NOCTURNAL.
Gradually a desire to be out in the spiritual solitude of the night came
upon him. He rose from his seat, closed the window, took his hat from the
wall, and setting the night-lamp in the open chimney, turned it down to a
faint glimmer, and left the room, locking the door behind him.
A feeble growl reminded him of the dog, and he delayed a moment to go to
the kennel of the animal. The creature knew him, and lazily yawning as he
approached, pawed feebly in its nest in the packing case, and wagged its
tail. Patting it on the head, and murmuring a kind word or two, he turned
from it, and abstractedly wandered out at the gate, and away from the
house, with his head bent upon his breast, and his arms behind him.
It was the dead of night, and the shadowy streets, wanly lighted by
the setting moon, were intensely still. The air was bleak and cold,
but the wind, which had been stirring before midnight, had gone down.
On that memorable night, as he afterward remembered, he was in such a
condition of mental abstraction, that he took no note of the course his
steps pursued, nor did he once lift his head to look around him. The
strangeness of the moon as he crossed the streets where it was visible,
would have roused him to observation, had he chanced to look at it. But
he did not, and meeting no person, not even a watchman, and unmindful of
the route he took, he wandered mechanically on.
What thoughts engaged him, if any, he never could recall. It seemed to
him, however, that his mind must have been in blank vacancy, uncrossed
by any shadow of mentality. Yet he was remotely sensible of the echoes
of his footfalls in the solitary streets and of his passage under the
overshadowing bulks of the dark houses. Remotely sensible, too, that
there was moonlight, that the air was ghast and cold, and that he was
loitering on, alone, with his head sunk upon his breast, and his hands
clasped behind him.
He knew, too, when he had reached Washington street, though he did not
look up, but he felt, as it were, the character of the street, and was
dimly aware of the great multitude of signs that covered the buildings.
He was conscious of wandering up the deserted thoroughfare for some
distance, then of returning, still in the same absent mood, of crossing
several moonlit spaces formed by the intersecting streets, of passing the
grey, towering spire of the Old South Church, and of turning up School
street. In all this route, he did not meet a single person, or once
arouse even for a moment from his intense abstraction.
But as he turned up School street on the left hand side, the solemn and
funereal clang from the Old South steeple startled him from his lethargy,
striking with gloomy clangor the hour of two. He stopped, listening to
the sombre and heavy blare of the great bell as it tolled the hour, and
then died away in ghostly and aërial reverberations. Hearkening till the
last faint dinning of the swarming tones seemed to fail into soundless
vibratory waves, he waited till these too failed, and the awful silence
of the night again descended brooding on the air. Two. The hour when
spirits, as some wild seer avers, have power to enter from without, and
walk the earth till dawn. Looking up, as the fancy crossed his mind, he
saw the street, a lonely vista darkling in blue and melancholy gloom, so
strangely litten, so unearthly in its whole appearance, that a sudden and
silent diffusion of awe spread softly through his being, and held him
still.
Had he been brought there blindfolded, and the bandage removed, he would
scarcely have known where he was, so changed was the street from its
familiar aspect. The gibbous moon, a huge, misshapen mass of watery light
hanging low in the dead, dark blue, poured a flood of wan, metallic
brilliance down one side of the vista, bringing out its architectural
features in vivid lustre and ebon blackness, while the structures on the
side on which he stood, loomed dark and sharp in deep shadow. So lone,
so ghast, so supernaturally still, so changed in the weird and frigid
glitter, so desolate and splendid in the melancholy light, the haggard
darkness, the mournful and marble silence, that the gazer might have
dreamed he stood in the demon-city of the Hebrew story, where foot of man
hath seldom trod, and the evil night broods eternal.
Tranced with wondering awe, he moved slowly up the pavement, gazing upon
the solemn palaces of ebony and silver, with his imagination darkly
stirred. Beyond him lay a garden space, breaking the line of the vista,
with two chestnut-trees in front on the pavement, whose thick cones
of foliage seemed sculptured in metal, and were dimly silvered by the
moon. Further on rose the square belfry and high-windowed wall of the
Stone Chapel, with its flank gleaming, and its panes glittering in the
wan lustre. As his glance rested on this, he saw a gaunt and spectral
figure emerge from a shadowed angle, and move slowly, with a strange,
uncertain motion, along the base of the chapel wall, with the unearthly
light upon its shapeless outlines, and its long, black shadow distinct
upon the gleaming pavement. Now creeping on, now halting and appearing
to waver, strange in movement, strange and alien in form, it intensified
the ghastly and desolate solitude with its presence, and seemed like some
lone vagrant fiend slinking abroad from his lair, in the pallor of the
waning moon.
