The Crisis Part 62

The Captain's words spread, and caused considerable excitement. On board the Barbara Lane were many gentlemen who had begun to be shamefaced over their panic, and these went in a body to the Captain and asked him to communicate with the 'Juanita'. Whereupon a certain number of whistles were sounded, and the Barbara's bows headed for the other side of the channel.

As the Juanita drew near, Virginia saw the square figure and clean, smooth-shaven face of Captain Lige standing in front of his wheel-house Peace crept back into her soul, and she tingled with joy as the bells clanged and the bucket-planks churned, and the great New Orleans packet crept slowly to the Barbara's side.

"You ain't goin' in, Brent?" shouted the Barbara's captain.

"Why not?" responded Mr. Brent. At the sound of his voice Virginia could have wept.

"The Dutch are sacking the city," said Vance. "Didn't they tell you?"

"The Dutch--h.e.l.l!" said Mr. Brent, calmly. "Who's afraid of the Dutch?"

A general t.i.tter went along the guards, and Virginia blushed. Why could not the Captain see her?

"I'm on my reg'lar trip, of course," said Vance. Out there on the sunlit river the situation seemed to call for an apology.

"Seems to be a little more loaded than common," remarked Captain Lige, dryly, at which there was another general laugh.

"If you're really goin' up," said Captain Vance, "I reckon there's a few here would like to be ma.s.sacred, if you'll take 'em."

"Certainly," answered Mr. Brent; "I'm bound for the barbecue." And he gave a command.

While the two great boats were manoeuvring, and slashing with one wheel and the other, the gongs sounding, Virginia ran into the cabin.

"Oh, Aunt Lillian," she exclaimed, "here is Captain Lige and the Juanita, and he is going to take us back with him. He says there is no danger."

It its unnecessary here to repeat the moral persuasion which Virginia used to get her aunt up and dressed. That lady, when she had heard the whistle and the gongs, had let her imagination loose. Turning her face to the wall, she was in the act of repeating her prayers as her niece entered.

A big stevedore carried her down two decks to where the gang-plank was thrown across. Captain Lige himself was at the other end. His face lighted, Pushing the people aside, he rushed across, s.n.a.t.c.hed the lady from the negro's arms, crying:

"Jinny! Jinny Carvel! Well, if this ain't fortunate." The stevedore's services were required for Mammy Easter. And behind the burly shield thus formed, a stoutish gentleman slipped over, all unnoticed, with a carpet-bag in his hand It bore the initials E. H.

The plank was drawn in. The great wheels began to turn and hiss, the Barbara's pa.s.sengers waved good-by to the foolhardy lunatics who had elected to go back into the jaws of destruction. Mrs. Colfax was put into a cabin; and Virginia, in a glow, climbed with Captain Lige to the hurricane deck. There they stood for a while in silence, watching the broad stern of the Barbara growing smaller. "Just to think," Miss Carvel remarked, with a little hysterical sigh, "just to think that some of those people brought bronze clocks instead of tooth-brushes."

"And what did you bring, my girl?" asked the Captain, glancing at the parcel she held so tightly under her arm.

He never knew why she blushed so furiously.

CHAPTER XXII. THE STRAINING OF ANOTHER FRIENDSHIP

Captain Lige asked but two questions: where was the Colonel, and was it true that Clarence had refused to be paroled? Though not possessing over-fine susceptibilities, the Captain knew a mud-drum from a lady's watch, as he himself said. In his solicitude for Virginia, he saw that she was in no state of mind to talk of the occurrences of the last few days. So he helped her to climb the little stair that winds to the top of the texas,--that sanctified roof where the pilot-house squats. The girl clung to her bonnet Will you like her any the less when you know that it was a shovel bonnet, with long red ribbons that tied under her chin? It became her wonderfully. "Captain Lige," she said, almost tearfully, as she took his arm, "how I thank heaven that you came up the river this afternoon!"

"Jinny," said the Captain, "did you ever know why cabins are called staterooms?"

"Why, no," answered she, puzzled.

"There was an old fellow named Shreve who ran steamboats before Jackson fought the redcoats at New Orleans. In Shreve's time the cabins were curtained off, just like these new-fangled sleeping-car berths. The old man built wooden rooms, and he named them after the different states, Kentuck, and Illinois, and Pennsylvania. So that when a fellow came aboard he'd say: 'What state am I in, Cap?' And from this river has the name spread all over the world--stateroom. That's mighty interesting,"

said Captain Lige.

