A FUGITIVE AND A VAGABOND
"That is the bitterest of all,--to wear the yoke of our own
wrong-doing!"--Daniel Deronda.
The morning after the fight David and Pepeeta hurried on to Louisville,
and from there took a steamer to New Orleans.
However hard it is to find stepping-stones when one wishes to rise,
those by which he can descend have been skilfully planted at every stage
of life's journey, and Satanic ingenuity could not have devised an
instrument better fitted to complete the destruction of the young
mystic's moral nature than a Mississippi steamboat, such as he found
lying at the wharf. He had been subjected to the fascination of love,
now he was to be tried by that of money. It is by a series of such
consecutive assaults upon every avenue of approach to the soul that it
is at last reduced to ruin.
Pepeeta was radiant with joy as they embarked. "How happy I am!" she
cried. "It seems as if I had left my old life and the old world behind
me!"
"And I am happy to see you glad," answered the wretched youth, whose
heart lay in his bosom like lead and whose conscience was writhing with
a torture of whose like he had never even dreamed. They embarked
unknown and unobserved; but as soon as the first confusion had passed,
their singular beauty and unusual appearance made them the cynosure of
every eye.
"Who is that splendid fellow?" women asked each other, as David passed
with Pepeeta on his arm, while under their breaths men swore that his
companion was the loveliest woman who had ever set foot on a Mississippi
steamer.
The pilot forgot to turn his wheel and the stevedores to put out the
gang plank when she stood looking at them. Love, and her freedom, had
transfigured her. She was radiant with health, happiness and hope, and
entered into the novelty and excitement of this floating world with the
ardor of a child.
All was gaiety and animation oh board the vessel. People from countries
widely separated mingled with each other and chatted with the greatest
freedom on every subject of human interest. Acquaintances were made
without the formality of an introduction, and it was not long before the
two adventurers were drawn into conversation.
"I have traveled all over the world," said a gentleman of foreign air,
"but I have never seen anything so picturesque as this boat. Look at the
variegated colors and styles of these costumes, at the manifold types of
countenance, at the blending of races--black and white and red! Listen
to the discordant but altogether charming sounds, the ringing of the
great bell, the roar of the whistle, the splash of the paddlewheels,
the songs of the negroes, and the clatter of dishes in the cabins! It is
a hurly-burly of noise! Then what varied scenery, what constant
excitement at the landing, what a hodge-podge, a pot-pourri of
merchandise! There is nothing like it in the world."
"Wait until you see a race with another steamer," said an officious
Yankee, who rejoiced in a knowledge which frequent trips had given him.
"Are they exciting?" asked the foreigner.
"Well I should say! I have seen horse races and prize fights in my day,
but I never ran against anything that shook up my nerves like a race
between two of these river boats! Every pound of steam is crowded on,
the engines groan like imprisoned devils, a darkey sits on the safety
valve, the stokers jam the furnaces, the passengers crowd the gunwales,
everybody yells at the top of his voice until pandemonium is mere
silence compared to it! And then the betting! Lord, you never saw
betting if you never saw a river race."
"They bet, do they?"
"Bet? They don't do anything else! Just got on at Louisville? Oh! well,
you'll see sights in the cabin to-night that will open your eyes. Isn't
that so?" he asked, turning to a southern planter who had been edging
his way toward Pepeeta.
"Reckon the gentleman'll see a little gambling, sah, if that's what you
refeh to. I've heard those that ought to know say that a Mississippi
river boat is the toughest spot on top of earth for little games of
pokah and that soht of thing, sah. 'Spect the gentleman can be
accommodated if he likes a lively game of chance."
"I don't expect to be surprised in that line," the foreigner said, with
the air of one who knew a thing or two; "for I have been in Monte Carlo,
Carlsbad and every famous gambling place in Europe."
"Well, sah, I don't know; I have never been in those places myself, but
I have heard those who have say that what they play there is mere 'penny
ante' to what goes on in one of these yere Mississippi boats. Like a
little game now and then myself, sah. Glad to have you join me."
While these men and others pretended to address their remarks to David
or to each other, their free glances were more and more directed to
Pepeeta who began to be embarrassed by them and gently drew David away
to more retired places. He went with her reluctantly, for he was in need
of excitement. The thought of his crime was constantly agitating his
heart, the prostrate form of the doctor with the bloody wound on his
forehead was never absent from his mind, and through all the ceaseless
rumble around him he could hear the dull thud of the stone upon the hard
skull. The efforts which he made to throw off these horrible weights
that crushed him were like those of a man awakening from a nightmare. He
scarcely dared to speak for fear of uttering words which would betray
him and which seemed to tremble on his lips. Had he been on shore he
would have fled to the solitude of a forest; but here he was
resistlessly impelled to that other solitude--a crowd. The necessity of
being gay with his beautiful bride and of concealing every trace of his
terror and remorse taxed his resources to their utmost limit, and in his
nervousness he kept Pepeeta moving with him all day long. At its close
she was completely exhausted, and retired early to her stateroom. Freed
from her company and craving relief from thought, David made his way
straight to the gambling tables where the nightly games were in full
swing.