Vaguely attracted by the strangeness of its shape and movements, which
had something unusual about them he could not define, Harrington kept his
eyes fixed upon it, as he moved on. The figure halted and wavered in its
shambling walk as he drew nigh, and finally stood still, looking toward
him. A secret tremor stirred his blood, for the nearer he approached
the figure, the more inexplicable was the gauntness and shapelessness
of its outlines. He was still some twenty or thirty yards distant from
it, and without well knowing why he did so, for he had no intention of
accosting it, he slowly crossed the street, and walked as slowly forward.
As he drew nearer, a vague disgust mingled with the faint tremor of his
veins, for a horrible and poisonous smell, which grew stronger as he
approached, burdened the cold air. What dreadful outcast is this? he
thought. Suddenly he stood still, aghast, petrified, filled with an icy
affright mixed with unutterable loathing, and his eyes riveted to the
awful shape before him. He was within a couple of yards of it, and as
it stood trembling in the weird brilliance of the moon, it seemed some
terrific scare-crow risen from Hell.
It was the figure of a man, but save for the wild, dark face that glared
at him, the long, gaunt hands, like claws, that hung by its side, the
thin legs half bare, and gaunt, splay bare feet on which it stood
trembling, it seemed liker some monstrous rag. A loathsome and abominable
stench exhaled from it. Its clothes were a dark shirt and trowsers,
which hung in jagged tatters on its wasted skeleton frame. Wound round
and round its neck in a thick sug, which gave it that appearance of
shapelessness he had first noticed, was what seemed an old blanket. Above
this glared a face of livid swarth, lit by the gloomy moon, the cheek
bones protruding, the cheeks horribly sunken, the mouth fallen away from
the white teeth, the eyes hollow and staring, the whole face that of some
appalling mummy, burst from the leathern sleep of its Egyptian tomb, and
endowed with horrid life to make night hideous.
The blood of Harrington seemed turned to ice as he gazed, and his hair
rose.
“In the name of God,” he gasped, “what manner of man are you?”
The figure did not answer, but stared at him and trembled.
Harrington’s heart was stout, and conquering at once his affright and the
sickening disgust which the stench gave him, he made one stride nearer to
the figure.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?” he demanded.
The figure made no answer, but still stared rigidly at him, and trembled.
Harrington closely scanned the ghastly and hideous face, but could not
determine anything concerning it. In the wan light of the moon, its
horrible emaciation and livid duskiness of hue, together with the
terrific expression the fallen mouth and exposed teeth gave it, made it
seem like the face of a ghoul.
“Where do you live? Have you no home?” asked Harrington, shuddering.
“No, Marster.”
If a corpse could speak, its voice might be the weak and hollow quaver in
which the outcast made this answer. An awful feeling rose in the heart of
Harrington, for he knew by the accent of the ghastly stranger that he was
a negro, and the title he had bestowed upon him indicated that he was a
runaway slave.
“Where do you come from? Where have you been?” he asked quickly.
The outcast trembled violently throughout his lank frame, and his jaws
chattered.
“Oh, Marster, don’t ask me,” he answered in his weak, hollow voice. “I’ve
been in hell, Marster, and I’ve got away. I’ve been in hell, Marster,
sure. Don’t send me back, now don’t. Have a little mercy, Marster, and
let me go.”
So awful were the words in that lone hour; so awful the hollow and
sepulchral voice that uttered them; so awful the motion of the face which
writhed in speaking, as though in some rending agony; so awful and so
dreadful the black skeleton gauntness, the monstrous raggedness, the
Druidic filth of the trembling figure, with its swathed neck showing
like some enormous circle of wen, and the poisonous stench sickening the
whole night with its exhalations, that Harrington instinctively recoiled.
