A Dream of Empire Part 23

Left alone in the great ghost-white house, its mistress wandered from room to room, restless and melancholy. The boys were at play on the lawn; she could hear their mirthful shouts. She felt a vague longing, like homesickness, and yet she was at home. Wearily she sat down in her husband's study chair in the quiet library. She glanced round at the books, the apparatus, the musical instruments. Everything presented an unnatural aspect. Startled by the snapping of a string on the untouched violincello, she uttered an involuntary exclamation, rose, and went up close to the portrait of her husband. But owing to the dimness of the light or the sadness of her mood, the features, instead of smiling, seemed to regard her with a mournful gaze. A sense of desolation overwhelmed her. Endeavoring once more to fly from herself, she called her children. They came, and she kissed them, putting an arm around each.

"Dominick, do you want to go away, away to Mexico, and become rich and great?"

"No, no, mamma; I want to live here forever with you and papa."

"We both do," iterated Harman. "We both do."

"Colonel Burr will be there to take care of us all. He saved your life, Harman, and he loves you, I am sure."

"Mamma, he loves _you_, but he don't love papa."

The mother blushed, and a big tear rolled down her cheek.

XVIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE BUCKEYE.

George Hale, yielding to the importuning letters of his brother Richard, consented that Evaleen should risk the peril of a voyage to New Orleans. Luckily the young lady was to have travelling companions.

One of her uncle's letters contained this pa.s.sage: "Ask your father to hunt up my old-time friend, Dr. Eloy Deville, to whose care and medical skill I owe my life. He still lives, I believe, in Gallipolis.

Tell dear old Frenchy and little Lucrece--I suppose she is now almost grown--that I have unearthed family facts much to their worldly advantage. They must come to this city, to the French quarter.

My discoveries are astounding, but credible. Eloy may inherit a fortune. I will see that he loses nothing. My advice is, come at once.

The doctor and his daughter will be good company for you on your voyage."

Eloy was easily induced to do as his friend and former patient advised.

"Oui, monsieur, certainment shall we depart most glad from ze log hut.

Lucrece, ma chere fille, dance for ze delight! We shall, on ze to-morrow, us depart, on ze joli bateau with ze mademoiselle; quick shall run ze stream, row ze oar, fly ze sail--we come right away to ze excellent long friend of your father. Ze honor and ze felicity shall be to me to serve mademoiselle for ze sake of her divine uncle, for ze own beautiful sake of ze fair angel."

The Buckeye, on which Evaleen and her friends took pa.s.sage, carried a cargo for the Southern market. The crew numbered eight picked men, commanded by Eli Winslow, a talkative Vermonter, with none too much experience on the Mississippi, but overstocked with self-confidence.

Such clothing and household goods as he thought essential to take along for himself and daughter, Doctor Deville packed in old trunks, or tied up in bundles, all of which were deposited on the river bank, six hours ahead of time. The luggage included a basket of Bordeaux, a surgeon's case, a chest of medicine, and a violin in a green bag. At last the barge hove in sight, announced by the echoing of the boat horn. The fidgety Frenchman gave Lucrece a kiss and almost dislocated her arm by pulling her after him to the landing. A long half hour he had yet to wait before The Buckeye was made fast to the posts on the bank and Eloy was helped on board, still holding fast to his _chere fille_. It would require a volume to report the conversation which enlivened the many days' journey down the Ohio and the Mississippi.

The doctor chirruped constantly. He knew a little of everything, and talked much of nothing, very amusingly. Often he sang French songs, often played dance tunes on the violin, now and then took an enlivening taste of wine.

Past Cincinnati, past Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio, past Shawnee Town, past Fort Ma.s.sac, and Diamond Island and Battery Rock, the vessel moved slowly and steadily along. The voyagers were told that the lower river was infested still by wreckers, one scene of whose frequent depredations was Wolf Island. Captain Winslow discoursed much on the state of Western commerce, and the dangers which menaced travel.

"A great part," said he, "of the Territory of Mississippi, stretching from Tennessee to Natchez, is unbroken forest, inhabited by Indians, and infested with wolves and panthers. We shall see no sign of civilization on the eastern sh.o.r.e until after we have skirted six hundred miles of waste, howling wilderness."

