dough crust just a little thinner. And a pinch more cinnamon in the yam batter, please."
At the Scotts'—on Sundays—she sometimes met their friends. She would have preferred not to—they were all Northerners—carpetbaggers, to be exact.
"Sally darling," Nancibelle told her, "I can't help it. So far there isn't a single one of our old friends who would dream of coming here. We're poison. And these people are really very nice. They're friends of Frazer's—and they're friends of mine." She said this last with a glowering defiance, as though she expected Sally to contradict her.
She showed quite visibly the marks of her kindition. She used none of those attempts at concealment ordinarily practiced by sensitive women. She flaunted it openly, proudly.
"Of course, Frazer's friends should be your friends," Sally said. "But I can't forget who they are, and what they're doing in New Orleans. I can't help thinking of—"
"Andy? I'm sorry," Nancibelle said remorsefully. "But Frazer thinks it's blowing over now. And Harry Warmoth says that if only the Southerners would recognize the fact that we're living in new times, everything would straighten out all right."
Sally said nothing. She hadn't been thinking of Andy, yet she couldn't very well tell Nancibelle that. And a pang seized her at the way her sister was talking. Did that happen to women in love; that they took on the protective coloration of their husbands?
It was getting on in November. The air was crisp and frost made a thin white powder over the oleanders and the palms. Patsey pulled the last of the golden, smoking pies out of the bake oven while Sally watched with critical eye.
"Ah declare!" Patsey crowed delightedly. "Dey's gittin' better an' better. Look ut de way dat 'ere crust do lift."
"Not bad. But I do think that if we'd put in just an added pinch of tartar—"
The door to the outkitchen flung violently open and Andy was filling the warm, thick atmosphere with his gay voice. "I'm back, Sally. Your absent husband has returned. Everything's been fixed. The Yanks aren't going to do anything about what took place."
She turned, trembling, feeling the life that had begun to move and kick inside of her.
"Well," he demanded, coming in with a laugh, "aren't you going to kiss the prodigal; kill the fatted calf and all that? How've you been, Patsey? Still cutting up with all the big black fellows in the neighborhood?"
Patsey dropped the pie she was holding. It made a thick spatter on the brick floor. Her thin face wreathed with delight. "Fo' de Lawd sake, if'n it ain't Mistah Andy! Yo' sho' gib me a fright, a-comin' in lak dat." She giggled. "Now yo' go way wid dat tawk. Yo' knows ah ain' got no black fellers hangin' roun' no moah."
"Then they're bigger fools than I thought."
He caught at Sally and laid his lips hard on hers. The life stirred again inside her, and somehow warmth flooded her frozen limbs. This was Andy, her husband, the father of her child. Part was hers and part was his. Whatever had happened, had happened. Somehow there must be a new life for both of them; a life bound together by the child that in a few more months would come helpless into the world. She felt suddenly tender; happy. She returned his kiss.
"I'm very glad, Andy," she whispered. "Glad that you're back. It's been a long time."
"Not so long. Three months about." He released her, looked at the neat rows of pies and smacked his lips. "Lord, but they look good, Sally! I didn't know Patsey was up to things of that sort."
"Ah didn'—" began Patsey, and stopped at Sally's warning face. Andy had taken a knife from the table, sliced a generous section of pecan and was stuffing it into his mouth. "Say-y-y!" he said thickly, his jaws pouched full and working vigorously, "this is great. Best I've ever tasted. They had a nigger wench up at Barnwell's who was pretty good, but I'd back this stuff against hers any day."
Sally felt a great lump rise in her throat. This then was his homecoming. This was the father of her child. A quick kiss; then—
She went quietly out of the kitchen, through the narrow extension that connected it with the house. Andy, mouth still full, still talking, turned. "Cut me off another slice, Sally, like a good girl, will you?" Then he stared. "Sally, where are you?"
Patsey in that moment felt something of the tragedy of the Hilgards. "Yo' done hurt 'er feelin's, Mistah Andy," she said.
He looked at her, amazed. "Hurt her feelings? Now how the devil did I do that? I only just came home. Sally! Sally!"
Andy Hilgard slipped back easily into the old routine. He had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He found his scattered friends and picked up new ones. Once more they met in conspiratorial conclave and waxed indignant over their wrongs. They had shown what they could do, and by God, they'd show them again.
There had been considerable of a shock to his pride on the discovery that Sally was in trade; actually selling pies that she baked with her own hands. He had raged around the house for a while, and said with masculine firmness that the thing must stop; that no wife of his...
Sally did not flare up, though she had to clench her hands to hold back the inevitable retorts. Instead, she merely said, "Very well, Andy. I'll stop—the day you bring in cash to run the house, and bring it in regularly."
He stopped his pacing, stared at her surprised. "But where can I get money?" he demanded. "I've tried to borrow, but they all make excuses. Even Tom Layton—"
"Borrow! Borrow!" she said with bitter scorn. "That's all you can ever think of. Suppose you try to earn it for a change."
He looked hurt. "But how can I? There's nothing that a gentleman can put his hands to. If I had the plantation—"
"But you haven't. You sold it. And it's about time that you forgot you were a gentleman. I've forgotten."
"Hello, what's that? Oh!" His sudden scowl turned to sheepish grin. "I see what you mean—that you're in trade, too. I thought for the moment you meant—"
She stood there, silent, saying no word to smooth over his vanity. He resumed his pacing and his scowl. "If that fellow Flint hadn't cheated me out of the plantation—"
"Cheated you! You set the price."
"Well," he said uneasily, "I spoke too fast." He became angry again, shouted. "He had no right to take me up so quickly. He knew he was making a good trade." He flung on her. "Well, didn't he?"
She watched his fumbling anger with judging eyes. He would always be the same; he would never change as long as he lived. Like a child. Hugh Flint had said that the old South could never face hard reality; that its charm and gaiety depended on the smooth, unruffled flow of events. He had said harshly that a new South was necessary if it was to survive—a South of hard and pushing men, willing to forget its ancient, mannered codes. She had resented it at the time; but now—She caught herself. There she was again, quoting Hugh Flint.
Without a word to Andy, she turned and left the room.
Nothing more was said about her venture into trade. Andy soon resigned himself to the inevitable. She placed a crisp new greenback every day on the night table next his bed—and he picked it up and put it in his pocket with a fine assumption of casualness. He was assured of seegars and a drink or two at the St. Louis. He even began to rationalize the situation. After all, what disgrace was there in making pies? Piemaking was genteel; proper woman's labor. He collected instances of other plantation ladies who had gone into trade. To his vast surprise he found the instances accumulating. Authentic ladies who baked and sewed and served meals. He felt better. He even began to boast about Sally's pies to his cronies. He'd come home and drop a careless remark that so-and-so would purchase some if she'd send Patsey around to take the order. But not once did he think of searching for employment for himself. After all, what could he do?
On the surface matters resumed their placid sway. They had separate bedrooms now, at Sally's insistence. But she never refused him when he came into her room. She too had been brought up in a rigid code. As long as she was his wife, there were wifely duties to be fulfilled. Any other relationship was unthinkable.
But she didn't tell him of the child that was steadily growing under her heart; and he, because of her amazing slimness and because he was naturally unobservant, never noticed.
He prided himself on his new tolerance. He surprised himself, in fact, by accepting an invitation from Nancibelle to resume their old cordial relations. The invitation had come at Sally's request. She thought that once Andy had met his brother-in-law face to face he might discover that at least one Northerner was no beast. Nancibelle was only too happy to welcome him back. She liked some of her husband's Yankee friends, but, after all, they were not her own kind. She longed with a great longing for the easy camaraderie of the Southland, for the little intimate points of contact that held no alien edges. She wanted to be back with her own people again; especially now that there was a child to be considered. And if Andy broke the ice, he'd bring his friends—her friends.
She arranged for quite a festive occasion. Frazer indulged her willingly, as he indulged her in everything. The small apartment at the Pontalba was turned inside out; Moreau's—Andy's favorite eating place—sent up the food. There were drinks. And she'd have a few select people. Not Southerners, naturally. But no Northerner that was too blatantly so. No one to whom Andy might take offense. Let's see now—whom could she invite?...
Andy really looked quite handsome and distinguished when he came. Nancibelle's heart swelled when she saw him. She had quite a soft spot in her heart for him; he was so gay and irresistible. Perhaps his hair was a little thinner, and there was a slight puffiness under his eyes; but the eyes themselves roved as freely as ever and his smile was as devil-may-care.
She met him eagerly, with outstretched hands. "Andy, I'm so glad you came."
He kissed her and held her off, grinning. "By the Lord, Nancibelle! You've been doing things in my absence. You look as though you were going to foal any day now."
She flushed at his frankness and Frazer, who stood by her, stiffened with anticipatory resentment. But Andy had turned toward him, his grin changed to a winning smile and his hand was outstretched.
Nancibelle said quickly: "I hope you two will like each other. Don't mind Andy, Frazer darling. He thinks women and horses are in the same category."
"Of course we'll like each other," averred Andy. "How are you, Frazer? And you're paying a tremendous compliment to the race of horses, my dear Nancibelle."
The two men shook hands. Frazer's reserve melted before Andy. Nancibelle's brother-in-law was charming, he thought. Once you got to know these Southerners, they were a fine folk. "I'm happy to see you," he said. "Nancibelle was hoping you'd make up, since she—er—"
"I'd have come around much earlier if I had known," Andy responded gallantly. "You're to be congratulated. There's nothing that sets a woman up more—and a man too—than the prospect of a son in the offing."
Sally kissed her sister, nodded pleasantly to Frazer, was listening. There had been a trace of sadness, of longing in Andy's voice. She caught his quick glance at herself, and the impression deepened. Remorse flooded her. Had she the right to withhold from him the knowledge that she too was soon to bear a child? Hadn't she been selfish in hugging the secret to herself, simply because her physical appearance hadn't betrayed her condition? Perhaps that was what Andy needed—the steadying, sobering influence of fatherhood. The hard core that she held within her softened. She'd tell him—this very night; when they got home.
Then they were all inside, meeting people, shaking hands, drinking. She had met Warmoth before; and Reyburn, the Boston financier who had come South with his timid, perpetually frightened wife to investigate the possibilities for profitable investment. She had met the Gordons also. Mr. Gordon was a dealer in pumping machinery, and he could never be induced to deliver himself of a forthright opinion, even on the weather. His considered hems and haws and well, perhapses, permitted the inquirer into the state of his political health to decide the matter to his own inner satisfaction; and thereby Mr. Gordon was placed on an irreproachable plane of propriety by all parties concerned. His wife, well-pillowed against the jagged edges of fortune, had but one topic of conversation, but that was quite enough to keep her tongue in constant motion. Her ailments! Though she did not look the invalid, it was obvious from her own accounts, that she had been the astonishment and the despair of the medical fraternity. If there was any disease which she had not yet had, it was simply because she hadn't heard of it as yet, or the obscure medical name was too tongue-twisting for her to utter with the requisite degree of positive certainty.
There were several others, men with their comfortable wives—people whom Sally and Andy would never have met on a social plane on any other occasion, carefully collected by Nancibelle for their colorless political views, so as not to exacerbate Andy too much on this his first appearance at her home. Young Warmoth was the only one who might be considered definitely as a carpetbagger and a politician; and he had promised faithfully to avoid all controversial topics.
While the gathering was fairly safe, therefore, it must be confessed that it was somewhat dull as well. Sally listened politely to Mrs. Gordon's triumphant recounting of her medical history, obtained a few judicious grunts from the monosyllabic Mr. Gordon, became engaged in a momentary oasis of conversation with Warmoth, only to be delivered over to the expansive mercies of the financier, Reyburn, who earnestly believed that the single topic of interest to such a decidedly beautiful and aristocratic Louisianian lady as Sally, must be the overwhelming necessity for an immediate return to a currency backed by gold. "Mark my words, Mrs. Hilgard," he delivered himself with the utmost solemnity, "this continued, ill-considered printing of green strips of paper will ultimately send this great country of ours entirely to the dogs. I view with alarm—"
Poor Nancibelle! thought Sally. In her anxiety to remove all possible sources of irritation in this gathering, she had only succeeded in boring Andy. Andy was at the punchbowl, alternating quaffings of its mild contents with more potent drinks from the flanking bottles. If the evening continued in the same vein, he'd get himself drunk. She couldn't blame him this time, though. It was a pity that a lady wasn't permitted that release on occasion.
Nancibelle looked a little unhappy. It wasn't going off as well as she had hoped. She whispered to Sally: "Dear Sally, you are having a good time, aren't you?"
"Couldn't have a better. Why, do you know what I just found out?"
"What?"
"That the country is going to the dogs because there are too many greenbacks. Just think of it, darling—too many greenbacks! I simply can't wait until I get home to burn up the stacks and stacks that I've been collecting in my ignorance."
"You're making fun of me," Nancibelle wailed. "I had to invite Mr. Reyburn. He's giving Frazer a lot of legal business."
"I'm sorry," Sally said, stricken. "Of course you had to. He really isn't bad."
But Nancibelle refused to be comforted. The tears quivered in her blue eyes. "I had intended asking Hugh Flint to come; but he sailed last week for the North. He's been so busy lately we haven't had a chance to see him for months."
Hugh Flint! Sally steadied herself against the name. Why did the mere mention of him send a little quiver through her? "I haven't seen him myself in quite a while," she said calmly. "But why did you think he might have enlivened the party for—me?"
A cunning look dried the half-tears. "Why, Sally darling, I thought—"
Then the bell-pull resounded, and Nancibelle said, startled: "Excuse me. I wonder who could be coming? I didn't ask anyone who isn't here already."
She was at the door, opening it. Sally heard a little smothered gasp. For the moment her heart pounded wildly. Could it be Hugh—?
Then—a woman's voice, full of lovely overtones, gay and wholly self-assured.
"Why, Nancibelle Scott! Don't look at me as if I were a serpent come to infest your homey paradise; though I should rather fancy myself in the role of a serpent. They slink so beautifully. You did invite me—you know; after I invited myself."
Nancibelle rose gallantly to the occasion. "Of course I did, Miss Tait. I just thought that—that—"
"I wouldn't accept. But I always accept. And my friends call me Jessie for short. You see, I include you in that class, willy-nilly."
She stood in the doorway slowly taking off her gloves, her eyes laughing tenderly at her embarrassed hostess, her bronze-gold locks tumbling free of the respectability of pins or proper hat.
Jessie Tait! Sally's interest quickened, mingled with considerable surprise. How did Nancibelle come to know that notorious woman? Around her she felt the sudden stirring out of placid boredom, the stiff withdrawing of disapproving women, the eager awakening of the men. Sally had heard of Jessie Tait—from women wholly—and what she had heard was wholly bad.
"A common adventuress, a woman from New York. A hussy no better than any woman on Basin Street. Going around without a hat, driving her own carriage, living by herself in the St. Charles Hotel, having men visitors alone—my dear—can you imagine what goes on?" This last with lifted eyebrow and meaningful pantomime of shoulder and fascinated-horror eye.
"What do men see in her?"
"Well, my dear, you know men. Any painted hussy—!"
"But she doesn't paint. I must give the devil her due. She has a lovely complexion."
"Well, you know what I mean. If I were you, I'd watch Charles."
"Why, Sabrina Ann, you know as well as I do that Charles hasn't even looked at another woman since we married."
"Hmmm! If you wish to console yourself with that comforting thought, my dear Susan, I'd be the last one—"
"You're just jealous. Everyone knows the way your devoted Preston carried on that month when you visited your mother in Mobile—"
"How dare you, Susan!"
"And how dare you, Sabrina Ann!"
Jessie Tait had come in the wake of the peace, unique in the ranks of the carpetbaggers who had swarmed like flies to the honey and fleshpots of the conquered city. Her antecedents were vague, except that she was from New York. What her purpose was in New Orleans was equally vague, though gossip busied itself spitefully and called her a glorified camp follower.
If she was a camp follower, she didn't look the accepted part, Sally was compelled to admit. Her first impression was one of a wholly gay and delightful woman, whose glance met hers in candid appraisal, even as she was waving airily in the direction of Henry Warmoth.
Then Nancibelle, flushed, embarrassed, was bringing her over for introduction. "This is my sister, Sally Hilgard."
For a moment they looked at each other, like matched swordsmen before the weapons would flash. Then Jessie smiled and impulsive lights danced in her amber-gold eyes. "You're beautiful, Sally; about the first thoroughbred woman I've met in the South. Outside of Nancibelle, naturally. We're going to be friends."
Behind her Sally felt the hostile stares of the other women. Dowdy, tight-lipped, gathered together for protection against the intruder. Thank God, she thought, most of them are Northerners. Aloud she said: "Thank you for the compliment. But you mustn't malign our Southern women. After all, how many have you met?"
"Touché!" Jessie laughed. "They haven't given me a chance. I really believe they're afraid of me. You aren't afraid of me, are you?" It might have been mockery, but Sally didn't think so. There was a curious anxiety in her gaze; a troubled, appealing note. Sally's heart melted.
"Of course I'm not, Jessie. I'm sure we'll be friends."
Before there could be any answer, the men had moved down upon them both. Warmoth, his face lit up with eagerness; others who knew her and those who didn't. Somehow Andy was in the forefront, his eyes a little glowing with the whiskey he had been drinking neat.
With a deft movement he drew Jessie out of the swirl of motion and over to the punchbowl. She might have heard his name in the confused introducing sounds that Nancibelle made above the clamor; and she might not have. He was very attractive just then. The liquor had accentuated his dash and the yellow gas-flame was kind to the beginning pouches and tiny leathery wrinkles under his eyes. He filled her a glass, filled one for himself, and they toasted each other with gay laughter.
The men looked unhappy and the women self-righteously triumphant. Frazer ran troubled fingers through his hair, glanced quickly from Andy and Jessie to Sally, and back again. Warmoth was sullen. A Mrs. Bascom, her plain, thin features screwed up into a malicious expression of sympathy, said whispering: "Isn't it terrible the way she carries on with your husband, my dear? I'm sure I don't know why your dear sister invited her."
"Because Miss Tait is a friend of the family, Mrs. Bascom," Sally said quietly. "We've known each other for quite a while."
"Hmmm!" sniffed Mrs. Bascom with one of those 1 know how it is, my dear, you're trying to hide your hurt, but you can't pull the wool over my eyes expressions. "I was positive I heard Nancibelle introducing her to you. Of course I may have been mistaken."
"You were," Sally assured her.
Nancibelle went over to the table with the drinks. She looked unwontedly determined. "Don't you think Sally looks a bit tired tonight, Andy? She won't admit it, but she really ought to get to bed early."
Andy was obviously annoyed. He glanced hastily at Sally. "Sally's all right, Nancibelle. It's just your imagination."
Jessie put down her glass, said: "How stupid of me! That's what happens because I never listen to introductions. Sally Hilgard is—"
"Andy's wife," Nancibelle said brightly. "Andrew Hilgard, you know, is my brother-in-law. I thought I told you." Jessie smiled her most dazzling smile. "You are to be congratulated, Mr. Hilgard."
"You called me Andy before," he said sulkily. "On what?"
"On Sally." She became serious. "I'm rather clairvoyant, Mr. Hilgard. I've just met your Sally, but I consider her pure thoroughbred and pure loveliness. You should be very happy in having her."
"Sally's all right," he admitted. "But look here, Jessie—"
Her dazzling smile had already fitted itself over her countenance like an easy mask. It was directed full upon young Warmoth. He came up quickly. She said, "There are some legal matters I was going to consult you about, my dear Henry Clay. Would you mind terribly taking me home now? We could discuss them on the way."
"I'd be delighted," he said. "It's only rarely that I'm able to mix business and pleasure so happily."
"Henry Clay makes the most charming, although quite platitudinous speeches, doesn't he?" Jessie remarked to Andy and Nancibelle. "I'm afraid that's the influence of his namesake. No doubt, with such charming platitudes, he'll go as far politically as the great Henry Clay himself. Now if you'll wait just a moment, my dear legal adviser, I'll get my gloves and do those little things a woman must always do before she sallies forth with a male. Your boudoir, dear Nancibelle, is-?"
"Straight through that door. You'll find the gas burning. Your gloves are on the dressing-table."
Nancibelle felt relieved. Jessie had disrupted her party. In another few minutes the women would have gathered their reluctant husbands and hauled them off firmly for home. Except Sally. Her sister was too proud to do any such obvious thing. Nancibelle felt as though she were seeing Andy for the first time. She had resented his anger when she married Frazer, but her resentment had been tempered with the acquiescent knowledge that she had done something outside the code. This was different. Sally did not deserve such treatment. She was too wonderful.... Take Frazer; he'd never flirt with a pretty woman; certainly not in the presence of his wife. Good men, fine men, didn't do such things. She had set Andy on a romantic pedestal; and he had tumbled headlong. He was just—well—a man! Impulsively she went over to Sally.
Andy Hilgard closed the bedroom door softly behind him. No one, he was certain, had seen him slip in. He was heated with liquor and anger and an even stronger passion. The liquor required no comment; the anger was directed at Nancibelle for her blundering interference with talk of Sally just when he was about to get to terms with Jessie Tait. By God, she was lovelier and more provocative than he had expected. He had heard certain stories about her from his cronies since his return from Waterproof; but they were purely secondhand, though titillating enough. His mouth watered and the blood ran thickly and heavily in his veins. If the stories were true, he'd have no difficulty.... He mustn't let her get away now, without some understanding. Why, he might even be able, after he took Sally home, to go out again. A secret political meeting. That was always a good excuse; though sometimes he felt uneasily that Sally saw through him with those clear, disconcerting eyes of hers. By God, he was tired of being forever judged by them. Now, take this Jessie Tait, for instance....
She was running a comb through the thick gold of her hair as he came in. The movement lifted her arm and showed off to perfection the taut, swelling curve of her breast. He went to her.
She turned at the sound of the closing door, comb still in hair, stared at him. "What do you want, Mr. Hilgard?" she demanded.
He came close. His mouth was dry, his voice heavy with desire. "I want you, you glorious little devil!"
"Am I supposed to feel complimented?" she queried, dropping her arm to her side. "Because I am not. In the first place you express your desires on decidedly short acquaintance and in a very crude and distasteful manner. In the second place—"
Anger and desire coalesced in him. Did the baggage think she'd gain more from him by adopting this high and mighty tone? "Never mind the second place, or the first place, for that matter," he said roughly. "It won't get you any further with me."
Her face went white, and anger flared in her eyes. "What do you mean by that last cryptic remark?"
He laughed. "Let's be frank. I've heard of you. You have certain wares to sell. I'll buy; but I'll be damned if I'll let you boost the price by playing the great lady—"
Her hand came up suddenly, and hit him hard across the face. "Perhaps this will make you understand better," she blazed at him.
He started back, rubbed his cheek. Then he grinned. "You devil! You certainly know how to get your men roused to the proper pitch. Just to show you—"
He caught at her, bent her head back. She fought him silently, strongly, making no sound. Her balled fist crashed like a man's into his face. He swore, struggled to hold her lithe fury. A chair fell with a crash.
Then the door slammed open and the room was filled with sharp exclamations and crowding, eager voices. He let the girl go, swung around. Everything fell from him—passion, drink, anger. Sally was framed in the doorway, motionless, her face pale as death, her eyes fixed on him with a strange immobility. Nancibelle was crying something in a high-pitched, horrified voice. Young Frazer's face was black with anger and Warmoth tried to push his way through leering, excited men and avidly outraged women.
Lord, what a mess! thought Andy. Look at Sally, standing there like death itself. If only she'd talk, upbraid him, do any of the things that women do when they've caught their husbands in a situation like this, he'd feel better.
"Sally!" he started, "don't go imagining—"
She didn't seem to fall at all. She just slid quietly to the floor without any unnecessary fuss. All blood drained from her face and her body began to tremble. Her eyes were closed.
"Sally!" he cried again, and ran toward her.
But Nancibelle had flung to her knees, had caught Sally's drooping, shuddering head in her arms. "Get away from her!" she blubbered. "Sally! My poor, wronged sister! Speak to me!"
"She's fainted!" said Frazer. "I'll get some water."
Nancibelle looked frightened. "It isn't a faint. Sally's never fainted in her life. Something terrible has happened. Quick, Frazer, get Dr. Dumont. He lives on the ground floor. Hurry, Frazer, hurry!"
Andy was frightened. Nancibelle was right. Sally wasn't the fainting kind. He had killed her; killed her as surely as though he had strangled her with his own hands.
He tried to get to her again, but Nancibelle warded him off with bitter words. Everywhere he turned there were indignant looks and mutterings. Lord, what a mess' What a mess! In a daze he heard Jessie's quick-breathing voice lift to Warmoth. "If you still wish to take me home—"
Then they were gone; and Dr. Dumont, darkly olive, his effeminate face strengthened by a small, pointed beard, had come in. His brilliant, searching eyes moved quickly over the scene. Then he took charge.
"Everyone out of the room, please," he ordered. With a strength surprising in so delicate a frame he lifted Sally to the bed.
Andy stood by the punchbowl, scared, waiting tensely. With trembling hand he poured himself a drink, put it down untouched. Damn it all; what a fool he had made of himself! But who'd have thought the bitch would act like that? She had been free and easy enough with him until Nancibelle had come along with her silly talk. And according to the stories...
He strained for sound to come from the bedroom. The guests were leaving, saying goodbye to that ass, Scott, with the hurried casual brightness that always marks departures from a funeral. Damn them all! What could you expect from Yanks and scalawags? What was the matter inside? If anything was wrong...
The door opened quietly, and Dr. Dumont and Nancibelle came out. Nancibelle's eyes were red and there was a startled look in them.
"Damn it, Doctor!" Andy exploded. "How is she?"
The doctor shook his head soberly. "She's had a miscarriage, Mr. Hilgard. And those things are pretty serious at this stage. She was in her fifth month, I'd say. Isn't that right?"
Andy stared. He was certain he hadn't heard aright. "What's that you said, Doctor?"
"I said she had a miscarriage. She can't be moved. Why, what's the matter?"
Andy had gripped him by the shoulder, was shaking him with sudden fury. "You damned pill-vendor, don't you try to make game of me now! Tell me what's wrong with my wife, or by God—"
Dr. Dumont's voice was quiet, yet deadly. "Take your hands off me, sir."
Andy let him go, fell back, apologetic. "Sorry!" he muttered. "But I can't stand jokes at this time. If you—"
"I said," Dumont repeated in precise accents, "that your wife is seriously ill because of a miscarriage. Brought on, no doubt, by some intense strain or excitement." He looked at Andy curiously. "Do you mean to tell me you didn't know your wife was pregnant?"
Andy passed a shaking hand over his forehead. It came away wet, dripping. "Before God I didn't."
"I didn't know, either," Nancibelle said sobbing. "No one knew. She didn't say a word, and you see the way she looks."
"But a husband!" Dumont exclaimed. He stroked his little beard. He became impersonally professional. "Keep your sister quiet," he told Nancibelle. "And watch her. If she should start to bleed excessively again, call me at once. Otherwise I'll be here in the morning." He bowed to Andy. "Your servant, sir." And was gone.
Andy looked stupidly at Nancibelle and Frazer. Frazer's lips were tight-compressed and his eyes were hard. "I—I'm sorry," he said lamely. "I made a fool of myself, as usual. But I didn't know—she never told me."
"You're a fine husband," Nancibelle flashed at him. She commenced to laugh wildly. "He didn't know! That, he thinks, excuses everything. If Sally dies, I—I'll kill you!"
"No," he said quickly, "she won't die. She can't. I'm going in—"
Nancibelle barred his way. "Don't you dare! Haven't you done enough harm in one night?"
Frazer said quietly, "You'd better go home. We'll take care of Sally."
Andy swayed a bit. Great hammers were pounding in his head. Sally had been carrying a baby—his baby. A manchild, perhaps. A son to take the name of Hilgard, and transmit it down long generations. A son, killed by his stupidity. What had possessed him, trying to make love to a woman in Sally's presence? Wild regret seized him. Not because he had sought out another, but because he had been caught, because of the consequences. "I didn't know!" he mumbled. "If I had known—"
"You'd have been a bit more discreet, that's all." Frazer's tone was terrible for all of its restraint. "Now if you'll leave us, we'll be able to take care of Sally."
He was practically being ordered out. Told to leave his own wife. And by a Yank, a damned foreigner! He should have resented it, flared up. But somehow he couldn't. In a way Frazer Scott was right. He was what he was. He took his hat, went to the door silently. Neither one said a word to him.
At the door he stopped. A last trace of gallantry stirred in him. "About Miss Tait—" he said; "she isn't—what you think. She repulsed my advances." He rubbed his cheek. "She can hit like a man. Take care of Sally. I'll be back—early; and beg her forgiveness. Goodnight."
HUGH FLINT came back to new Orleans at the end of February, 1867. His trip North had been successful from a financial point of view, but depressingly illuminating in other respects. The "massacre" of New Orleans was being played up by the Radicals. Violence and rioting elsewhere, skilfully dramatized, added requisite fuel whenever the flames of indignation showed signs of dying down. Then came an eager lull while the South voted on the crucial Fourteenth Amendment. Everyone knew that she would not submit. One after another the States flamed defiance. Louisiana was the last. "The last one of the sinful ten!" cried Garfield in the House of Representatives on hearing the news. "Now it is our turn to act."
Military government! Bayonet rule until the recalcitrant States bowed the knee and accepted "reconstruction." General Philip Sheridan as military governor of Louisiana and Texas. Didn't the rebel whites want reconstruction? By God, we'll see to that. Hold elections, convene constitutional conventions, put into office legislatures, ratify the Fourteenth Amendment—all with negro votes, carpetbagger votes, scalawag votes—no Confederates need apply.
Philip Sheridan had been a gallant, impetuous cavalry general. But he proved to be too impetuous for a military governor. He was a small man, tough, compactly built, with an alert, energetic face; and he believed in no nonsense or coddling of his ex-Confederate foes. He removed at once all officials suspected of the taint—Mayor Monroe, aldermen, commissioners, attorney-general, and even Governor Wells himself. "Wells," said Sheridan with military restraint, "is as sinuous as the marks left in the dust by the movement of a snake." So ruthless was Sheridan, so insubordinate to President Johnson, that finally he found himself discreetly shifted to another department and exhausted Louisiana placed under the milder control of General Hancock.
Hugh Flint registered as a voter, and insisted that all his cohorts register as well.
"If every white man votes," he told them, "and if we can prove to the negroes that we are their friends and willing to work with them, instead of opposing every move in their favor, we stand a good chance of getting rid of the carpetbag influence."
"In the face of what we did to them on July 30th?" Devoe asked pointedly. He glanced slyly at Captain Willis.
The Captain looked sheepish. "Ye needn't be a-throwin' it up at me forever an' a day," he retorted. "A man's got a right tuh lose his head on occasion."
"We all lost our heads then," Hugh admitted. "It'll be a hard job making the negroes forget."
"You stand pretty well with them, Hugh," said Devoe. "They know you saved Quash's life."
"I'd say that was a bad bit of business," spoke up Tom Layton. "I don't mind the other niggers so much. They're chiefly dupes of unscrupulous whites. But if you ask me, Quash is using the Radicals while they think they're using him."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Hugh agreed.
"I say," declared Layton, "we ought to join up with that new organization."
"What organization?"
"The Knights of the White Camellia. They've got headquarters right here in town. They're aiming to keep the niggers in line. Andy Hilgard was telling me about them. He's a member."
Hugh shook his head firmly. "I've heard of them too. They're something like that secret outfit that's spreading over the rest of the South—the Ku Klux Klan, I think they call themselves. Secrecy and violence will never get us anywhere. Violence calls for violence. We've got to work in the open and by orderly means." As if it were an afterthought: "By the way, Tom, how's Andy?"
"Pretty bad. He's bitter as hell. Blames his own personal misfortunes on the damned Yankees. Claims they're worse than the niggers. He's heading for trouble; lots of it. He doesn't do a lick of anything; just lives on what Sally makes with her pies." He looked serious. "It isn't right for a lady like Sally to be making pies while her husband gallivants around yelling politics all the time. She was pretty sick, too, for a while."
"Yes, I know. What was the matter?"
"She wouldn't say. Wouldn't even tell my wife. Just that she fainted, and she had to be in bed for a few weeks. She's up at Moon Hill now, getting over it."
