Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 45

"I don't say so now. I didn't think my husband would be on the Union side when I said that. I think we shall beat them now."

"Since the miracle all other things seem possible," philosophised the Doctor.

I do not repeat the Colonel's talk. It was not so appropriate as that of the others to the occasion; for he knew little as yet of the profounder depths of womanly and infantile nature; his first marriage had been brief and childless. In fact, Carter was rather a silent man in family conclaves, unless the conversation turned on some branch of his profession, or the matters of ordinary existence. He occupied himself with watching alternately his wife and child; with wrapping up the former, and occasionally fondling the latter.

"How very warm he feels!--how amazingly he pulls hair!--I believe he wants to get my head in his mouth," are samples of his observations on the infant wonder. He felt that the baby was either below him or above him, he really could not tell which. Of his wife's position he was certain: she was far higher than his plane of existence: when she took his hand it was from the heavens.

From Mrs. Larue he was thoroughly detached, and with a joyful sense of relief, freedom, betterment. They talked very little with each other, and only on indifferent subjects and in the presence of others. It is possible that this separation would not have lasted if they had been thrown together unguarded, as had been the case on board the Creole; but here, caring for his infant and for the wife who had suffered so much and so sweetly for his sake, the Colonel felt no puissance of pa.s.sionate temptation.

Mrs. Larue had no conscience, no sense of honor; but like many cold blooded people, she valued herself on her firmness. In an unwonted burst of enthusiasm she had told him that all must be over between them, and she meant to make her words good, no matter what he might desire. She was a little mortified to see how easily he had cut loose from her; but she knew how to explain it so as not to wound her vanity, nor tempt her to break her resolution.

"If he did not love his wife now, he would be a brute," she reflected.

"And if he had had the possibilities of a brute in him, I never should have had a caprice for him. After all, I do not care much for the merely physical human being. _C'est par le cote morale qu 'on s'empare de moi.

Apres tout je suis presque aussi pure dans les sentiments que ma pet.i.te cousine._"

Meanwhile her self-restraint was something of a trial to her. At times she thought seriously of marrying again, with the idea of putting an end to these risky intrigues and hara.s.sing struggles. Perhaps it was under this impression that she wrote a letter to Colburne, informing him of the birth of Ravvie, and sketching some few items of the scene with a picturesqueness and sympathy that quite touched the young gentleman, astonished as he was at the frankness of the language.

"After all," she concluded, "married life has exquisite pleasures, as well as terrific possibilities of sorrow. I do not really know whether to advise a young man like you to take a wife or not. Whether you marry or remain single you will be sorry. I think that in either state the pains outweigh the pleasures. It follows that we are not to consider our own happiness, but to do what we think is for the happiness of others.

Is not this the true secret of life?"

"Is it possible that I have been unjust?" queried Colburne. "Those are not the teachings of a corrupted nature."

He did not know and could not have conceived the unnatural conscience, the abnormal ideas of purity and duty, which this woman had created for her own use and comfort, out of elements that are beyond the ken of most New Englanders. He was the child of Puritanism, and she of Balzac's moral philosophy.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

COLONEL CARTER COMMITS HIS FIRST UNGENTLEMANLY ACTION.

We come now to the times of the famous and unfortunate Red River expedition. During the winter of 1863-4 New Orleans society, civil as well as military, was wild with excitement over the great enterprise which was not only to crush the rebel power in the southwest, but to open to commerce the immense stores of cotton belonging to the princely planters of the Red River bottoms. Cotton was gold, foreign exchange, individual wealth, national solvency. Thousands of men went half mad in their desire for cotton. Cotton was a contagion, an influenza, a delirium.

In the height of this excitement a corpulent, baldish, smiling gentleman of fifty was closeted, not for the first time, with the chief quartermaster. His thick feet were planted wide apart, his chubby hands rested on his chubby knees, his broad base completely filled the large office chair in which he sat, his paunchy torso and fat head leaned forward in an att.i.tude of eagerness, and his twinkling grey eyes, encircled by yellowish folds, were fixed earnestly upon the face of Carter.

"Colonel, you make a great mistake in letting this chance slip," he said, and then paused to wheeze.