"Yea," said Virginia; "why didn't you tell me long ago."

"And I'll bet you can't say," the Captain continued, "why this house we're standing on is called the texas."

"Because it is annexed to the states," she replied, quick a flash.

"Well, you're bright," said he. "Old Tufts got that notion, when Texas came in. Like to see Bill Jenks?"

"Of course," said Virginia.

Bill Jenks was Captain Brent's senior pilot. His skin hung on his face in folds, like that of a rhinoceros It was very much the same color. His grizzled hair was all lengths, like a worn-out mop; his hand reminded one of an eagle's claw, and his teeth were a pine yellow. He greeted only such people as he deemed worthy of notice, but he had held Virginia in his arms.

"William," said the young lady, roguishly, "how is the eye, location, and memory?"

William abandoned himself to a laugh. When this happened it was put in the Juanita's log.

"So the Cap'n be still harpin' on that?" he said, "Miss Jinny, he's just plumb crazy on a pilot's qualifications."

"He says that you are the best pilot on the river, but I don't believe it," said Virginia.

William cackled again. He made a place for her on the leather-padded seat at the back of the pilot house, where for a long time she sat staring at the flag trembling on the jackstaff between the great sombre pipes. The sun fell down, but his light lingered in the air above as the big boat forged abreast the foreign city of South St. Louis. There was the a.r.s.enal--grim despite its dress of green, where Clarence was confined alone.

Captain Lige came in from his duties below. "Well, Jinny, we'll soon be at home," he said. "We've made a quick trip against the rains."

"And--and do you think the city is safe?"

"Safe!" he cried. "As safe as London!" He checked himself. "Jinny, would you like to blow the whistle?"

"I should just love to," said Virginia. And following Mr. Jenks's directions she put her toe on the tread, and shrank back when the monster responded with a snort and a roar. River men along the levee heard that signal and laughed. The joke was certainly not on st.u.r.dy Elijah Brent.

An hour later, Virginia and her aunt and the Captain, followed by Mammy aster and Rosetta and Susan, were walking through the streets of the stillest city in the Union. All that they met was a provost's guard, for St. Louis was under Martial Law. Once in a while they saw the light of some contemptuous citizen of the residence district who had stayed to laugh. Out in the suburbs, at the country houses of the first families, people of distinction slept five and six in a room--many with only a quilt between body and matting. Little wonder that these dreamed of Hessians and destruction. In town they slept with their doors open, those who remained and had faith. Martial law means pa.s.ses and explanations, and walking generally in the light of day. Martial law means that the Commander-in-chief, if he be an artist in well doing, may use his boot freely on politicians bland or beetle-browed. No police force ever gave the sense of security inspired by a provost's guard.

Captain Lige sat on the steps of Colonel Carvel's house that night, long after the ladies were gone to bed. The only sounds breaking the silence of the city were the beat of the feet of the marching squads and the call of the corporal's relief. But the Captain smoked in agony until the clouds of two days slipped away from under the stars, for he was trying to decide a Question. Then he went up to a room in the house which had been known as his since the rafters were put down on that floor.

The next morning, as the Captain and Virginia sit at breakfast together with only Mammy Easter to cook and Rosetta to wait on them, the Colonel bursts in. He is dusty and travel-stained from his night on the train, but his gray eyes light with affection as he sees his friend beside his daughter.

"Jinny," he cries as he kisses her, "Jinny, I'm proud oil you, my girl!

You didn't let the Yankees frighten you--But where is Jackson?"

And so the whole miserable tale has to be told over again, between laughter and tears on Virginia's part, and laughter and strong language on Colonel Carvel's. What--blessing that Lige met them, else the Colonel might now be starting for the c.u.mberland River in search of his daughter. The Captain does not take much part in the conversation, and he refuses the cigar which is offered him. Mr. Carvel draws back in surprise.

"Lige," he says, "this is the first time to my knowledge."

"I smoked too many last night," says the Captain. The Colonel sat down, with his feet against the mantel, too full of affairs to take much notice of Mr. Brent's apathy.

"The Yanks have taken the first trick--that's sure," he said. "But I think we'll laugh last, Jinny. Jefferson City isn't precisely quiet. The state has got more militia, or will have more militia in a day or two. We won't miss the thousand they stole in Camp Jackson. They're organizing up there. And I've got a few commissions right here," and he tapped his pocket.