"Sally isn't the fainting kind," said Hugh. He couldn't bear the idea of Sally suffering, of Sally making pies for a living. Yet what could he do?
Hugh found it difficult to keep his mind on the pile of invoices that lay on the desk before him. The sugar was coming down the river now, and the hogsheads were piling up, waiting for buyers. The river lay outside his window, turbid and bleak in the pale January sun. Days and years it went steadily down to the sea, heedless of the men who fought and struggled and hated each other with bitter hates along its resistless path. Would they never learn?
The year that had slipped by since his return kept thronging Hugh's memory, blurring the dry, patient figures on the bills-of-lading, making them dance with unwonted vivacity. He had hoped that the passing months might bring restraint and moderation to the glowering factions. He had hoped that the group he had formed with infinite pains would grow and burgeon in the waters of reviving sanity. Nothing of the sort! The group stagnated, backslid uneasily at the edges. Slogans and strong hates meant more than calm, considered thought. At most a few hundred followed with doubtful feet, tired of his inaction, his watchful waiting.
Perhaps, he thought, they were right. While he waited and sought the chance that never came, both Radicals and embittered Conservatives had forged ahead. The Radicals had forced through their idea of a Constitutional Convention and it was now in session. Forty-nine negroes and forty-nine whites, making the fundamental law for all the years to come. No wonder the exasperated men of New Orleans were joining the Knights of the White Camellia. His own men were muttering, casting sidelong glances. He'd have to do something in a hurry to hold them in line. But what?
Simon Hardy opened the door, stuck his head doubtfully into the office.
"A lady to see you, Mr. Hugh."
Hugh's wandering thoughts jerked back into accustomed grooves. "A lady?" he said blankly.
"Well—" The doubt increased on the old bookkeeper's face. "In a way—"
"He's quite right in not being sure," asserted a laughing voice behind him. "Therein your faithful servitor shows his perspicacity."
Hugh came to his feet, staring. Hardy's head had disappeared and the owner of the voice was in the room, remembered eyes mocking him, her presence filling the office with sudden warmth.
"Jessie! Miss Tait!" he said unbelievingly.
"Stick to Jessie, Hugh Flint. And don't stare at me as though I were something nasty that the cat dragged in. I'm not really that bad to look at. Thank you, I will sit down."
She lifted the drawstring to her looped skirt with small, gloved hand. The rustling silk under her tight jacket folded and moved up to display slim, silk-clad ankles and daintily shod feet as she sank into a chair. Then the string relaxed and the silk rippled down discreetly.
"No," he retorted, "I'd hardly call you ugly, and you're welcome to the chair. But I confess your visit takes me rather by surprise."
She looked up at him from under long lashes. He was still standing. "That's what I like about you, Hugh Flint—your utter candor. No false compliments; none of the silly inanities that men usually feel called upon to feed the members of my sex." She settled herself comfortably in the chair, her wide skirts swinging with the motion of her body. "I came for a very simple reason. You remember a chap named Mahomet?"
"Well?"
"He ordered a mountain to come to him. The mountain most boorishly declined; so Mahomet was compelled to go to the mountain. I waited a year and a half for you to come to me. You didn't; and here I am."
Her presence was disturbing, and her words more so. The warm fragrance of her body, the supple elasticity of her limbs, mocked at confining stays and the silken barrier of clothes. They were like a physical impact upon him.
"I'm sorry," he fumbled. "I really should have called to convey my thanks properly; but—"
Her eyes danced. "But it wasn't proper for a proper male to call upon an improper female in the suspicious solitude of her chamber."
"I didn't say that."
"You meant it." The laughter fled from her eyes; the shadow of resentment moved into them. "I know my reputation in New Orleans, Hugh Flint. I know what your righteous ladies think of me, and your snickering, hot-eyed men."
He was appalled. "You're mistaken. I never heard—"
"Oh yes, you have. You disappoint me, Hugh Flint. I thought I had met a man for once; a man who didn't jump to conclusions because a woman is frank in speech and action. I asked you to visit me because I liked you; the same as I would have asked any woman." She started to rise. "However, since you choose to misconstrue—"
"Don't go," he said fervently. "I don't misconstrue. I really made a fool of myself—"
She sank back again. Her eyes filled once more with laughter. "I hadn't intended going, Hugh Flint. I just wanted to hear you say that."
For a moment he was wholly bewildered. Her moods were protean, like quicksilver that slipped through your fingers when you tried to grasp it. She was incredible, yet exciting. He took a chair, sat down. Then he grinned.
"No wonder you shocked—and thrilled—New Orleans. They're not accustomed to such frankness in their women. You're something of a hurricane come to blast away their carefully nurtured conceptions of a lady."
"Oh, bother their conceptions of a lady," she retorted impatiently. "I had enough of that in my own home town. I came to New Orleans because it had the reputation of being cosmopolitan, more like Paris than any other city on the continent."
"That's a wrong idea. We are cosmopolitan, in a sense, but not in the manners of our women. Nowhere, outside of convents, are there such straitlaced codes as the Creole codes. As for the American women, New Orleans might as well be Charleston or Richmond or Mobile. The Southern lady is universal."
"So I've noticed," Jessie said with a tinge of bitterness.
"Of course, there are quite a lot of—uh—"
"Women of the streets. I've noticed them, too. In fact, there seems to be a general disposition to confuse me with them."
Braced as he was for unorthodox speech, it was difficult to repress a slight movement of his cheek muscles.
"Well—" he ventured.
"Don't deny it."
"All right," he said suddenly. "I won't. There is that impression around, and that was why I didn't come to the St. Charles."
"Good!" she retorted unexpectedly; arranging her hoops for comfort and smiling over at him. "Now we're beginning to understand each other. I want that. Either you're more virtuous than most men, or I didn't tempt you sufficiently. Which was it?"
He grew angry. She had no right to place such ridiculous alternatives before him. Frankness was all right in its place; but—
"Neither!" he began vehemently.
"You mean—you're not virtuous; and I did tempt you?"
He surrendered with a sudden cleansing gust of laughter. Her amber eyes approved the way he laughed, the strong, clean angle of his jaw.
"All right," he gasped finally. "You've won. We're going to be friends; good friends, I hope." He leaned forward. "Suppose you tell me a little about yourself."
"I'm going to shock you."
"You can't—any more."
"That remains to be seen. Suppose I tell you I'm a married woman?"
He came half out of his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the desk. "You—married! But that's impossible. Where-?"
"Is my husband? Still home, I believe, where I left him."
He fell back, overwhelmed. "You mean you left him?"
"Ran away! Fled! Deserted the dear companion of my life; if that will clarify it. And you thought I couldn't shock you."
She was trying to carry it off jauntily, but he could see the brooding trouble in her eyes, the tight, defiant expression of her face.
"Tell me about it," he suggested gently.
"There isn't much. Amos Tait is one of your vinegary, self-righteous men. A pillar of the church, a deacon who stands for no nonsense from the poor, browbeaten minister who is unlucky enough to fall into his fold. A solid, substantial man of mortgages and usury, who never deviates from the path of rectitude except to squeeze an unfortunate debtor. But his God sanctions that. He intones texts to prove his point. Why he married me is hard to say. Perhaps I hadn't shown the cloven hoof at the time."
"Why did you marry him?"
Bitter mockery slid back into place. "Don't go building up a nice, romantic story for yourself, Hugh Flint. He held no mortgage on the old homestead; I wasn't the palpitating sacrifice offered in its stead; and he twirled no silky mustache over my girlish beauty. In fact, he has no mustache; only a very respectable, deaconish beard."
Hugh felt let down and a little sheepish. He had been thinking just that.
"Then what—?"
"I was young, stifled in the poor round of my parents' existence. I wanted clothes, life, adventure. Do you know Albany?"
He shook his head. "Only that it's the capital of New York."
"It's a narrow, bigoted, old-Dutch town," she declared vehemently. "Life doesn't move; it stagnates. Amos Tait offered me release. He was the big frog in the small puddle. He had money; he had been to Europe; he promised to take me there on our honeymoon."
She sat there a moment, staring into the anguish of her past. "He did. But I saw nothing—except him. For a deacon he had the insatiable strength of a goat." Her voice fell away to a small whisper. "I never thought it could be so terrible. He hemmed me in with jealous suspicion; he doled out his pence with meticulous accuracy; he smothered me in the formalism and sanctimoniousness of his pennypinching life. I hated him. I told him so, and demanded that he divorce me. I didn't care what the grounds were. He refused; it would ruin his position in the community. Then I left him."
Hugh said a little harshly, "You seem to have plenty of money for a deserting wife."
She looked at him queerly. "Prepare for more shocks, then. I flaunted my desertion in the smug dovecotes of Albany. It became a public scandal. To get rid of me, my husband settled a very comfortable annual sum on me, provided I'd remove myself as far away as possible. I chose New Orleans. It was quite far and quite glamorous. I followed the long rush of the carpetbaggers; like them, seeking new worlds to conquer. Unlike them, I brought well-filled trunks."
There was a long silence. "Well?" she demanded finally. "I've told you the terrible story of my life. Do you now rise in your virtue and cast the fallen woman out?"
Hugh rose, went over to her. In spite of her mockery there was a tremulous appeal in her eyes. "No," he said gravely; "I think I'm going to like you—a lot."
She drew a deep breath. "Thank you. You're one of the few men I've met down here who doesn't think my manner is a direct invitation." Then she laughed. "Now tell me all about the hidden skeletons in your dark past."
He told her, finding it easy to unbosom himself to her. The business, Princeton, his father, the war, the State Seminary, Moon Hill.
When he came to that, she said quickly, "I know your Nancibelle and your Sally Wailes."
He was surprised. "How do you?"
She bit her lip, stopped. "Never mind now. Go on."
The picture of Sally came to him, startlingly real. "Please tell me what you know."
"Nothing bad, I assure you. I met Nancibelle several times; through some of her husband's friends. She's a sweet, lovely girl, very happily married. I understand she has a healthy boy baby."
"And Sally?" He didn't know how eager his voice sounded.
Jessie looked at him quickly. Her face had darkened. "I met her just once," she said slowly. "At the Scotts'. She's beautiful, Hugh. The type of lovely Southern lady I had always pictured to myself. The kind I would have liked to have had for a friend."
Hugh said, "Yes, she's all of that. You met her husband—Andy Hilgard?"
The color on her face deepened. "Yes, I met him."
There was something in the way she said it that brought Hugh's attention sharply to a focus. "What happened?"
But she only shook her head. "Nothing, Hugh. Nothing at all. Please go on with your story."
He told her the rest, keeping only to himself the more intimate facts of his strange relation with Sally. He told her of his plantation life, of his hopes and plans for the South that had fallen into the dust.
When he finished, she sat silent, thinking. Her face was a delight to watch. It was mobile, filled with an inner life of its own. It screwed up with thought; it illuminated suddenly with humorous mockery at herself, at the world about her.
"You're quite right, Hugh," she said finally. "The South needs a bit of realism at this moment. There's only one way to clip the wings of those who yearn for its destruction."
"And that is?"
"To give in. Accept the situation; accept negro suffrage; accept defeat. There's nothing that confuses the victor more than smiling acquiescence on the part of the conquered. He knows how to handle sullen or bitter opposition. He doesn't know quite what to do with agreement. Working from within, you can slowly mold defeat into a measure of victory."
She was intelligent, he thought admiringly. He had been thinking along somewhat the same lines.
Nevertheless he shook his head. "It's too late for that. In the beginning it might have worked; but matters have traveled too far and too fast for compromise now."
She leaned impatiently toward him, and the warm fragrance of her body stirred his nostrils. "It's never too late. That's a platitude; and platitudes are truths so universal we fail to see their significance. Do you know where I've just come from?"
"No."
"From the Republican State Convention. Don't look so surprised. I can get in anywhere. I have a way of doing what I want."
"You certainly have," Hugh assured her.
She smiled impishly at him; grew serious. "The Convention split wide open on its candidates and issues."
He nodded. "I thought it would. I've been reading the Tribune."
"Then you know what the more radical negroes want."
"Well, the Roudanez brothers who run the Tribune seem to think that the negroes hold the whiphand here in Louisiana. But all they're asking for is equal rights for their own kind in office."
"They're asking for more than that, Hugh. Their editorials are cleverly written. They're keying the blacks up to a bold demand for an African State in Louisiana; where the blacks go on top and the whites become the inferior race."
"Nonsense! You're talking like a Knight of the White Camellia."
"No, I'm not, Hugh. Ever hear of a big Congo negro named Quash?"
"Why, yes. Hello, now you're trying to be funny, Jessie. You know very well—"
"Exactly. Suppose I were to tell you that Quash is the real power behind the Tribune. That the Roudanez brothers from Santo Domingo take orders from him."
"Ridiculous!" he fumed. In his mounting interest he was treating her as he would a man. "I know Quash has grandiose ideas along that line, but he's almost illiterate; whereas the Roudanez brothers—"
"I'm afraid you underestimate Quash. He's dangerous. He's got a tremendous power over his people."
He stared at her suspiciously. "How do you know all this?"
She smiled. "I told you I have my own ways of getting information. Quash put up the free negro, Dumas, as his candidate for governor in the Republican Convention today. He almost won."
"Who did win?"
"Warmoth. Henry Clay Warmoth."
"Ah!"
"Why do you snort like that?"
"I didn't snort. Can't a man say Ah when he wants to?"
Jessie crinkled her nose impudently at him. "Say Ah as much as you want, Hugh Flint; but don't expect me to look at your tongue when you say it. Quash and his pure Radicals are going to bolt the Convention. They're going to set up a ticket of their own."
"Ah!"
"If you do that again, I will look at your tongue, and God knows what I'll find," she said severely. "Now stop Ahing and listen to me."
"I'm listening," he answered meekly.
"I want you to meet Harry Warmoth. If you would swing your white Southern vote in back of him, he'd win easily. If you won't, Quash stands an excellent chance of getting his man in; and you know what that will mean."
It had come out finally. Hugh had been watching it build up for some time. Jessie Tait was a very clever, as well as a very beautiful woman. All that had gone before was mere pretense; mere foundation work. She had taken him in for a while. Friends, indeed! He didn't know whether to be angry or to be amused. He decided on amusement as the proper role, though he couldn't conceal from himself a curious substratum of almost jealous irritation.
He got up from his seat, dangled one leg over the edge of the desk and began to chuckle.
"What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking, my dear Jessie, that with your talents you might have quite a career at Placide's Gayety. I happen to know Madame Placide, and if you wish an introduction—"
She came to her feet like a man. Her amber eyes glinted with little golden flames. "So you think I came to you solely as the emissary of Harry Warmoth?"
"Naturally. What else did you expect me to think? You've been pretty friendly with hint; intimate was the word I almost used."
She nodded as if in agreement. A curious ripple passed over her countenance. "I even invited him on occasion to my suite, you might add. The same as I once invited you. Only you were too virtuous to come, isn't that it?"
"If you insist." He was almost snarling at her. He was surprised at his own anger. After all, what did it matter to him what Jessie Tait was, or did? Yet suddenly he realized that it did matter, and the realization goaded him to harsher language. "I've seen you driving him around town; I've seen him go to your hotel. I confess for the moment you almost took me in. I was vain enough to believe in your purported interest in me. But I'm valuable to your friend. He needs me now; so he sent you. The game is as old as Cleopatra, my dear Jessie—"
She laughed; rich, warm laughter. Amusement crinkled up the lovely pattern of her skin, made her mobile nose twitch like that of a fluffy cat.
He scowled at her. "Well, what the devil's so funny about it?"
"You!" she gasped. "You very virtuous man! You're jealous, that's what's the matter with you. You cast me aside yourself with a noble gesture of renunciation, but you hate to see me thrown by the rebound into another man's arms."
"Ridiculous!" he snapped. "I'm not jealous."
"You are."
"I'm not."
"You are; don't deny it."
"I will deny it. You're just trying—"
Then Hugh grinned, and his chuckle grew into a gale. She was laughing with him. She held weakly to his arm in the shaking of her laughter and the touch tingled. As quickly as they had come together, they moved apart, and the laughter died.
For a long moment they stared at each other with serious, almost frowning mien; then Jessie said in a rather shaky voice: "Well, that cleansed away a lot, didn't it?"
"I—suppose so," he answered uncertainly. He was trying to reorient himself. That touch had brought him up sharply. She was eminently desirable; if he should let himself go just the least bit, he might even—
"Poor Henry Clay!" she was saying. "He'd be the most surprised—and indignant young man in the world if he knew. You forget, dear Hugh, that Henry Clay Warmoth is an up-and-coming politician. It wouldn't do for a man with a career to get all mixed up with a woman like me—and married, in the bargain!" She twitched her nose pertly at him. "Let me tell you a secret. Young Warmoth is engaged to be married. She's a very lovely girl; I've met her. I've even helped him fix up his house on Magazine Street properly for the great occasion. He relies a lot on my taste—and judgment."
Hugh said: "I do seem to make a fool of myself quite regularly, don't I?"
"I like men to be a little stupid—about certain things. Now will you believe me when I say that Warmoth doesn't know I'm here? The whole scheme came full-blown to me while you were talking."
"Yes, I believe you." Hugh just then would have believed anything she told him. Later on he might permit himself doubts; but not at this particular moment.
"Then will you at least talk to him?"
"All right, I'll talk to him. But remember, I don't promise anything,"
The candidate for the governorship of Louisiana greeted Hugh with a cordiality that trembled on the verge of, but did not overpass, the boundary into effusiveness.
"Glad to see you again, Flint." His smile was singularly winning, and Hugh was compelled to confess that, young as he was, he made a distinguished figure of a man. He drew Hugh into his newly decorated parlor, looked around it with a touch of satisfaction. "Like it, Flint? I've pretty wretched taste myself in these things, but Jessie was kind enough—"
"So she told me," said Hugh.
Warmoth poured drinks. "A remarkable woman! A very remarkable woman!" He offered one to Hugh, and they drank. "Sometimes I wonder how her husband up North permits her to stay away so long." He chuckled and finished his drink. "I certainly won't allow my wife out of my sight anywhere near two years—or even two months. I'm to be married soon, you know."
The glass jerked in Hugh's hand. Some of its contents spilled over. "Eh, what's that?" he asked, astounded.
"I said, I was about to be married. In fact, just as soon as the election is over."
"Oh, to be sure, to be sure! Congratulations, Warmoth!"
"Thanks."
But Hugh was thinking to himself in a dazed sort of way, "Jessie didn't tell him. He thinks she's here on a kind of extended vacation. Then she's told no one else—except me!"
"Yes sir, after the election, whether I win or lose. You've heard what the Radicals have done?"
Hugh shook himself back to the business at hand. "Yes, I know. They've held a rump Convention and nominated their own ticket."
Warmoth grimaced. "They were pretty smart. They didn't put up Dumas, their real choice, for Governor; they made him play second fiddle to old Judge Taliaferro, who's white and a Lousianian. They've got the negro vote hog-tied, and they're making a play for all the native Unionists. I'm a carpetbagger; he's only a scalawag."
"You're after the negro vote, too," Hugh pointed out. "This man, Oscar Dunn, who's on your ticket for Lieutenant-Governor, is as black as pitch."
"He's a good man, Dunn is," Warmoth said quickly. "Able and honest. That isn't the thing. Quash is in back of Taliaferro. He's in back of those loud-mouthed Roudariezes, too."
"I'm beginning to see where Jessie gets her information," Hugh said slowly.
"What information?" But Warmoth didn't wait for an answer. He was too wrapped up in his own problem. "I'll be frank with you. I'm afraid of Quash. I can handle negroes pretty well; I know how to talk to them. But Quash is something else again. He's like some big, wily bull elephant leading the herd. He plays on their superstitions, on the savage in them. What his final game is, I don't know; but it won't be a white game." He stopped his pacing. "You see, I'm speaking frankly to you."
Was he? Hugh wondered. Aloud he said: "I'll be frank, too. You're playing a game, too; and it's not my game."
"But it is, in a sense. Let's sit down, Flint." They faced each other in carved chairs, with the gaslight reflecting a thousand sparkles from the crystal chandelier. "In the first place," said Warmoth, "you must admit that the Conservative candidate, ex-Governor Allen, is out of the running. Even if elected, he wouldn't be permitted to serve. He's a refugee in Mexico right now."
"Go on."
"The election, then, is actually between myself and Taliaferro. I'm telling you in strict confidence that he stands a good chance to beat me."
"Well?"
"Suppose he wins. You fellows—I mean the whites who used to run the State before the war—would be in a pretty pickle, wouldn't you?"
"I don't see how we'd be any worse off." Hugh was pretending stupidity, giving Warmoth a chance to reveal himself.
"For God's sake, Flint!" Warmoth betrayed irritation. "I gave you credit for brains and intelligence. Don't you see? A Radical victory puts Quash in control. If you know anything about his plans—and I think you do—you'd know he's determined to make another Liberia of Louisiana. A nigger State." He caught himself, grinned. "For publication, negro State. Our colored brethren, you know."
"And if you win?"
Warmoth looked at him sharply. "With your help, you mean?"
"With as much help as I can swing."
The candidate rubbed his cheek reflectively. "I can promise you a fair deal. No vengefulness against the beaten; as much harmony and cooperative effort as possible. Mind you, though, I'm for the negroes voting and Having full privileges of citizenship; no more, but no less than the whites."
"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about that part," Hugh admitted. "I would have preferred holding off full suffrage until they were fit for it, but under the circumstances we'll just have to go along."
"Now you're talking sense again," Warmoth exclaimed, gratified. He waved his hands a bit. "I foresee a great future for our State. Reconciliation, former friend and foe working hand in hand—"
"Maybe." Hugh was doubtful.
Warmoth's face clouded. He said earnestly, "Look! To prove my good faith I'll give you a certain number of seats in the Legislature. Let you run your own men. How is that?"
Hugh considered it. Warmoth was a very persuasive gentleman, but Hugh had a constitutional aversion to persuasive gentlemen. Yet he seemed sincere. And his argument was unanswerable. The Conservatives were out of the race; if Quash's ticket won, Louisiana was in for a terrible period. It would be wiser to work with Warmoth, gain some footing in the government—and watch him closely.
"I'll talk it over with my friends," he said finally. "I think it can be arranged."
Warmoth's smile was wide. "I knew you'd see things in the right light," he said.
"I hope you will, when the time comes," Hugh answered cryptically.
SALLY HILGARD did not leave her bed for two weeks. It was more than the miscarriage that flooded her veins with fever and sapped her strength almost of all desire to live. The one precious possession to which she had clung during the arid years of her marriage and the crash and thunder of her world had been the sanctuary of her pride. And now that had been broken into and made desecrate with the antic lust of her husband and the stalings of alien pity. She had borne the knowledge of his casual gallantries and rutting misadventures in silence and restraint; but this last unadorned insult, in her very presence and in the presence of leering strangers, was not to be borne. She lay stiff and shaking in her bed, tended skilfully by Dr. Dumont and nursed and wept over in alternate bursts of anxiety and indignation by Nancibelle. She was not told that Andy had come humbly for information the following morning and every morning thereafter, and that he had been refused admission to her chamber.
After two weeks she left her bed and, still white and shaken, sent for Patsey.
"Stay with me," urged Nancibelle. "You need a good long rest." And Frazer, good-natured, troubled, backed her up. But Sally moved silently upon her determined course. She had been hurt almost beyond relief, and like any stricken creature, was turning for healing to the instinctive habituations of childhood. She was going back to Moon Hill.
But Moon Hill proved no certain anodyne. The season was cold and damp with constant rains. The moss-hung cypresses dripped sullen tears and the stubbled fields were sodden swamps. Her father greeted her with a preoccupied warmth and left her shortly to her own devices. It was the sugaring season and nothing else was of paramount importance to that. Sally was his daughter and had been ill—yes. What her illness had been was vaguely told him and as vaguely accepted. A fever of sorts, a physical debility of a kind. She was home for a rest—well and good. Easter Sunday would feed her up and Cuffy would jaunt her around whenever the day was bright in the battered carriage Sam had managed to retrieve. He had a man's job on his hands—the overseeing of two plantations, the quarreling with free niggers who signed contracts with their marks and paid no attention to their contents, the constant complaints and countercomplaints lodged with the Freedmen's Bureau, the sullen resistance to the arrogance of Northern agents on the one hand and the shiftlessness and impudence of niggers on the other. He devoted even more attention to the Flint Plantation than to Moon Hill. Hugh was paying him a salary—a good salary—for his supervision, and it was only fair that he earn it properly.
Sally was shocked at the completeness of the change in him. She hardly recognized in this white-haired, shrunken old man with the filmed eyes and querulous preoccupation with his land the loud-laughing, hearty father of hardly a decade before. He was alien to her, a mere husk from which the old spirit had fled and into which a new obsessive ego had entered. She did not realize that this was a defense to Sam Wailes to cushion him against the loss of wife and son and all the values that had once made life worth living.
Easter Sunday welcomed Sally with mothering cries and vast smotherings of food. Cuffy grinned delightedly and slapped his big feet around with renewed gusto. Stud looked thoughtful over his old master's absence and renewed his midnight poachings into distant pastures.
Moon Hill was not the same. Sam Wailes was not the same. The negroes were different; the very fields and the once-familiar nooks she had loved so much had subtly changed and been tarnished over with the strangeness of a new order. The old order was gone—forever.
The months passed. Slowly, interminably. Sally regained her health and took to riding again. The winter melted into spring and into the warmth of early summer. The outer world shook with political clamor and St. James Parish seethed in sympathy. The negroes downed hoes and ploughs and swarmed like children on a holiday to the polls at Lutcher to vote. The voting was supervised by Captain Mahaffy of the Freedmen's Bureau and a lean, hungry-looking set of whites who had come from God-knows-where to direct the negroes safely among the pitfalls of their new-found suffrage. Sally watched their methods. They were direct and to the point. As each bewildered negro shuffled toward the polling booth with his certificate of registration, it was taken from him by a sharp-eyed white man, inspected and returned. Then, in a loud voice, he was told: "Sam Jones, open your right hand!"
Sam Jones obediently spread his palm. A folded paper was quickly thrust inside.
Sam Jones stared at the paper with a puzzled eye. "Whut's dis yere foh?" he inquired.
"Your vote, of course. That's your vote."
Then the white man would snatch the folded paper from the still-extended palm, stuff it into the ballot box, and shout stentorian fashion to the tally clerk: "Sam Jones has voted. Move on there!"
The few planters who had come down to exercise their sovereign prerogative looked black and grumbled to each other. But there was nothing they could do. Lutcher swarmed with negroes on the loose, inflamed with fiery harangues by the stranger whites and with the raw corn liquor that had been earlier distributed. Bored men in uniform lounged near the polls, safeguarding with bayonets and rifles the sanctity of the vote. The planters went back to their plantations filled with a burning hate.
From the larger world came echoes. The new State constitution was adopted; the moderate Republican, Warmoth, whom she had met at Nancibelle's and who had been the witness of her shame, became Governor. It was said that many ex-Confederates voted for him to avoid the worse evil of the Radical candidate, Taliaferro. It was also said that Hugh Flint had been largely instrumental in his election. He had builded up an organization of semi-renegades—according to the diehard planters of St. James Parish—and had compromised the eternal principles of white supremacy to work with Republicans like Warmoth and even, it was whispered, with certain negro politicians of the stamp of the newly elected Lieutenant-Governor, Oscar J. Dunn. It was true that Dunn had been a free negro and was eminently respectable, but a nigger was a nigger and you couldn't get away from that, could you?
Warmoth himself proved surprisingly moderate. His inaugural address was a model of restraint and conciliatory sentiments, and even the Conservative newspapers gave it editorial approval. The New Orleans Times was willing "to give even the devil his due." Wait and see, remarked the die-hards, shaking their heads wisely. He's just trying to catch us off our guard. It ain't in the nature of a damned carpetbagging Republican to change his spots. Meanwhile there ain't no living to be made for a white man any more, what with Freedmen's Bureau and uppity niggers and low prices for sugar and cotton, and taxes—taxes—taxes. Taxes for carpetbag governments to drive us into the ground, taxes for damned nigger legislators to sit in New Orleans and spit into gold spittoons and put hobnailed boots on fancy mahogany desks and smoke Havana seegars and swill champagne like it was water; taxes for nigger schools where no decent white people 'ud send their children. Can you imagine that? Taxes on honest folk so that little niggers might learn to read and write! What in hell good would that ever do them?
Yes, sir, Andy Hilgard has the right idea. Good fellow, Andy! Always ready to stick up for a man's rights. The North took his plantation away from him, and gave it to that scalawag, Flint. But he's striking back. Look what happened down in New Orleans. Sure he had to hide for a while; but he's at it again. Maybe we'd better be looking into these secret organizations that are sprouting around. Knights of the White Camellia, Ku Klux Klan—things like that. Andy's pretty active in them. Got to join together to protect our rights and put the niggers in their place. There ain't no living otherwise. Run the bastards out of the Parish, out of the State—black and white alike. Scare the yellow livers out of them; ride on'em by night, scatter'em by day. Voting—hell! Too many niggers voting, and they ain't counting our votes, neither. Ever see how those Freedmen's Bureau fellows count votes? No, sir, Andy's got the right idea. We better join up.
Funny about Sally, his wife. You know, old Sam Wailes's daughter. Coming back to Moon Hill all alone, while Andy's around the State raising the whites against the rascals. They say she was pretty sick a while; but a woman's place is by her husband. D'you think there was trouble between 'em? You know Andy. He always was a heller with the gals, and he ain't the kind to let marriage tame 'im. Maybe; maybe not. No proper woman would leave her husband for a little thing like that. Take my wife, for instance.... Sally ain't the talking kind, though. Can't get a word outa her. As beautiful a woman as you'd want to see in a day's journey. And old Sam don't seem to know a thing. Poor Sam Wailes! He went to pieces fast. Tried to talk to him about the Knights—about what we intended doing. All I could get was a vacant look, like he never heard what I said....
Sally never knew the buzz-buzz of gossip that droned through a score of plantations and rose in a cloud whenever she rode along the river road. And if she had known, it wouldn't have mattered. She wanted time to think things out, to adjust her relations to the future.
Andy wrote her several times—begging letters, pleading letters. She ignored them. Nancibelle was delivered of a boy and Frazer Scott wrote to apprise her of the marvelous event. Nancibelle was well, thank you, and utterly happy. Only—wouldn't Sally come down to see her first nephew? Nancibelle claimed he looked just like Dabney. That was a highly imaginative enthusiasm, natural to a young mother. He, Frazer, had never met Dabney, of course; but there was no question that Dabney Wailes Scott disclosed a most remarkable resemblance to Frazer's own father, Jedediah Scott. The youngster really should have been named Jedediah. However, well, you know how women are—and Dabney wasn't a bad name.
In a postscript, Frazer added:
"Andy comes around whenever he's in town, which isn't often. He's crazy about the baby. He isn't such a bad sort, after all. He loves you, Sally, and he's horribly sorry about what happened. He says if you'd only take him back, everything would be changed. He seems to have plenty of money these days. He doesn't speak about what he's doing and naturally I don't ask. Whatever it is, it takes him out of town a lot."
So I'm an aunt now, Sally thought, reading and rereading the letter. She was glad for Nancibelle's sake; but something was choking her and making her hot and cold inside by turns. In another month she would have had her own child at her bosom, reaching out with tiny fingers. That was over now. Fiercely she crumpled the notepaper, smoothed it out carefully again. Andy was changed, was he? He'd never change. The sight of a fresh, inviting face would set him off again, no matter how many resolutions he'd take. Yet she wanted to be fair. She hadn't tried to hold him, to yield him the love and wifely comradeship that might have alienated him from his wandering preoccupations. She couldn't give him that.
A hard strain of honesty within her refused pretense. And Andy was what he was.
She answered the letter, warm with congratulations. She yearned to see the baby and Nancibelle. Later in the summer she'd try to come down. She ignored the postscript.
Sam Wailes aroused himself somewhat at the tidings that he was a grandfather. Something of his old spirit returned and he celebrated with a party to which he invited all of his old friends. They came in their shabby-genteel clothes, bringing presents for the distant grandson. The presents were pathetic. Little inexpensive trinkets that nevertheless meant scrimpings and self-denials to purchase, or carefully cherished heirlooms that had been stubbornly held in the face of starvation.