The Colonel said nothing, smoked his twenty cent Havana slowly, and gazed thoughtfully at the toes of his twenty dollar boots. With his aristocratic face, his lazy pride of expression, his bran-new citizen's suit, his boots and his Havana, he looked immensely rich and superbly indifferent to all pecuniary chances.

"You see, here is a sure thing," continued the oleaginous personage.

"Banks' column will be twenty thousand strong. Steele's will be ten thousand. There are thirty thousand, without counting Porter's fleet.

The Confederates can't raise twenty thousand to cover the Red River country, if they go to h.e.l.l. Besides, there is an understanding. t.i.t for tat, you know. Cotton for cash. You see I am as well posted on the matter as you are, Colonel."

Here he paused, wheezed, nodded, smiled and bored his corkscrew eyes into Carter. The latter uttered not a word and gave no sign of either acquiescence or denial.

"You see the cotton is sure to come," continued the stout man, withdrawing his ocular corkscrew for a moment. "Now what I propose is, that you put in the capital, or the greater part of it, and that I do the work and give you the lion's share of the profits. I can't furnish the capital, and you can. You can't do the work, and I can. Or suppose I guarantee you a certain sum on each bale, Colonel, for a hundred thousand dollars, I promise you a square profit of two hundred thousand."

"Mr. Walker, if it is sure to pay so well, why don't you go in alone?"

asked Carter.

Mr. Walker pointed at his coa.r.s.e grey trousers and then took hold of the frayed edge of his coa.r.s.e grey coat.

"See here, Colonel," said he. "The man who wears this cloth hasn't a hundred thousand dollars handy. When I knew you in old times I used to go in my broadcloth. I hope to do it again--not that I care for it.

That's one reason I don't go in alone--a short bank balance. Another is that I haven't the influence at headquarters that you have. I need your name as well as your money to put the business through quick and sure.

That's why I offer you four fifths of the profits. Colonel, it's a certain thing and a good thing. I am positively astonished at finding any hesitation in a man in your pecuniary condition."

"What do you know about my condition?" demanded Carter imperiously.

"Well, it's my interest to know," replied Walker, whose cunning fat smile did not quail before the Colonel's leonine roar and toss of mane.

"I have bought up a lot of your debts and notes. I got them for an average of sixty, Colonel."

"You paid devilish dear, and made a bad investment," said Carter, "I wouldn't have given thirty."

A bitter smile twisted his lips as he thought how poor he was, how bad his credit was, and how mean it was to be poor and discredited.

"Perhaps I have. I believe I have, unless you go into this cotton. I bought them to induce you to go into it. I thought you would oblige a man who relieved you from forty or fifty duns. I took a four thousand dollar risk on you, Colonel."

Carter scowled and stopped smoking. He did not know what Walker could do with him; he did not much believe that he legally could do anything; his creditors never had done more than dun him. But High Authority might perhaps be led to do unpleasant things: for instance, in the way of relieving him from his position, if the fact should be forced upon its notice, that so responsible an officer as the chief quartermaster of the Gulf Department was burdened by private indebtedness. At all events it was unpleasant to have a grasping, intriguing, audacious fellow like Walker for a creditor to so large an amount. It would be a fine thing to get out of debt once for all; to astonish his duns (impertinent fellows, some of them) by settling every solitary bill with interest; to be rich once for all, without danger of recurring poverty; to be rich enough to force promotion. Other officials--quartermasters, paymasters, etc.--were going in for cotton on the strength of Government deposits. The influenza had caught the Colonel; indeed it was enough to corrupt any man's honesty to breathe the moral atmosphere of New Orleans at that time; it could taint the honor derived from blue ancestral blood and West Point professional pride.