Up from the lowest abysses of social wretchedness they swarmed into his
mind;—the degraded of every low condition and degree—the neglected, the
forgotten, the forlorn, the scum and dregs and ordure of mankind—the
thieves, the beggars, the tatterdemalion sots and prostitutes and
stabbers—the bloated, brutal, malformed nightmare monsters of a Humanity
transformed to shapes more fearful than the foulest beasts;—up from the
dark and fetid dens of the filthiest quarter of the city—up from the
sinks and stews of the Black Sea—a wild and grisly company—they swarmed
upon him. In all their misery, no misery like this—in all their number,
no shape to pair with this. Below the lowest abyss of their wretchedness,
yawned a lower, new-come from which, in the haggard pallor of the moon,
stood a figure from whose ghastly and abominable Pariah shape the foulest
and the vilest of them all would have shrunk away. Below the lowest hell
wherein, in sunless crime and vice, their ruined natures were immerged,
lay, as in the Inferno of Dante, a hell still lower—the hell decreed
by avarice for innocent men, new-risen from which, all loathly foul,
all awful with long suffering, stood the dark fugitive, afraid to tell
his name, afraid to say from whence he had come, afraid to stand in the
presence of his fellow, as though he were some frightful felon dreading
the vengeance of mankind!
Gasping and shuddering through all his frame, Harrington gazed at him.
“O my country!” he murmured, “that such a thing as this should be! That
such a wrong as this should be wrought by you!”
The fugitive seemed to hear some fragment of his words, for he spoke
instantly.
“Marster,” he said, “you’ll be a friend to me, won’t you? I’ve gone
through a good deal to git away, Marster. I have, indeed, and I’ve got so
fur now, you won’t send me back. Oh, Marster, don’t send me back!”
He tried to kneel to him on the pavement. The tears sprang to
Harrington’s eyes, and conquering his disgust, he strode forward, caught
the foul form, and raised it to its feet. The fugitive shrank a little at
his touch, and stood trembling.
“You poor fellow,” sorrowfully said Harrington, “don’t be afraid of me. I
won’t harm you. No, I won’t send you back. And if you’ll trust in me, you
shall be safe and no one shall lay a hand upon you. But it’s not safe for
you to be out here in the street. Come with me, and I’ll give you a place
to sleep, and food to eat, and take care of you.”
The fugitive hesitated a moment, still trembling.
“Marster, I’ll trust in you,” he said at length. “I’ll trust in you,
Marster, and I’ll go along with you, if you won’t send me back.”
“I promise you, before God, that you shall be safe with me,” said
Harrington, solemnly. “Come.”
He grasped, as he spoke, the thin arm of the trembling fugitive, and
so assisting him, they moved slowly away together in silence, across
Tremont street, and up the slope of Beacon street, with the light of the
sinking moon in their faces. The fugitive was very weak, and tottered
as he walked, despite the support the arm of his protector gave him.
An overmastering pity, mixed with sombre sadness, filled the heart
of Harrington as he felt the tottering motion, and heard the faint,
stertorous panting of the miserable creature beside him. The slow pace
at which they moved, combined with the nauseating odor of the rags which
covered the fugitive, was an added trial to him, but he saw there was no
help for it, and was patient.
Somewhat apprehensive about meeting a watchman, and not liking to be
interrogated with a companion whom it was prudence to hide as much
as possible, Harrington took the least public route he could under
the circumstances. As they turned into Somerset street, the fugitive
faltered, stopped, and began to cough. A terrible cough, weak, hoarse,
incessant, which shook his whole frame. It ended at last, and with a
faint groan of exhaustion, he sat down on a doorstep, panting, and
breathing hard.
Shaken with pity, and doubly anxious lest the noise should attract some
wandering night-policeman, Harrington stood over him, impatient to resume
the journey.
“Do you feel better now?” he said, gently. “We must get on as fast as we
can.”
“Oh, Marster,” gasped the fugitive, slowly and painfully rising. “I feel
as if I couldn’t go no further. I’m so powerful weak, Marster.”
He tottered as he spoke; and Harrington, thinking he was going to
fall, hastily, and somewhat awkwardly, threw up his arms to catch him,
and struck his hand against something hard. Confused and startled, he
withdrew his hand to rub it, wondering what could have hurt it. He
thought it had come in contact with the sug around the fugitive’s neck;
but, as that was clearly only a wrappage of cloth, and as the fugitive’s
head was bent at the time, he fancied he might have struck his hand
against the man’s teeth.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, hastily. “Did I hit your teeth?”
“No, Marster,” replied the fugitive, fumbling with the folds around his
throat.
“Why do you wear that blanket so?” asked Harrington.
“Felt cold, Marster.”
He said no more, but stood feebly handling the wrappage, and trembling.