They tried to be jolly and carefree, to pretend that everything was as it had been. But the ancient gowns and the patched clothes and the work carts hitched to field horses that took the place of the old splendor belied their words; and the thin, simple fare that Sam was compelled to serve in spite of Easter's frantic magic was a travesty of what once had been.
Nor were the sidelong glances thrust at Sally easier to bear. She had been married much longer than Nancibelle, yet where was her child? And where was Andy? Of course she might be barren; Andy certainly was not. Everyone present could point to growing youngsters in the parish whom Andy had fathered. Even Sam awoke to realization in the courteously oblique hints of these people he had known. Sally felt his troubled look follow her around until she could stand it no longer. She left the gathering suddenly, fled upstairs and locked herself in her own room. Hadn't they anything better to do than to eye her like that and whisper among themselves? Dowdy old gossips—male and female both! Their world had crashed about their ears, yet all that could interest them and make for conversation was the state of her childlessness and juicy titbits about her marital affairs.
"I hate them! I hate every one of them!" she declared passionately to herself.
Then anger left her. She was unfair; horribly sensitive. They were not discussing her in any unkindly spirit; perhaps she imagined far more than had actually taken place. Naturally they were interested in her and in Andy. Hadn't they been friends and neighbors all their lives? They were doing the best they could; pride was all that was left to them, and they were hugging it close; even as she.
When Andy finally came, toward the end of the summer, she was half-prepared to meet him. The long months at Moon Hill had softened her. He had written to her again and again and, though she never replied, each humble letter weakened by so much the hard core of her resistance. Her father had spoken to her once about Andy, and she had evaded with bright words and brighter laughter. He had never asked again. The revival of interest that had flared with the news of Nancibelle's child had quickly subsided, and once more he threw himself upon the land in fierce denial of all outside claims.
Andy had changed. His hair was beginning to gray a bit at the edges but he looked leaner and fitter than he had for a long time. His eyes were clear and they were no longer puffed.
"This has gone on long enough, Sally," he said with unwonted gravity. "You married me for better or for worse." A shadow of his old grin moved across his lips. "So far, I admit, it was chiefly for worse. I don't pretend to be an angel; I never did. But you'll have to believe me when I say that ever since that awful night I've not so much as looked at another woman. Take me back, Sally."
She withheld herself, trying to make up her mind. "You took a long time in coming."
"I wrote you enough."
"Letters!"
He winced at the contempt in her voice. "I'll tell you why I didn't come sooner," he said passionately. "Because I was determined that this time, if you decided to continue with me, you wouldn't go back to selling pies. I'm making money now, Sally."
"How?"
"By doing the thing I know best how to do," he told her proudly. "Fighting."
"Fighting?"
They were alone in the great living-room at Moon Hill. Sam Wailes, after the first greeting, had tactfully withdrawn to the fields. Nevertheless Andy cast a wary eye at the closed doors before replying. "Yes, Sally. Fighting for the South again. Fighting in the only way we can fight now. Fighting in the only way that the niggers and the carpetbaggers can understand. All over the State we've got units. Any time a nigger gets impudent, or a white man tries to steal a plantation that doesn't belong to him, we get to work." He grinned. "The methods we use are pretty effective. I organize them. Naturally I get paid my expenses."
"You mean you were involved in that business up in Bossier Parish?"
"And in St. Landry, too. I tell you, Sally, this new idea is sweeping the whole South. Before we're through, the niggers will be so scared they'll forget they ever wanted to vote. And not all the bayonets in the world are going to stop us."
He was bragging like a boy, his face flushed and his voice concentrated. Showing off to her, she thought, bringing to her trophies of his prowess, watching her anxiously for their effect on her.
She had heard of these secret organizations—Knights of the White Camellia, Seymour Knights, Ku Klux Klan. Foci of desperate resistance against alien domination; last resort of a stricken people. Her father had been asked to join; he had listened and given no answer. Unlawful, yes; bloody, yes; but what else was there to do? In Bossier Parish more than half a hundred had been killed—armed negroes who had seized the land, reciprocal murders ending in battle in swamps and woods. In St. Landry Parish a march by negroes on Opelousas to avenge the whipping of a Radical editor. Banded whites in opposition, obedient to a secret call; guns blazing at the crossroads, lynchings, sixty to a hundred dead. Bodies moldering in the swamps, black forms twitching from trees. Race war running like fire through stubble-grass. This, then, was Andy's business!
It wasn't quite heroic; it didn't lift the spirit and set the blood to singing as had the tale of Manassas and Antietam; it dealt with brutal passions and floggings and the hunting of men with guns and dogs; there was danger of sheer descent into killing for the sake of killing. But all other paths were closed to them; all peaceful means of regaining the sovereignty that was rightfully theirs. She had seen with her own eyes how the votes were cast and counted in Lutcher. She had watched Captain Mahaffy of the Freedmen's Bureau gobble up plantation after plantation until he was the largest holder of land in the parish, while the men and women and children he had dispossessed took the charity of friends and relatives who had only too little for themselves.
No, she couldn't blame Andy for what he was doing. It was war—a different kind of war. He was right, and Hugh Flint was wrong. Not by truckling to the enemy could they save themselves; but by fighting as best they could. But still she felt no stirring toward this man who stood before her. These were not the things to offer for her forgiveness. She was a woman, not a depository for bloodied trophies. She shook her head with a certain sadness.
"I'm sorry, Andy—"
He did not let her finish. His expression changed; he caught her hand. "Don't say it, Sally!" he cried. "I've been talking rot. I didn't tell you what I really wanted to tell you. I'm telling it to you now. I love you! All the times I was with other women, I loved you. It was your coldness that drove me to them." He held her limp hand tight, implored her. "Take me back, Sally; give me another chance. Let us try to make a fresh start. I'll never look at another woman as long as I live."
He was wallowing in his abasement. He actually believed what he said. She looked so desirable, unattainable, standing there before him. There never had been a woman like Sally. To the devil with all the others! He wanted her then; wanted her as he had never wanted anything in all his wasted life.
She almost believed him. He looked so tense and desperate and there were tears of self-pity in his eyes. She wanted to believe him. Moon Hill had become an alien world; wherever she went there would be whispers and half-pitying, half-ghoulish thrusts of curiosity. Southern women did not quit their husbands. She didn't love him; but most wives, she had heard, had no romantic passion for their husbands. They went through life, keeping the outward decencies. Perhaps she could do the same. He would not keep his promise about other women. It wasn't his nature; and in a way she had no cause for great resentment. She had been cold; and the coldness must continue. She did not love him. Yet he would never shame her publicly again. He had learned that lesson, at least. Before she decided, however, he must know the truth about her. It was only fair.
"I do not love you, Andy," she said slowly. "I want you to know that."
His eyes fell before hers. He dropped her hand. "I've known it ever since we were married," he said, dejected. "I can't blame you for it. But it isn't too late." He raised his head eagerly. "I'll change. I'll make you love me. Sally, please!"
She wavered. An inner voice cried that it was too late, yet she couldn't tell him that. He looked so broken and yet so hopeful. It was easy to say—I shall change. People didn't change. They grew a bit, or deteriorated a bit; they mellowed or hardened. But fundamentally they remained the same. The traits she had had as a child were still with her; they'd be with her until she died. Andy would try hard—she would try hard. For a week, a month, they'd act with care, with studied response. But sooner or later they'd drift back into themselves—their real selves; and life would go on as before. She must have no illusions.
Her hand went out and patted his arm. "All right, Andy," she said. "We'll try."
Nancibelle opened the door at the sound of the bell and fell crying and laughing all in one into Sally's arms.
"Darling! It's been so long! I'm so happy! Where is Andy? Oh, there you are! Come in, right away; let me close the door. Tell me everything. How is Moon Hill? And Pa? Oh, my dear, that dress you're wearing is positively antiquated. I've seen just the thing for you at Holmes'. It's a perfect love—a pink-coral skirt with three flounces up the front and an overskirt of point lace draped behind in pannier, and—But listen to me chattering away. Talking of dresses when you haven't seen your nephew. Sally, he's the most beautiful, the most intelligent—"
Andy was saying, "Whoa, Nancibelle! I think I'll enter you in Devoe's next race along the Shell Road. I'll lay odds you beat any filly or three-year-old, for that matter, at the pace you're going."
Sally wasn't crying, but she desperately wanted to. It was so good to be back. Dear Nancibelle, wearing her heart on her sleeve and every thought on her tongue. Her little sister a mother! Why, she was so pretty and filled-out and breathless it was inconceivable. That's what happiness did to a woman; that's what—
Then all chatter and laughter and tears dropped suddenly away. From the farther corner of the room a woman arose, stood quietly in the pale sunshine that slanted through the window overlooking Jackson Square. The cool light came to life and glinted warmly in the bronze-gold tumble of her hair, silhouetted her figure in breathing, speaking outline.
Sally went rigid and the little answering words froze on her lips. Andy said, "Damn!" Nancibelle gave a little gasp of dismay. In the excitement of seeing Sally come without announcement she had completely forgotten.
"Don't look as though the world has come to an end, all of you," said Jessie Tait. "I'll remove myself without any further fuss. My compliments, Mrs. Hilgard, on what seems to be a complete recovery. Don't bother to get my things, dear Nancibelle. I know just where they are."
Sally said very clearly and distinctly, "The last time we met you said you wished we would be friends, did you not?"
Jessie stopped short. Her glance was alert, suspicious. "I said something to that effect."
Andy plucked at Sally's arm. "Please, Sally!" he begged in a whisper. "Don't go making a scene."
Nancibelle wailed, "Now, Sally, listen—"
She disregarded them. She stood very straight and selfpossessed. "If you still feel that way about it," she said, "I'm ready to be—friends, Jessie."
Jessie Tait came to her slowly. "I've heard of Southern ladies," she said, "but I've never met one until I met you, Sally. You are a very great lady, my dear." Then she kissed her while Nancibelle clapped her hands so hard that a loud, outraged cry came from the tight-shut bedroom and she fled inside distracted: "There, I woke Dabney up! My poor, sweet baby, don't you cry. Mother's coming!"—and Andy stood embarrassed and somewhat redfaced to one side.
Sally said, "It wasn't your fault. Andy told me how it happened."
Andy cleared his throat. For once in his life he was at a loss for words. "I—I really apologize, Miss Tait. I made a damn fool of myself."
Jessie looked at Sally. "We women just love to hear men say that; it makes us feel so superior, doesn't it, Sally?" And she squeezed her arm.
Sally found herself with a good deal of time on her hands. Andy was away much more than he was home. The national election had whipped Louisiana, as well as the rest of the nation, into a frenzy. General Grant, the hero of the North, was the Republican candidate for President; and the Democrats, knowing in advance that they would be beaten, nominated Horatio Seymour, of New York.
In all the Southern States, under control of bayonets, carpetbaggers and negroes, it was taken for granted that the vote would be cast for Grant. But in Louisiana the Knights, the various Democratic Leagues, open or secret, and Hugh Flint's group of moderates, were determined to assert white, Democratic supremacy by any means at their command.
On this issue Hugh broke with Warmoth, though still working with him on local matters. He toured the State; harangued whites and negroes alike. Devoe mobilized the floaters, the gamblers, the shady, shifting population of taverns and waterfront bars. Willis snorted the Eleanor up and down the river, gathering to the gospel the rivermen, the handlers, the roustabouts. Hugh managed to break down the solidity of the negro ranks. He appealed to them as man to man, regardless of color, and they felt that he was not condescending. They knew him to be moderate; they knew he had saved the life of Quash, the extremist, during the New Orleans riot. There were defections to the Democrats.
Andy worked differently. The Knights of the White Camellia disavowed his methods, but they were extremely effective. They patterned on the Ku Klux Klan of other States. Night rides, sheets, ghostly voices, floggings, threats and sudden deaths scared hordes of negroes away from the polls and drove many a Radical white into hasty flight.
When the votes were finally counted, Grant was elected, but Louisiana—and Florida—alone of all the Southern States had gone Democratic!
During this period of high excitement and turmoil Sally lived quietly in the great town house. Patsey was her sole companion. Andy would dash in, spend a night or two, his days devoted to conclaves and plannings, and hasten off again by train or steamboat for distant parishes where disorganized whites were calling for aid. He was in his element. He loved the swift night raids, the conspiratorial secrecy, the mad, cruel pranks played upon cowering, superstitious negroes. A price was placed upon his head by the enraged Radicals, but his face was masked during bloody forays and he organized by stealth and behind closed doors.
"You wait," he'd tell Sally gaily, breathlessly, on his sudden appearances in town. "We've got them on the run, and we're going to keep them there until we've cleared every rascal out." He caught her around the waist. "You'll still be the Governor's lady, my dear."
Sally wasn't so sure of that. She was not carried away by temporary success as easily as Andy. She had a chance to find out something about the other side. She was a frequent visitor at Nancibelle's. More than anything else little Dabney drew her. His funny little screwed-up face, his wideeyed smile at the sight of her, his fat little fingers that gripped and held her tight, filled her with a longing such as she had never felt before.
Dr. Dumont had shaken his head doubtfully on his final examination after her illness. She might conceive again, he admitted, but the chances were against it. He used a lot of technical phrases to cushion the blow, but the stark statement pierced her through and through. Now, with Dabney gurgling and gabbling strange noises in her arms that were translated by proud parents and aunt alike into coherent words, the ache within her grew. She wanted a baby—a baby of her own! On such occasions she would crush Dabney to her with such fierceness that Nancibelle would cry out, half in fear and half in jealousy, and demand the infant back, while Frazer, placid, good-natured, would stand grinning by.
The Scotts' apartment in the Pontalba became a kind of neutral ground. Frazer Scott hewed solidly to his law, doing well at it, and rigorously refrained from all politics. By persistence and calm speech he broke down the resentful barriers of all but the most embittered whites, and they accepted him, saying, "Well, young Scott may have been a Yankee once, but he's a Southerner now. Minds his own business and let's you mind yours. If all Yanks were like him—"
Warmoth rarely dropped in now—he was much too busy with his official duties. But other members of his administration Liked the easy hospitality of the Scotts and the good Liquor they served. A few native residents of New Orleans came at first hesitantly, then in increasing numbers. Tom Layton led the procession, and his wife. Sally brought Andy on his short periods in town, and Hugh Flint also came occasionally.
It was something of a shock to both of them the first time they met. Andy was away, and they stood silently, fumbling for thought and words, while Nancibelle covered up with much babbling. Sally was angry at herself. She, who was always so self-possessed, acting like a silly girl whenever she met Hugh Flint. In the past she had usually flared up at him, and been sarcastic—a defense against her inner turmoil, she realized now—and here she was again at a loss, finding nothing to say. What was the matter with her? Why did the sight of him always have such a curious reaction upon her? They were no longer the young man and girl of their first meeting. He was over thirty and she was, if not sedate and staid, at least a married woman with years of strain behind her. Their lives had been strangely intermingled, though there were long stretches of time when they had not seen each other. He had never married. Why? Yet even as she asked herself the question a warm flush spread over her body.
Was it because of her? Nancibelle had hinted so; her own instincts had whispered things on occasion. Well, there was no use in thinking of it now.
Then Jessie Tait came suddenly upon both of them, voice vibrant and slightly mocking, as always.
"My gracious! The way you two stand gaping and frowning at each other one would think you were mortal enemies or lovers off on a quarrel. And I won't have either."
"What nonsense you talk!" Sally said with as much calm as she could muster. "Hugh and I are old friends. It's just that we haven't seen each other for so long."
Hugh said gravely, "It has been a long time, Sally. Much longer than there was any need."
Jessie linked her arm with his. Her amber eyes darted keenly from one to the other. "I don't know why he exercises such a fatal attraction over susceptible women like myself, Sally. He isn't the least bit gallant and he has a terrible habit of blurting out the most awful truths about us. If it weren't that we were mixed up politically, I don't think he'd see me for months on end."
Hugh grinned. "I'm going to blurt out one of those awful truths right now."
"Go ahead, I'm used to them. It's the cross I must bear."
"Not a single one of the assertions you have just made is true."
"Meaning that you are gallant and that you have no fatal attraction for me?"
"Precisely."
Jessie sighed, addressed herself to Sally. "How little this particular man knows an aching woman's heart—or is it the aching heart of a woman? I never could get my modifying adjectives properly placed."
On the surface it was airy nothingness, the give and take of polite banter. But Sally felt something deeper, something desperately sincere under Jessie's gay nonsense. Almost a challenge. She was in love with Hugh, and she was adopting this means of telling Sally so, right under Hugh's own unobservant eyes. Was it a warning also? Did she think that Sally, too, was—?
Sally caught herself up short. She mustn't let her imagination run away with her. She had liked Jessie from the start. There was a novel note to her, a fresh, cleansing wind that swept away the conventional restrictions that confined Southern women within certain, well-defined limits. Perhaps she was too frank, too unrestrained. The women of New Orleans shied away with tight disapproval from this bright-plumaged stranger in their midst; the men flocked to her eagerly, misunderstanding, thinking she was willing prey. As Andy had.
Sally had shocked her friends by appearing on good terms with Jessie. They had hinted and insinuated; when that failed, they had expostulated openly. The story of that last party at the Scotts' had slid along the grapevine route of gossip. In the telling, there had been distortions. Jessie had insulted Sally; she had deliberately wrought on Andy's susceptibilities. Sally had broken in on a passionate love scene and had fainted dramatically.
"How can you take up with a woman as notorious as that hussy?" they exclaimed. "Especially after what she did to you, my dear."
But Sally vouchsafed no explanations, though they were dying to get more delicious titbits about dear Sally and that Northern hussy. And she continued her friendship; though Andy himself was a trifle embarrassed and annoyed about the whole matter. It didn't look right to him, either. It made him feel like a fool; and he wasn't accustomed to the sensation. Sometimes he wondered if Sally hadn't done it purposely, to hold Jessie over him as a constant reminder.
For several months he kept strictly to the extra-marital celibacy he had imposed on himself. He had meant what he said at the time. As the months went on, however, he began to weaken. Sally didn't love him. She never had. She had admitted it herself. And she never would. He could see that now. Perhaps it was his own fault; perhaps it wasn't. But a man couldn't keep this up forever. What had happened had happened because he had lost his head. If a man was careful, his wife need never know. His long trips over the State made it much easier. He fell back into old habits.
HUGH FLINT found himself immersed in politics and strange dealings to an extent he had never deemed possible. His warehouse was delivered over to the cautious, conservative practices of Simon Hardy, now white-haired and more paper-thin than ever, and the business brought in only a fraction of its former returns. His plantation, after Sam Wailes's salary had been deducted and all contract charges with the negro hands cleared, barely broke even. The free negroes were still politically dazzled with their newly acquired rights and found it difficult to submit to the hard, constant labor of the plantation. Some of the more desperate cotton planters were making new arrangements with their hands—share-cropping, it came to be called. The owner furnished plots of land, seed and work-animals. The tenant furnished the sweat of his brow and gleaming back. The resultant crop was divided equally between landlord and tenant. But Hugh could not follow this ever-increasing pattern. Sugar could not be subdivided. Sugar could not be boiled and refined and crystallized in individual portions. It was a total process.
Hugh, however, had little time for his business ventures. The game of politics took up all his energy. Yet it was not a game. It was a fearful reality, a grim struggle that was to decide the fate of a people, of divergent ways of life.
Warmoth had played fair. He admitted his indebtedness to the moderate whites, rallied to him under Hugh's leadership. More than a dozen members of the newly elected Legislature were men who followed Hugh.
They sat in a grim, compact group in the temporary State House at the Banque de la Louisiane, surrounded by a sea of blacks, yellowish blacks and whites of all persuasions.
Captain Willis screwed up his leathery face into plaintive protest. "I'm a fair-minded man," he told Hugh, "but ain't this a-takin' our political principles a mite too far?"
"What do you mean?"
The worthy Captain waved his hand around the assemblage. "I mean this here a-sittin' with a bunch o' niggers like we was all brothers. Mind ye, I ain't got no objections tuh niggers as niggers, but when I gotta push my way through a bunch o' nigger policemen armed with clubs an' revolvers an' I gotta tell 'em who I am afore they let me in; an' when ever' time I open my mouth tuh say somethin' here, some big black buck shifts his feet on th' desk an' yells: 'Orduh! De gen'mun ain't in orduh!'—well, I say that's a-goin' too far with this business of equality."
"We'll have to accustom ourselves to it, Willis," Hugh said. "The negroes are here to stay. They've got the vote and they'll continue to elect their own kind. They're pretty ignorant and illiterate right now, as is natural. A lot of them are just out of slavery. If we play our cards right, though, they'll come to see that they're better off working with the men of the South. If we show resentment, they'll stick to the demagogues and the Northerners."
"It jes' don't look right tuh me," Willis said sulkily. "But you're the boss, Hugh. If'n you say so, I'll even shake hands with one of 'em."
"That's the spirit," murmured Devoe, fingering his gold watch-chain. "Look at Hilgard, sitting there at the extreme end. He looks as if he were ready to kill every nigger in the place."
Hugh puckered his brow into a tight knot. "They say he did pretty much that very thing to get elected from Bossier Parish. They say he organized the massacre which kept the negroes away from the polling booths."
"No one can prove it," Devoe pointed out.
"No," Hugh admitted, "but it's common knowledge." For Sally's sake he hoped it would never be proved. His eye caught Andy's. Andy's lip curled and he turned ostentatiously away. He felt an ever-growing resentment against Hugh. He blamed it on the sale of the plantation, on the fact that Hugh was a scalawag. But deep down, he had a graver grievance against Hugh Flint. It stirred and rose in choking clouds, unadmitted yet omnipresent. Obscurely he sensed the curious attraction that existed between Sally and Hugh, the strange pulsations that united them in spite of outward irritation and clashes; and sensing it he blamed Hugh for Sally's coldness to himself. Damn the fellow! If there were only the slightest sign that Hugh was making love to his wife, that he had looked upon her with disrespectful eye, he'd call him out. But they barely met, and when they met it was in public, under watchful eyes. Nothing could be more correct than their behavior; and it was the knowledge of this outer correctness, the utter purity of their relations that roused him to impotent fury. You can't call a man out simply because your wife is cold to you, and because you have an idea that in the recesses of her mind she thinks rather warmly of him.
Hugh caught the semi-insulting gesture and stiffened. He knew that Andy did not like him. In turn he was contemptuous of the man, considering him scatterbrained, reckless, a member of a decaying civilization and dangerous withal in the present delicately balanced state of affairs. If he weren't Sally's husband...
"Here comes Quash," Devoe said suddenly.
The gigantic negro was pushing his way across the crowded chamber, heading directly for Hugh. He had come a long way since Hugh had seen him standing on the levee at Moon Hill, waving for the Eleanor to land and pick up young master and young mistress.
Decent broadcloth, specially tailored to his huge frame by the exclusive Payan on Canal Street, had taken the place of blue coat and tight gray pantaloons. A diamond glittered on his great finger and his white-fluted waistcoat was cut of the most excellent material.
"Howdy, Mistuh Flint," he said with a reluctant bob of his head.
Hugh looked up in some surprise. He had not spoken to Quash since that time, more than two years before, when he had rescued him from the vengeful mob. "How are you, Quash?" he said.
"Good, Mistuh Flint! Good!" He leaned over the desk, his powerful frame overshadowing the seated men. If he noted the Captain's disgusted withdrawal of body from his presence, he made no sign.
"Well, what do you want?" Hugh demanded rather sharply.
Quash smiled. It was a painful smile. His granite-hewn features were not built for levity. "Fust," he said, "I wants to thank you foah de way you helped me dat time of de parade."
Willis snorted. "It's about time ye thought o' that little thing," he grumbled.
"Shut up, Willis," said Hugh. To Quash: "No thanks are necessary. I'd forgotten about it. What else is on your mind?"
Quash said, "Anyhow I gibs mah thanks. You is one ob de few whites what kin see de cullud folks' side ob t'ings."
"Come to the point," said Devoe. "You want something of Mr. Flint."
Quash grinned again, painfully. "You all's prett' smart white folk. I wants somet'ing; but it's somet'ing foah you folks, too."
"Yes?"
Quash brought his great head lower, strained his voice in a hoarse whisper against the clash of sound from the temporarily recessed House. "De Canal bills am comin' up foah vote. Dey is good bills. Dere is de one foah de Miss'ssipp' an' Mexican Gulf Canal; an' de one foah de N'Orleans an' Ship Island C'nal. Dey oughter pass."
Devoe roused himself. "Now, look here—" But Hugh waved him down. He was interested. For some time he had felt unknown forces moving in the background of these two atrocious steals and he wanted to force them into the open. Now was his chance.
"I don't know." He pretended doubt. "The State is absolutely bankrupt just now. We haven't collected even ten percent of last year's taxes. To turn over to private companies more than two and a half millions in cash and almost half a million acres of public lands for schemes like these seems rather suicidal at present."
"Us don' hab tuh pay foah dem now," Quash retorted. "All us does is vote bonds."
"But the bonds have to be paid some day," Hugh pointed out, "and there are the interest charges. We can't afford such luxuries at this time."
Quash bent his head closer. "Might's well vote wid us," he said. "She goin' tuh pass anyhow."
"Hmm!" Hugh still pretended doubt, while Willis stared at him in alarmed astonishment and Devoe's eyes were bright with interest. "Then why worry about our votes?"
Quash frowned. "'Cause," he explained reluctantly, "de Gov'nor, he gonna refuse tuh sign. Den we gotta pass it ovah again, an' den us needs yo' vote."
Hugh was beginning to see. He knew that Warmoth intended to veto the bills. Quash was afraid they wouldn't have enough votes to override the veto. But why was Quash so interested in these canal improvement schemes? Why was he lobbying for them? Hugh could well understand the carpetbaggers and the scalawags in the Legislature voting for them. They were juicy plums. Already the companies had been formed, ready to take over the fat contracts and the immense generosity of State bonds and State lands. Where did the negroes come into the picture? And Quash? It was important for him to find out.
"So you need our votes, eh?" he said, pondering. "And if we do vote right, what do we get in exchange? I mean ourselves—" He waved a careless hand around at their group.
Willis started. His bearded face was compounded of bewilderment and anger. "See here, Hugh!" he began angrily. But Devoe pulled him down, whispered in his ear. Devoe had gambled for big stakes in his time. He knew what Hugh was up to.
Quash looked carefully around; then bent still lower. "Dey's five hundert dollahs foah each ob you," he whispered. Misreading the expression on Hugh's face, he added hastily, "Mebbe I'se kin git a t'ousand foah you as de leadah, Mistuh Flint."
A shocked exultation filled Hugh. He had known that there was corruption in the back of these and similar grab bills for canals, levees, railroads and slaughter-houses, but he hadn't been able to lay his hands on the source.
He pretended caution. "How do I know we'll get paid?"
Quash chuckled. "Doctah Wickliffe, he takin' care ob all dat. He goin' tuh pay jes' as soon as de vote is ober."
Dr. Wickliffe! The State Auditor! A member of Governor Warmoth's machine! Softly he said: "Well, I'll think it over, Quash."
He went straight to Warmoth when the session was over. The Governor listened to him in silence. "I've known something of what's been going on, Flint," he said finally. "You can take my word for it I've had nothing to do with it."
"That isn't enough," Hugh said caustically. "The point is, what are you going to do about it now? About the bills; about Wickliffe, I mean?"
"I'm vetoing the bills. As for Wickliffe, I've got other evidence against him. He's been reselling the scrip that was paid in for taxes, and putting the proceeds in his own pocket. I'm going to press charges against him on that."
Warmoth was as good as his word. Though Hugh's group voted against the grab bills, much to Quash's glowering discomfiture, enough votes had been purchased to put them through. Warmoth refused to sign; but again Quash marshaled enough susceptible members to pass it over his veto.
Warmoth publicly accused Wickliffe of the larceny of the tax monies and removed him from office. Wickliffe refused to recognize the removal, set up office across the street from the Legislature, and proceeded with a war of injunctions and counter-injunctions that lasted almost a year before he was finally brought to trial on impeachment charges and convicted. Then he fled the State to avoid criminal action.
Nevertheless Hugh was not wholly satisfied about Warmoth's part in the proceedings. Outwardly he had done the correct things and acted with vigor; but Hugh had an uneasy feeling about the man. He was too smooth, too openly righteous, too ingratiating. T here was nothing tangible; nothing he could put his finger on.
He discussed Warmoth with Jessie. That most unorthodox lady had thrown herself into the political arena with a gusto and vigorous understanding that astonished Hugh. She was continually astonishing him. They had come to be quite intimate, yet Hugh could never get over the little betraying start at some of her franknesses and unashamed expressions. It seemed sometimes to him that she took delight in startling him like that. "Rousing the Southern gentleman in him," she called it.
Defensively he tried to keep their association on a semipolitical basis. But Jessie would have none of that. "I really don't give a darn for politics," she insisted with most unladylike vehemence. "It's men I'm interested in." Her amber eyes were most disconcertingly direct under long, black lashes. "And the most interesting men are in politics right now. Men like yourself, Hugh."
The directness of the attack took Hugh's breath away. Hastily he evaded. "And Warmoth."
"And Warmoth," she conceded. Then she returned to the attack. "But not nearly as much as you." Her impish face with its lovely freckles twisted in mock sorrow. "Here I am practically throwing myself at the man and he changes the subject. Was there ever such stupid virtue encompassed in the confines of a single male before?"
"You're exasperating, Jessie. I never can tell when you're in earnest and when you're laughing at me."
"Perhaps it's better I keep you in muddled bewilderment," she retorted cryptically. "If you ever really found out the truth about me—" Then she changed the subject.
"About Warmoth, Hugh, I'd say he bears watching. He's a complicated person, and that's what fascinates me. Purely impersonally," she added with a laugh. "He's the only man I know that I haven't been able to penetrate."
"How about me?" Hugh asked.
"You!" There was scorn and something else in her voice. "You're singularly simple, my dear. You don't see the most obvious things that clamor for attention right under your nose; and you think to hide even from yourself certain states of mind that anyone who isn't a ninny can read without trouble on your solemn, decorous visage."
He was taken aback. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't, my dear Hugh. That's part of your lovely simplicity. Perhaps that's why I like you so much. But back to the omnipresent Warmoth again—the august Henry Clay. Watch him. If he isn't taking bribes, or running this State for his own private gain, he ought to be."
Hugh took her advice to heart. It fitted in with his own instinctive feelings. He watched Warmoth and he watched the Legislature in full cry. The latter was much easier to probe. In the history of the world there had been no such Legislatures as were now inflicting the Southern States. Of them all, Louisiana suffered possibly the worst infliction.
The Crescent remarked sarcastically: "The troupe which is now playing a sixty-day engagement at the corner of Royal and Conti Streets [where the Legislature was temporarily meeting] appears daily in the farce of 'How to be a Legislature.'"
The lobbies were crowded with country negroes, come to this shrine of all their grandeur, as to a Mecca; and with sharp-visaged whites, come for different reasons. Negro women sold cakes, oranges and lollipops to spectators and legislators alike; and the solemn chambers of democracy resounded with the cracking of nuts, the munching of cakes and the noisy sucking of candy sticks during the most furious debates. The legislators, with few exceptions, tilted feet upon expensive desks, yelled when the whim seized them, cried Orduh! Orduh! at the most incongruous times in a mere childlike delight of mouthing the pompous phrase. At frequent intervals they spat tobacco juice upon the luxurious carpet underfoot, only recently purchased for the delectation of the lordly members. They purchased other things as well, with a reckless abandon and total disregard for price. Brussels carpet at $4 a yard, individual spittoons at $1 apiece—though the carpet received what the spittoons did not—walnut desks at $375 each, inkstands for $10, scented soap, $5 combs and brushes to straighten out the kinky hair of the members, gold-mounted pens, expensive monogrammed stationery, champagne, seegars.
This was not all. The legislators—former slaves, many of them—dashed triumphantly through the sullen streets of New Orleans in stylish carriages drawn by blooded horses, and invariably a diamond stud blazed in scarlet shirt to flaunt their new-found wealth.
