Hilary turned, glanced easily over the heads of the throng, and espied Greenleaf beckoning with a slender cane. Together they crossed the way and entered the office of a public stable.
"Our nags again," said Kincaid to one of a seated group, and pa.s.sed into a room beyond. Thence he re-issued with his dress modified for the saddle, and the two friends awaited their mounts under an arch. "Dost perceive, Frederic," said the facetious Hilary, "yon modestly arrayed pair of palpable gents hieing hitherward yet pretending not to descry us? They be detectives. Oh--eh--gentlemen!"
The strangers halted inquiringly and then came forward. The hair of one was black, of the other gray. Hilary brightened upon them: "I was just telling my friend who you are. You know me, don"t you?" A challenging glint came into his eye.
But the gray man showed a twinkle to match it: "Why--by sight--yes--what there is of you."
Hilary smiled again: "I saw you this morning in the office of the Committee of Public Safety, where I was giving my word that this friend of mine should leave the city within twenty-four hours." He introduced him: "Lieutenant Greenleaf, gentleman, United States Army. Fred, these are Messrs. Smellemout and Ketchem, a leading firm in the bottling business."
Greenleaf and the firm expressed their pleasure. "We hang out at the corner of Poet and Good-Children Streets," said the black-haired man, but made his eyes big to imply that this was romance.
Greenleaf lifted his brows: "Streets named for yourselves, I judge."
"Aye. Poet for each, Good-Children for both."
Kincaid laughed out. "The Lieutenant and I," he said as he moved toward their approaching horses, "live on Love street exactly half-way between Piety and Desire." His eyes widened, too. Suddenly he stepped between Greenleaf and the others: "See here, let"s begin to tell the truth! You know Kincaid"s Foundry? It was my father"s--"
"And his father"s before him," said the gray man.
"And I"ve come home to go into this war," Hilary went on.
"And just at present," said Gray, "you"re casting shot and sh.e.l.l and now and then a cannon; good for you! You want to give us your guarantee--?"
"That my friend and I will be together every moment till he leaves to-morrow morning on the Jackson Railroad, bound for the North without a stop."
"To go into this war on the other side!"
"Why, of course!" said the smiling Kincaid. "Now, that"s all, isn"t it? I fear we"re keeping you."
"Oh, no." The gray man"s crow"s-feet deepened playfully. "If you think you need us we"ll stick by you all night."
"No," laughed Kincaid, "there"s no call for you to be so sticky as all that." The hors.e.m.e.n mounted.
"Better us than the Patriots" League," said the younger detective to Hilary as Greenleaf moved off. "They"ve got your friend down in their Send-"em-to-h.e.l.l book and are after him now. That"s how come we to be--"
"I perceive," replied Hilary, and smiled in meditation. "Why--thank you, both!"
"Oh, you go right along, Mr. Kincaid. We"ll be at the depot to-morrow ourselves, and to-night we"ll see that they don"t touch neither one of you."
Hilary"s smile grew: "Why--thank you again! That will make it more comfortable for them. Good-night."
The two friends rode to a corner, turned into Poydras Street, crossed Magazine and Tchoupitoulas and presently, out from among the echoing fronts of unlighted warehouses, issued upon the wide, white Levee.
VII
BY STARLIGHT
"Wait," murmured Greenleaf, as they halted to view the scene. From their far right came the vast, br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, turbid, swift, silent, its billows every now and then rising and looking back as if they fled from implacable pursuers; sweeping by long, slumbering ranks of ships and steamboats; swinging in majestic breadth around the bend a mile or more below; and at the city"s end, still beyond, gliding into mystic oblivion. Overhead swarmed the stars and across the flood came faintly the breath of orange-groves, sea-marshes and prairies.
Greenleaf faced across the wide bend at his left. In that quarter, quite hidden in live-oaks and magnolias, as both well knew, were the low, red towers of Jackson Barracks. But it was not for them the evicted young soldier claimed this last gaze. It was for a large dwelling hard by them, a fine old plantation house with wide verandas, though it also was shut from view, in its ancient grove.
"Fred," said Hilary, "didn"t she tell you why?"
"No," replied the lover when they had turned away and were moving up the harbor front, "except that it isn"t because I"m for the Union."