Harrington thought it strange that he should thus guard his throat, when
his body was so bare, yet admitted to himself that perhaps the cloth
could not have been better disposed for comfort, and thinking no more of
it, he again grasped the fugitive’s arm, and drew him on. They moved as
slowly as before over the dark slope of Somerset street, under the shadow
of the dwellings. Presently, the fugitive stopped again, and began to
cough. This time Harrington formed a desperate resolution.
What was it? There are people who think they love mankind. But among the
natural barriers that divide us from our fellows, there is none more
impassable than a loathly uncleanliness. How many of the lovers of men
could so have conquered nature as to clasp that leprous form in their
arms? How many could have borne the test of their love which such an
act would impose? For this was the test that proved the mighty heart of
Harrington, and this was his resolution.
“Listen to me, friend,” he said, when the cough had subsided. “It will
never do for us to get on as slowly as this, for we have some distance to
go. Now you keep still, for I’m going to carry you.”
He quickly took off his coat and vest as he spoke—for he did not wish
to spoil them by contact with the filthy body of the fugitive—rolled
them up in a close bundle, which he secured with his neckerchief; then
without permitting himself to feel the strong repugnance which the
foulness of the poor creature’s apparel inspired, he flung his strong
arms around him, and lifting him across his breast, with his head above
his shoulder, deaf to his feeble remonstrance, set off at a rapid stride.
The remonstrance ceased presently, and Harrington, hardly feeling the
weight of his burden, strode at a masterly pace over the dark slope of
Somerset street, turned into Allston, from thence into Derne, crossed
Hancock to Myrtle, wheeled into Belknap, kept the grand stride down the
hill to Cambridge street, crossed into Chambers, and set his load down at
the garden gate.
A little heated by his exertion, he opened the gate with one hand,
rubbing his shoulder with the other, and with a nod of his head invited
the fugitive to enter, wondering meanwhile what it was about the man’s
neck that had pressed so hard against his shoulder all the way. Something
as hard as iron, and several times he had even felt a point, like a
muffled spike, press upon his flesh, through the folds of his blanket.
There was something mysterious under those folds, he thought, as he
unlocked his door, and he was curious to know what it could be.
Congratulating himself that he had been so lucky as not to meet a
single person during his nocturnal march, he held the door open till
the fugitive had entered, and then closing and locking it, he took
the glimmering lamp from the chimney, set it on the table, and turned
up the flame. The fugitive stood, shaking on his gaunt legs, with his
eyes wildly revolving upon the rows of books all around him, and ever
returning to rest for a moment on the bust of Lord Bacon on its pedestal.
Poor Tom in Lear—that wild figure plucked up from the low gulfs of the
Elizabethan wretchedness, and set in Shakspearean light forever—was
tame compared to the lank and ghastly figure of the lorn wanderer from
slavery. Less unearthly in the light which fell upon his visage from
the funnel of the lamp, than in the weird rays of the moon, he was not
less hideously pitiable. His face, which was naturally quite dark, was
terribly emaciated, with the skull almost visible through its wasted
features, or, at least, suggested by the prominence of the teeth and
forehead, the projection of the cheek-bones, the hollow pits of the
cheeks, and the cavernousness of the eyes, which were ridged with heavy
eyebrows. Harrington took in his aspect with one firm glance, and mindful
of his weakness, brought him a chair, and made him sit down; then opened
the windows, to let the fresh air relieve the smell of his rags in the
close room.
Going up his ladder the next minute, he lit a lamp above, and turned on
the water into his bath-tub. He came down presently, bare to the waist,
the light gleaming on his muscular arms and massive chest, and stood
fronting the fugitive with his watch in his hand, his head bent toward
him on the kingly and beautiful slope of his white shoulders.
“Now, friend,” said he, with naive gravity, “you must be washed. In five
minutes the bath-tub will be full, so take off those things, and I’ll
give you some other clothes.”
“Yes, Marster, I’m in need of bein’ washed. I ain’t fit to be in this
nice house,” quavered the fugitive abjectly, rising feebly as he spoke.
Harrington, without replying, watched him curiously as he fumbled at the
blanket on his neck, and saw that he was loth to remove it.
“O Marster, Marster,” he groaned, “I’m afeard to let you see it. But,
Marster, you’ll be friendly to me, and you won’t send me back, Marster?”
“Come, come, poor fellow, you know you’re safe with me,” said Harrington,
kindly, all alive meanwhile with curiosity. “Come, off with it.”