During the debates they ate and interrupted and grimaced like monkeys, barely understanding the course of events. But in the voting they voted like well-drilled mechanisms. Quash moved among the negroes and issued instructions, not deigning to keep his voice discreetly low. Silk-hatted whites, lean and sharp, with flowered waistcoats and long seegars arrogantly in their mouths, moved among the carpetbaggers and the scalawag whites, handing out similar instructions.
The corruption grew with long-continued immunity. No longer did the bribers hide their work in offices just across the street. They came openly upon the floor of the House and watched the voting on their pet measure. When the bill was passed, they went down the aisles, threading their way skilfully among the crowded desks, sheaves of greenbacks in their hands, and a list. From the list they read off names, and at each eager "Yassuh!" they peeled off crisp new greenbacks, fifties and hundreds, and thrust them into grasping hands for services duly rendered. Only Quash received no public pay.
"He's smart, that nigger," growled Willis, glowering in his seat. "Gets his'n behind closed doors. Should anything happen, he's out of the picture."
Devoe said, "Look, Hugh, we don't seem to be getting anywhere. I mean, politically." He grinned. "As for me personally, I can't complain. These new-rich legislators and canal contractors are no different from Northern army officers on the loose or old-time Southern planters. Excepting maybe that they've got more money to throw around. They all think they know more about faro and chuckaluck than a professional. But you had other ideas, Hugh. This thing's getting worse and worse. Half the plantations of the State are on the auction block with no takers but Northerners; people are starving and getting more desperate than ever; the State is bankrupt and going down for the last time. How about that cooperation you've been preaching us? Isn't it time we started on a new tack?"
"Now you're talkin' sense, Devoe," rasped Willis. "I been tellin' that to Flint fer a year now. Look't Andy Hilgard an' his crowd. They're doin' things, while we jes' set here an' vote, an' git outvoted ever' time."
"I know it's hard and we don't seem to be getting anywhere," Hugh admitted. "But we've got to play along with Warmoth as long as he acts as a brake on the extreme Radicals. If we withdraw our support he collapses, and with him goes our last chance. As for Andy's crowd, they're only raising a storm that will plague the South for generations to come. Color hatred, class hatred, blood hatred. There's even talk of martial law again; and then where will we be?"
"No worse off than we are now," grumbled Willis.
Outwardly Hugh remained stubbornly persistent, but the doubts grew on him and lost him sleep of nights. Was he pursuing the right course? Wasn't compromise taken as a sign of weakness; an invitation to the plunderers to renewed efforts? It was true that here and there the more sensible and level-headed of the negroes were swinging away from Quash and Pinchback and the sharp-faced Radicals. But there weren't enough of them as yet.
He watched Warmoth, and what he saw troubled him the more. No outward sign of taint was visible on his ingratiating presence. No bribe for bill signed or whip cracked over the Legislature could legally be traced to him. Yet his personal fortune grew to swollen proportions; his investments covered the State. He purchased Magnolia Plantation, one of the largest and best-known of the sugar empires. Where did the money come from? What were the sources of this sudden access of wealth?
Others besides Hugh wondered, and grew desperate at the confiscatory taxes and open grabs. Lafayette Square seethed with an infuriated assemblage of citizens.
A bull-voiced speaker addressed the mob. "This Legislature," he shouted, "is designed not to defend, but to plunder the country, and take away the liberties of the people. What's to be done?"
"Kill the thieves!" they yelled back. "Lynch them!"
The temper of the people was getting ugly. A committee of one hundred went to Warmoth to protest. He met them with smooth words and agreement. He even countered with a tale of an offered bribe to himself of $50,000 if he'd permit a particularly atrocious grab to pass. Again there was something too smooth, too pat about the whole business and Hugh was not satisfied. He took his doubts to Jessie. She said:
"I wouldn't worry too much about our Henry Clay right now, Hugh. There's trouble brewing."
"Where?"
"In the Republican State Convention. The Radicals are denouncing him as playing up to you Southerners. They're out to knife him. I'd say that you're still better off with our mutual friend than with men like Packard or Dunn."
"Packard's pretty bad," Hugh agreed. "But Dunn's the one negro in office that everyone knows to be honest."
She shook her head wonderingly at him. "Honesty, my poor Hugh, is a very lovely private virtue; but in politics sometimes a rascal who takes bribes on occasion is infinitely preferable to your incorruptible, self-righteous individual who pursues a fanatically pure course. Remember Robespierre, the incorruptible, and Danton, the bribe-taker? Which man did the greater damage to France?"
He stared at her. "Where did you pick up this political wisdom?"
She laughed in his face. "From watching men, and not giving a darn about moral principles."
"I don't believe I'll ever be able to understand you, Jessie," he said finally. "I used to think I was pretty realistic and hard; but you, a woman, put me to shame every time."
The laughter left her eyes. A sudden gravity descended upon her. She rose from her chair and came over to sit next to him on the long, damask-covered sofa. They were in her two-room suite at the St. Charles. She had rented it on her first arrival in New Orleans and had remained there ever since. She liked the hotel, she said; she loved the daily excitement of the lobby with its ever-shifting swarm of adventurers, drummers, politicians, gamblers and carpetbaggers who had long since discarded their battered bags and single dirty collar.
"We women are so easy to understand," she said quietly. "There's nothing really complex about us. The complexity lies altogether in men's insistence on romanticizing us; in following bewildering trails when the path is plainly visible."
She was very close to him, and her warmth enveloped and stirred him into a curious unease. He had never seen her quite like this before. All mockery was gone from her; her face was serious and composed and her eyes met his with direct, disconcerting gaze.
He braced himself. "Have I been romanticizing you?"
"In a sense, yes. You've assumed to yourself that because I've laughed and jested with you and talked politics and discoursed on the general state of mankind that therefore I'm not a woman, a simple creature of flesh and blood and the usual emotions."
He essayed a laugh, and it sounded horribly unsteady. "You're putting ideas into my head that were never there. Of course I considered you a woman, Jessie, and a very lovely and desirable one at that."
She put her arm along the back of the sofa, surveyed him with candid, searching eyes. "Is that mere gallantry, Hugh, because you feel I've been brazen enough to ask for it?"
"No," he protested earnestly, "I mean every word of it."
"Then why have you never told me so?"
He stammered, wondering at her unpredictability. "Why—why—because—damn it, was it necessary? After all—"
She shook her head with grave assent. "It was necessary, Hugh. You see, I love you!"
Just like that; simple, direct, without frills or coquetries. She didn't blush or lower her eyes in pretty confusion. She didn't even sway to him so as to stir his senses or bring response from masculine flesh. She did none of these things; if anything, she drew back a bit and held her eyes calmly on his face as if to read the imprinted truth.
Yet Hugh was overwhelmed. He gaped foolishly at her, as though he hadn't heard her properly. "You—you say you love me, Jessie?"
She smiled equably at him. She might have been telling him that it was a warm day, for all the emotion there was in her voice. Only her face was a little pale and the long fingers that lay along the sofa plucked abruptly at the material. "I said, my dear Hugh, I love you." She seemed to be telling it to herself as well. "Curious, isn't it? I thought I was through with all that after my blessed experience with dear Amos Tait; but there you are."
The words jigged insanely inside Hugh's brain. They were simple words, direct words; susceptible of easy interpretation. Yet he was unable to coordinate them; to extract their full meaning. He was a grown man—thirty-three, in fact. He had had dealings with women; casual, momentary affairs. There was no question that Jessie Tait stirred him as a man. She was lovely, heart-warming. He liked to be with her; she stimulated him, refreshed him with her gaiety and frankness and essential nimbleness. And now she was telling him that she loved him; saying it openly and without preamble.
"But, Jessie," he finally managed, "you're—married!"
"Yes," she said, "I'm married. I have a husband up North, a righteous, self-important old man who refused to divorce me because the scandal would lessen his standing in the eyes of others. I'm tied to him, Hugh; tied to him until I die or he dies. That's why I waited so long to tell you."
He stared at her. "Has anything happened—?"
"Nothing has happened; and everything! I've been wrestling with my own conscience." A shade of her old perky smile wrinkled her nose. "I have a conscience, Hugh, though you mightn't believe it. A good, old-fashioned Puritan conscience. My folks came out of Massachusetts and witchburnings and warning scarlet letters; and the brand is upon me. But I've wrestled it out, and nothing matters any more—except you, Hugh." She withdrew to the very farthest edge of the sofa, so that there might be no contact between them. "Don't you understand, Hugh? I'm offering to be your mistress. I love you enough for that."
Great pulses hammered all over him. He jumped to his feet. "Are you mad, Jessie? Do you know what you are saying? You would ruin yourself."
"I'm ruined already in the eyes of New Orleans," she said quietly. "But I'd be discreet, for your sake. That isn't the point. The single question for you to decide is—do you love me? I don't mean physically—though that's important, of course. I mean in every sense of the word. Do you love me so much that you would have been willing to marry me if I were free to do so? That's vital."
She rose and put her cool hand on his elbow. The touch seared through coat-cloth and cambric shirt beneath. It sent tingles radiating in all directions through his body. "I'm an adventuress, Hugh," she said. "An adventuress with body and mind. Ever since I was a girl I've sought avidly for new ideas, new faces, new scenes. I always wanted to grasp entire every sensation, every novelty there was in the universe. As a child I dreamed of Paris; and Amos Tait spoiled it for me. I came to New Orleans, thinking to find here what I was looking for." Her eyes did not waver from him. "I found you, Hugh. I want you. But you must want me as much as I want you. I expect an honest answer."
He wanted her at that moment; wanted her with every fiber in his being. But she was asking for more than mere present want. She was asking for the love that went with marriage, with children, with long years of association. If she had been free, he might have taken her in his arms and asked her to marry him. He liked her immensely; he admired her. Yes, in the sudden shock of circumstances he would have done that; and not regretted it after.
But she was not free. She offered herself as mistress. She would make a wonderful mistress; yielding every ecstasy to his caresses. And she would make no scenes; display no jealousies or temperamental tantrums such as ordinarily accompanied such arrangements. She was too fine for that.
That was it! She was too fine! She had spoken honestly and demanded an honest return. He, too, must be honest with her. Much as he desired her for a mistress, he could not do it. It would cheapen her; lead inevitably to complications. He, the man, would not suffer; but she, the woman, must. Such things cannot be kept hidden forever. They might whisper and gossip about her now, but still it was mere gossip, known to be such even by those who rolled her name moistly on their tongues. But when there was substance to the gossip—
"You haven't answered me," she said.
He took her hand gently in his. It was going to be hard. Tenderness for her swept over him, almost overwhelmed his resolution. Tenderness that might be confused with love. "I'm sorry, Jessie."
He felt her hand stiffen in his. Her face grew white, but her eyes did not drop and she did not sway. "I understand, Hugh." Her voice did not quaver in the slightest. "You do not love me that much."
He was miserable. He tried to explain. "I admire and respect you as much as I do any person alive, Jessie. You're a grand person; too good for what you propose. For your own sake—"
Her face lit up suddenly. The old familiar mockery moved into her eyes, and her lovely, freckled nose crinkled up into the old gay, impudent pattern.
"You needn't elaborate, my dear Hugh. When a man becomes virtuous and self-denying for the sake of a woman, it means only one thing. And when he tells her how much he admires and respects her, the evidence becomes irresistible. He just doesn't care tuppence for the lovely lady."
"That isn't so," he protested unhappily.
The grin faded. "You're an honest man, Hugh," she said very low. "Please kiss me—this once."
She was in his arms, tremulous, shy, suddenly virgin. Their lips lay hard against each other. A fierce passion swept Hugh. He tightened his hold, bent her head back. But she slipped quickly away. "No," she whispered. "That's enough."
For a moment they stood, facing each other, breathing hard. Then she laughed, and the laugh was gay, clear, careless. "That's that, Hugh. Now, about your candidacy for the next Legislature—I have a few suggestions."
SALLY was pregnant again; she hadn't believed it at first, remembering Dr. Dumont's earlier diagnosis; but as the months passed, there could be no doubt of her condition. She was going to have a baby; she would not grow into childless old age. Blood of her blood; bone of her bone; hers! She nurtured it fiercely within her, seeking for signs of life long before there was any physical possibility of movement. A warm glow pervaded her, sparkled in her eyes, expressed itself in the quick elasticity of her movements. This time there must be no failure; no question of miscarriage.
Not that there was much chance of it. Andy was probably unfaithful on occasion; but if he was, he was quite discreet about it. It didn't matter much to her any more. He had shattered her pride once; he couldn't do it again. Pride, she had discovered, was a matter of self alone. Carefully she had rebuilded her fortress, buttressed it with the armor of her own spirit. No outside force could tear it down again.
Her marriage was an empty thing; but she maintained the facade with correct formalities. She fulfilled her wifely duties; and sought outlets for her spirit in the swirling life of New Orleans. Nancibelle, with her still-childish ways, easy laughter and easier tears; Frazer Scott, solid, substantial, prospering, not too brilliant; two-year-old Dabney, running to her on unsteady legs with cries of "Auntie!"; the tiny wrinkled bit of squalling flesh that Nancibelle was proudly displaying as her latest triumph—Jedediah, it was called—a formidable name for such a small creature; an occasional visit to her father at Moon Hill; these comprised the satisfying round of family.
Outside, there were many others. The old South, rallying to one another, holding themselves scornfully aloof from parvenus and interlopers. These were less satisfying. She sympathized with them, felt the call of blood and caste; but she was also somewhat impatient. They lived in the past, hearkening to a glory that was gone and perhaps had never been, building up legends about it to hide their hurt, resentful of the tide of life that was sweeping on. She was too full-blooded for that; too alive and spirited. She could not yield to passiveness or negativity; she had to stir and shape and move. She was bound to Andy by indissoluble marriage; she refused all other hamperings.
She advised Andy and guided him. He listened and gained a vast respect for her clear-headedness and intelligence. If she was not a mistress to satisfy his needs, at least she was a proper wife. He lost the uneasy feeling that she was constantly weighing and judging him; she was skilful enough to hide that now. There were plenty of times when she saved him from disaster. She got him out of the Knights of the White Camellia just before Radical spies burrowed into its inner councils and broke it up. She kept him away from the grosser, cruder forms of intimidation that were creating a revulsion among responsible Conservatives themselves, and justified it to him when a sudden foray of soldiers seized half a dozen of his cronies and hanging talk was thick in the air. She pushed him into the Legislature, first from Bossier Parish, then from Moon Hill, against his disdain for association with blacks and tans. She even restrained him from accepting bribes.
"But everyone's taking them," he protested sulkily. "Those bills will pass without my vote. If I'm fool enough to turn them down, what's the gain?"
"The gain of your own self-respect," she retorted, "and an influence for the future. What difference could you show between yourself and any carpetbagger?"
"It's a shame to let all that good money go," he grumbled. "If my vote meant anything, it would be another matter."
"Taking bribes means everything," she said firmly. "Is Hugh Flint selling his vote?"
"N-no, he isn't." He searched her face suddenly. "Now look here, I'm sick and tired of hearing about Hugh Flint this—and Hugh Flint that. He's nothing but a—"
"Let's not quarrel," she said. "I've other matters to talk to you about. I'm going to have a child."
"No-o-o; you don't mean it, Sally."
"I do, Andy. I just came back from Dr. Dumont."
He caught her to him, his face eager, alive. "By God, Sally! That's the best news I've heard in years. Ever since—"
"I'm forgetting the past, Andy."
He looked ashamed, sheepish. He released her. "You're all right, Sally. I don't deserve you. But say—what are we going to name the boy?"
Sally was safely delivered of a girl just as the troops were marching with clang of steel and thud of heavy boots down St. Charles Avenue to present the sharp-edged argument of their bayonets to the Legislature in the Mechanics' Institute. The day was January 4, 1872.
She heard the thump and the grim clatter through the bare-branched trees that framed her bedroom window. She heard the distant shouts and cries that tore the harried city into a hundred splintered pieces. The long bitterness of reconstruction was coming to a head.
But right now it did not matter to her. Nothing mattered except the feel of the warm flesh against her bosom, the fumbling life that sought her breast.
"Oh, well," said Andy resignedly, looking down upon them both, "I might have known it would be a girl."
"And supposing it is, Andy Hilgard!" exclaimed Nancibelle in high indignation. "I'd rather have a girl any day than a boy. Look what the boys grow up into. And besides, is that the way to talk when Sally is—" She flung herself upon mother and baby, kissing them, crying over them. "Sally darling! And you little precious child!"
Andy grinned. "It's all right for you to talk that way," he retorted. "You've got two boys already."
But no one was listening to him. All attention was concentrated on the red-faced baby with the blinking blue eyes and the wispy hair.
He turned to vent his humorous spleen on Patsey. "A father doesn't seem to count for very much around here," he asserted.
But Patsey had opened the door softly and admitted two new callers.
"A father counts for nothing anywhere," retorted Jessie gaily, shaking out the long folds of her cape, her cheeks crisp with the frosty winter air. "Isn't that so, Hugh?" she demanded of her companion. "Or don't you know, never having been a father? Or have you?"
Hugh said: "You ask the most embarrassing questions, Jessie. I've never been a father and I don't know. Hello, Hilgard!"
"Hello, Flint," Andy said stiffly.
Hugh hadn't wanted to come. He had felt profoundly disturbed when he found out that Sally was going to have a child. Children were the natural consequences of marriage, and Sally's lengthy childless state had been the subject of comment. Nevertheless the actual event clarified with a sharp clarity certain facts that he had always evaded in his thoughts—Andy was Sally's husband; this was Andy's child as well as Sally's.
But Jessie had insisted, and her insistence was impossible to be denied. He had pleaded the particular importance of the Assembly meeting this morning, and she had pointed out that he could attend in time. "After all," she told him reproachfully, "Sally is your friend."
He admitted that and came. He was relieved that Jessie had forced his decision. He had been torn between the desire to see Sally and a strange aversion to laying eyes on the product of her marital career.
Yet now that he was here, a curious eagerness possessed him. Jessie and Nancibelle and Sally were exchanging the little breathless cries, the running fire of questions which require no answers and answers which fit no questions, that always seem appropriate to women in a situation such as this. Andy said nothing after his first unwilling greeting, and Hugh seemed curiously out of it.
Then Sally's clear, tender-glowing eyes smiled over to him and beckoned him to her side. He went over awkwardly, bent over her extended hand. The touch of the smooth skin was cool and refreshing; it lay on his lips like a breath of pineladen air. He was suddenly content.
"I'm glad you came, Hugh," said Sally. "We see each other so little. Why is that?"
Hugh stammered something that didn't quite make sense. He couldn't tell her he wanted nothing more than to see her always. She was beautiful, half-propped up on the pillows, her frilly, lace-embroidered jacket leaving only the white smoothness of her throat exposed to view. She was more beautiful than ever, he thought. The years had deepened her and motherhood sat like a glory on her brow.
"Stop gaping at the mother and take a look at the adorable little baby," cried Jessie. There was a bit of sharpness in her tone he had never heard before. He jerked to it, said protesting: "But I am looking at it. He's a healthy youngster, isn't he?"
"He!" cried Nancibelle in amusement. "It's a girl, Hugh. The cunningest, most adorable—"
"Of course," he said, confused. "How stupid of me."
He stared at the shapeless bundle with its slightly pointed head and red, wrinkled face that Sally pressed against her. Something slowly stirred in him. A yearning for it; an overwhelming realization that it was part of Sally.
"What are you calling her?" he asked in a strained sort of way.
"Elizabeth," said Sally, "after my mother."
Through the filtering window came a renewed blast of sound. Artillery wheels rumbling over cobblestones, striking fire and angry complaints from the granite. "What's happening?" asked Sally.
Hugh came to himself with a start. His face clouded and a hard, grim light invaded his eyes. "Nothing much," he denied. "Just some troops marching. But I've got to be going. A meeting of the Legislature, you know." He turned politely to Andy. "Coming, Hilgard?"
"No. The hell with it all! A man doesn't have a baby every day."
"And I thought it was Sally who had the baby," murmured Jessie. "But that's what makes the South so glamorous. You never know—"
"Well, goodbye," Hugh said hastily. He bowed, went quickly out. Jessie could say the damndest things on occasion. If he hadn't cut her short—
His grin faded in the keen, cold air. Down the palm-shaded street he saw the flow of business-like troops. General Emory's men. Federal soldiers intervening once more in local politics. Orders from Washington, direct from President Grant. Bayonet rule naked and unadorned, the velvet sheath ruthlessly ripped from the bitter steel. Making mockery of self-government, of supposed constitutional rights. Seven years of alleged peace, and still they were treated as a conquered people, unable to make decisions for themselves.
The crisis had come with stunning force. The blow about to be struck had caught Hugh practically unprepared. He would have understood, had the Democrats won to power and sought to reestablish white supremacy. He would have disapproved; but he would also have understood. The Democrats, however, were not in power. Warmoth and his cohorts were Republicans. Moderate Republicans, it was true, as against the bitter-end Radicals. But Republicans nevertheless, and committed to a program of Republican principles. Yet United States soldiers were about to decide a faction fight between Warmoth and the Radicals by sheer, usurpating force.
He flung into his carriage, told the driver: "To the State House, as fast as you can drive."
They rattled into Prytania Street and down Camp at a lashing gallop. He couldn't cut across St. Charles: the troops were moving endlessly. Jounced from side to side, eyes narrowed with thought, he reviewed the situation. All thoughts of Sally, of her child, of Jessie, of everyone else, moved into the background. At eleven the session opened, and he had to be there. It was a little past ten-thirty now.
It wasn't that Governor Warmoth was all milk and honey. Not by a long shot. He had grown fabulously rich in office; he had tried to mold the Legislature to his will and resorted to direct bribery and promise of offices to gain his ends. It was a case of shadings rather than of absolute values. He tended to be conciliatory to the white Democrats—because he needed their votes, perhaps—and steadily opposed the rantings of the extreme Radicals. They came to hate him as virulently as they hated the Democrats. They inflamed the negroes against him. Quash was their associate, delivering the negroes in a solid group. Not once had Quash lost sight of his dream of negro power. He worked steadily toward that end, shifting his forces, willing to be used by others if the use furthered his own schemes. He was a sluice through whom bribes flowed, yet Hugh discovered that he never accepted one himself. The man was fanatically sincere.
The revolt against Warmoth gained strength. The negro Lieutenant-Governor, Dunn, and the United States Marshal, Packard, headed the insurrection in the Republican ranks. Later, James F. Casey, Collector of the Port and Grant's brother-in-law, joined them. A handful of whites at the top and an overwhelming tide of blacks in the ranks. The white Republicans chiefly supported Warmoth, aided by Hugh's moderate Democrats. The color line was distinctly drawn, for the first time. Quash hid his glee behind his usual sullen air and moved stealthily in the background.
The new Legislature met on January 1, 1872 after much preliminary skirmishings for control between the Warmoth crowd and the "Customs House gang," as the anti-Warmoth forces came to be known. The margin between the opposing factions was exceedingly close. The fight, however, was wholly political. In corruption the two factions vied with each other. Any money measure was certain of passage. A Levee Bill calling for huge outlays to handpicked politicians, went through in a rush. The Legislators were duly recompensed. One unfortunate member, who had been away during the voting, felt aggrieved. He wrote a letter.
"Gentlemen of the Finance Committee of the La. Levee Co.," he stated candidly. "Please pay to Hon. A. W. Faulkner the amount you may deem proper to pay on account of Levee Bill, I being absent at the time under orders of the House. But I would have voted for the bill had I been there."
At the opening session, the anti-Warmoth group won a narrow victory in the House, aided largely by the tactics of the Speaker, George W. Carter, a former protégé of War moth who had joined the coalition against him. But Warmoth still had control of the Senate. To prevent the Senate from meeting, therefore, fourteen "Customs House" Senators went on a cruise as guests of Marshal Packard and Collector Casey on the U. S. revenue cutter Wilderness. Thereby a quorum was prevented and the absconding Senators held out of reach of the sergeant-at-arms.
Warmoth promptly called out the metropolitan police to hold possession of the State House—the old Mechanics' Institute. Speaker Carter as promptly called upon General Emory to march his troops to overawe the police. Since Casey was Grant's brother-in-law and Packard was a power in national politics, Emory obeyed. The soldiers were on the way right now.
Hugh found Dryades Street swarming with police. They held every entrance to the Mechanics' Institute and they had flung a cordon around the open square.
"Hey, you, where're you going?" yelled a red-faced lieutenant to Hugh as he tried to push his way through the helmeted men.
"To the Legislature," Hugh retorted. "I'm a Representative."
"Show your credentials then."
Hugh produced them. The officer inspected the documents, looked keenly at Hugh. "You belong to Warmoth's party?"
"I belong to no party."
"A Carter man, maybe?"
"I think," said Hugh coldly, "you've asked enough questions. I am a member of the Legislature now in session, and I demand entrance."
"All right, all right," growled the policeman. "I'm just doing my duty. Orders from the Governor. Go on in."
"It may interest you to know," Hugh said as he passed, "that General Emory's troops are heading this way up Canal Street. I just swung past them with the carriage."
The lieutenant's face twitched. "The Governor can't expect us to fight the Federals."
"I don't believe he does," said Hugh.
The great assembly hall on the second story of the Mechanics' Institute where the House of Representatives held its sessions was a scene of wild confusion. Every man was on his feet, shaking his fist and screaming epithets at opposing members and paying not the slightest heed to the continued banging of the gavel.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" shouted Speaker Carter and crashed the wooden mallet against the Speaker's desk. "We cannot proceed to business until we have order. Sergeant-at-arms, will you please—"
But his voice was merged in the larger pandemonium and the pound of wood was a mere obbligato. The sergeant-at-arms moved vainly up and down the aisles crying out his orders, seeking forcibly to push the excited, cursing members into their seats. They shook him off and yelled their taunts again.
Hugh forced his way through the milling, furious group to the center where his own little band of stalwarts made a compact knot between the negro Radicals of the "Customs House gang" and the white Republican Warmothists on the right. They sat silently through all the noise and shouting, taking no part in the epithets, an island of quietude between the belligerent forces. The Captain's bearded face was a wide grin and Devoe smiled sardonically. They seemed to be enjoying the lash and fury of the tumult that raged around them.
Willis saw Hugh pushing toward them and he waved delighted greeting. He raised his voice in stentorian tones, strengthened by much shouting against the clamor of bells and the pound of steamboat engines. "'Bout time ye came, Hugh. Ye've been missing a deal of fun. Ain't enjoyed myself so much since I tuk Devoe's pile away from him playing poker."
"Hello, Flint," said Devoe placidly. "When the good Captain will forget that remarkable event, I'll know that he's ready to meet his Maker. But I'd hardly call this fun. I hear the Federals are on their way."
Hugh dropped into his seat. "They are. I met them in full battle array. There'll be trouble. Where's Warmoth?"
"I don't know. In the first floor offices, maybe? Do you think there'll be a fight?" There was a hopeful note in the gambler's voice. His long, adroit fingers patted his pocket where he carried his derringer.
Hugh shook his head. "Warmoth is too cool a man to fight the army. That would be the end of him."
Willis chuckled. "He ain't been able to organize the Senate yet. Those fellers what's sailin' the Mississipp' stopped a quorum. He kain't put no bills through."
The tumult seemed to increase with the passing minutes. Carter's voice was hoarse and weary, and his gavel splintered as he swung it. Then, suddenly, a grimmer rumble insinuated itself into the infrequent pauses. Artillery wheels, horses' hooves; sharp, clear orders!
There was a concerted rush to the windows looking out upon the square. The frosty sun glimmered on slanting bayonets, reflected from gold epaulettes, was swallowed up whole in the gray depths of the cannon. The police were falling back sullenly, giving way before the armed forces of the Federal Government.
A moment of breathless silence; then yells of exultation from the negro representatives, and a blank despair on the faces of the Warmoth Republicans. Speaker Carter sank into his chair, put his battered gavel down with a triumphant gesture. His narrow, bony face was wreathed in a satisfied smile. "He thinks he's got us licked," Willis said indignantly. "I'd like tuh wipe that there grin off'n his silly face."
"You'll do nothing of the sort," Hugh told him sharply. He got up.
"Where are you going?" inquired Devoe. For the first time a faint uneasiness showed on his smooth, inscrutable countenance.
"To see Warmoth. To warn him to get out the back way before they come for him."
"Y'mean tuh say they'll touch the Governor?" demanded Willis incredulously.
Hugh's tone was harsh. "Why not? The Customs House crowd'll stop at nothing to gain control. And President Grant does what they want. You wait here for me."
There was a flurry at the door. The sergeant-at-arms' voice rose in expostulation. "You can't come in here, ma'am! The Legislature is in session."
"It won't be much longer," retorted a warm, husky voice. "And as for coming in, my man, I'm in already."
My man gave way helplessly before his unseen opponent and Jessie Tait swept by, her full skirts swirling with the quickness of her pace, her gold-amber eyes raking the assemblage, superbly disdainful of the deathlike hush and the curious glances at her intrusion. Carter arose from his Speaker's chair, frowning. He knew Jessie and his stern frown was tinged with uneasy embarrassment.
He cleared his throat. "Now, Miss Tait, you ought to know you can't invade the Legislature like this."
But her eyes had caught Hugh and she beckoned to him with imperious gesture. He made his way down the aisle swiftly, wondering. He had left her barely an hour and a half before at Sally's, immersed in delighted exclamations over the baby. Yet here she was, heedless of all rules as usual, shattering the conventional with a single sweeping gesture.
"What brings you here, Jessie?" he whispered as he came up to her. "Even you ought to know better. There's going to be trouble—"
She smiled brightly at him, but her voice was low and urgent. "Give me your arm, Hugh, as though you were really being gallant, and escort me out into the lobby. Hurry!"
Hugh knew better than to ask any more. When she turned on that dazzling smile there was something in the wind, something that brooked no delay.
He extended his arm; she took it with a pretty grace, arranged her flounces and they went pacing out of the hall to the accompaniment of a rising mutter of sound.
In the hall, at the edge of the broad marble stairs, he stopped her. "What's this all about, Jessie?" he demanded with a touch of severity. "If this is just another of your pranks—"
"Don't be a fool, Hugh. Down the stairs quickly, and out into the street. No, don't let go my arm. Hold it tight, turn on your best dying-calf expression and prattle away to me. The sillier the talk, the better. Come."
He stood there stubbornly. "I'm here on duty. I'm a member of the House. I'm not running away."
She tugged exasperatedly at his arm. "Save your speeches for those who appreciate them. If you don't hurry I'll have to visit you in jail. And I hate jails."
"What do you mean?"
"You're marked for arrest, Hugh. You and a score of others from Warmoth down. Marshal Packard has warrants out. His deputies will be here any moment. Now hurry!"
Hugh planted his feet solidly. "If that's true—"
"Of course it's true. I went back to the hotel from Sally, and I met one of the deputies in the lobby. He—he's still hopeful I'll yield myself to his charms. The old moth-eaten idiot! But he stroked his bristles and bragged to me. I came over at once."
"Then I'll have to tell my men—Willis, Devoe, Layton and—"
"They're safe. You and Andy are the only Democrats on the list. Andy's at home, and I sent a messenger to warn him into hiding."
"How about Warmoth?"
"Let him take care of himself." She burst out passionately: "You're the only one I care for, Hugh—you—you blithering—" She broke off, tightened her grip on his arm. "There are the deputies now. They've just come in. They're going to the Senate first. Now will you come, or do I have to scream and cry out that you've insulted me?"
The little group of five men came swiftly through the entrance. They held sheaves of official-looking papers in their hands. Behind them strode two men in uniform. They turned directly toward the Senate chamber, vanished inside.
Hugh said, "All right, Jessie. You won't have to scream."
She raised the string to her billowing dress so that the hem did not trail the marble stairs and they went downstairs, her gloved hand resting confidingly on his elbow, saying with a ripple of laughter: "My dear, we'll really have to hurry. I promised Mary Lou that we'd meet her at Antoine's at noon for lunch, and it's almost that now. You know how Mary Lou just hates to be kept waiting."
"We'll be only a few minutes late," he assured her, loud enough for the soldiers at the door to hear. "I had to see my friend, Carter, about that bill, you know."
A short, dignified lieutenant stopped him. "Your name, sir. No one is permitted out unless he identifies himself."
"Victor Sullivan, of the law firm of Sullivan, Billings and Hughes. Surely you ought to know me. My office is at 124 Canal."
