The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

his stead as your guardian. He didn't know I would act in this way, that's true. I own I've been brutal. I know I've forgotten everything, but it came over me all at once, something new. Why, look at us two together—what could stop us? Always I've lacked something: I did not know what. Now I know. Give me my chance. Let me try again!"

In this strange, strained position, she caught, in spite of herself, some sort of genuine note underneath the frankness of his ungovernable passion. For once, she was in a situation where she could neither fathom motives nor arrange remedies. She stood in sheer terror, half fascinated in spite of all.

They both were silent for a while, but at length she resumed, not so ungently: "Then let there be this contract between us, sir. Neither of us shall make any further scene. We'll temporize, since we can do no better. I gave parole once. I'll not give it again, but I'll go a little farther on westward, until I decide what to do."

Impulsively he held out his hand to her, his mouth twitching with emotion, some sort of strange impulse shining in his eyes,

"Be my enemy, even," he said, "only, do not leave me. I'll not let you go."

CHAPTER VII A CONFUSION IN CHATTELS

Their conversation was brought to an end by sounds of hurrying feet upon the decks above them. The hoarse boom of the steamer's whistle indicated an intended landing. A swift thought of possible escape came to the mind of Josephine St. Auban. When Dunwody turned in his troubled pacing up and down the narrow floor of the cabin, he found himself alone.

"Jeanne!" cried she, running from the stair to the door of her state-room. "Hurry! Quick, get your valises! We'll leave the boat here, at once!" Escape, in some fashion, to some place, at once, that was her sole thought in the panic which assailed her.

But when presently, as the boat drew in along the dock, she made ready to go ashore and hurriedly sought a servant to take care of the luggage, it was the captain of the Mount Vernon himself who came to meet her.

"I am sorry, Madam," he began, his cap in hand, "but your passage was booked farther down the river than this point. You are mistaken. This is not Cairo."

"What of that, sir? Is it not the privilege of a passenger to stop at any intermediate point?"

"Not in this case, Madam."

"What do you mean?" she blazed out at him in anger on first impulse. But even as she did so there came over her heart once more the sick feeling of helplessness. Though innocent, she was indeed a prisoner! As much as though this were the Middle Ages, as though these were implacable armed enemies who stood about her, and not commonplace, every-day individuals in a commonplace land, she was a prisoner.

"You shall suffer for this!" she exclaimed. "There must be a law somewhere in this country."

"That is true, Madam," said the captain, "and that is the trouble. I'm told that my orders come from the highest laws. Certainly I have no option in the matter. I was told distinctly not to let you off without his orders—not even to allow you to send any word ashore."

"But the gentleman who accompanied me is no longer on the boat. He left me word that our journey in common was ended. See, here is his note."

"All I can say, Madam, is that this is not signed, and that he did not tell me he was going to leave. I can not allow you to go ashore at this point. In fact, I should consider you safer here on the boat than anywhere else."

"Are there then no gentlemen in all the world? Are you not a man yourself? Have you no pity for a woman in such plight as mine?"

"Your words cut me deeply, my dear lady. I want to give you such protection as I can. Any man would do that. I am a man, but also I am an officer. You are a woman, but apparently also some sort of fugitive, I don't know just what. We learn not to meddle in these matters. But I think no harm will come to you—I'm sure not, from the care the gentlemen used regarding you. Please don't make it hard for me."

The boat was now alongside the dock at the river settlement, and there was some stir at the gangway as room was made for the reception of additional passengers. As they looked over the rail they discovered these to be made up of a somewhat singular group. Two or three roughly dressed men were guarding as many prisoners. Of the latter, two were coal black negroes. The third was a young woman apparently of white blood, of comely features and of composed bearing in spite of her situation. A second glance showed that all these three were in irons. Obviously then the law, which at that time under the newly formed Compromise Acts allowed an owner to follow his fugitive slaves into any state, was here finding an example, one offering indeed all the extremes of cruelty both to body and to soul.

"For instance, young lady, look at that," went on the boat captain, turning to Josephine, who was carried back by the incoming rush of the new passengers. "It is something we see now and again on this river. Sometimes my heart aches, but what can I do? That's the law, too. I have learned not to meddle."

[Illustration: "That's the law, too"]

"My God! My God!" exclaimed Josephine St. Auban, her eyes dilating with horror, forgetting her own plight as she looked at the spectacle before her. "Can these things really be in America! You submit to this, and you are men? Law? Is there any law?"

She did not hear the step behind them, but presently a voice broke in.

"If you please, Captain Rogers," said Warville Dunwody, "I think it will not be necessary to restrain this lady in any way. By this time she knows it will be better not to make any attempt to escape."