The negro still fumbling at the blanket, without undoing it, and sighing
piteously, Harrington laid his watch on the table, and stepping forward,
unwound the wrappage from his neck, fold after fold, pulled it off, and
disclosed an iron collar with a prong, and the letters distinct upon
it—LAFITTE BROTHERS, NEW ORLEANS.
He did not start, nor stagger back, but stood, like a statue struck by
thunder, glaring at the collar with parted lips and starting eyes, a
pallor like death upon his countenance, and a strong shudder quivering
through his bare chest and arms, while the negro cowered with a
hideous-piteous imploring face, his form crouching, and his hands clasped
before him. In the dead silence, nothing was heard but the loud running
of the water in the room overhead, and the faint gasping breath of the
fugitive.
“God Almighty!” shouted Harrington, “what is this?”
The fugitive did not answer, but stood faintly gasping. The next instant
Harrington started, with a strong muscular convulsion of his frame, and
strode a pace forward.
“Who put that collar on your neck!” he demanded with awful anger.
“Marster Lafitte put it on, Marster.”
“Master Lafitte? which one? That says Lafitte Brothers,” cried
Harrington, pointing with outstretched arm and finger straight at the
name.
“Marster Torwood Lafitte put it on, Marster,” quavered the fugitive,
affrighted at Harrington’s manner.
Harrington’s outstretched arm sank slowly, and dropped by his side. A
deep and burning flush mounted to his face, and clenching his hands, he
thundered a tremendous oath. Such an oath as Washington swore when Lee
chafed him in his legions. Such an oath as had never before passed the
calm lips of Harrington, but it burst from his heart’s core.
He stood in silence for a moment, the flush dying from his face, and his
anger settling down from that explosion into calm.
“Who are you? what’s your name?” he demanded.
“Antony, Marster.”
Harrington was past surprise, but his brain whirled, and blankness
gathered upon it. For a minute, he stood vacantly staring at the
fugitive. Then, recovering from his stupefaction, he sighed vaguely, and
wiped away the perspiration from his face with the palm of his hand.
Glancing presently at his watch, he saw that the five minutes had not
expired, and going to a drawer, he produced a bunch of keys.
“We’ll have that collar off,” said he, approaching the fugitive.
Key after key was tried, but none fitted. Throwing down the bunch,
Harrington looked at the watch, and went up-stairs to stop the water. He
came back presently, took the shade from the lamp, and holding the light
to the collar, inspected its make carefully. He saw that it opened on a
hinge behind, and was secured by a lock before. Putting the lamp on the
table, he reflected for a moment.
“Lie down on the floor,” he said, presently.
The fugitive obeyed, with as much alacrity as his feebleness permitted.
He already had the most entire and perfect confidence in his protector.
Bending over him, Harrington turned him on his side. Then taking up the
poker, he inserted it between the neck of the fugitive and the under side
of the collar, and putting his foot on this for a purchase, thus holding
the collar firmly to the floor, he seized the upper side near the lock
with both hands.
“Now lie still,” he said. “I don’t know whether I’m strong enough to
break the lock, but, by mankind!” he shouted, “I’ll try!”
Slowly, the muscles in Harrington’s arms straightened, his bent leg grew
firm as iron, the arms became two stiff, white corded bars, the muscles
in his back and shoulders tensely trembled, the blood mounted to his
face and body, and in the midst of the slow, tremendous strain, there
was a faint clicking gride, a sudden snap, a screaking wrench, and one
half the collar rose on its rusty hinge in his hands. The deed was done!
Harrington stood up, and stepped back, exercising his arms, while the
bought thrall of Lafitte scrambled erect, ghastlily grinning, and stood
surveying the accursed necklace, which lay open as his neck had abandoned
it, with the bent poker lying on its inner surface.
“To-morrow,” said Harrington, quietly, “you are to tell me all about
this. Now undress yourself.”
“Yes, Marster,” and the fugitive, with a sort of ghastly joyfulness,
hastily divested himself of his foul rags, which Harrington at once threw
into the yard.
An awful sight was that black skeleton of a body. As it lankly straddled
across the room, and up the ladder, following Harrington, Holbein might
have taken it as Death come for the Scholar—a grimmer and grislier figure
than any in the Dance Macaber. Few men would have borne to abide even for
a moment in the same room with it. The very dog in the yard, himself the
Pariah of brutes, would have bayed at it and shrunk into his kennel.