The lieutenant had taken off his hat in honor of Jessie. His eye approved her surreptitiously. "I've heard of the firm," he admitted. "Still, I don't know—"
"Our clients, the Jackson Railroad, are interested in a pending measure," explained Hugh. "I just spoke to Speaker Carter about it. But what is the idea—?"
Jessie tugged impatiently at his arm. "Come. Victor, we're frightfully late. If the lieutenant wishes to know more about you, I'm sure Mr. Carter will be glad to furnish him all the necessary information." She looked with wide, appealing eyes at the lieutenant, and he was lost. He bowed and said gallantly: "Why, of course, ma'am. I wouldn't dream—"
But they were already gone, walking fast, but not too fast, across the troop-congested square. "I left my carriage on Common Street. Remember, just like the time I first met you."
"You dazzled that poor officer. He'll be courtmartialed for letting me escape."
"No, he won't." Then she sighed. "I dazzle everyone but you, my dear. But here's the carriage."
The little negro boy accepted the bright new quarter that Hugh tossed him and handed him the reins. Jessie took them from him. "You know I permit no one else to drive my horses," she said severely. "Please get in."
They clattered toward Poydras Street. She puckered up her brows. "Now let me see, where can you hide until this blows over?" Then she glanced at him sideways. "Mmm! Of course you'd be absolutely safe in my suite. No one would think—"
"Jessie!" Hugh said sharply. "None of that."
She trembled with laughter. "I never knew a man so tenacious of his virtue. I was going to give you the inner room. It has a separate door. But if you are squeamish—"
Since that one single moment when she had bared herself for his startled inspection she had reverted to her former quizzical, mocking state. Not by word or gesture did she ever allude to her avowal of love; and Hugh began to wonder whether that too had not been a consummate piece of acting which, if taken too seriously, would have ended in peals of laughter at his innocent acceptance.
"I'll stay at the warehouse," he declared firmly. "I can't run away. I've got to keep in touch with Willis and Devoe, in case we have to come to any decision."
"But they'll arrest you."
"Not unless I wish to be. My clerks are pretty loyal."
She turned silently into Poydras Street. Then, as they came abreast of the warehouse, she said softly, "I'm glad you're staying, Hugh. I wanted you so badly to get away, but I would have been miserable if you had really gone." She extended her gloved hand. "Goodbye, my dear—and good luck."
He squeezed the slender fingers in silence and jumped down. Without another word she whipped up her horses and vanished at breakneck speed around Canal Street. For a moment he stared after her, then shook his head and went quickly through the door.
From the safe recesses of his back office he sent messengers flying over the face of the city. The news was ominous. Governor Warmoth, the Lieutenant-Governor, four Senators and eighteen Representatives had been bagged in a single swoop on charges of violating the Federal Enforcement Acts. Of all those named in the warrants only Andy Hilgard and Hugh Flint had escaped.
But messengers soon brought even more troubling news. While the arrested officials were seeking bail, Carter, now in control of the House, promptly unseated Warmoth men and replaced them with his own. Among the legislators thus thrust out into the street were Willis and Layton. Devoe, strangely enough, was permitted to remain.
They came hurrying to Poydras Street on Hugh's summons.
"Thank God!" said Layton fervently. "They didn't catch you."
"What're we goin' tuh do now?" asked Willis helplessly. He was a simple man, addicted to direct action. This tortuous business of politics was getting too much for him.
"That depends," said Hugh. "What's Warmoth doing?"
"Getting bail from the United States Commissioner," Layton told him. "One of his aides notified us secretly that there'd be an extra session this afternoon after Carter's gang adjourns."
Hugh took his hat, clapped it on his head.
"Where're ye goin'?" demanded Willis.
"To the Commissioner. I'm surrendering on the warrant."
"Are ye crazy?" The Captain was hoarse with alarm. "They'll put ye in jail."
"I'm no good to anyone in hiding. This is a battle, Willis; just as much as Gettysburg or the Wilderness, and maybe just as important. I'd be a hell of an officer if I skulked when the firing grew too heavy, wouldn't I?"
"But if'n they shove ye in jail?"
Hugh turned to Layton. "Tom, I want you to come along and stand bail for me. Will you do it?"
The banker set his shiny silk hat carefully on his head. "The Southern Bank will stand security for any amount."
"Good! Now let's hurry."
By four that afternoon Hugh had duly surrendered himself on the charges stated in the warrant, pleaded "Not Guilty" and been released on bail. By four-thirty he was back in the Mechanics' Institute attending a rump session called by Warmoth in his capacity as Governor. The Carter men had gone to their homes, satisfied with their day's work, unknowing of this special session. Only Warmoth followers and Hugh's Democrats attended.
They did what they had to do with speed and dispatch. Motions were made, seconded and passed unanimously without debate. Hugh sat with Warmoth and grimly planned their course. The bills of the regular session were repealed and new ones placed upon the statute books. The ousted men were reseated and Carter's new appointees expelled. Carter was deposed as Speaker in absentia and H. O. Brewster, a Warmoth adherent, elected in his place. Then, cheering and shouting, the rump Legislature adjourned.
Warmoth said gratefully: "Flint, I won't forget what you've done for me. Without your help and counsel my enemies would have crushed me."
"They still have the bayonets," Hugh warned. "And we're still under arrest."
"Everything will be straightened out," Warmoth retorted confidently. "I've just sent a telegram of protest to Washington. I've demanded that the President call off the troops."
"I'm afraid others have Grant's private ear. However, you can count on me to the bitter end, Governor; as long as—"
"As long as what?"
"As long as you act for the benefit of Louisiana."
That night New Orleans seethed with passion and dismay as coup and counter-coup became public property. There was no sleep for Hugh. They were working at top speed to consolidate their position, to gain mass strength for the inevitable reprisals.
The Federal troops had been withdrawn. General Emory had never dreamed that Warmoth would do what he did. In the dark of the night the police, subject to the Governor's orders, and reenforced by special appointees drawn from waterfront and back swamps, filled the State House again. In the morning Warmoth's Legislature moved in early, and Carter's Legislature was brusquely turned away by the helmeted men.
Bewildered, undecided at the sudden turn of events, they went over to the Gem Saloon on Royal Street to reform their ranks and decide upon a course of action. Flanked by shiny bar and gleaming bottles, fortified for considered legislative debate with generous potations from the attractive stock, they declared themselves in legal session. And on the Mississippi River, cruising aimlessly back and forth, steamed the revenue cutter, Wilderness, bearing another splinter of the august Legislature, the runaway Senators shepherded by Packard and Casey. They too held themselves in session.
Three Legislatures meeting, each proclaiming itself the only authentic entity, each legislating with vehemence and abandon for the stricken State of Louisiana.
But even Grant could not stomach the use of a United States vessel by a fragmentary group of runaways. In spite of his brother-in-law's pleas, he abruptly ordered the commander to land his peripatetic Legislature. They decided on Bay St. Louis, in the neighboring State of Mississippi; and thereby lost the last shred of legality for their proceedings.
At the Mechanics' Institute, behind a barricade of police, Warmoth went ahead. Daily Hugh watched for the return of the troops, but General Emory gave no sign of action.
"My telegrams to Washington have taken effect," Warmoth boasted. "The President is beginning to realize that he needs my support for re-election this year."
"The Democrats here are also beginning to realize that," Hugh pointed out. "They're forming a coalition with the Customs House Radicals against you."
"The damn fools!" Warmoth scowled. "Don't they know they're cutting their own throats?"
That was politics! Hugh reflected. He was supporting a slippery, unsatisfactory politician, and Andy, who had emerged from hiding as the warrants of arrest were temporarily thrust into limbo, was suddenly backing Casey and Packard. A mad world, with every footing insecure and every step a plunge into bottomless mire.
On the morning of January 9th Warmoth called Hugh into his private office. Hugh had never seen him look so agitated. For once his superb aplomb and confidence had deserted him.
The Governor was pacing agitatedly back and forth. "I've just received some very bad news, Flint," he burst out without preamble.
"From Washington?"
The Governor waved Washington aside. "No, they're still holding off. It's Carter's gang."
Hugh said with relief, "Then it's not so bad. We can handle the local situation; but we can't handle the United States army."
Warmoth did not stop his pacing. "This is worse. Carter's sergeants-at-arms have murdered Jordan."
"You mean the Representative?"
"Yes; one of my men." Warmoth stopped his aimless movements. He looked haggard and his invariably neat flow of tie was disarranged. "They planned to kidnap him and others of the House, bring them to the Gem Saloon and proclaim a quorum. Poor Jordan resisted, and they shot him. They're boasting they'll do the same with everyone they catch."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. That's why I wanted you here."
"You're still Governor," Hugh said sharply. "You've got to act at once. This is the chance that you should have been praying for."
Warmoth lifted his head. "I don't understand."
"Up till now you were legally in the wrong. Your rump session was called without proper notice. If Carter had been clever, he would have waited for the troops to move again. But now he's outside the pale. His men have committed official murder. That makes a state of emergency."
Hugh's mind was moving with swift precision, all former hesitations forgotten. "Send your police down to the saloon and close it up. Arrest Carter on a warrant charging murder. You have the authority. If the Federals act then, they'll be baldly and openly interfering with civil process."
"Suppose they do just that?"
"I don't believe they will. This is an election year. The Democrats of the North would turn such an open usurpation to good account."
Warmoth said slowly, "By God, Flint, I think you're right!"
The next day three hundred police, fully armed, swooped suddenly upon the Gem Saloon. The sortie in force caught the Carterites unprepared. They were thrust unceremoniously out of their alcoholic sanctuary and the place barricaded against their return. But Carter managed to escape. He fled to the Customs House—Federal territory, where the police dared not enter—and attempted to rally his shattered Legislature. But his devious maneuvers, even a counter-surprise attack upon the State House, were failures. Hugh's plan had met with crushing success.
Then Casey and Packard moved into the arena. They brought their absconding Senators back to the Legislature, hoping, with the aid of their new-found Democratic allies, to snatch control. But now Warmoth was able to work in the way that delighted him most. He met some of the Customs House Senators in secret and exercised his undoubted charm to the full. Hugh had a strong suspicion that he used even more cogent arguments; but that of course was mere suspicion. In any event, at the crucial moment, one Senator switched his vote and the Senate declared to the world, by reason of that single vote, that the Warmoth House of Representatives was the only true and legal lower branch of the Legislature.
Still Carter refused to admit defeat. Grant, in far-off Washington, thinking of his fall campaign for re-election, had cannily adopted a hands-off policy. Whereupon Carter turned to the negroes for support. Quash was with him, and he was certain they could raise the mob.
A few mornings later Hugh was staring at a huge-lettered handbill that Willis had thrust into his hands.
"Look't this! Look't this, will ye!" The worthy Captain was stuttering with rage. "Tryin' tuh start a race war, that's what they're a-doin'! I tell ye, Hugh, we gotta raise the whites an' blast ever' bastard of 'em clean intuh the river."
"Take it easy, Willis," Hugh advised. "Let me read it first."
It was inflammatory enough.
TO ARMS! TO ARMS! TO ARMS!!!
COLORED MEN TO THE FRONT!
Warmoth's Slaves at the Mechanics' Institute pretended today to expel Antoine, Adolph, Burch, (etc., etc.) & other colored members of the house of representatives....
Rally, on Saturday, at 10 o'clock, at the corner of Rampart and Canal Streets, & let those who have trampled on your rights as freemen & citizens tremble until the very marrow of their bones shakes. Let the cry be, Down with Warmoth and his Thieving Crew.
RALLY! RALLY! RALLY!
LIBERTY OR DEATH!
"Now what ye got tuh say?" demanded Willis, his beard still quivering.
Hugh crumpled it slowly. "I think," he observed, "that Messieurs the Customs House gang, and Quash, too, have finally overreached themselves."
Willis stared. "The niggers've got guns; and they's pouring in from all the neighborin' parishes. They's thousands of 'em."
Hugh laughed mirthlessly. "Politics, my dear Captain, is a rotten, stinking game. If times were normal, I wouldn't fling a polecat into a mess of politicians. I'd have too much regard for the polecat."
Willis looked blank. "What're ye gettin' at?"
"This is an election year. Grant won't dare back up such an outright appeal to race prejudice. And he needs Warmoth's assistance to carry the State. The meeting will recoil on its instigators. This time the Federal troops will help—the whites." Hugh smoothed out the handbill again. "I'll take this to Warmoth." .
In spite of Hugh's apparent confidence, he waited as anxiously as Warmoth for Grant's reply to their urgent telegram. Saturday dawned, and still there was no answer.
Hugh and Warmoth had been up all night, using Jessie's rooms as headquarters. She had insisted on it. The St. Charles Hotel was centrally located, emissaries could slip in and out without exciting comment, drinks were available in unlimited quantities, and—she added gaily—they would have the inestimable benefit of her counsel and advice.
"Which, my dear Jessie," countered Warmoth gallantly, "is the only reason I consent."
"Can you think up as charming a speech, Hugh?" Jessie challenged him.
His nerves were raw. Had he misjudged Grant's attitude? There had been ample time for a reply, yet none had come. "I can't and I won't," he said brutally. "I think it's ridiculous for us to be here. In a case like this a woman's place—"
"Is in the home," Jessie finished. "I know. I've heard that so often it isn't even funny any more. But you forget, my poor, gruff Hugh, that this is my home."
Warmoth chuckled in spite of his worry. "She has you there, Flint. Mind if I smoke, Jessie?"
"Not at all. What would a political conclave be without the lovely fumes of liquor and the reek of seegars? And don't forget to burn some holes in my best linens. Not the couch, of course; that belongs to the hotel."
The room was soon filled with grimly excited men. Outside, the city lay quiet and peaceful in starshine and moonlight, but couriers clattered swiftly over cobblestones and muddy roads alike, rousing their adherents, converging them toward the State House.
At seven in the morning there was still no word from Washington, though Warmoth had an emissary stationed in the telegraph office ready to gallop as soon as the precious message arrived.
The dawnlight filtered gray and turbid into Jessie's suite, dimming the still-lit gas. Warmoth looked gray and anxious in the unflattering, smoke-grimed air. He literally threw up his hands. His voice was strained. "That means the Customs House gang has been given a free hand. There'll be such a massacre as even New Orleans has never seen."
Captain Willis sprawled in a chair. His eyes were red-rimmed and his voice a trifle unsteady with the liquor he had drunk. "I told ye, Hugh, we shoulda roused the town. We shoulda preached race war right back at 'em. Whites agin niggers! We coulda had ever' planter an' roustabout from here tuh Natchez down to help."
The little nods from the gathered men agreed. The strain was plain on all of them. Drawn, gray cheeks, bleared eyes, slumped shoulders. Only Devoe was fresh and immaculate. He toyed contemplatively with the shiny little derringer in his flexible, gambler's fingers and there was an added pistol strapped to his waist.
Jessie moved lightly into the room, carrying a tray with new, unopened bottles. She had not slept all night, yet even Devoe seemed suddenly shabby and tired in her sparkling presence.
"Shame on you, men!" she cried. "Sitting here as though the world has already come to an end. Henry Clay with his thousand police, the members of the House and Senate with their friends and supporters, Northern men among you who dared everything for Southern money, and Southerners who always proclaimed their eagerness to fight at a mere squint in their direction—shame on you, I say, for acting like a pack of whipped dogs. Afraid of a mob, forsooth! If I were a man—"
Hugh said harshly: "Miss Tait is right. We've strength enough to fight off any horde of negroes. We won't start a war, but if we are attacked, we'll give them a taste they'll never forget. To the State House, all of us!"
They caught fire from Jessie's patent scorn, from Hugh's rousing words. The sudden cheer startled the paling night, brought sleepy, nightgowned guests from other suites hurriedly to the plush-carpeted corridor. They emerged in a torrent, Willis gulping a last nip of Bourbon against the cold; and woke the echoes of the old hotel with their haste down the wide, marble stairs. Jessie caught up a cloak, flung it over her dress, was at Hugh's side as they descended to the street.
"Look here!" he said, startled, "where are you going?"
"To the State House, of course. Didn't you give the order? All of us, was the expression. Like a good soldier I obey a proper order."
Hugh was exasperated. "This is no time for nonsense, Jessie. You get back to your rooms and stay there. That's an order, too."
"But not a proper order, my dear." Her mood changed suddenly. "I don't believe there will be a fight, Hugh; but if there is, I can take care of the hurt and injured. You men will be too busy—"
With swift transition she changed back again. "I held my horses patiently in the street for this. If the gallant soldier in the fight for freedom will deign to enter, I promise to get him there before all the rest."
The Mechanics' Institute looked like a fortress. Its great stone structure bulged with armed adherents. Police swarmed all over the place and deployed in a long skirmish line along the high board fence that adjoined the building. The sun came up wan and misty in a cloudy sky and New Orleans awoke to flying rumors and anxious fear.
In the negro quarters, close to Rampart Street, the night had been filled with similar scurryings and exhortations. Agitators went from door to door, rousing the inmates, distributing arms, whipping the blacks to political and personal frenzy. United States Marshal Packard, heavy in body and heavier in mind, shifted his early-morning seegar slowly in his mouth. "You don't need to worry none, Carter," he assured the anxious Speaker of the House confidently. "General Emory's on our side. He knows who the President's going to listen to. He helped us before and he'll help us again."
But Carter refused to be assured. He said worriedly: "He hasn't answered your message yet. Suppose he doesn't come. Warmoth's got all the police."
Quash towered over the white men. Little flickers moved within his eyes, gave startling life to the rough-hewn savagery of his features. "You don't need ta bother none wid so'jers," he said abruptly. "Us cullud fo'k plenty fixed ta tak keer of de whites." He moved away silently, like a great black shadow.
Carter stared after him, took off his hat and scratched his head. "I don't like that sort of talk, Packard. Sometimes that nigger scares me."
The Marshal puffed on his seegar. "Quash is all right, Carter. If there were more like him we'd have Louisiana singing to our tune in no time." He took out his watch. "It's after nine. They'd better be marchin' to the meetingplace. Hey there, Quash!"
Within the State House Warmoth returned from a tour of inspection.
"Everything prepared for the worst?" Hugh demanded.
The Governor fell wearily into a chair. "As far as we can be prepared. We can handle the Carter forces, I'd say, if Emory doesn't interfere. That's a big if, though."
"I think it's time," said Devoe slowly, "to come to a showdown. So far they've bluffed us every deal with a show of troops. We ought to call that bluff."
"You mustn't talk like that." Warmoth was agitated, fretful. "You forget I'm no Confederate rebel. I'm a Northerner and a loyal citizen."
Devoe puffed out perfect rings of drifting smoke. "I sort of forgot that, Governor."
Willis banged on the arm of his chair. "We been all fergettin' that. We been fergettin' this here's our business; good, Southern business an' no North'ners need apply." He flung an appealing look at Hugh. "Mebbe it's time fer us tuh stop this here damn fiddle-daddling—beggin' your pardon, Jessie."
"You flatter me by swearing, Captain," she avowed. "I'd love to use strong language myself." She was intent on Hugh.
The Governor looked around at these grim men as though seeing them for the first time. "I won't stand for such treasonable talk," he said vehemently. "If Emory demands the surrender of the State House, we surrender."
"We'll have something to say about that," Devoe told him softly. "How about it, Hugh?"
All heads turned to him. The Republicans angry, disturbed; the Southerners, expectant, waiting.
It was time for him to come to a decision, to a parting of the ways. For several years he had supported Warmoth, compromising, placating, seeking to gain Southern advantage by working with men he did not trust and who did not trust him. There had been a choice of evils—a greater and a lesser—and he had chosen the lesser—Warmoth. Given time, given patience, he hoped to wean sufficient negroes away from the Republicans so that a legal majority of votes would fall into Democratic hands. Then, and then only, would there be a legal standing for their arguments. He couldn't believe that the Washington administration, no matter how bitter or prejudiced, would dare to interpose bayonets against the verdict of the ballot. To fire upon United States troops now would be irretrievably fatal. It would play directly into the hands of the Radicals. They could then scream treason, rebellion— even the moderates among the Republicans would be alienated. He could see it now plain on their faces.
On the other hand, he stood a chance of alienating his own men. They were grumbling, desperate. Even the most loyal of them, like Willis and Devoe.
They were gathered in a small office on the top story of the Mechanics' Institute. From the window he could see directly down into the great open square where Canal and Rampart met. The intersection was packed with swaying figures and every narrow street from niggertown disgorged a hurrying torrent. In the center, perched high on a platform, were a group of men. They waved their arms and shouted words that came as distant murmur.
Hugh rose slowly, lifted the window. A blast of sound poured suddenly in. Crowd roar, ugly, savage, responsive to the imprecations of the speakers.
He turned away, faced the crowded room. He had come to a decision. "I speak for myself," he said. "If that mob attacks, I'll fight. If the soldiers come to oust us—and offer us protection—I'll go peacefully."
Approval muttered from the Warmothists; growls of revolt from his own men. Willis said angrily, "This here beats all, Hugh. I been your man these last years, but I gotta say right now—"
Jessie stood at the corner window that overlooked Canal Street. "Save your speech, Captain," she advised quickly. "For here come the boys in blue. By this time they ought to know every granite block on the street—they've marched up and down so often."
They all rushed to the window.
The regiments were coming fast, swinging along the carriage sides, pouring down the grassy central lift where the horse-cars ran. Already the column head was passing the jeweled windows of Griswold's establishment.
"That ends it," the Governor said in accents of despair.
Jessie pushed swiftly away from the window, caught up her cloak, thrust it around her.
Hugh pushed after her. "Good girl!" he approved. "You'd better get away before they come. I'll send Johnson along to see you home safely."
"Don't you think it's your place to see me safe?"
"No, it isn't. I brought my men into this; and I'm sticking with them. Besides, I warned you not to come."
"Just for your information, my dear man, I'm not going home. I'm on a scouting expedition."
"Scouting?"
"That's the word. I'm meeting General Emory at the head of all his troops and asking him his intentions. I'll bring back word."
"Don't be a fool. You can't go out into Canal Street now."
"I'm technically what is called a lady, Hugh. I'll come to no harm. Now please don't waste my time."
She slipped past him and out of the door. He glowered after her; then shoved his hat on his head and raced down the stairs in her wake.
"Oh!" she said pertly, as he came up panting. "So you've changed your mind about this Johnson man. I was just beginning to like the idea. He's got a certain air—"
One small, slippered foot was on the carriage step, and a grinning policeman was handing her the reins. Hugh swung around the other side, jumped in, settled back on the leather seat. "Go ahead; start driving!" He grinned sheepishly. "I've reconsidered. The idea is a good one."
"About Johnson?"
"No, you lovely witch. About General Emory."
The carriage met the advancing troops at Baronne Street. Jessie swung the horses expertly around, drew parallel with a startled cluster of mounted officers.
She waved to the General. She knew everyone in New Orleans. "Whither away so fast, General?"
Hugh leaned out of the carriage. "May I ask what you intend doing?" he demanded.
Emory swept off his hat to Jessie, bowed stiffly. Then he surveyed Hugh. "Who are you, sir?"
"Hugh Flint, member of the Legislature. Governor Warmoth sent me to inquire."
The little group of horsemen came to a halt. The General's eyes stared down the wide street to the seething, rumbling mass that choked off all further progress. They came back to rest on Hugh. His hand went to the little dispatch case that swung at his side. He opened it, extracted a document. It was a telegraph blank.
"I received instructions from President Grant early this morning."
"Ah!"
The severe face of the General suddenly loosened. "The President has issued strict orders to me to prevent any disorder. Any disorder, do you understand? That means whether it comes from the State House or Speaker Carter or Marshal Packard. At the first sign of trouble my men go into action. You may tell Governor Warmoth that."
"Thank you, General," Hugh said exultantly. "You may rest assured there will be no trouble beginning at the State House." To Jessie he cried: "Give your horses the whip! We've got to get back in a hurry. Everything's saved, thank God!"
CARTER was defeated and Warmoth triumphant. Before the crisp commands of Emory the mob of blacks melted away. Carter and his adherent members of the House sought humbly to regain their places in the Legislature and Warmoth, flushed with victory, held them ignominiously waiting in the anteroom while his House voted singly on their applications and refused seats to three.
But the victory was shortlived and the triumph bottomed on quicksand. A commission of investigation descended on turbulent New Orleans from the Congress of the United States to inquire into the state of government. The commission took testimony and issued its verdict. It was a scathing condemnation of Warmoth and his methods. Partisan it was, without doubt, thought Hugh, as he read carefully through testimony and report; but based on substantial items of complaint.
The flush of victory had quit him, too. He was beginning to weary of the constant maneuvers, riots, chicanery and shifting politics. No one seemed to worry much about the prostrate State, no one heeded its long-suffering pleas for help. The streets and levees of the once-proud city were idle and deserted—except when the ever-recurrent mobs or troops swept down the principal streets. More than six thousand houses and places of business called vainly for tenants to clothe their nakedness; hard money had disappeared and credit limped along without prospect of collection. Thousands sought the crusts of bread for sheer existence; business and professional men walked the banquettes seeking work—any kind of work—without success. Plantation after plantation went under the sheriff's hammer in lieu of taxes that could not possibly be met. Town house after town house, once glittering with lavish balls and row on row of carriages, met the same fate.
Hugh refused the drink that Jessie poured him. He had taken to dropping in on her frequently. She was good to look at; her political acumen was quick and penetrating; and her bantering humor and constant mockery stimulated by its very shock. Many times he caught himself up and wondered about their relationship. The memory of that open offer of surrender rested uneasily with him. There were times when he regretted his refusal. He searched his soul. If she would ever offer again.... But she didn't. She was free with him and frank and familiar. Yet there was no attempt at feminine wile or fleshly seduction. They were man to man, she seemed to say, and no nonsense about it. The very boldness of her tongue inhibited wandering desires. Hugh felt relieved—and at the same time, curiously annoyed.
"No, thanks!" he said to the glass. He took up again the theme of his complaint. "No one really gives a damn about the people," he resumed, "in spite of all the talk for political consumption. It's a struggle for power pure and simple, and not so very pure or very simple. Everyone's in the game for selfish reasons—greed, power, money, bribes." He got up, walked restlessly about. "Like a fool I thought I could run with the hounds and play with the hares. I thought that by working with the moderates of all parties we might bring sanity and reason into action. I've practically abandoned my business and ruined my plantation. I didn't clear a picayune on either last year." He swerved on Jessie. He was shouting now. "And for what?"
She sat back on the couch. She was calm, exasperatingly so. The hot June wind steamed in through the open window and dropped in a clammy shroud. "Don't shout, Hugh," she said. "A New Orleans summer isn't made for anger." Reminiscence seized her. "Up North, when summer came, I used to go to Lake George. Do you know Lake George, Hugh? It's the most marvelous"
"To the devil with Lake George!" he flared; then subsided. "I'm sorry, Jessie; I didn't mean that, of course. But—"
"I badgered you. Of course I did. You were working up to a melodramatic note. You were asking a rhetorical question. You were about to answer yourself. Like a dutiful woman I am all agog for that answer. And for what? as you so inimitably put it."
"Never mind," he growled. She had neatly deflated him. He ought to be angry, but he wasn't. "But I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Jessie," he added warmly. "I'm going to quit the whole rotten mess and devote myself to my private affairs again. I'll be ruined if I don't."
"And you'll be ruined if you do." She rose and went over to him. She was no longer bantering; her eyes were filled with tender understanding. "I've been watching your course for some time, Hugh. I didn't presume to suggest or to interfere—you seemed so sure of yourself and certain that you were right. But now you've come to a parting of the roads. Let me, as an outsider, as a witness who had no particular feelings to start with about the South, make a few suggestions."
"Go ahead."
"The South needs you, Hugh; and you need the South. Both of you have been fumbling along, doing what seemed best to you at the moment, and failing miserably. You've been divided, working at cross purposes. The extremists like Andy Hilgard go out and scare negroes to death and kill them if they don't scare enough. That's one side of it. You and your moderates threw in with Warmoth and his crowd in the hope that somehow things would work out all right. But Warmoth used you as much as you used him; and with more success."
Hugh grimaced. "There's no doubt about it. Ever since I became a leader without followers he hasn't time to see me any more. They've all deserted—even Willis and Devoe. You know that?"
"Yes, I know. They came to me before they made their decision, and I advised them to it."
Hie was appalled. "You did?"
"Because we thought it was the only way to wake you up. Don't you see? Mere politics only prolongs the agony. You lose the respect of yourself and of your enemies. What the South must do today is to stand up boldly and unafraid, and demand its rights. Private shouting gets you nowhere, but public shouting—the shouting of millions—is irresistible."
He stared at her bitterly. "That's strange talk from a Northerner. I suppose you'd want me to go out with a nightshirt over my head and kill some niggers."
"You would look handsome with a sheet on your head. No, I don't mean that. Nothing secret; nothing vicious. But the power of a hundred thousand white men. Vote at the polls, yes. And if you're counted out; march! March with weapons in your hands—a hundred thousand strong. Show the world that you know how to protect what is yours."
"And suppose Grant orders the army out against us?"
"Then fight the army," she declared with energy. "I know it sounds inflammatory. You lost one Civil War and here I'm starting another. But this time, Hugh, your cause would be different. You'd fight for freedom for the whites; not slavery for the blacks. Most people in the North are weary of the whole mess of Reconstruction. They'd compel the handful of Radical leaders in Congress to yield."
Her voice was vibrant; her face eager and aflame. He stared at her, amazed. Then he shook his head. "No, Jessie, it isn't as easy as all that. One single shot fired by armed Southerners against Federal troops and Quash's dream of an African State would be realized—with Northern bayonets to prop it up." He sighed. "We'll just have to wait. In time—"
She moved back a little. "And while you wait for time, what will you do?"
"Take care of my business, Jessie."
Sally Hilgard found herself so wholly wrapped up in little Elizabeth that the outward show of things passed her by vaguely and as in a shifting dream. The city and the State seethed with ever-increasing bitterness and hate, whites were arrayed against blacks and blacks against whites, regiments of Northern men stalked arrogantly through the streets to evidence a peace that was more terrible than war, election followed election in never-ending turmoil, factions fought among themselves and marched today with the very men they would denounce as scoundrels and assassins on the morrow. And still she paid no heed.
Even the terrible election of 1872 passed over the surface of her thoughts. Through the infrequent meetings at her home she knew that Warmoth, at the very pinnacle of his power, had suddenly fallen. The Democrats who had once supported him, now denounced him and set up their own candidate, John McEnery, of Ouachita, for Governor. Hugh Flint, deserted by the men who had followed him through years of compromise and caution, had gone back to his private business in disgust. The moderate Republicans, of the stamp of Frazer Scott, milled aimlessly around. The Radicals, booted and spurred and riding hell-for-leather with the open backing of the Grant administration, yelled for William Pitt Kellogg for Governor.
Andy was very rarely at home now. He had thrown himself into the boiling cauldron of politics with all the ardor of a frustrated man. No longer was he the handsome, reckless, easy-going man she had married. Bitterness had etched strong acid lines across his face and puckered angry eyes into a perpetual scowl. The gray spread rapidly through his hair and his temper grew violent. His vanity could not bear the thought that women no longer followed the easy swing of his movements with admiring glances and that the embraces he sought were more and more on a strictly cash and businesslike basis. And money was not easy to come by.
He resented that more than anything else, and blamed Sally for the straitness of their means. "If it hadn't been for you," he would say violently, "I could have been a rich man today. You with your damned ideas of honor and decency! I'm the laughing-stock of the Legislature. Every blasted one of them is riding around in carriages, throwing huge parties, living on the fat of the land; while I can't even afford to take a cab when I want to go downtown. A Legislator's salary, bah! It isn't enough for seegars and a bit of liquor."
She stood under his tirade with cold dignity, holding Elizabeth in her arms. "You've managed to get more than a bit of liquor, I notice," she told him.
"And why the hell shouldn't I?" he shouted. "It's the only real pleasure I've got left in life. You play the high and mighty lady in this rickety old shambles of a house, pretending you're the belle of the ball with your airs and your nonsense about Southern honor. Why, if Patsey had any sense in her head, she'd leave you to do your own washing and cooking. She hasn't been paid a cent since the War. Then where would you be—?"