Carter did not, however, give way to his oily Mephistopheles during this interview. Walker's victory was not so sudden as Mrs. Larue's; his temptation was not so well suited as hers to the character of the victim; the love of lucre could not compare as a force with _le divin sens du genesiaque_. It was not until Walker had boldly threatened to bring his claims before the General Commanding, not until the army had well nigh reached the Red River, not until the chance of investment had almost pa.s.sed, that the Colonel became a speculator. Once resolved, he acted with audacity, according to his temperament. But here, unfortunately for the curious reader, we enter upon cavernous darkness, where it is impossible to trace out a story except by hazardous inference, our only guides being common rumor, a fragment of a letter, a conversation half-overheard, and other circ.u.mstances of a like unsatisfactory nature. Before giving my narrative publicity I feel bound to state that the entire series of alleged events may be a fiction of the excited popular imagination, founded on facts which might be explained in accordance with an a.s.sumption of Carter's innocence, and official honor.

I am inclined to believe, or at least to admit, that he drew a large sum (not less than one hundred thousand dollars) of the Government money in his charge, and placed it in the hands of his agent for the purchase of cotton from the planters of the Red River. It is probable that Walker expected to complete the transaction within a month, and to place the cotton, or the proceeds of it, in the hands of his princ.i.p.al early enough to enable the latter to show a square balance on his official return at the close of the current quarter. Such claims as might come in during this period could be put off by the plea of "no funds," or the safer devices of, "disallowed,"--"papers returned for correction," etc., etc. That the cotton could be sold at a monstrous profit was unquestionable. At New Orleans there were greedy capitalists, who had not been lucky enough to get into the Ring, and so accompany the expedition, who were anxious to pay cash down for the precious commodity immediately on its arrival at the levee, or even before it quitted the Red River. No body entertained a doubt of the military and commercial success of the great expedition, with its fleet, its veteran infantry, its abundant cavalry, all splendidly equipped, and its strategic combination of concentric columns. Even rabid secessionists were infected by the mania, and sought to invest their gold in cotton. It is probable that Carter's hopes at this time were far higher than his fears, and that he pretty confidently expected to see himself a rich man inside of sixty days. I am telling my story, the reader perceives, on the presumption that rumor has correctly stated these mysterious events.

If the materials for the tale were only attainable it would be a delightful thing to follow the corpulent Walker through the peaceful advance and sanguinary retreat of the great expedition. It is certain that from some quarter he obtained command of a vast capital, and that, in spite of his avoirdupois, he was alert and indefatigable in seeking opportunities for investment. Had Mars been half as adroit and watchful in his strategy as this fat old Mercury was in his speculations, Shreveport would have been taken, and Carter would have made a quarter of a million. But the G.o.d of Lucre had great reason to grumble at the G.o.d of War. It was in vain that Mercury lost fifty pounds of flesh in sleepless lookout for chances, in audacious rides to plantations haunted by guerrillas, shot at from swamps, and thickets, half starved or living on raw pork and hardtack, bargaining nearly all night after riding all day, untiring as a savage, zealous as an abolitionist, sublime in his pa.s.sion for gain. Mars incautiously stretched his splendid army over thirty miles of road, and saw it beaten in detachments by a force one quarter smaller, and vastly inferior in discipline and equipment. There was such a panic at Sabine Cross Roads as had not been seen since Bull Run. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry, mingled together in hopeless confusion, rushed in wild flight across the open fields, or forced their way down a narrow road enc.u.mbered with miles of abandoned baggage wagons. Through this chaos of terror advanced the saviours of the day, the heroic First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, marching calmly by the flank, hooting and jeering the runaways, filing into line within grape range of the enemy, and opening a withering fire of musketry which checked until nightfall the victorious, elated, impetuous Rebel ma.s.ses. Then came an extraordinary midnight retreat of twenty miles, and in the afternoon of the next day a hardly-won, unimproved victory. The First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, and seven thousand men of the Sixteenth Corps, the one forming the right and the other the left, resisted for hours the violent charges of the rebels, and then advanced two miles, occupying the field of battle. The soldiers were victorious, but the General was beaten. A new retreat was ordered, and Mercury went totally to grief.