The claim of the southerner that the excitement at those tables, when
the river traffic was at its height, had never been surpassed in the
history of games of chance, was no exaggeration. Not a semblance of
restraint was put upon the players, and experts from all over the world
gathered to pluck the exhaustless supply of victims, as buzzards
assemble to feed on carrion. Fortunes were made and lost in a night. Men
sat down to play worth thousands of dollars, and rose paupers! They
staked and lost their money, their slaves, their business and their
homes. In the wild frenzy which such misfortunes kindle the most
shocking crimes were committed, but the criminals were never called to
account, for the law was powerless.
What the fugitive sought was diversion, and he found it! Tragedies
became commonplace in those cabins. Men crowded into single hours the
experience and excitement of months. It was this very night that an
encounter occurred which is still a tradition on the river.
An old planter approached a table where his son, who did not know of his
father's presence on the boat, was playing. He stood in the background
and watched a gambler strip the boy of his last penny, and when the
young fellow rose from his chair, white as a sheet, he turned to look
into the whiter face of his father. The enraged parent did not speak a
word, but took the seat left vacant by the boy and commenced playing.
Rage at the financial loss, mortification at the boy's defeat, and old
scores to be settled with this very gambler, conspired to rouse him to a
frenzy. His terrible earnestness paralyzed the dealer, who seemed to
form some premonition of a tragic termination and lost his nerve. In a
little while, in the presence of a crowd of excited spectators, the
father won back the exact amount his son had lost, and then rising from
his chair sprang at the gambler, seized him, dragged him from the cabin
and flung him into the river.
Terrible as was the furor which this tragedy aroused, it subsided almost
as soon as the ripples of the water which closed over the drowning man,
and the players returned to their games as if nothing had happened.
In the months which they had spent together the quack had indoctrinated
David into all the best-known secrets of this vice, and besides this,
had familiarized him with the use of a certain "hold out" of his own
invention, with which he had achieved incredible results and which was
new to the fraternity of the river. Having watched the players for a
long time, David convinced himself that he could employ this trick
successfully, and took his place at the table.
The young man's nerves were tested by the circumstances in which he
found himself, if nerves are tested to tension anywhere, for he faced
the most experienced masters of the craft who could be found anywhere in
the world, and staked not only his little fortune, but his existence,
for, as he had just seen, these determined and reckless men thought no
more of taking life than of taking money.
David felt his way along with a coolness that astonished himself, and
his very first experiment with the delicate apparatus concealed in his
sleeve was such a brilliant triumph that he saw it was undetected. With
a strengthened confidence, he made the stakes larger and larger, and his
winnings increased so rapidly as to make him the center of attention.
The crowd swarmed round the table. The spectators became breathless. The
gamblers were first astonished, then bewildered. As their nerve failed
them, David's assurance increased, and when day broke ten thousand
dollars lay upon the table before him as the result of his skilful and
desperate efforts.
Their loss astonished and enraged the gamblers to such a degree that
with a preconcerted signal they sprang at their opponent, determined to
regain their money by violence. The move was not unexpected, nor was he
unprepared. He fought as he had played, and so won the sympathies of the
bystanders that in an instant there was a general melée in which he was
helped to escape with the winnings.
He was the hero of the trip, and a career had opened before him.
Satellites began to circle around him and to solicit his friendship and
patronage.
When he disembarked at New Orleans he had already entered into a
partnership with one of the most notable members of the gambling
fraternity, and purchased an interest in one of those "palaces" where
games of chance attracted and destroyed their thousands.
The newspapers made the gay throngs of that gayest of all cities
familiar with the incidents of David's advent. He and Pepeeta became the
talk of the town. They rented a fashionable house, and swung out into
the current of the mad life of the metropolis of the South.
For a little while this excitement and glory softened the pain in the
heart of the man who believed himself to be a murderer and encouraged
him to hope that it might eventually pass away. He played recklessly but
successfully, for he was a transient favorite of the fickle goddess.
When gambling lost its power to drown the voice of conscience, there
was the race, the play and the wine cup! To each of them appealing in
turn, he went whirling madly around the outer circles of the great
maelstrom in which so many brilliant youths were swallowed in those
ante-bellum days.