"I'd rather do every bit of housework myself," she flashed at him, "yes—and starve, than be the wife of a man who is so dead to that honor and decency you presume to sneer at as to betray his State and sell his vote for Judas money. The day I discover that you've done anything like that, Andy, I shall leave you."
Her flaming anger startled him, penetrated the murky fumes in which he was enveloped. By God, she was beautiful in her wrath! The years had not wasted her as they had done him. She was the loveliest woman in New Orleans. His friends had told him so many times. For the moment he resented her beauty; resented everything about her. Even the baby who pressed close to her and presented an astonished countenance to the loud stridency of his tone. What was the good of it all? She despised him; she didn't give a damn about him. For a while she had seemed to soften, to become habituated to her marriage. That was during the time of her pregnancy and immediately after Elizabeth was born. For a while he had listened to her, given up the secret meetings and the swift rides by night to lash some yelling, uppity nigger; he had even submitted to the stifling routine of a Legislature where his impatient votes made no difference and the niggers had more to say than he. Then, when he had a chance to gain an easy wealth and his vote was worth a price—a damned good price, too—Sally had told him no. And judged him with her eyes, her sudden withdrawals, her excuses when he came to her.
The memory of those excuses inflamed him now. He wasn't good enough for her. By God, then he might as well earn her scorn. At least there would be money—plenty of money. Quash had come to him only yesterday. Yes, Quash! Funny, wasn't it? A nigger who had been your father-in-law's slave, offering you money in that damned monotone of his. He had told him to get the hell away before he took a whip to him. Did he forget Moon Hill and the scars on his back where he had been whipped almost to death? For a while he had thought Quash was going to rip him to pieces. He had never seen such a terrible expression on any man's face—white or nigger. Luckily he had a pistol in his pocket, and Quash saw him go for it. Anyhow, he didn't say a word. Just stood there, like a jungle savage; then walked away.
But as long as Sally was acting like this, he'd sell his vote. There wasn't only this particular bill. There were dozens of grabs up before the House, where a man might make a pretty penny. His eye kindled. With money he could have any woman in town—and none of your frosty nonsense either. Women who knew how to treat a man right. And plenty of good liquor to ease the pain in his stomach and the hurt in his heart. And horses to race up at the Lake!
"All right," he said aloud. "If that's the way you feel about it, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to get money any way I see fit; and if you don't like it, you can do as you damn please. Goodbye!"
He flung out of the house, hurried raging toward St. Charles Avenue. He wouldn't wait a moment. He'd send a friend to Quash; he'd vote for the slaughter-house bill; he'd vote for the devil himself if there was enough in it for him.
The horse-car wasn't in sight, and that added fuel to his wrath. Why should he have to wait for a lousy horse-car and be jostled by stinking niggers when he could have his own carriage with a coachman and a pair of fine, spanking nags in the shafts?
A cab swerved over to him from the middle of the street. The driver pulled in his sweating horses, lifted his whip inquiringly. Andy didn't look at him; only shook his head in embarrassed refusal. But a voice hailed him from the depths of the open vehicle.
"Jump in, Andy, if ye're goin' downtown." And Captain Willis, comfortably sprawled, was grinning at him and picking his tobacco-stained teeth with a quill toothpick.
"Thanks!" said Andy, and sank into the seat. The driver whipped up his horses and they jounced off.
"How's Miss Sally?" asked the Captain. "An' that leetle daughter o' yourn?"
"They're all right," he answered shortly. "Where are you coming from?"
"Devoe's." The worthy Captain sighed. "Sometimes I think I hadn' oughter play that roulette wheel o' his'n. Costs me money ever' time." His quill bobbed indignantly in his mouth. "Y'know, Andy, if'n I didn' know George I'd say that there wheel was crooked."
Andy said, "Wouldn't be surprised. I never won on the damn thing myself. But what're you two fellows up to these days?"
"Workin' for McEnery an' yellin' t'hell with Kellogg an' Warmoth too." Willis chuckled. "Was you to th' Democrat Convention on th' eighteenth?"
"No. Getting damn sick of conventions and politics. Talk, talk, talk all the time; and where does it get you?"
Willis scratched his head. "I dunno. Mebbe nowhere. But anyhow, y'ought of heard it. There was a feller makin' a speech tuh talk us intuh backin' Warmoth agin when a big Irishman in the gallery yells out like th' Bull o' Bashan: 'That's enough o' that, ye spalpeen. I want tuh save Louisiana too. I'm a-willin' tuh cohabit wid th' Devil. I'm a-willin' tuh cohabit wid th' Republican party. I'm a-willin' tuh cohabit wid th' naygur. But domned if'n I'll cohabit wid Gov'nor Warmoth.'" The Captain's eyes twinkled on Andy. "Only, he warn't so perlite as tuh say cohabit."
Andy threw back his head and roared. He felt better for the cleansing laughter. He'd have to remember that story. It was a good one. When he caught his breath he said, "You fellows were doing a little of that same thing yourselves."
"No more we ain't, Andy. We had enough."
"Wasn't your fault. You just listened to Hugh Flint too damn long."
Willis took the quill out of his mouth; examined it carefully. His seamed forehead was knotted with regret. "Poor Hugh," he said finally, "it warn't his fault. He was a-doin' what he thought best. It jest didn't work out."
"I hear he's given up politics."
The Captain sighed. "That's true. It jest don' seem right without him. I sorta feel we hadn' oughter quit 'im like that. But say, where did ye want me tuh drop ya off?"
Andy came to himself with a jolt. The cab had turned into Common Street, was clattering past Carondelet. That way was the Legislature, and the offices where votes were bought and sold. He shuddered suddenly. The words of Sally rang in his ears. The day I discover that you've done anything like that, I'll leave you. No, no, he didn't want that. He didn't want anything so irrevocable. In spite of everything, he still desired her, still hoped that some day she would soften and become everything that a wife ought to be. The very thought of her leaving now shook him with sudden ague.
"I'm sorry, Willis," he muttered. "I—I was just going in to see Tom Layton about some bank business. I should have gotten off when we turned in. No, don't bother. It's only two squares back. I can walk it. Thanks for the ride."
Little Elizabeth grew as babies grow—luxuriantly, with incredible speed, bringing perpetual astonishment to her parents at the uniqueness with which she was dowered. Because Sally too had suffered in frustration and in punctured dreams she centered all illusions and all devotion in the child she had borne. Even the poverty in which she lived, the daily grind of circumstances, lost their irremediable distaste. Nothing mattered any more but the thrill of Elizabeth's first hesitant steps, the wild, unbelievable joy when Elizabeth first made sounds remotely resembling speech.
In her enwrapment she found new communities of interest. She brought the child down to Nancibelle's where the two older boys romped and shouted with their tiny cousin, and the sister mothers compared domestic notes and childish ailments and proper feedings with a gravity that amused Frazer Scott inordinately when he happened to be in.
He was quite the self-satisfied, prosperous lawyer now. The turmoil of the times, the constant litigation, was a boon to those few attorneys who were in a position to tap business from both opposing factions. He had put on solidity and flesh and his mustache no longer was a pious hope rather than fulfilment. He was seriously thinking of growing a beard. A beard lent weight and dignity; he could never think of a judicial appointment without that essential qualification for office.
"I'm a bit surprised at you, Sally," he told his sister-in-law with a genial laugh.
She paused in her play with the shouting children, looked up at him with flushed face and hair tousled by her exertions. "Why?" she asked.
"I never took you for a domestic person, my dear sister. Now take Nancibelle, for instance. In spite of her—er—youthful wildness and romanticisms when I first met her, I could see that she would develop into the devoted mother and lovely little housewife that she is. But you—I stood a bit in awe of you. You were so—so unattainable, fit for regal balls and stately cavalcades and—and—" He trailed off, ashamed, painfully aware he had been led into nonsense not fit a comfortably mature man of affairs. Luckily Nancibelle had gone marketing with Myra, the maid. If she had heard him go on like this!
A shadow fell on Sally. She got up from her knees, abstractedly smoothed the ruffles of her dress. "Now you're the one who's being romantic, Frazer," she said slowly, "not Nancibelle. That stuff comes out of books, out of novels of the old South." She looked down the vistas of her girlhood, before the War. Clear-headed as she had been, she too had had her dreams, her visions. None of them encompassed—this. She thrust up her head defiantly. "I'm happy."
"I'm sure you are, Sally." But he knew better. He could read the quick surge of pain in her eyes. And he knew a good deal about Andy—things he didn't even tell his wife for fear she'd whisper them to Sally. He turned the subject.
"What's Andy doing these days since he was defeated for reelection?"
Her pride hugged pretense close to her. "Something in business," she said brightly. "Doing pretty well. Something he negotiated with Tom Layton over at the bank."
But in the privacies of her own thought she was compelled to admit that she knew nothing at all about Andy's comings and goings any more. Ever since he had gone down to defeat on a rabidly unreconstructed ticket he had been morose, secretive, given to staying away from home for days on end. He no longer had money to give her. Once when she spoke of the fact that her household funds were practically exhausted he had burst out in violent explosion. "How do you expect me to have money? You wouldn't let me get it when I had the chance. Now I haven't even the chance any more. You and your code of honor and decency—bah!" He slammed the door with unnecessary fervor as he stormed out of the house.
She managed to get along somehow. She sold more of her old jewels—things inherited from her mother. There were only a few left now. Frazer hinted and Nancibelle spoke openly of aid; but Sally would die rather than take assistance. She'd manage.
Elizabeth was her solace. She even pitied Jessie Tait when they came together. She noted how hungrily Jessie, the gay, the sophisticated, took the child in her arms and pressed her close. Every woman wanted a baby; and Jessie, married to some far-off, semi-mythical husband, was childless. She wondered about Jessie's husband; whether there was one, in fact. But Jessie never spoke of her Northern life and Sally did not ask.
Through Jessie she sometimes heard of Hugh. They were great friends, it seemed. He had given up politics and was getting his business back to a profitable basis. From the short, vague letters she received from her father it was evident that neither plantation, in the present unsettled state of things, was making money.
She often thought of Hugh; especially about his relations with the gorgeous Jessie. He had never married—which seemed strange. Were they—? Something within her brought her up short before the unspoken question could take definite form. And Jessie would look at her so queerly whenever she happened to mention Hugh's name that she soon gave up asking questions—even the most casual.
The election, when it finally took place, meant very little to her; except insofar as Andy had gone down to defeat. Politics! Politics! The whole South was playing with gunpowder and pieces of paper instead of settling down to the business of making a living. Grown men acted like children, making faces at each other, gesticulating, bursting out suddenly in the more tragic nonsense of murders and mutilations. What had it brought Andy? What had it brought her? Frazer was right; he had always kept strictly away from the whole rotten mess. And now Hugh Flint had learned the lesson.
Yet she couldn't help but see the wild confusion of the outer world. There had been an election, and both Kellogg, the Radical candidate, and McEnery, the Democratic aspirant, claimed equal victory'-. The air was thick with cries of fraud, of forged ballots, of secretly switched polls; and Warmoth, still Governor until the votes were counted, rode a storm of Federal injunctions, of suits and countersuits, of recalcitrant Returning Boards.
The Federal soldiers seized the Mechanics' Institute in behalf of Kellogg, and guarded it with bayonets and artillery against the rising mob. Marshal Packard, heavy-set and imperturbable, examined personally each new member of the Legislature who demanded admittance and permitted only Kellogg men to enter the sacred precincts. The ousted members of the McEnery-Warmoth coalition met in anger at the Lyceum Hall. Once more two legislatures sat in simultaneous session, each purporting to represent the authority of the State, each passing laws that the other contradicted.
On January 13, 1873, Sally saw McEnery take oath as Governor in Lafayette Square, to the accompaniment of loud hurrahs from an enormous crowd that forced the horsecar she was riding downtown to an unscheduled stop. Simultaneously Kellogg took a similar oath under the aegis of Federal bayonets inside the Mechanics' Institute. Now there were two Governors to add to the impossible confusion.
The police obeyed the voice of Kellogg and arrested the McEnery Legislature en masse. All over the State the factions met in bloody fight. At Colfax, a mere hamlet in Grant Parish, a band of Kellogg negroes fought pitched battle with McEnery whites and fifty-nine were shot to death or trapped within the blazing Courthouse where they had sought vain refuge.
The wires hummed to Washington. The Senate of the United States cried a plague on both your houses and recommended that a new election be held. But President Grant, hearkening to his brother-in-law, Casey, and to the political voice of Marshal Packard, formally recognized Kellogg as the true and only Governor of the State of Louisiana.
More and more Andy was away. He mumbled something about a new organization; something about a White League which all real, patriotic Southerners were joining. Just another excuse for staying out nights, thought Sally bitterly. Another excuse for not attending to the pressing need for making money. What did wife and daughter matter when the country called? Why bother about the humdrum, everyday affairs of life when conspiratorial meetings, secret drillings and sudden forays were infinitely more exciting? She was tired of it all. The passion and devotion of earlier days had slowed imperceptibly to a search for peace and security, for the ordered, gracious ways of life that had been too long denied her. All larger issues vanished in that single craving. Peace and security, not for herself so much as for the child she had brought into the world.
Slowly the days passed, bringing each its calculation of narrowed expense, its sheer absorption in the growth and flowering of the young Elizabeth. Infrequently a windfall came—a scattered toss of silver garnered by Andy God alone knew where. She didn't question him—what mattered the source as long as it brought food and an occasional gay muslin for Elizabeth? Her own clothes were made to do with skilful mending and infinite pains. She had drifted without realization into a state far removed from that earlier Sally who had thought the world a shouted invitation to conquest. In certain moments, when the child was asleep and Patsey had retired and the great, ruining town house was abandoned to loneliness and the strange shadows of a single, sparing gas-jet, rebellion seized her. What had she done with the life that had been hers in abundance? What might have happened had she not married Andy? Why couldn't she yet follow in the path that Jessie Tait had blazed? Quit Andy, gather up her child and seek life anew. If her father knew, he would help; Nancibelle and Frazer were eager to assist. Why permit a silly pride to stand in the way of possible happiness? She was young yet, and her beauty was still intact. If her mirror had refused the knowledge, the glances of susceptible males would have assured her of the patent fact. In time she would find things to do. There had been her pies.
As she wove the varicolored strands of her thoughts into a patterned cloth her heart lifted and once more she was the arrogant, self-dependent mistress of Moon Hill. But the mood sank only too soon into futility. She could not do it. If she were alone, she might have let convention go hang. But there was Elizabeth. A woman separate from her husband, subject to the acid edge of gossip and the snickers of respectable men and women alike—what manner of heritage would that be for a growing girl? What homes, to which the names of Wailes and Dabney and Hilgard were now a welcoming passport, would then admit Elizabeth Hilgard? No; she would have to tread the weary road, continue the pretense, maintain the facade for her daughter's sake.
By some strange alchemy of time 1873 became 1874 and the magnolias opened their buds and the lush fragrance of tropic blooms tempered the early heat. The broad verandah was sheltered from the sun by a thick hang of vines, but the children played and romped in the garden, heedless of heat and sun. There were three of them; Dabney, tall and intense, with a shock of black, unruly hair and a crisp, military way of speech. Jedediah, the younger, in spite of his New England Biblical name, was blond and stubby and drawling in talk and manner, and took orders from his older brother without a murmur. But Elizabeth stood straight and strong on her firm little legs, her wavy brown hair flying with the wind of her flight, her small, tanned face glowing with the rigors of play and an inner, ever-bubbling enthusiasm.
Their shouts and their high-pitched voices sounded oddly subdued as they filtered through the sultry air to the verandah. Bees droned drowsily among the roses. The hush of noon dropped like a mantle over the city.
Nancibelle said, "They play so beautifully together, don't they, Sally?"
Sally's eyes lifted from her mending and brooded across the garden. "Yes; it's a pity the boys can't come up here more often."
"Dabney has entered school and somehow I just don't seem to have the time to get around. But now that the summer's starting, I'll try. They love it here. Remember the first time Mother took us down from Moon Hill and we couldn't understand why there was so little ground around the house?"
Sally smiled. "And you wanted to know why the cane wasn't growing. Had there been a flood? You were about Elizabeth's age then."
"And then there was the time we were stranded here when the Federals marched in. I used to slip out nights to meet, Frazer and you were so furious when you found out. He was a damyank and no Wailes could even dream of talking to such trash. Remember?"
Sally's eyes clouded. "I was a bit of a hotheaded fool then, Nancibelle. I've learnt since. There are Yanks who are fine, splendid people and there are Southerners who are not." She fell silent.
Nancibelle knew what she was thinking of. That their marriages had turned out so differently; that the Yank had proved himself and the plantation aristocrat had failed.
"Look!" she said suddenly. "Those men seem to be coming in here."
Three men rode up the dusty street, halted directly before the long, curving path that led from banquette to the porte-cochère on the side of the house. They dropped nimbly from their mounts; two of them flung their reins to the third and proceeded rapidly up the path.
Sally rose; so did Nancibelle. The children paused in their play to turn curious eyes at the intruders; then returned to the world of their own contriving.
Nancibelle said, "Do you know them?"
"No; they're strangers."
They came up together, moving with arrogant, possessive stride. Their eyes were narrow and darted swiftly from side to side as though they were appraising the true worth of everything, and they sprayed tobacco juice in generous quantities over the bordering flowers.
They stopped abruptly at the foot of the wide stairs of the verandah. They did not trouble to remove their hats. The shorter, thickset man squinted upward. "This the Wailes place?"
"Yes." Indignation mounted in Sally. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Me?" The man seemed surprised. "I'm Sheriff Donner. This yere's my deputy, Jim Wallace." The taller man with the sad-drooping mustaches had the grace to tip his hat slightly; then clap it more firmly on his head. Donner shifted his gaze from Sally to Nancibelle and back again.
"Which 'un is Miss' Hilgard?"
"I am," said Sally. "I've already asked you your business."
"Don't get tetchy," complained Donner. "I'm a-comin' to that." He searched through his pockets vainly. "Now where did I put them there papers?"
The deputy Wallace fished a packet from his own coat pocket, handed it silently to the sheriff.
"Oh, so there they are. Why didn't you say you had 'em, Jim?"
Nancibelle looked frightened. She moved closer to Sally, whispered tremulously, "What could they want of you?"
Sally shook her head. She stood very straight and composed, steeling herself against whatever it was that was about to strike. A sheriff delivering papers meant only one thing—trouble!
Donner flourished official-looking documents at her. "Taxes!" he announced.
Relief stirred in Sally. She had feared much worse than a mere presentation of a tax bill. "If you'll leave them here," she said, "Mr. Hilgard will take care of them. I expect him home this evening."
The tall deputy permitted himself a sad grin. Donner shook his head. "It's too late fer that, ma'am. They ain't been no taxes paid since 'seventy-one. I gotta take possession; this yere's a court order that says so."
For the moment Sally was not certain she had heard. A little whimpering gasp rose from Nancibelle, but the sound seemed to come from a great distance. The children were playing tag under the magnolias and the sun was shining and the bees were still droning their pollen-freighted passage. Everything was as it had been; except for these two vulgar-looking men and those flaunted documents.
Their town house taken for taxes! The stately mansion that had been built long before her birth; that had been a second home during childhood and was now her sole refuge against the arrows of outrageous fortune.
"There must be some mistake," she managed at length. "I'm certain the taxes are not unpaid that far back."
"It says so here," asserted the sheriff positively. He opened the covering paper, squinted at it. "Comes to three thousand, eight hundred fifty-six. Ain't no mistake"
Sally was appalled. "But that's ridiculous. I remember just before the war the taxes didn't run much over a hundred a year."
"Times've changed." He sounded bored. "All right, Jim. You go along inside an' put up th' notices o' sale. Make an inventory so they won't be no holler later. Me an' Phil, we got more places to 'tend to."
Nancibelle cried, "You men wait until I send for my husband. He's Frazer Scott, the lawyer."
"Kain't wait fer no 'un. Mistah Scott's a good lawyer, but he kain't do nawthin'. Taxes is taxes. Go on, Jim."
The deputy started up the stairs.
The taut repression of years suddenly gave way. A strange vibrance thrummed in every vein and fiber of Sally's being, bringing new life, renewing the tides of forgotten youth. Once more she was the untamed mistress of Moon Hill, the proud young aristocrat whose will might not be crossed or word refused in safety.
"Stop where you are!" Vibrant, clear, accustomed to command. "Don't either of you dare set foot in my house! White trash, that's what you are! Worse than any negroes! You and your taxes! Taxes to stuff in your gross mouths and make your sodden stomachs replete. Carrion, feeding on the tragedy of a nation, draining its life-blood, mocking its miseries! Sheriff! Deputy! White trash, thieving carpetbaggers, would be more apt to describe you! Get out!"
The children had turned wide-eyed, frozen in the attitude of tag. Nancibelle was shaking, clinging to her, imploring in frightened whispers. The two men had fallen back, slackmouthed, agape; and their comrade in the distant street stared.
"Get out!" flashed Sally again. "Get out!"
The sheriff said nervously, "Now look here, Miss' Hilgard, they ain't no call fer actin' thisaway. We got our duty, an'—"
"Get out!"
They gave way before her flashing wrath, the old assumption of command. They turned incontinently and retreated down the gravel path, making little crunching noises as they went. Only when they had attained the safety of the street and the proximity of their horses did the sheriff turn a scowling face. "We'll be back!" he shouted. "You ain't seen the last of us."
They mounted their horses and rode hurriedly away.
Nancibelle's eyes were shining and her tone was shaken. "You were wonderful, darling! I declare, you scared me altogether out of my wits. I don't blame those horrible men for going. Why, I haven't seen you this way in years."
"I haven't felt like this myself in years," said Sally. Vigor sang in her blood and there were steel springs in her limbs. "There's no time to lose. Get downtown as fast as you can, Nancibelle, and tell Frazer. Bring him back with you at once. Don't worry about the boys; I'll take care of them."
She raised her voice. "Patsey!"
"Yes'm!" Patsey's frightened voice popped suddenly out at them.
"You black rascal, you've been hiding behind the door, listening."
Patsey called on heaven in protest against such an idea. "No'm, I never did. I jes'—"
"Never mind. Go with Miss Nancibelle and find Mr. Andy. If you can't locate him right away, get hold of Mr. Layton at the Southern Bank and Mr. Ogden over at the Court House. They would most likely know where he is. And tell Mr. Layton I want to see him, too. Immediately. Tell him I never asked him for a favor before, but this time he must come. Will you be able to remember all that?"
"Yas'm. I'se to fotch Mistah Andy an' Mistah Layton an' tell 'em tuh hurry, 'coase de sheriff say de taxes—"
"You were listening, you rascal. I've a good mind to tan you—"
But Patsey had already fled into the house, her thin hand plastered over her mouth. Nancibelle had darted upstairs, hastily assembling gloves, bag and parasol.
"Hurry!" Sally pushed their preparations, bundled them out with the sheer weight of her voice, her tense vitality. Then she gathered the children, herded them inside for luncheon and clamorous talk.
"Why you shout like that at those men, Mummy?" queried Elizabeth, wrapping her legs tight around the chair while she drank her milk. "You tell me never to shout."
"Mother had to explain something to them they didn't quite understand. Now hush, darling, and drink your milk so you can grow strong and sturdy."
Frazer was the first to arrive. Nancibelle was with him, flushed and excited. Frazer listened to the story a second time; Nancibelle had gasped out as much as she could on the way. His usual good-humored smile was gone. He looked serious; profoundly disturbed, in fact. "I'm afraid there's nothing we can do," he said finally. "It was ridiculous for Andy to have let the taxes go this long. What with interest and penalties and sheriff's charges, the whole amount must run well over five thousand dollars." He glanced somberly around the place, noting the shabby floors, the cracked walls and general disrepair. "I don't believe the house could bring anywhere near that sum at a sale today. There are hundreds like it in the market, with no takers."
Sally stared at him incredulously. She became angry. "But those taxes are outrageous, Frazer. Can't you do anything to reduce them to a reasonable sum?"
"I'm afraid not," he told her gravely. "You've been out of touch with things so long it may be difficult for you to understand. The State is absolutely bankrupt, yet the Kellogg Legislature is throwing money around with both fists. So did Warmoth's crowd, before them. They need money. They can't get it from their own supporters. Most of the negroes have little enough as it is. So they assess the unreconstructed Confederates on double and triple valuations. It works two ways. If they can collect the taxes, that's fine; if the old owners can't pay, then that's all right, too. They sell the property to their own crowd for a mere fraction of its real value. There have been thousands of parcels all over the State changing hands like that."
"But that's sheer confiscation."
"In effect," Frazer admitted. "No one realized it at the time, but the war was more than a war. It was a revolution. The old plantation aristocracy is being driven out and a new group is taking over the land—Northerners and those landless Southern whites who were lucky enough to back the right side."
"You talk like a history book," Sally snapped. "I'm not interested in philosophical reflections. This town house has been in our family for two generations and it's going to remain so. You're a lawyer, Frazer. Surely there's something you can do."
"I've been trying to tell you," he said unhappily. "There's nothing a lawyer can do. I could argue that the taxes are too high until I was black in the face, but the courts would uphold the assessments every time. The judges are mere creatures of the Radicals. If I were a politician, and in with the right people, I might be able to help you. Unfortunately I'm not."
But Sally wasn't listening. She didn't want to hear smooth explanations; she wanted her home. It had been Wailes land and Wailes property ever since it was built. Every timber in it held associations; every tree had been lovingly planted with an eye to long generations of beauty. Andy and she had borrowed it from her father and assumed all obligations. How could she ever face old Sam Wailes again; how could she explain in later years to little Elizabeth? First the Hilgard plantation had gone; and now this house. They couldn't steal it from her like this; they just couldn't!
"Never mind," she said. "Here comes Tom Layton. He'll manage it somehow."
The bank president's carriage drove in from the street, stopped at the porte-cochère. The negro coachman had to help him down; his rheumatism was bothering him again. He hobbled up the verandah, hat in hand, his expression a medley of painful twinges and agitated feelings.
"I came just as soon as I heard," he puffed. He grimaced, muttered: "Drat that leg of mine! It's going to rain for certain." Then: "What's all this about taxes, Sally? Patsey wasn't very clear." He bowed to Nancibelle, nodded to Frazer.
Sally told him quickly, breathlessly. She felt better now. Frazer might be a good lawyer; but after all he was a Northerner. Tom Layton knew exactly what was what; just what the town house meant to her. He was one of their own kind. He'd be able to fix everything.
But Layton's twinge-punctuated visage grew longer and longer, and his eyes more and more pitying.
"Andy shouldn't have let things go like this," he said when she had finished. "But then, Andy's always been pretty thoughtless and I suppose it's too late for him to change."
"I didn't ask you here to discuss Andy's failings," Sally said coldly. "I called you here to do something now."
"I'm sorry, Sally. You're right." He turned to Frazer. "What's the total amount, Mr. Scott?"
"With interest and penalties, around five thousand dollars."
Layton swallowed audibly. His cheek muscles twitched. "That's a terrific sum," he said.
It didn't sound so terribly much to Sally. The house and the land it stood on had cost more than twenty-five thou sand. And surely the president of a bank that handled almost a million a year shouldn't be astounded by a figure like that.
"If we can't get a reduction," she said urgently, "will your bank lend us the money for a while? You know how much the place is really worth."
Layton looked uncomfortable. "That's just the trouble, Sally. I do know how much it's worth today. It's not worth five thousand."
He was talking the same kind of nonsense that Frazer had talked. They talked in terms of market value, of what the place would bring at a forced sale. But she wasn't selling; she was holding. Didn't they understand the difference? Besides, why talk of values? All she wanted was a loan. They'd get it back some day. These times couldn't keep up forever. Andy would get into some business; get back to sugar again, perhaps. They'd make money and pay off the loan; they had to. If they took the house away now....
"I'm not selling the house, Tom; so forget about the present prices. I'm asking your bank for a loan. The same as my father did many times, and for far greater amounts."
Layton found it very warm. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his face and the top of his head. His unhappiness deepened. "Your father offered good security in those days, Sally. The plantation more than covered."
Sally was suddenly cold. "I see," she said. "This is a business proposition to you, not a matter of friendship."
Layton was actually sweating. "Don't put it that way, Sally. I can't lend bank money on security like this. I'd be wronging every depositor." He noted her expression, plunged on: "Damn it, Sally, you've got me swearing now, I'll lend you a thousand, two thousand of my personal funds. Pay it back whenever you can, or never. But it would be silly to throw five thousand away on this place. Next year there'll be taxes again. It's a bottomless pit. Let them take it away; find some apartment downtown. I'll help you; I'll give you the money to make a fresh start."
"That's what I've been telling Sally," Frazer nodded. "I've got a little money saved. I'll help as much as possible."
"Darling!" Nancibelle's eyes were brimming. "Come live with us for a while; for as long as you want. Things will get better later on. Please, darling—"
Sally looked curiously from one to the other. They all seemed so strange, so far away. Words, words, words! A spate of meaningless words! Covering up the essential horror of what they were doing. Ousting her from her home, from the heritage of the Wailes's, and offering her crumbs of charity. To her, Sally Wailes, whose mother had been a Dabney and who had once been the toast of all the delta. They didn't understand; not even Tom Layton. Andy had been right. Layton, after all, was a banker, a glorified tradesman. How could he be expected to understand the proud possessiveness of the landed folk? Andy? Where was he? Why didn't he come?
Then Patsey was hurrying around the corner, on the way from the horse-car. She came panting, her thin, bright face more like a sparrow's than ever.
"Did you find Mr. Andy?" Sally was halfway down the steps to meet her.
"No'm, Miss Sally, ah didn'. Had a time findin' dat Mistah Ogden, an' he say—he say—"
"Hurry! Don't stammer so!"
Patsey gulped. "He say Mistah Andy gwine tuh Grant Parish. He lef' dis mawnin'. He say he wuz gwine tuh send er note. Lef' sudden-lak; be mebbe thwee day, mebbe foah."
Their eyes on her were like hot needles, piercing her through and through with their pity. Andy, the irresponsible, off again on one of his secret excursions, without warning, without so much as a hasty goodbye. Damn their pity! she thought, and the unaccustomed expletive brought a strange, fierce exultation to her, as though she were casting away with ladylike language all other repressions and confining bonds. They had no right to judge Andy; not they. Only she had, and that for private, intimate reasons. They sat back and talked comfortably while the South was bleeding to death. Vultures were at its throat, ripping, tearing. What was the good of talk? For ten long years they had talked and talked, and voted and voted, and begged and begged; and look what was happening. Lean, starved carpetbaggers growing fat, dispossessing their betters, trampling them into the muck, egging on the negroes to do the dirty work they were afraid to do. It was time to call a halt. There were still men in the South. Men who must be roused to passion, to fight for what was theirs or remain forever slaves.
Suddenly she knew what to do. A great calm settled on her. Heedless of their wondering eyes she turned and went into the house.
Nancibelle's cry fled after her. "Sally! Sally! You looked so terrible! What are you going to do?"
"Pack my things and leave this house. It's no longer mine. It belongs to Kellogg's gang. They'll be here soon with police and soldiers to back up their thievery. Do you think I'd stay to watch them come?"
"Sally dear, come with us, then. You and Elizabeth. We'd be proud to have you."
"We have a larger house," said Layton. "Clara would be tickled to have you for company."
"Thank you both, but we'll get along. Come, Elizabeth dear, Mother has to dress you in your very best clothes. We're going away."
IT had been a desperate, reckless plunge that Sally had taken, and now that it was over she wondered wherever had she found the temerity to take it. Yet Jessie Tait had made the path smooth and easy; made it, in fact, seem like a glorious lark.
"Why, of course, my dear!" she had exclaimed gaily and permitted Sally to go no farther in her explanations. "I have all the room in the world. You can have the inside room and I'll camp out here in the sitting-room. You're doing me a tremendous favor, darling. You've no idea how lonesome I get nights when I have nothing to do and I just sit and try to read a book. Let me tell you a secret. I loathe books. They squint up your eyes and force you to wear spectacles. But you and I, my dear, won't need frumpy old spectacles to look at each other. We'll have perfectly grand times together."