The obese Walker was last seen by loyal eyes on the night which followed the barren triumph of Pleasant Hill. He had had his horse shot under him in the beginning of the fighting at Sabine Cross Roads, while in advance of the column; had effected a masterly retreat, partly on foot and partly on a Government mule which he took from a negro driver, who had cut it loose from an entangled wagon; had fed himself abundantly from the havresacks of defunct rebels on the field of victory; and then had heroically set to work to make the best of circ.u.mstances. Believing with the confidence of his sanguine nature that the army would advance in the morning, he started on his mule, accompanied by two comrades of the Ring, for the house of a neighboring planter, to whom it is supposed that he had advanced cash for cotton. No one knows to this day what became of him, or of his funds, or investments, or fellow adventurers.

All alike disappeared utterly and forever from the knowledge of the Union army when the three rode into that night of blood and groans beyond the flickering circle of light, thrown out by the camp fires.

The news of the calamity, we may suppose, nearly paralyzed Carter.

Defalcation, trial by court-martial, disgraceful dismissal from the service, hard labor at Tortugas, ball and chain, a beggared family, a crazed wife, must have made up a terrific spectre, advancing, close at hand, unavoidable, pitiless. It would be a laborious task to a.n.a.lyze and fully conceive the feelings of such a man in such a position. Naturally and with inexorable logic followed the second act of the moral tragedy.

A deed which some men would call merely a blunder led straight to another deed which all men would call a crime. He could not, as men have sometimes done, hope to annul his indebtedness by the simple commission of murder. Irresistible necessity drove him (if our hypothetical tale is correct) into a species of wickedness which was probably more repugnant to his peculiarly educated conscience than the taking of human life.

Carter wanted, we will say, one hundred and ten thousand dollars to make himself square with the United States and his private creditors. Looking over the Government property for which he had receipted and was responsible, he found fifteen steamboats, formerly freight or pa.s.senger boats on the Mississippi and its branches, but now regular transports, part of them lying idly at the levee, the others engaged in carrying reinforcements to the army at Grande Ecore or in bringing back the sick and wounded. If ten of these boats were sold at an average of ten thousand dollars apiece and re-bought at an average of twenty-five thousand dollars apiece, the transaction would furnish a profit of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which would settle all his debts, besides furnishing collusion-money. First, he wanted a nominal purchaser, who had that sort of honor which is necessary among thieves, fortune enough to render the story of the purchase plausible, and character enough to impose on the public. Carter went straight to a man of known fortune, born in New Orleans, high in social position, a secessionist who had taken the oath of allegiance. Mr. Hollister was a small and thin gentleman, with sallow and hollow cheeks, black eyes, iron gray hair, mellow voice, composed and elegant manners. His air, notwithstanding his small size, was remarkably dignified, and his expression was so calm that it would have seemed benignant but for a most unhappy eye. It was startlingly black, with an agitated flicker in it, like the flame of a candle blowing in the wind; it did not seem to be pursuing any object without, but rather flying from some horrible thought within. What intrigue or crime or suffering it was the record of it is not worth while to inquire. There had been many dark things done or planned in Louisiana during the lifetime of Mr. Hollister. His age must have been sixty-five, although the freshness of his brown morning suit, the fineness and fit of his linen, the neat brush to his hair, the clean shave on his face, took ten years off his shoulders. As he dabbled in stocks and speculations, he had his office. He advanced to meet the chief quartermaster, shook hands with respectful cordiality, and conducted him to a chair with as much politeness as if he were a lady.

"You look pale, Colonel," he said. "Allow me to offer you a gla.s.s of brandy. Trying season, this last summer. There was a time when I never thought of facing our climate all the year round."

Taking out of a cupboard one of the many bottles of choice old cognac with which he had enriched his wine-cellar, before the million of former days had dwindled to the hundred thousand of to-day, he set it beside a pitcher of ice-water and some gla.s.ses which stood on a table. The Colonel swallowed half a tumbler of pure brandy, and dashed some water after it. The broker mixed a weak sling, and sipped it to keep his visitor in countenance.

"Mr. Hollister," said Carter, "I hope I shall not offend you if I say that I know you have suffered heavily by the war."

"I shall certainly not be offended. I am obliged to you for showing the slightest interest in my affairs."

"You have taken the oath of allegiance--haven't you?"

Mr. Hollister said "Yes," and bowed respectfully, as if saluting the United States Government.

"It is only fair that you should obtain remuneration for your losses."