At length they came to where the Ohio is merged and lost in the Mississippi. The turbid onhurrying volume of mighty waters heaved and foamed, as if troubled by furious, disturbing forces working below.

The boat shuddered and its strong joints groaned in the strenuous hug of the river.

"Hereafter we can proceed only by daylight," said Winslow. "We shall have many dangers to contend with--a succession of chutes, races, chains, and cypress bends. You will see no end of this gloomy forest.

There are plenty of rattlesnakes, bears, and catamounts in those jungles, doctor."

"Par bleu! Ze catamount shall stay in ze jungle and delight heself with her family amiable. We not shall invite heem to tea. Are no inhabitants in this wilderness?"

"A few whites and some Indians. See those squaws digging wild potatoes for food."

"Do many boats go to New Orleans?" asked Miss Hale.

"Yes, ma'am; all sorts from a birch canoe to a full-rigged ship.

Hundreds are lost. We are now coming to a wreck-heap."

The pa.s.sengers saw an immense huddle of drifted logs, and the broken timbers of shattered boats, and entire scows, rotting, half-submerged, or warping high and dry on top of the hill of confused ruin. The sight of these hulks, abandoned to the grinding eddies, added a sense of dread to the weary anxiety already felt by the girls. The progress down the Ohio had been tedious; how much more so the interminable windings on the Mississippi, and the long, lonesome nights, made sleepless by the cries of birds that flit in darkness, and by the howls of wild beasts. Evaleen's nocturnal fears, when the barge lay moored, were not so well founded as were the apprehensions which daylight renewed, of disaster on the treacherous flood. The more she learned of the river, the more she realized the risks of each day's navigation.

"Young ladies, see! That is a sawyer; an ugly one, sticking its sharp horn up to hook us. I don't mind a danger which shows above water; but your sleeping sawyer is the mischief to be dreaded."

"What's a sleeping sawyer?"

"If I could point out the nasty thing, I wouldn't dread it; a sleeping sawyer does its sawing under the surface. We are liable to run on to the point of one any second."

"Mercy! Do you think we are coming on a sleeping sawyer now?" asked Evaleen.

The captain hoped not, and directed attention to another phenomenon not of a nature to induce feelings of security.

"What do you see away down the river?"

"Do you mean that low island?"

"Yes, an island and not an island. Wait until we drift nearer. You will see river moss and rank water plants growing over the surface, but it is not part of the firm land; it is a wooden island."

"How? A wooden island?"

"Just so. We shall see many such. Logs and all kinds of drift lodge against the upper part of a stable island or peninsula, and the acc.u.mulated ma.s.s grows into a great raft matted together by roots and vines. The whole thing, driven by winds or currents, sometimes swings free from its anchorage and drifts away. Then it is called a floating, or wandering island."

Lucrece, who had been sweeping the circle of the horizon with the seaman's gla.s.s, caught far to the northward, the glimpse of a sail.

"I see away up the river what looks like a leetle black house, with a white thing on the roof."

"That boat," said Winslow, "is miles and miles behind us; it is above the second bend. Let me look.--She carries a square sail, amidships, as we do, but she is not a barge. Stop, I know what she is--there's a flag at the top of the mast--she must be a government transport, coming with troops for Fort Adams or the Natchitoches country."

Lucrece caught a quick breath and asked eagerly:

"Troops from St. Louis, think you?"

"Most likely, miss."

Evaleen's interest was also excited, but she kept silent, and soon slipped away alone into her cabin. The French maiden remained on deck a long time, watching the transport, whenever she could bring it within the field of vision.

"The soldiers, will they perhaps overtake us?" she inquired, turning her brilliant big eyes to Winslow.

"Like enough; but you needn't be afraid of the reg'lars; they won't molest us."

"I haf no fear; I haf curiositee."

At last Lucrece returned the gla.s.s to the captain, thanked him, and slowly sought her companion, keeping a small, brown hand just over her heart to make sure that a precious letter which she carried there was still safe and in its right place.