Sally drew a long, quivering sigh. Jessie made everything sound so marvelous. She had stood there, very straight and proud, choosing her words in explanation. "I've left my husband, Andrew Hilgard. I've defied all conventions. Men will forgive me, but women won't. They'll smile their sweetest to my face and tear me to pieces in private. They'll resent my kicking over the traces; because some, in the secrecy of their own thoughts, have toyed with the idea and shuddered away from it in fear. I'll be known as a bad woman; as one who left her husband and broke the vows of her marriage."
Jessie took her slim, cold hands in hers and said gently: "There are many of us these days, and the number is growing. There's a new type of woman in the making, one that prefers independence, at whatever cost, to the degradation of an unhappy marriage. Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony? No, I suppose you haven't. Naturally, a Southern woman wouldn't have."
Sally said slowly, "You said us, Jessie. Then you—"
Jessie said, "Yes, I've left my husband. Didn't you know?" Everything seemed suddenly right and proper to Sally. She wasn't alone in her defiance, then. She shook her head. "I understood you were down here on a long visit. I wouldn't dream of prying—I don't think anyone knows."
"Yes, there is one."
"Who?"
"Hugh—Hugh Flint. I told him the second time I met him."
Again there was that little feeling of discomfort. What was there between Hugh and Jessie? She would have given worlds to know; and would have died before asking. Instead she said, "About—sharing expense. I have still a few ornaments. As soon as I can sell them—"
"Don't you dare, Sally Hilgard! I have more money than I know what to do with." At Sally's sudden look she laughed. "Don't be getting ideas. I come by it properly. My husband."
"But—"
"He pays me to stay as far away from him as possible. I offend his dignity by living in the same town."
It was so new and so strange to Sally, this casual treatment of what after all was the last desperate step. Yet it was also exciting; it gave her strength and courage for the days ahead.
The flame of anger that had burned in her at the confiscation of her house had not died. She would not go back to see; but others told her. Rough men in muddy boots trampled through the place a Wailes had built; cold, appraising eyes and alien talk polluted its interior. It did not matter any more when the sale would take place or what arrogant carpetbagger took it over. Deliberately they had seized it, and deliberately they had mocked her in the process. The War was over almost ten long years; yet the War had only begun. From now on she would fight with every weapon at her command. She and a kicked and trampled South. She must rouse every man and every woman to see it the way she did.
But first there was the matter of Andy. She steeled herself against his coming and tightened the armor of her coldness. Elizabeth, on Nancibelle's insistent pleas, had been taken by the Scotts. The St. Charles Hotel—and Jessie Tait—were not fit companions for a growing child. As a mother she dared not deprive Elizabeth of the protective hedgerows of conventionality. And there were the two boys for playmates to soften the raw edges of her dislocation.
Andy came on the fifth day. He came in fury and bewilderment. He had returned from his journey to find abrupt sheriff's men in his house and wife and child gone. He had lost his head and there had been a fight. Two deputies limped off to seek the aid of lance and probe before he was subdued. The police came and took him to their headquarters. A crowd promptly gathered and yelled for his surrender. Fearful of the surging, ever-increasing mob they admitted Andy to bail and he was promptly carried off in triumph. Once more he was the popular hero, the Andy Hilgard of the War. They offered him drinks, they offered him adulation; but he broke away to seek his wife.
First he stormed and shouted and told her, by God, to stop this damned nonsense! Then he pleaded and begged and abased himself. But Sally was unmoved by either shouts or pleas. Firmly and with decision she told him that she would not return, that no longer were they man and wife. As for the child, he was still its father and she would not turn the child from him. He was welcome to visit at the Scotts' whenever he liked; but she would not be present when he did.
When he saw that there was no further chance he turned ugly again, and cried out upon Jessie, whom Sally had asked to leave. "It's that bitch who put you up to this," he yelled. "She's nothing but a—"
"You dare speak like that of her?" flamed Sally. "You, after what you once tried to do? Do you think I've ever forgotten? Go back to the light-of-loves on whom you've squandered whatever you've made in all your wasted life, and call them names. But leave Jessie Tait alone."
He stared at her. He had never seen Sally like this. Anger and wrath heightened her beauty to such a degree that his ache for her was almost insupportable. But he had lost her; he saw that now. And he was ashamed—ashamed that all along she had known of his unfaithfulness and held her peace. As for Jessie Tait, the very justness of the accusation Sally had flung upon him but accentuated his rage at her. He called her names to himself; vulgar names, vicious ones. She had put Sally up to this. He clung to that as the last tatter of the garment of his own respect. Thereby he evaded the damning responsibility of his own futility. He muttered something under his breath, shoved his hat savagely on his head and stalked out of the room....
Jessie was wonderful. She came in brightly after a discreet interval, and spoke in casual tones of hotel housekeeping, of arrangements for meals and linens, of lazy, sluttish maids, and all the dear, domestic problems that bind women together in a never-ending community of interest. Under her skilful ministrations the deep, slicing hurt put on protective tissue and soon Sally was considering the minutiae of her new existence with the same animation and occupied care that she had brought to bear on Moon Hill and the town house.
"You needn't worry about maids," she said. "Patsey can handle the place quite nicely; can't you, Patsey?"
Patsey sniffed around the small, two-chamber suite, her sharp, thin nose working like that of a hound on the scent. "Tak keer ob dis yere place?" she exclaimed. "Sho, Miss' Sally, you is funning me. Ah kin do it restin'. Only—"
"Only what?"
"Ah don' want no hotel trash come snoopin' round an' messin' up de way ah does t'ings."
Gradually Sally became habituated to her act of rebellion. As she had anticipated, New Orleans hummed with gossip and surmises. It was not merely the unprecedented act of quitting one's lawful husband; even more tongue-titillating was Sally's open association with that woman, Jessie Tait, about whom the less said the better; an admonition which everyone thereupon proceeded blithely to disregard.
There were discreet expostulations by the planter wives, who assumed, under the guise of motherly advice, to discover as many of the fascinating facts as they could. Sam Wailes came down from Moon Hill, and sought bewilderedly to patch up the quarrel between his daughter and her husband. He went back, more bewildered than ever, and immersed himself with a feeling of relief in the simpler riddles of earth and sky and sugar.
But New Orleans was unable long to hold attention on the private marital troubles of even such a family grouping as the Wailes's and the Hilgards. Armed forces were drilling daily and openly in the public streets. The McEnery Legislature, outlawed by Federal fiat, nevertheless continued to meet and defy the lightning. Recruits flocked to the mushrooming White Leagues to oppose the real or fancied menace of the negroes. The negroes, in turn, held separate conventions and demanded at least one-half of all elective and appointed offices. They, too, under Quash's military direction, drilled and marched and bore arms against the appointed day.
Both sides incited to violence. Quash spoke of an ultimate African State and sneered at the whites as an inferior race. The White Leagues roused to fury. "Their [the negroes] recent attitude toward the white people is one of open defiance, inviting an issue of the races, by organizing and arming their leagues throughout the state, with the determination to gain complete supremacy in Louisiana. Our own safety and that of our families demand that we cease our apathy and prepare to meet this issue by a thorough organization of the white race in every parish in the state."
This was moderate. The Shreveport Times was franker. "Their [the carpetbaggers] career is ended; we are determined to tolerate them no longer, and if they care for their infamous necks, they had better stop their work right now, and look out for a safer field of rascality. If a single hostile gun is fired between the whites and blacks, every carpetbagger and scalawag that can be caught will in twelve hours be hanging from a limb."
Into this maelstrom of whirling passions Sally plunged. She had been quiet too long. Andy's excesses had dulled the original fire of her patriotism and, by the same token, brought her closer to the moderatism of Hugh Flint that once she had scorned and lashed with edged words. But the ruthless dispossession from her house, the simple brutality of that deed of confiscation, roused her to passionate realization. She read the manifesto of the Leagues and approved. She perused the fierce diatribe of the Shreveport Times and her blood sang to its broken rhythms. What manner of world was Elizabeth to live in; what kind of existence would there be in store for young Dabney and Jedediah?
She went from blazing thought to flaming action. Jessie drove her around town and over to the outlying plantations. The stylish rig became a familiar sight and men lifted their hats and cheered the proud, erect Southern woman who went unhesitatingly upon her self-appointed mission. And in the cheering they cast curious glances at the Northern woman who drove with firm hand and expert rein. "A mighty strange business, this friendship of Sally Hilgard and that Jessie Tait," they said.
But Sally did not hear the muted comments and Jessie smiled sardonically. She was amused, and amazed, at the evangelical fervor that had clutched her Southern counterpart. Almost she envied the single driving passion which animated Sally, and made life a thing of color and excitement. All her own life she had sought that high strain of passion and excitement and thought to gain it by frankness and self-willed independence and a shifting, novel scene. Now she wondered; and with the wonder came an ache. She was, wherever she went, an outsider, a mere spectator of a well-laid stage where others furnished the dramatic fare and she received vicarious thrills. She had presumed to advise Warmoth, then Hugh Flint, and now Sally Hilgard. But the doing was theirs. She shook off this new accent of self-pity with self-mocking laughter and continued her daily drives.
Sally was like a whirlwind. She exhorted the men and roused the women. She went from home to home and plantation to plantation. First to those whom she had known, or her father, and who were bound together in a wide web of interrelationships of blood and social standing. Then to those whom she knew by reputation and to whom Sally Wailes had been among the acknowledged elect. In the dazzle of her ripened beauty and the high-strung fervor of her discourse they forgot the scandal of her breach with Andy and began to consider that perhaps she had done well to leave him. The public secret of his steady drunkenness and the openness of his renewed frequentings of the brothels of Toulouse and of Basin Street helped veer opinion in her direction and gave an added tartness to her words.
"Better death," she cried, "than submission. Think of your children if you are dulled to all considerations of yourselves. Are they to grow to manhood and womanhood, helpless under alien domination, thrust from the banquettes by any swaggering negro, condemned to contumely and scorn and sharp prick of bayonets?"
The men muttered uneasily and took down their old rifles and hunting guns and the women said, "Tom, she's right. What will happen to our darling Richard and little Sara if this keeps up? Why, only yesterday, a big Congo nigger said to me—"
Jessie said, "Darling, you have spunk. You're a regular Joan of Arc. When you Southern women get started—"
Sally clenched her hands. "If only I were a man, I'd show them. I'd chase that usurper, Kellogg, clear out of Louisiana tomorrow."
"It isn't as easy as all that, my dear. And as for being a man, I much prefer our present state. We women have other weapons than mere guns; and they're rather more effective." She looked thoughtfully at Sally's flushed, excited face. "I've pranced you around literally to hundreds of people, but you've missed one whom I think important to win over to the gospel of force and resistance."
"Who is that?"
"Hugh Flint."
Silence fell between them like a deep, unbridgeable sea. Suddenly they were both aware of hidden currents, roiling the hitherto smooth surface of their relations, making turbid what had been clean and pellucid before.
Hugh Flint! Now that Jessie had moved it into the open Sally knew that she had avoided him. The reasons were obscure, troubling; just as every thought of him had been a queer compound of action and reaction in the past. Now she could no longer avoid the problem.
"Hugh Flint!" she said finally, gathering herself together under the suddenly serious eye of Jessie. "No, I haven't seen him. It wouldn't be any use."
"Why not?"
"He—he thinks differently from most of us. He's a Southerner and yet he's not. There's an element of the Yankee about him." She saw the quizzical look on Jessie and added hastily, "I didn't mean any offense, my dear. It's just that the two peoples have different modes of thought, different attitudes."
"Darling, I don't take offense easily. And I won't argue with you now whether Yank and Southerner, or prairie man and Yorker, are different kinds of folk. But Hugh is pretty important. He's hardheaded and he knows what he wants, even though he's made mistakes. The South needs him and his influence."
"His own followers have deserted him," Sally objected. She didn't want to go to Hugh. Something within her shrank at the very thought, something that was curiously and inextricably mixed up with the very woman who was urging her—Jessie Tait.
"They think they have, Sally; but they're at loose ends, not knowing which way to turn since they quit. Devoe, perhaps, is least affected, but he goes his own way, seeing the whole thing as a mere game—a game of cards. There is no driving passion in him. But the others, restored to Hugh Flint's leadership, would fight and yield their all."
"Why don't you convince him, then?" flashed Sally.
Jessie smiled, and it was a pale simulacrum of her usual gay, impudent grin. "I've tried, Sally," she said quietly, "and it didn't work. I couldn't supply the vital spark. I'm afraid you're the only one who can."
"I?" said Sally, startled.
But Jessie had quickly turned and left the room. There had been a pallor on her face.
"I won't go to him," whispered Sally to herself. "I can't."
Hugh Flint found it difficult to concentrate on the piled orders and bills-of-lading before him. He was restless, morose. He had almost snapped poor Hardy's head off that morning and had been disconcertingly rude to one of his most important clients. The mood had been growing on him. He was getting insupportable to others and to himself as well. What had got into him? Business was good—that is, as good as could be expected in these troubled times. His balance at the bank was increasing; even the plantation had shown a small profit on the last report from Moon Hill.
He frowned and looked out of the window. The window was scrupulously clean; the accumulated grime of decades under old Stephen had been scrubbed and polished away. Across the intervening yards the Mississippi still flowed resistlessly to the sea, a muddy symbol of eternity. Smokestacks pointed black fingers at the murky sky and the gulls wheeled slowly overhead. Nothing had changed from the day when he had entered this office, an equal partner in the firm of Flint & Son.
Nothing? A group of men moved straggling from behind the intervening building and made sharp vignette upon the levee. They marched in ragged formation and two glinting figures ran up and down the lines with the universal gesture of the drill sergeant.
Quickly Hugh removed his gaze and scowled down upon his correspondence. But the numbers were meaningless and the accompanying words chicken tracks across blank white paper. They were fools! They had been licked in war and beaten down in politics, and now they were blustering and shouting afresh as though nothing had happened. This time they would be crushed beyond all possibility of return. If they would only have the patience to wait, sanity must inevitably come to the North again. Already the Radicals were finding it more and more difficult to whip up hatred with the waving of the "bloody shirt." But another massacre in the South and jaded tongues would quicken to the cry again.
He was right, and he knew he was right; yet the knowledge left him curiously unsatisfied. He sat at his desk, pushing his pen and making marks, and dealing in dollars and cents; while out there men—wrong-headed men, perhaps—were ready to die in behalf of their liberties.
He jabbed his steel pen into the inkwell with such force that the ink spattered flying flecks on desk and white cambric shirt alike. He pushed back his chair, came angrily to his feet and began to wipe at the spreading blotch on his shirt. He was still busily engaged when the door opened and quietly shut.
"Damn it, Simon!" he snapped without looking up from his efforts. "Don't stand there like an idiot; get me some water and help me with this mess."
But Hardy, or whoever it was, made no move and uttered no sound. Hugh lifted his head in annoyance.
"Sally!"
She stood there with her back against the door she had just closed, confused, hesitating, strangely shy. As he stared at her his thoughts raced back to that first time she had swept into his office, flanked on either side by Sam Wailes and Andy Hilgard. She had come imperiously, breathing youthful scorn and arrogance. Much had taken place since then. She had married, borne a child, and been separated from her husband. He remembered how the news had shocked and stirred him. He had wanted to go to her, to do something for her in what must be her desperate need. Yet he had not gone. What it was that had held him back he didn't know. Perhaps it was that she had gone to live with Jessie, and Jessie's evermocking eyes would be upon them. Yes, that was it. That was it, of course. Jessie had fallen away, too. They were so enwrapped in each other, he thought bitterly, there was no time for him. He didn't stop to think that he no longer called, or went any place. He had become a social hermit and made only business visits.
But now she had come to him—Sally! Come of her own accord.
"I'm not Simon," she said uncertainly, "but if you'll tell me where the water is—"
"Oh, damn the shirt!" he said, and promptly apologized. "Sorry; but you took me off my guard. I'm so glad to see you; here, sit down."
She sank into the chair he offered her and sat with hands folded primly in her lap. They stared at each other, dropped their eyes guiltily, lifted them simultaneously.
"Well, I am glad to see you," he repeated inanely.
"It's been a long time," she said.
"Yes."
Their voices stopped, rose hurriedly again, as if the dead weight of silence was too much for them.
"It really has—" he started.
"And how have you been?" she offered to the sudden clash of speech.
Again they stopped, startled.
Hugh felt the muscles of his chest tighten so that there seemed no room for his lungs to breathe. "We're making small talk," he said, "pretending there is nothing else to say."
"Is there?" asked Sally. She was confused, even a bit frightened. The real reason for her coming to Hugh Flint was curiously remote, suddenly unimportant. She shouldn't have come. Her instinct had been right. She knew that now, when it was too late.
"Yes, there is; plenty." He arose from the desk and stood over her, towering. At first she didn't look up. Her hands, neatly folded in her lap, possessed a strange fascination for her.
"You've had a hard time of it, Sally." His voice was grave, gentle.
"It wasn't so bad." She didn't understand herself. Why should she be so frightened; she who never had been frightened in her life; even when the Federal gunboat had shelled Moon Hill and Silla had been killed before her eyes.
He ignored her denial. He brushed it aside with impatient gesture. "I've heard about the town house. I've heard about your leaving Andy. You should have done that years ago."
She came to her feet, faced him with angry eyes. The confusion that eddied in her sought relief in passionate disavowal. She must not let him think that he could presume to probe her personal life and judge by standards not her own.
"You have no right to say that!" she blazed. "What has happened between Andy and myself is our affair and no one else's. You will please—"
He gripped her shoulders with his outstretched hands. His fingers trembled with repressed fury as though they itched to shake her and shake her hard.
"I have every right," he said harshly, almost savagely.
His grip bit painfully deep, yet the pain did not seem to matter.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I have every right," he repeated, "because—I love you."
All the passion and confusion ebbed from her. She felt as though she had no further strength. Her knees commenced to shake and her body was limp and unjointed. Only the tension of his grip held her erect.
"You—you said you—" she stammered and couldn't complete the phrase.
"I said I love you," he told her in rough, hard accents. "I've loved you, I suppose, ever since I met you on the Moon Hill levee and you acted the arrogant, pampered plantation lady. You've irritated me, you've made me want to beat you practically every time we met. You interfered with the things I wanted to do and there was that damned aristocrat contempt in your voice whenever you spoke. You were a Wailes and a Dabney and I was a mere trader whose father never owned a slave in his life and couldn't trace his ancestry back to William the Conqueror. You showed no particular gratitude when I saved your life and the lives of all your family; and your precious Andy still tells everyone I pulled a sharp trader's trick in buying his plantation. No doubt you think the same. I've wanted to wring your neck—and yet I love you. That's what gives me every right to tell you you've messed your life up long enough and that it's time to seek the happiness you've so long denied yourself."
He was shaking her now; shaking her with the headlong fury of his words and the astounding, incredible things he was saying. They were bitter things, terrible things. They were truths and half-truths and downright lies. The storm beat down upon her and tore the armor of her pride into a scatter of broken shards. She was momentarily naked and ashamed and yet filled with a keen exultation. What mattered the cruelty with which he had beaten her down and the savagery with which he was avowing his love? He loved her; and that was sufficient.
The years fell away and the intervening time was misty and without meaning. She had always loved him—she knew that now. The constant clashes, the quick flares of temper which she had invariably opposed to him were inner defenses against that knowledge. She had married Andy in a moment of yielding to unessential circumstance. She had never loved him or found in his most intimate embrace the leaping response of this mere touch on her shoulders.
Hugh misread her silent limpness. The violence with which he had clothed his speech dropped suddenly. Anxiety and fear took its place. He was aghast at himself. Her coming to him this morning had touched off some hidden spring—a spring which he had not known to exist. He had poured forth the sudden realization of his love clumsily, angrily, half-resentful at them both for the compulsion that had forced him to it.
He let fall his hands. "Sorry," he muttered. "Something came over me. I didn't know what I was doing."
The limpness vanished from her. She moved toward him. "Don't be sorry," she said. "I don't want you to be."
He stared at her. She was very close to him now. She laughed joyously. "I must have wanted to hear that from you for years."
He kissed her wonderingly, slowly at first. But the responsive pressure of her lips tightened his arms and brought flooding passion to their locked embrace.
She broke away finally, breathless, panting, yet filled with warm content. And also with little echoes of astonishment. All the years of her marriage there had been no kisses such as these. Marriage? A swift cold overlaid her. Had she forgotten? She was Andy's wife. Until death do you part. Was there any more terrible phrase in all the language?
Hugh was coming to her again, hungrily.
She put out her hand to stop him. Her eyes were swept with panic. "No, Hugh, no! I'd forgotten."
"Forgotten what?"
"I'm married, Hugh; married to Andy."
He scowled fiercely at her. "Forget Andy. You're going to divorce him just as soon as the courts will permit. You've got a hundred different grounds for complaint against him. Frazer will take care of that end of it in a hurry." He chuckled and reached for her again. "You're going to marry me, my dear."
But still she held him off. She must not let him confuse her further with his kisses. The whole disordered complex of whirling thought and emotion was falling into a clearer pattern. Every fiber of her being cried out against the inexorable logic of that pattern, yet she knew she could do no otherwise than follow.
"I'm sorry, Hugh," she said steadily, "but there can be no divorce."
He stared at her in bewilderment. "Why not? You can get all the evidence you need."
"It isn't that, dear. It's something more fundamental. People like us just don't get divorced. We go into marriage with that knowledge. For better or for worse—that's what Preacher Yellin told us; and it's so."
"Stop that nonsense!" he yelled in exasperation. "You're living in the eighteen-seventies, not at the turn of the century. I'm going to see Frazer at once—"
She shook her head. He couldn't know what agony of spirit hid behind the façade of her enforced calm. "It's no use, Hugh. Even if I were willing to break with all the codes, I couldn't for Elizabeth's sake. Think what it would mean to her when she grows up. The daughter of a divorced woman. Whispers, sidelong glances, doors closed to her in the houses where she would otherwise have been most welcome. A heritage for her to drag through life; a bar to happiness and a marriage of her own. No, Hugh; I can't, I won't do it. I have no right to barter her future for my selfish happiness. I must go on."
"But you're already separated. There will be talk just the same."
"Separation is one thing, Hugh; divorce another. There is talk now, but it's not the same. Other women have left their husbands; but there must be no divorce." Her anguish suddenly burst the barriers she had interposed. "My darling, don't you see? I can't; I can't!"
Then somehow she was in his arms again and he was holding her with fierce possessiveness. "I don't see anything of the sort. There must be some way—"
The door of his office flung open and Jessie Tait burst in like a spring storm. Her gloved hand fluttered a yellow oblong of paper and she cried in a high, breathless voice: "Don't mind my not knocking, Hugh darling. Old Hardy's not around to announce me and anyway, I'm so excited I can hardly think straight. Look at this, will you—"
She paused in midflight. "Oh!" she said, and stood stockstill.
They had moved quickly away from each other at her tumultuous entrance. Silence crept in among them, muting even the quick breathing of Sally and the startled grunt of Hugh. Somewhere on the river a steamboat whistled, and the shrill sound was a dying murmur as it seeped through the lower screen of the window.
"Look, Jessie," Hugh began awkwardly. "You mustn't think—"
The heightened color of her cheeks had turned a grayish white. She stared down at the yellow paper in her hand and crumpled it slowly. It fell in a little wadded ball to the floor.
"You needn't explain, Hugh," she said. "You'll only fumble and stammer and make a general fool of yourself. I've suspected something like this for a long time, but I deliberately blinded myself." A ghost of the old impudent smile hovered over her lips but did not touch her eyes. "Your virtuous refusals don't extend to all married women, do they, Hugh?"
Sally pulled herself together. "If you're implying that there is anything between us—"
Jessie stopped her with a gesture. "No, Sally," she said gently. "I know better. I know you too well, my dear; and I know Hugh. You're a Southern lady and he, for all his pretended modernity, is quite old-fashioned in his responses to the entire tribe of females. He invests them with a tremendous sanctity you'll find it most difficult to live up to. I know I would have."
"What damned nonsense!" Hugh exploded.
She turned on him swiftly. He was uncomfortably aware of the expression in her eyes. "No, it isn't, Hugh. But perhaps that's what makes you so attractive. Sally will get a divorce and you two can marry in the utmost odor of respectability."
"That's just what I've been telling her."
Sally said, "I'm sorry for your sake as well as for ours that you came in just now. Explanations are embarrassing, yet you'll have to hear them"
"Not on my account," Jessie protested. "I can take them or leave them alone."
"You must take them," Sally insisted. "The whole thing was a mistake and must go no farther. I don't intend to divorce Andy."
"What!" The gasped word was pregnant with disbelief.
"She has rigid ideas on the subject of divorce," Hugh said bitterly.
"You fool!" said Jessie, her eyes darkening. "You'd give up your chance for happiness; you'd give up the man you love in obedience to a moth-eaten code of manners?" Her lips twisted. "Why, if 1 loved a man, do you think I'd worry a moment because of codes or morals? If I couldn't marry him, I'd be his mistress and be proud of the title. Yet you, to whom the road is open, dare stand back and refuse to enter?"
"Don't torture me any more," Sally burst out. "I can't stand it. If it were only myself, I wouldn't hesitate a moment. But there's Elizabeth. It's for her sake I'm saying no."
"We can quit Louisiana and start life again somewhere where no one will know or care," argued Hugh. "The whole West is opening up—"
"Sally's right," Jessie broke in quietly. "I didn't think of Elizabeth. And you can't run away from the South. This is your land, your destiny for better or for worse. Sally came to you to tell you just that."
"I didn't tell him," Sally said faintly.
There were curious overtones in Jessie's smile. "I'd no doubt of it. So many other things obviously intervened. I'm afraid I'll have to tell it for her. She's in no fit state to put it properly to you. The South needs you now, Hugh; more than ever before."
"The hell with the South!" he declared violently. "I want Sally, and the rest can go hang."
"You say that now; but if you acted on it, you'd hate yourself and hate everyone else as long as you lived. Your roots are in the ground right here, and so are Sally's. You can't tear them up as easily as you think. Have you heard the news?"
"What news?"
"Kellogg's police found out that the steamer Mississippi intends to land a shipment of rifles for the White League. They're going to seize the vessel tonight. They hope to do it secretly."
Sally started. "Is that true?" she demanded.
"You know my sources of information are of the very best."
"Then we'll have to notify the League at once, Hugh. If Kellogg's men capture those rifles we're all ruined. We can't let it happen, Hugh." There was urgency in her voice, hurried passion in her manner.
Hugh said, somewhat bewildered, "But how about ourselves?"
She put her hand on his arm. "Our own personal problems will have to wait, Hugh. It took Jessie, a Northerner, to show us that. Louisiana stands at the parting of the ways; just as we do, my dear. The White Leagues are ready to strike. If the arms are seized, they're helpless and Kellogg will put them down with blood and terror. We've got to stand by our State, Hugh. You and I."
Hugh said slowly, "I suppose you are right, Sally. I'd tried to withdraw myself from politics and the public excitement, but I can't say I was happy about it. They tell me I got pretty irritable these last few months. Maybe the White Leaguers have more sense than I. Maybe the only way to overcome oppression is to fight it. Maybe you're right, and Jessie is right. The only kind of argument the Republicans will respect is the argument of force."
"Then you'll come?"
He grinned at her. "As soon as I find that old rascal, Hardy, and tell him to take charge."
Jessie clapped her hands. "Behold the warrior going forth to battle!" she said delightedly. "He leaves behind his loved ones to fight for home and country. What an inspiring spectacle!"
"Now don't you go poking fun at me," warned Hugh. "First you help push me into this, and then you—"
Her mood changed with the suddenness of a spring shower. "If I didn't laugh, I might feel impelled to cry," she said quietly. "And that reminds me. I had really come to say goodbye, Hugh. Strange how one forgets."
"Goodbye?" they both echoed. "Where are you going?"
"Didn't I tell you, Sally?" Once more her voice was lighthearted, gay. "How stupid of me! I'm going to Paris; you know—Paris, France."
"Paris!" exclaimed Sally. "But you can't; you mustn't. We need you here. You're a part of us. We love you too much to let you go. Don't we, Hugh?"
Hugh said unhappily, "Of course we do. You mustn't go, Jessie."
She looked at him queerly. "Thank you very much; both of you. You've really been sweet and kind. But my plans are made. I've been in New Orleans long enough. It's beginning to bore me. I'm that restless sort of person who must keep forever on the move. Always looking for the rainbow over the horizon. If I don't find it in Paris, then there's London and Berlin and Rome and Vienna." She laughed, and there was a strain to her laugh. "Perhaps I'll end up in Timbuctoo or some other outlandish place."
"And what do you expect to find?" Sally asked softly.
Jessie looked at her with clouded eyes. "I don't know—any more." She turned and opened the door quickly. "And oh, by the way, Sally. You needn't worry about the suite at the St. Charles. It's been paid for in advance for the next six months." Then she was gone.
They heard her swift, retreating heels down the musty warehouse. Hugh's hands were clenched and his palms sweaty. Sally said, "Pick up that crumpled paper, Hugh, and give it to me."
There was a roaring in his ears as he stooped. Sally took the sheet from his hand, smoothed it out.
Some vestige of regard for what was proper came to Hugh. "It belongs to Jessie," he protested. "She dropped it. You shouldn't read it."
But Sally was already intent on the copybook penmanship of the telegraph form. Then, without a word, she handed it to him.
Hugh forgot his qualms, glanced hastily over the clipped, money-saving sentences. He started, read it over carefully, word by word. The message was headed: "Mrs. Jessica Tait, St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, La.
YOUR HUSBAND, AMOS TAIT, DIED SEPTEMBER TENTH. WILL CUTS YOU OFF, BUT DOWER RIGHTS ESTIMATED FIVE HUNDRED PER MONTH LONG AS YOU LIVE. ADVISE WHERE TO SEND. HALLAM & CARTWRIGHT, ATTORNEYS.
Sally's voice came to Hugh on some distant wind.
"She loved you, Hugh. She hurried to you as soon as she received the news. She wanted you to know that she was free. Then she found—us."
"Yes," he said dully.
"She said certain curious things. Did she offer to become your mistress, and you refused?"
"Yes."
"Hugh, look at me."
He looked at her.
"She's splendid, Hugh. She'll make you a good wife. Why don't you marry her?"
The dull ache fled from him. "Because—" he said harshly, "because, I love you"
A light sprang into her eyes, and died again. "But we had decided—"
"We decided nothing, except that we loved each other." He reached for his hat. It was a relief to act, instead of giving way to thought. "Come on, Sally. Have you forgotten we're supposed to save the South?"
OGDEN was the head of the Crescent City White League. His actions were decisive and his words few. He listened in silence to Hugh's hurried news of the proposed seizure of the Mississippi, his glance wandering from time to time in the direction of Sally.
"Thank you, Mr. Flint. Thank you, Mrs. Hilgard. Your information is of the utmost importance." He called sharply to a man who was sitting inconspicuously in the corner of the room.
"Edwards!"
The man bolted to his feet, saluted in military fashion. "Yes, sir."
"Rouse Company A at once. Order them to proceed down the river to the point of land opposite Magnolia and send a boat out to intercept the Mississippi. Have them unload the cargo and pole it through the back bayous to the rendezvous. Then proceed at full speed to Lieutenant-Governor Penn and inform him what I've done."
Edwards saluted and drifted silently from the room.
"Good chap, Edwards," said Ogden. "He was with Lee at Appomattox."
"Why notify Penn, instead of Governor McEnery?" asked Hugh.
"The Governor's away. Penn's going to announce himself as Acting Governor." Ogden's severe features broke into a smile. "He'll regularize the League's status. He'll issue a proclamation inducting us into the militia and appointing me their general. With those rifles you've just saved for us, we'll be ready for Kellogg's militia."
Hugh said, "There'll be plenty of trouble. The Kellogg troops are commanded by General Longstreet—and then there's the metropolitan police."
Ogden's face darkened. "General Longstreet is a renegade, sir. We aren't afraid of renegades."
"He's a brave soldier," Hugh said softly. "He's doing what he thinks best for his country. There is an honest difference of opinion. I myself have been considered a bit of a renegade on occasion."
Ogden cupped his chin. His eyes were searching. "I was wondering about you, Mr. Flint. If Sally Hilgard hadn't accompanied you, I might have been tempted to suspect your information."
Sally said indignantly, "You have no right to say that, Fred. Hugh Flint is the finest type of—"
"I don't blame you in the slightest," Hugh interposed hastily. "This is war, and everyone should be suspect until proved otherwise. I don't regret the past. Looking back, errors are patent. They weren't patent at the time. I feel now that Kellogg's government must be removed and that only force will do it. That's why I've come to offer my services."