Our free and happy country had been at work upon that form. North and
South had wrought together to bring it to perfection. The old scars
which covered it, the horny wheals of many a scourging, the thick ring
of callosed flesh left by the iron collar around its neck—these were
the special tool-marks of the South. The recent cuts and bruises, the
swollen contusions left by fist and boot upon it, the raw, blue sores,
the general offence and stench it had contracted in the noisome pit of
a vessel’s noisome hold—these showed the tooling of the North. That
ghastly gauntness, that lank emaciation, that livid swarth, those signs
and tokens of ferocious abuse, of cold and hunger and sickness and
privation—our free and happy country had done it all!
Servant and soldier of mankind, thy menial task of love is set, thy work
is here! Purge the pollution from this wasted body, and with thy own
hand, tender and skillful as a woman’s, bind up these wounds, anoint
and dress these sores! For him, the lowest and the loathliest of thy
brethren, are these mean toils—the meanest man can do for man. Thy free
and happy country would say thou doest ill; and “ill” the snickering
whinny and brute scoff from the jaws of her slavers and traders; and
“ill” her hell-dog statute dragging thee to the jail and fine for helping
the lorn wanderer. Thou call’st the spirit of the ages by another name
than ours—thou call’st it Verulam, we call it Christ. Oh, man beloved of
Christ and Verulam, thou doest well!
An hour passed on and the solemn task was done. His matted hair cut off,
his body clean, his wounds dressed, the fugitive, clad in a shirt and
drawers of Harrington’s, a world too large for his wasted frame, was
placed by the young scholar in his bed, and sitting there was fed with
biscuit, and wine and water—the only food and drink accessible then. The
repast ended, Harrington washed himself, put on clean clothes, arranged
the room, and then turned to go down. The fugitive lay weakly sobbing.
“Good night, Antony,” said Harrington, gravely, standing with the lamp
in his hand, its light shining on his beautiful and bearded countenance.
Suddenly, before he could be stopped, the fugitive scrambled from the
bed, and flinging himself at Harrington’s feet, embraced them with his
thin wrists and huge hands, and laid his head upon them.
“The Lord Jesus bless you, Marster,” he sobbed in a broken and sepulchral
voice, “Oh, Marster, the Lord Jesus bless you, for there’s not no such
Marster as you, Marster, nowhere—Oh Marster”—
Harrington stopped him by suddenly starting away to lay down the lamp,
and returning, lifted him to his feet and got him into bed again.
“I know all you feel, Antony,” he said, pulling the clothes over him;
“but you musn’t talk to-night, poor fellow. Now go to sleep, and have a
long rest, and to-morrow or the next day, we’ll talk. Good night.”
“Good night, Marster,” sobbed the submissive negro.
Harrington took from a nail on the wall, an old camlet cloak which had
been his father’s, and seizing the lamp, went down.
The first thing was to take the collar from the floor, and put it in
a drawer; then untying his bundled coat and vest, he shook them out,
and hung them up; then opening the door and windows, for the taint of
the foul rags was still in the room, he went into the yard, and stood
breathing the cool, pure air, and gazing, with a sense of boding at his
heart, upon the thick hordes of stars. The night seemed all wild and
alive. Something sinister and evil pervaded the atmosphere, and the dark
blue spread like an astrologic scroll bright with burning cyphers and
diagrams of doom.
Returning to the house with a mind ill at ease, he closed the door and
shutters, leaving the windows open. Then taking a revolver from its
case in a drawer, he drew the charges, and reloaded the weapon. It was
altogether unlikely that the hunters would come to his dwelling; still
there was nothing like being ready; and Harrington with his Baconian
faith that men without natural good were but a nobler sort of vermin, was
quite resolved both to “prevent the fiend and to kill vermin,” as the
Shakspearean phrase has it, if they crept near the hiding-place of the
fugitive.
His pistol loaded, he laid it on the table, and sat a few minutes
thinking of the strangeness of his night’s adventure. How awful and
marvellous it all was! The brother of Roux, whom he had tried to ransom,
in his keeping—Roux himself in danger—Lafitte in the city, and master of
the secret of his locality! The air seemed thick with peril.
Rising presently, he put the lamp in the fire-place, and turned it low;
then taking the cushion of his chair for a pillow, he wrapped himself
in the camlet cloak, and lay down on the sofa. A few moments’ dazed
reflection on the events of the night, and fatigued by his labors, he
dropped away into dreamless slumber.