Hilary"s eyes went wide: "That"s wonderful, old man! But I don"t believe she likes a soldier of any sort. If I were a woman I"d be doggoned if I"d ever marry a soldier!"
"Yet the man who gets her," said Greenleaf, "ought to be a soldier in every drop of his blood. You don"t know her yet; but you soon will, and I"m glad."
"Now, why so? I can"t ever please her enough to be pleased with her. I"m too confounded frivolous! I love nonsense, doggon it, for its own sake! I love to get out under a sky like this and just reel and whoop in the pure joy of standing on a world that"s whirling round!"
"But you do please her. She"s told me so."
"Don"t you believe her! I don"t. I can"t. I tell you, Fred, I could never trust a girl that forever looks so trustworthy! S"pose I should fall in love with her! Would you--begrudge her to me?"
"I bequeath her to you."
"Ah! you know I haven"t the ghost of a chance! She"s not for po" little Hil"ry. I never did like small women, anyhow!"
"My boy! If ever you like this one she"ll no more seem small than the open sea."
"I suppose," mused Hilary, "that"s what makes it all the harder to let go. If a girl has a soul so petty that she can sit and hear you through to the last word your heart can bleed, you can turn away from her with some comfort of resentment, as if you still had a remnant of your own stature."
"Precisely!" said the lover. "But when she"s too large-hearted to let you speak, and yet answers your unspoken word, once for all, with a compa.s.sion so modest that it seems as if it were you having compa.s.sion on her, she"s harder to give up than--"
"Doggon her, Fred, I wouldn"t give her up!"
"Ah, this war, Hilary! I may never see her again. There"s just one man in this world whom--"
"Oh, get out!"
"I mean what I say. To you I leave her."
"Ha, ha! No, you don"t! It"s only to her you leave me. Old boy, promise me! If you ever come back and she"s still in the ring, you"ll go for her again no matter who else is bidding, your humble servant not excepted."
"Why--yes--I--I promise that. Now, will you promise me?"
"What! let myself--?"
"Yes."
"Ho-o, not by a jug-full! If ever I feel her harpoon in me I"ll fight like a whale! But I promise you this, and warn you, too: That when it comes to that, a whole platoon of Fred Greenleafs between her and me won"t make a pinch of difference."
To that Greenleaf agreed, and the subject was changed. With shipping ever on their left and cotton-yards and warehouses for tobacco and for salt on their right their horses" feet clinked leisurely over the cobble pavements, between thousands of cotton-bales headed upon the unsheltered wharves and only fewer thousands on the narrow sidewalks.
So pa.s.sed the better part of an hour before they were made aware, by unmistakable odors, that they were nearing the Stock-Landing. There, while they were yet just a trifle too far away to catch its echoes, had occurred an incident--a fracas, in fact--some of whose results belong with this narrative to its end. While they amble toward the spot let us reconnoitre it. Happily it has long been wiped out, this blot on the city"s scutcheon. Its half-dozen streets were unspeakable mud, its air was stenches, its buildings were incredibly foul slaughter-houses and shedded pens of swine, sheep, beeves, cows, calves, and mustang ponies. The plank footways were enclosed by stout rails to guard against the chargings of long-horned cattle chased through the thoroughfares by la.s.so-whirling "bull-drivers" as wild as they. In the middle of the river-front was a ferry, whence Louisiana Avenue, broad, treeless, gra.s.sy, and thinly lined with slaughter-houses, led across the plain. Down this untidy plaisance a grimy little street-car, every half-hour, jogged out to the Carrollton railway and returned. This street and the water-front were lighted--twilighted--with lard-oil lamps; the rest of the place was dark. At each of the two corners facing the ferry was a "coffee-house"--dram-shop, that is to say.
Messrs. Sam Gibbs and Maxime Lafontaine were president and vice-president of that Patriots" League against whose machinations our two young men had been warned by the detectives in St. Charles Street. They had just now arrived at the Stock-Landing. Naturally, on so important an occasion they were far from sober; yet on reaching the spot they had lost no time in levying on a Gascon butcher for a bucket of tar and a pillow of feathers, on an Italian luggerman for a hurried supper of raw oysters, and on the keeper of one of the "coffee-houses" for drinks for the four.