"We're glad to have you on our side. From all accounts you know how to organize men." Ogden smiled. "There are a group of Leaguers who'll be mighty happy to hear you've joined us."
"Who?"
"Willis and Devoe and Johnson and McVey and—"
Hugh breathed hard. He was back with his own kind again. They hadn't deserted him; he had deserted them. In his stubbornness and pride he had deserted his people and his land in the face of adversity and trials. He had sulked in his warehouse because, forsooth, the ways of politics had been corrupt and the power of the alien too strong. He had been unhappy; terribly unhappy. But now everything would be all right. Even defeat, in the company of those whom he loved, was infinitely better than his former aloofness. If Sally hadn't come to him just then—
He heard Ogden saying: "You rated a captain in the army, didn't you?"
"Yes; until I resigned."
"Good. I'll put you in command of Company E. I think you'll know the men." He glanced quickly at Sally; looked away. "Andy Hilgard was their captain; but he is, I'm afraid, rather hors de combat." He rose. "You'll find George Devoe at the City Hall. He's your lieutenant. He'll tell you everything. Now if you'll excuse me—"
"Look here, Ogden," protested Hugh, "I can't accept—"
But Ogden was gone.
Sally said breathlessly, "You mustn't refuse. I know what you're thinking. But our personal relations, even Andy's vanity, must yield to the welfare of the State."
"Don't you see? I had hoped to arrange things peaceably with Andy. He still has a certain sense of honor left. But if I take the command away from him, he'll think I did it deliberately."
"It doesn't matter what he thinks. Fred Ogden was polite. Andy's illness is mere sodden drunkenness. He gets drunk for days at a time. He did it secretly for years; now he's quite open about it." She shook her head slowly. "You can't arrange anything, Hugh. The only arrangement possible would be a divorce and I'll never agree to that. I've made up my mind, Hugh. I'm going back to Moon Hill—after this. I want Elizabeth to be brought up on a plantation. I want to be with my father; he needs me. You must never see me again, Hugh."
"If you think I'm going to let you go now, after—"
"You must, Hugh." She tilted her face to him. "Kiss me, darling; for the last time."
He held her in his arms as if he would never let her go. Her eyes were closed and her lips passionate on his. Then, suddenly, she tore loose and fled through the door, slamming it shut behind her.
"Sally!" he cried. "Come back!" He flung the door open and a crowded anteroom of jostling, buzzing men stared curiously at him. Sally was nowhere to be seen.
The uproarious welcome Hugh Flint received from the men he had led through years of tortuous politics should have heartened him. Cap'n Willis's honest, bearded face beamed with delight. "Yuh kain't keep a good man down," he crowed. "I knowed ye'd be a-comin' back tuh us, Hugh. Now we kin lick Longstreet an' th' p'lice an' the hull damn army t' boot. Wheee!" He flung his hat in the air. "On tuh Washington, says I, an' pull some hairn outa Grant's whiskers."
Devoe was more restrained. He was not given to displays of emotion. Emotion was not a quality of any value to a poker player. "It's like old times, Hugh," he said quietly. "We've filled our flush."
The others crowded around, slapped him on the back, talked big. Now they were satisfied. They had resented Andy; they had intended going to Ogden in a body to complain. But Hugh was all right. Sorry they had quit him like that; but you see how it is.
Hugh assured them he saw. They had been right, and he wrong. "Where's Tom Layton?" he asked.
"Down with the rheumatiz," he was told. "Poor Tom! He'd give half his bank to be in this fight."
But Hugh was not heartened. All morning and part of the afternoon he had spent in frantic search for Sally. She wasn't at the St. Charles; neither was Jessie. At Nancibelle's he came minutes too late. Sally had been there, packed hurriedly and taken Elizabeth with her. No, Nancibelle didn't know where she went. Her eyes were curious on Hugh. He rushed down to the levee; but no boat had left upriver and none was expected to leave until the morrow. So Sally was still in town. But in hiding, to escape further pleas, to avoid further sight of him.
Sick at heart, he returned to his men and threw himself into the work at hand with a cold, driving fury that boded ill for anyone who dared cross him.
Saturday night, September 12th, was a night of high excitement. The old St. Louis Hotel to which the Kellogg government had shifted the State House, was barricaded with troops and police. All through the city mobs seethed and armed men tramped. The sides of buildings broke out in a rash of flaming posters, calling on all good Democrats to attend a grand rally Monday morning before the statue of Henry Clay at the corner of Canal and Royal Streets.
On Sunday the turmoil continued. The newspapers issued special bulletins and the more timid citizens began to stream from town toward the Lake and Carrollton Parish. Hugh drilled his men furiously, marching them in military formation along the back streets near the slaughter-houses where Kellogg's police did not venture. At 2 p.m. the rifles came, hurried secretly along back bayous and unfrequented roads. The company fell upon them with glad cries. They were good rifles, shiny and new; and with plenty of ammunition to go with them. That night they were stacked safely under bales of cotton in Hugh's warehouse; ready for instant seizure. Monday morning dawned clear and warm. Every business house in New Orleans was closed and shuttered. Every dwelling was battened tight against what was to come. But all morning determined men moved steadily down St. Charles, down Camp and Baronne and Carondelet, up Royal and Rampart and Dauphine, converging on the gigantic monument of Henry Clay. That apostle of Compromise looked sternly down the long stretch of Canal Street, his base of granite steps set firm between the iron rails on which the horse-cars clanged their way. But no cars rolled on Canal Street this Monday.
The great thoroughfare swarmed with hurrying men. They surged against the iron railing that hemmed the statesman in, and shouted in a frenzy at each telling hit of the speakers who perched on the statue's granite steps and exhorted them with voices that strove against the eddying currents of sound.
Hugh and his men stood in a grim, hard knot on the outskirts of the clamorous crowd. They paid small heed to the speakers and more to the narrow streets that led from the Vieux Carré and the barricades of the Kellogg forces.
"If I were Longstreet," said Devoe, "I'd attack right now. He could sweep this disordered mob straight into the river."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Hugh admitted, watching Royal Street with anxious eyes. "We've got our pistols, but they wouldn't be much use against rifles and artillery. I wish this futile meeting were over."
"But Longstreet is a gentleman and a Southerner," Devoe added calmly. "He won't attack. He'll wait until we do. That's the trouble with gentlemen and Southerners."
A resolution had just been put demanding that Kellogg and his Legislature abdicate. It passed with a roar that shook the neighboring buildings.
"Damn waste o' time," grumbled Willis. "He ain't abdicatin'. Only way's tuh chase 'im out."
Hugh said, "That's strategy. Everything goes by rule. Give the other fellow a chance to retreat before you knock him down."
"Gives him a chanct tuh knock you down fust," retorted Willis. "An' there they goes sendin' a committee tuh tell him tuh abdicate. Of all th' blasted idiots!"
The committee returned in quick order from the St. Louis Hotel. The bird had fled. Kellogg and his Legislature had sought refuge within the massive granite walls of the Customs House. From this safe roost, under the protection of Federal domain, he issued a proclamation refusing to abdicate his office and demanding in peremptory terms that the unlawfully assembled mob disperse.
But the "mob" howled down the crier who vainly tried to read the proclamation and handled him roughly until a squad of Leaguers hustled him off to safety.
Then a man mounted the steps and shouted for silence. He had another and a more important proclamation to read, he yelled. It came from Lieutenant-Governor Penn, Acting Governor in the absence of Governor McEnery, the only true and elected governor. A storm of whistles and cheers arose; subsided.
The proclamation denounced Kellogg and all his works, called out the militia "for the purpose of driving the usurper from power" and announced the appointment of Frederick N. Ogden as general of all the militia.
Devoe chuckled. "He might have saved his breath. We knew all that on Saturday."
"That's more strategy," Hugh observed. "Gives the color of legality to what's already being done."
"Any more speeches?" Willis demanded.
"Not for us," said Hugh. "We're militiamen now, duly constituted. There goes General Ogden. He's got what he wanted. So have we. Come on, men. Back to my warehouse to break out the rifles. There'll be bloody work ahead, or I miss my guess."
Willis rubbed his hands. "That's th' fust bit of sense been talked t'day."
All afternoon both sides girded for battle. Longstreet deployed his men around the Customs House in formations reminiscent of the Grand Army of Virginia. He had about a thousand men, police chiefly, armed with rifles and flanked by artillery. Inside cowered the Kellogg politicians, trembling at the expected issue of arms. To protect the newly installed State House at the St. Louis Hotel were some three hundred militia and police, headed by Captain Badger.
The McEnery-Penn forces numbered more than three thousand, chiefly drilled members of the White League. Not all were armed with rifles and there was no support of artillery.
"Longstreet's a soldier and Ogden's not," frowned Hugh, surveying the disordered enthusiasm of the Leaguers. "And his men are trained. To attack the Customs House by frontal assault would be suicide. We'd be mowed down as we tried to cross Canal Street."
"That's just what Ogden's planning on doing," said Devoe.
Their company was formed on Poydras Street close to the warehouse. Other companies, loosely drawn, scattered down to the levee, making up for lack of discipline with impatient cries for action.
"Take charge for a while, George," Hugh said rapidly.
"Where are you going?"
"To see Ogden."
Hugh found the newly appointed general surrounded by a sweaty, futile clamor of self-appointed aides. He pushed through the crowd, caught Ogden's harried eyes.
"What is it, Flint?"
"Do you intend attacking the Customs House?"
"Naturally."
"It would be worse than madness; it would be suicide, General. That's just what Longstreet's hoping for. Rifle bullets against three-foot-thick granite and prepared artillery positions. Besides, you'd have the Federal troops down on you in a hurry. You're assaulting property of the United States."
Ogden made a gesture expressive of helplessness. "I've thought of that," he admitted. "But I don't see anything else—"
"Yes, there is. Make Longstreet come out. He can't stay in there forever. Set regular siege; throw up barricades. Here, let me explain."
Ogden listened. His eyes kindled. "By God, Flint, I believe you're right. You, Mathewson, get through Commerce Street to Canal with every man not in a regular company you can find. Have them throw up barricades across Canal with whatever they can lay their hands on. You, Lafe, run a barricade right here across Poydras. Use the militia. This a good place, Flint, in front of your warehouse?"
"Yes. You can use my bales of cotton."
"Fine! And Flint, you take your own company up the levee for reserves."
It was not attack, but the Leaguers went to work with as huge cheers as though it were. Another hour of milling inactivity and defensive waiting would have melted the forces to a mere trickle of their present flood. But ripping up, destroying, building, delighted their instincts and released their surcharged energy.
In minutes Poydras Street, lower Canal and the high reaches of the levee stormed with sound and the crash and thunder of building barricades. They swarmed down to the wharves and brought up lumber, boxes, carts and bales of fodder hay. Men stumbled under the weight of the huge Belgian granite paving blocks that had come in ships as ballast. Horse-cars were seized, the horses unhitched and a hundred men lifted them bodily off the rails, sent them bouncing and screeching down the streets to where the barricades were rising, there to be overturned and set in solid rows from curb to curb. Great bales of cotton, aided by a score of willing hands, rolled end on end from the warehouse of Flint & Son and were heaved aloft on the ever-growing disorder of jumbled goods and stones and cars and carts.
Other warehouses were broken into, and anguished protests of owners disregarded and their stocks of bales and barrels added to the pile. Fluffs of cotton eddied upward, came down again in a blanket of drifting snow. It covered the swarming warriors, powdered them with clinging white.
"Ain't had so much fun sence I was a young 'un," panted a plantation man from down the Delta.
"Ye'll be havin' more fun 'n ye bargained for in a leetle while," chuckled Willis grimly.
"Can't come fast enough," retorted the other.
"Fer me, nuther," said Willis.
But as the afternoon moved on in sultry heat, and the wharves and warehouses and the neighboring streets had been denuded of everything movable, and the men had settled down to waiting behind their barricades, impatience grew upon them—and with impatience came restless grumbling.
"What're we waitin' for?"
"Been a-settin' on my rump so long I feel the corns a-sproutin'."
"I'm gettin' hongry. Ain't had a bite sence six this mawnin'."
"Where's the fight?"
"Fight? You're crazy, man. We ain't going to fight; we're jest waiting for the moon to come up so's we kin go home."
"Thet ain't a bad idee. My belly's rumblin'."
The grumblings became a clamor; the clamor a shout.
Militia officers came panting to General Ogden. "We can't hold the men much longer. They say there won't be any fight and they're going home."
Ogden was worried. He squinted down the levee toward the silent, granite-frowning Customs House. "We've got to do something, and do it fast," he agreed. "Once our men break up we'll never get them together again. It looks as if Longstreet's too smart to come out."
Hugh said, "He's got to come out. He can't stay cooped up inside forever. His pride won't let him."
Ogden shook his head. "I don't know anything about his pride. All I know is the men won't stay in rank much longer. We'll have to attack."
"Wait a few minutes more," Hugh begged.
But already, down the street behind the barricade, they could see men beginning to edge quietly away. Like the first thin trickle of snow that starts a thundering avalanche.
Ogden groaned. "I'm afraid we can't wait any longer. I'm going to give the order to advance."
They turned for a last somber look down the levee.
"By God!" someone shouted. "They're coming out!"
The ominous granite façade disgorged a dark, evergrowing torrent of men. The sun glinted on the barrels of their rifles and a twelve-pound gun rattled over the cobblestones.
"Longstreet broke first," said Hugh grimly. "If he had waited another quarter hour he'd have had us."
"They're crossing Canal and coming up the levee," cried Lafe in a voice cracking with excitement. "They're coming straight at us!"
"Every one of you back to your commands!" snapped Ogden. "Hurry! They'll be on us in no time."
The militia officers scattered on the run, shouting orders ahead as they ran. Hugh turned on his heel and sped up the levee, flung around the corner into Lafayette Street where his two companies were hidden behind huge bales of hay.
Devoe advanced to meet him. His clothes were strewn with straw and clinging wisps of hay. "The boys are getting a trifle impatient, Hugh," he observed mildly. "One in fact wanted to go home so bad I had to mention something about shooting him if he did."
"Save your bullets for Kellogg's men," Hugh said swiftly. "They're advancing up the levee."
"Glory be!" yelled Willis. A cheer went up from the ranks.
"Quiet!" Hugh beat down the tumult. "Do you want them to know we're here? Quick! Move those bales right up to the corner. Set them on the carts. Five men to push each cart out upon the levee at my signal; the rest to advance in skirmish order, rifles ready. No one's to shoot until I give the word."
"Aye, aye there!" grinned Willis and harried his men. "Come on, ye lazy no-count lubbers. Tote them bales lively; git along! There's not one o' ye I'd want on a boat o' mine."
They grinned back at him and swore cheerful, low-pitched oaths. Flying hay made a carpet for their feet. Hugh peered cautiously around the edge of the building.
The Kellogg forces had crossed Canal and were advancing steadily up the levee toward Poydras. The twelve-pounder and two wicked-looking Gatling guns bounced unevenly in front. Behind came what seemed an interminable flow. Hundreds on hundreds, moving with formidable tread, the quick dust rising from their pounding feet and enveloping them in a hazy cloud.
Hugh felt his heart begin to pound in unison with the distant thud. It was his first battle. Ironical, that! For more than a year he had been a Confederate officer and the great war had swirled and roared with hurricane winds around him, yet never touched the placid center where he was. Yet now, a decade later, in times of so-called peace, he was to undergo the strange baptism of rifle bullets and solid shot.
He thought of Sally. Where was she now? Why had she evaded him this very morning? Suppose he died. Suppose this was the last he'd see the hot, bright sun and sniff the damp that brought strange odors from the ever-flowing river. He'd found Sally too late. All these years he had his chance and failed to grasp it. Now it was too late. Too late either way. Whether he lived or died. That damned Andy!
He heard sudden commotion behind him.
"Come back here, you fool!" he heard Devoe's voice raised in unaccustomed anger. "Do you want to get shot?"
He turned and saw the man come swaying and weaving on unsteady legs past him. There was a pistol in his hands and he waved it with a reckless disregard for those who tried to hold him back. His tie hung in a loose ribbon from his open collar; his hat tilted precariously on his head, and his eyes were bloodshot and sullen.
"Get away from me," he said thickly. "I'm Major Hilgard, your s'perior off'sher. I'm in command here. Who saysh oth'wise?" He almost fell over Hugh, straightened up, stared at him with eyes that suddenly overflowed with hate. "Oh, so it'sh you. Might've known. Hugh Flint, damned tradesman! Firsht he takes my plantash'n; then my wife; now my comp'ny. Oughta shoot you f'r that. By Christ, I will!"
His pistol wavered up. Devoe's derringer came up more swiftly. "Don't shoot him!" called Hugh. The pounding in his veins had become almost insupportable. How had Andy found out about Sally and himself? Or was it a mere blind guess?
"You're drunk, Andy," he said sharply. "Get back of the barricade before you'll be killed."
"Killed?" Andy's laugh was ugly. "I'm a soldier, not a push'r o' pens. Oughta shoot you down; do it later. Got to lead my troops." He turned, waved his pistol. "C'mon, men, follow me. We'll show th' bastards!"
He swayed around the corner, out upon the levee.
Black conflict raged momentarily in Hugh. It would serve him right if he got killed. The drunken sot! And Sally—Sally would be free; free to marry him. It wouldn't be his fault; would it? Everyone would testify how he'd tried to stop Andy; how the man was drunk and had pulled away. All he had to do was remain where he was, quietly, making no move. It was good tactics, too. Mustn't let the enemy know they were in ambush. The whole fate of the battle might depend on his letting Andy go. Yes, that was it. Even if he wanted to....
With a sudden groan Hugh ran out after Andy. Sophistries! Lies! Poisonous salves for an uneasy conscience! If he let Andy go to his death he would have murdered him; not the man who fired the bullet. Murdered him because he wanted his wife; wanted her so bad he'd kill to get her.
"Come back, Andy!" he shouted.
But Andy started to run, waving his pistol, straight for the oncoming troops. The dry dust moved with him and the sun beat down upon them. Gulls wheeled overhead and all was sky and river and hot sun and dust. Hugh ran after him, despair in his heart, cursing himself savagely for a fool. Two tragi-comic figures, running endlessly in time and space, destined for a common death. Already the head of the column swinging up the levee was abreast of Poydras Street and rifles were lifting against the crazy men who ran toward them with shouts and cries.
Behind him Hugh heard Devoe's sharp command and a clatter of cart wheels mounting from the cobblestoned street to the earthen slope of the levee. Everything was lost! Tactics, surprise, flank attack—all uncovered by the drunken whim of a worthless waster.
Rifle fire spurted in a solid sheet. The column head, intent on the strange spectacle of the chase, melted in a confusion of screaming, falling men.
Longstreet's voice rose in a great bellow. The troops pressed on, swerved sharply into Poydras Street. The firing grew louder, more continuous.
The concussions shook Hugh. A great wonderment filled him. He was still alive! Ogden had saved him, all unknowing. Good old Ogden! From behind his barricade he had seen the enemy pass the corner of Poydras Street and expose his flank.
Andy was still running with surprising speed for a man as drunk as he; still waving his pistol.
"The hell with him!" thought Hugh. His life, Hugh's life, didn't matter any more. Kellogg's troops were surging into Poydras Street. The three artillery pieces were being set hurriedly into position. Once they'd open fire they'd smash the barricade into kindling wood. He must hurry! hurry!
He turned and waved his gun. Company E broke out upon the levee. The carts, piled high with hay, shoved steadily before them.
"All right, men," he shouted, "double-quick!"
They burst from behind the too-slow-moving barricade and stormed down after him, Willis and Devoe well in the lead. A wild, screeching yell burst from their lips as they raced along. The old Confederate yell, eerie, frightening, heard on every battlefield from Antietam to Chancellorsville.
Hugh saw Longstreet close to the guns, calm, thrusting rapier orders at the cannoneers. He saw him start at that old, familiar yell; saw the fighting men turn in fright to meet the attack that hurtled down upon their unprotected flank.
But even as they swung hurriedly around, Company E was upon them. Down Poydras Street rifles flamed and bullets whined. But here upon the levee men fought hand to hand, desperately, stabbing with bayonets, clubbing their guns, lashing out with pistol butts and fists, granting, heaving, dying.
Hugh shot twice at point-blank range; then was fighting for his life in a tangled mass of men. Then he saw Andy Hilgard. He was the center of a swirling knot. His pistol exploded again and again and the knot melted. His drunkenness was gone; burnt out by the fires of battle. He was shouting: "Come on, men. We've got them running!" Once more he was Major Hilgard, soldier and hero.
His eyes caught Hugh's across the tangle and the struggle. He laughed recklessly. "Give them hell, Hugh!"
Hugh pushed toward him, swinging hard at a Kellogg man who jabbed at him with a bayonet. The pistol caught him across the face and he staggered back, yelling with pain.
Already the Longstreet forces, blasted in front by Ogden's rifles, caught in the flank by these yelling demons of Hugh's, wavered. Hugh shouted to press home the charge and kept on struggling toward Andy.
The police broke and ran. They poured back out of Poydras Street in disordered flood, quit the guns they had never fired, and fled down the levee toward Canal Street and the Customs House.
"After them!" cried Andy. "Kill every bastard!"
"Let them go!" Hugh raised his voice in sharp command. "We don't kill fleeing men."
A new group burst out of Poydras Street; the last fragments of the Kellogg men. Behind them raised the victorious shout of the Leaguers, streaming out from the barricade. A huge negro towered above that last rearguard. The clothes were torn from his laboring chest and the shiny black was streaked with blood and sweat. A gash had laid open his forehead and the thick blood had plastered his face into a gory, half-unrecognizable mask. His lips were twisted and his teeth showed white and strong.
"Damn if it isn't Quash!" Andy laughed his reckless laugh and started for him. "You big black bastard! Now I've got you where I want you!"
He lifted his pistol and pulled at the trigger. Nothing happened. The chamber was empty.
Quash swerved and a savage hate convulsed his eyes. He lifted his great hand. A gun was in it. Hugh shot quickly without taking aim. The two roars merged. Quash staggered, sank slowly, majestically. Andy's hands tore at his chest. They fell away covered with bright blood. He pitched forward and lay still.
Far down the levee fled the Kellogg men, racing for the sanctuary of the Customs House.
Ogden hurried up. "Thanks, Flint! Your men performed nobly. We've won a great victory."
Hugh was silent. He stared down at the two men whose lives had been strangely intertwined with his. One was black and one was white. But now they lay side by side, mingled in the common leveling of death. He tore his eyes away. "Yes, I suppose so," he said dully.
The carriage came at a gallop down the levee. The horses were thrown almost on their haunches as the reins pulled in sharply, and Sally and Jessie were down upon the ground, heedless of the mingled mud and blood that spattered their dresses.
"Hugh! Hugh! Are you all right?" cried Sally and flung herself into his arms, while the wearied soldiers paused in their tending of the wounded and lifting of the dead to stare.
"I found her at the Laytons'," Jessie explained breathlessly. "She didn't know the fight had started. She made me almost kill my horses to get here."
Hugh said gently, "Look over there, Sally. We haven't had a chance to move them."
Sally whirled. Her body shook, but her eyes did not waver. Someone had thrown a coat over Andy's torn chest, but his face was exposed. It was calm, serene. Death was kind to him.
"He died a brave man," Hugh said.
Sally stood motionless.
"Shall I take you away?"
Slowly she shook her head. She was breathing hard. "No, Hugh. You men have done your part. I have mine yet to do. Where are your wounded, General Ogden?"
Jessie jumped into the carriage, gathered up the reins.
"Wait there!" Hugh cried. "Where are you going?"
Her golden-amber eyes moved over his muddied, spattered form as if to impress it forever on her memory. Then she smiled and her smile was miraculously gay.
"To Paris, France. Remember? I'll drop you a postcard sometime. I hear they have the naughtiest ones." She whipped up her horses suddenly, and they clattered down the levee. The last sight of her was curiously like that first, when he had saved Quash. Now he had killed Quash.
The shining bronze of her hair made a gleaming aureole as she swerved into Canal Street. She was waving back at him and crying, "Luck—to both of you!" when she vanished.
He walked back to where Sally was already bathing with cool, yet tender fingers the grimed face of a wounded man.
She looked up at him, wistfully, humbly. She, who had never been wistful or humble in her life. "She's the finest woman I've known, Hugh. It's still not too late if you've changed your mind."
"I've not changed my mind, Sally," he told her roughly. "She used the very same expression about you. I agreed with her then, and I agree with her now."
FOR a while the Leaguers swept everything before them. Forty-four men of Longstreet's command lay dead in Poydras Street and along the levee; twelve of the Leaguers lay quietly beside them. The wounded were never counted. Only the Customs House, the St. Louis Hotel and two other points of vantage remained in the hands of the Kellogg forces, and they dared not venture forth from their barricaded strongholds.
All through the night the detachments of the rebels bivouacked in the streets, resting on their arms, and sentinels were posted on Canal Street to guard against a sortie. Extras, still damp with hurried print, shouted the news to all New Orleans.
By morning the police surrendered and the black militia, and only the Customs House, where troops of the United States stood guard, remained in the hands of the enemy. By 11 a.m. the street barricades were cleared away, stores opened for business; by early afternoon Penn was duly inaugurated as Acting Governor and the great September rebellion was seemingly at a victorious end.
But the Leaguers had reckoned without President Grant. Late that afternoon came stunning news. Grant's proclamation denouncing and outlawing the McEnery-Penn regime and ordering the dispersal of "the turbulent and disorderly persons combined together with force and arms to overthrow the government of Louisiana."
The Federal Army had been waiting for a sign from Washington. It came. Thereupon General Emory made formal demand on Governor McEnery, just arrived, for the surrender of all buildings and the insignia of office. McEnery yielded, asserting he had "neither the power nor the inclination to resist the government of the United States"; to the dismay and consternation of the Leaguers who had fought and would have fought again for him. Kellogg came out of hiding and, to derisive hoots and jeers, once more assumed the mantle that had been rudely torn from him.
Black reaction followed. Persecutions, military rule, fraudulent elections, debts, corruption, while Kellogg rode the wind on the points of Federal bayonets. The newly elected Legislature met with every seat contested. United States soldiers, with bayonets fixed, marched into the legislative chamber and removed by force all Democrat contestants. Thus purged, the House was safely Republican.
Once more the Leaguers swarmed the streets, and General Sheridan, new military commander, called on Grant to declare them banditti and subject to military law. Grant approved; but the nation had had enough. The storm of indignation that beat from North and South alike upon the nation's capital brought pause to Grant and the order was rescinded. Congress took a hand. A Committee of Investigation decided in favor of the Democrat contestants in the Louisiana Legislature. A compromise was reached. Kellogg remained in office as governor; but the Legislature was safely Democrat.
All through the turmoil and the seethe of events Hugh worked openly and hard for the Democratic cause. All hesitations and thought of moderation were gone. In darkest days, when the staunchest grew weary and would have yielded the fight, he shamed them back by exhortation and example. A new vigor infused him. He had Sally. She was steadfast at his side. They each contributed what the other lacked to make a rounded whole. After a decent interval they married, quietly and without any flaunt of ceremony. Elizabeth was growing up. She took to Hugh and Hugh took to her. He loved her as his own.
"I wish, darling," Sally said on occasion, "we could go back to the plantation. I feel transplanted here in town. My roots were in the soil. I loved to watch the seasons change and the sugarcane ripen and savor the smell of boiling syrup. I want Elizabeth to get that feel, and the Hugh that's on the way."
"We'll go, sweet," he assured her, "as soon as I'm no longer needed. Your father's getting too old to run both plantations, or one of them, for that matter. I've been inquiring about the new methods of sugar culture. I think there's good money to be made again from sugar if it's done properly."
"I don't see any end to it, Hugh. Every time we seem to win a victory, it's snatched away from us. I'm getting discouraged."
"And I'm getting optimistic. Watch the national election. The 'bloody shirt' has lost its magic. Tilden's going to get in."
But Tilden didn't get in. He had been elected, but that didn't matter. The South had voted for him, and voted for Democratic governors. But the Republicans saw a chance. If the votes of Louisiana, of South Carolina and Florida could be shifted to Hayes, then national power would still be theirs. It called for delicate negotiations. In Louisiana, with what had become monotonous regularity, two rival Governors and two rival Legislatures claimed the cloaking mantle of office. Nicholls, the Democrat, against Packard, the Republican. Again the respective claimants barricaded themselves in respective halls and armed men moved along the streets. Another clash was in the making.
But Hugh had an idea. He went to Nicholls and to the leaders of the Democratic party with it. "Whether we like it or not," he argued, "the national vote of Louisiana has been awarded to Hayes. The Republican majority in Congress has seen to that. The Democrat minority can filibuster, of course, but you know how far that will get."
"I know," said Nicholls. "What's your idea, Flint?"
"To effect a trade while Hayes and the Republicans are still worried. We'll tell them quietly that the Louisiana delegation to Congress will withdraw its filibuster on condition that the Packard faction is disowned, your regime, Governor, acknowledged, and that there be an end to all national interference in Louisiana affairs."
The leaders looked at each other. There was heated discussion. But Nicholls cut it short. "Gentlemen," he declared, "Hugh Flint is right. It's the only way our State can rid itself of the curse that has afflicted it since Butler held us by the throat." He rose. "I'm sending an agent to Washington immediately to sound out Hayes."
It was spring and the tender green and purple stalks made a sea of plangent light in the brilliant spectacle of the sun. The river rolled turbid and swift along the levee, swollen with the northern melting snows, but safe below the stage where floods are feared. The tall cypresses and the swamp oaks still held the spangles of the morning dew and a heron flapped ungainly up from the back bayou.
The neatly whitewashed negro cabins sent lazy plumes of drifting smoke into the sun-tossed air and the odor of frying bacon snuffed hungrily on the breeze. The hoe gang and the plough gang, stripped to waists, their big black torsos shiny with sweat, worked steadily down the middles. Stud followed in their wake, his voice raised in magnificent exhortation. "Put yo' ploughs inter de groun', niggers; an' dribe dem mules. Put yo' backs inter et, foah ah tak de stick tuh he."
An older Stud, more bow-legged than ever, and given to staying in of nights, his amatory adventures a matter of regretful reminiscence. As the gangs turned the corner, he waved in salutation to the group that sat on the verandah of the Moon Hill house.
Elizabeth, a thing of legs and flying skirts, burst breathlessly upon them. "Mother, Daddy! Cuffy's taking the cart to Lutcher. Can I go with him? Please!"
Sally held a tiny, red-faced bundle in her arms. Hugh Flint, Jr. "Well, I don't know," she said judicially. "If your father says—"
Hugh grinned and stroked the small, eager face. "You know, child, I've nothing to say. If your mother—"
Sam Wailes brought his stick down upon the verandah floor with a bang. "Stop teasing the child, you two! Of course you can go, Beth."
Elizabeth was already racing to the stables, crying: "Cuffy, I can go! I can go!"
Sam peered after her. "She's getting to be more and more like Sally was. Sometimes I sit here and wonder if all the years that've passed between aren't just a dream of mine."
Hugh patted Sally's hand. He took a deep breath. "If they are, I don't want to wake up. They've given me Sally."
Sally looked out over the fields. "They've given us both final peace; and to the land peace.... Hugh!"
"Yes, darling."
"There was a letter came this morning that Captain Willis landed. It had a foreign postmark."
"You have sharp eyes, my sweet. I was going to save it for you after dinner."
"It was from Jessie Tait, wasn't it?"
His eyes followed the course of the Mississippi to the sea, and followed the sea to distant lands. "Yes," he said.
"You don't have to tell me, of course," she said a bit shortly.
"Nonsense, my dear." He took her hand. "It's just that I'm sorry for her. It's written in her usual gay, breathless style. She's leaving Paris and going to London."
Sally said quietly, "She didn't find her rainbow, then."
"She met an Englishman. She writes he's splendid."
"I hope it's true. Poor, gallant, marvelous Jessie! She's never gotten over you, Hugh."
"What nonsense!"
"Hold me tight, Hugh. And little Hugh. And Elizabeth out there. And let's pray for Jessie's rainbow."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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