Jeanne, the maid, was first to see the distress in the face of her mistress.

"Infame! Infame!" she cried, flying at them, her hands clenched, her foot stamping. "Dogs of pigs, you are not men, you are not gentlemen! See now! See now!"

Tears stood in the eyes of Jeanne herself. "Come," said she, and put an arm about her mistress, leading her back toward the door of the cabin.

"This is bad business, sir," said the older man, turning to Dunwody. "I don't understand all this case, but I'm almost ready to take that girl's part. Who is she? I can't endure much longer seeing a woman like that handled in this way. You'll some of you have to show me your papers before long."

"You ask me who she is," replied Dunwody slowly, "and on my honor I can hardly tell you. She is temporary ward of the government, that much is sure. You know very well the arm of the national government is long. You know, too, that I'm a state senator and also a United States marshal in Missouri."

"But where do you come into this case, Senator?"

"I came into it last night at a little after nine o'clock," rejoined Dunwody. "Her former guardian has turned her over to me. She does not leave the boat till I do, at Cairo, where I change for up-river; and when I go, she goes. Don't pay any attention to any outcry she may make. She's my—property."

Captain Rogers pondered for a time, but at length his face broke out into a sort of smile. "There may be trouble ahead for you," he began. "It is like my old friend Bill Jones in there. He buys him a young filly last spring. Goes over to bring the filly home, and finds she isn't broke, and wild as a hawk. So he puts a halter on her and starts off to lead her home. The filly rears up, falls over and breaks her neck; so he's out his money and his pains. Some sorts of women won't lead."

"They all do in time," rejoined Dunwody grimly. "This one must."
The old boat captain shook his head.

"Some of them break their necks first," said he. "This one's got blood in her too, I tell you that."

Dunwody made no answer except to turn and walk down the deck. The captain, pondering on matters entirely beyond his comprehension, but forced to accept the assurances of men such as these who had appeared as guardians of this mysterious young woman, now returned to his own quarters. "I reckon it's none of my business," he muttered. "Some high-class forger or confidence worker that's beat the government somehow, maybe. But she don't look it—I'll be damned if she looks it. I wonder—?"

Dunwody, left to himself, began moodily to walk up and down the narrow deck, his hands behind his back. On his face was the red fighting flush, but it was backed by no expression of definite purpose, and his walk showed his mental uncertainty. All at once he turned and with decision passed down the stairs to the lower deck. He had heard voices which he recognized.

Judge Clayton had joined the party in charge of the fugitives, and was now in conversation with the overseer, a short man clad in a coarse blue jacket, with high boots and greasy leather trousers. The latter was expatiating exultantly upon his own bravery and shrewdness in effecting the recapture of his prisoners.

"Why, Jedge," said he, "fust off it di'n't look like we'd ever git track of 'em at all. I cotched the trail at Portsmouth at last, and follered 'em back into Ohio. They was shore on the 'underground' and bound for Canada, or leastways Chicago. I found 'em in a house 'way out in the country—midnight it was when we got thar. I'd summonsed the sher'f and two constables to go 'long. Farm-house was a underground railway station all right, and the farmer showed fight. We was too much fer him, and we taken 'em out at last, but one of the constables got shot—some one fired right through the winder at us. This Lily gal was the wust of the lot, and I don't put it a-past her to 'a' done some of the shootin' herself. But we brung 'em all along.

"Now, Jedge," he continued, "of co'se, I think I can do something for these two bucks Bill and Jim—this gal only persuaded 'em to run away with her. But if I was you, I shore would sell that Lily gal South, right away. She's bound fer to make trouble, and nothin' but trouble, fer you as long as you keep her round the place."

The speaker, coarse and ignorant, presented a contrast to the tall, dignified and quiet gentleman whom he accosted, and who now stood, with hands in pockets, looking on with genuine concern on his face.

"Lily," said he at length, "what makes you act this way? Haven't you always been treated well down there at home?"

"Yas, sir, I reckon so," replied the girl sullenly; "well as anybody's niggahs is!"

"Then why do you want to run off? This is the third time in the last year. I've been kind to you—I say, Dunwody," he went on, turning suddenly as he saw the latter approach—"haven't I always treated my people right? Haven't I always given them everything in the world they ought to have?"

"Yes, Judge, that's the truth, and any neighbor of yours will say it," assented Dunwody as he joined the group. "What's wrong then? This Lily girl run off again? Seems to me you told me about her."

"Yes," said Judge Clayton, rubbing a finger across his chin in perturbation, "the poor thing doesn't know when she's well off. But what am I to do with her, that's the question? I don't believe in whipping; but in