THE LAST OF THE PROSERPINE.

Waikato Times, Volume VI, Issue 318, 28 May 1874, Page 2

THE LAST OF THE PROSERPINE.

IN TWO TABTS. — FABT 2. For an instant I hesitated. Gregg's words werM an enigma to me, bnt there was something in hfl tone that impressed me in spite of myself, and M might perhaps have retired had not a pert bo»t clerH with the strong nasal accent of New Jersey, at thfl instant exclaimed : * Wall, stranger, are you foH New Orleans, or are you not ? Faint heart. I gucsH never won a fair lady j but if you dont make you! mind up pretty slick the paddles will save you tbß trouble.' Ahd indeed the wild snorting of thß steam pipes and the suppressed throbbing of thl steamer's sides as her engines began to work, garß token of immediate departure. Half mechanicals I went on board. Gregg brushed past me. Hfl planks were withdrawn and off we wentonouß way down-stream. I * Mr Jowlett, the pilot, had the barky in ehargl so far as Grand Gulf/ a grinning mulatto waitei whose teeth were whiter than his napkin, ioforme< me in answer to my inquiry ; ' and when be q ashore we pick up our skipper, Cap'en Gregg.' Th latter was already installed in command, and I oh served that as he ga\ehis orders in a loud and clea voice all trace* of eioitement had vanished from hi face and bearing, and that he seemed mertly to bi the careful and experienced mariner to whom everj reach and shoal of the Fathor of Waters was inti mately known. He shewed bo desire to resume hii conversation with myself, and in faot appeared tel have forgotten his late incomprehensible warningl But what was my amazement when among thjl groups of passengers on the lofty hurricane-deck M the steamer, I recognised old Mr Harman with hiJ daughter beside him. The old man, a stately flgorJ yet, tall and erect, and scrupulously wdl <ir«MedJ reddened as he caught sight of me, and witli aoola bow, turned away, leading Alice with him towards another part of the deck. My own gaze had toea! riveted on the face that I loved best of all in tftq world, and I bad noticed that a bright involunt* M gleam of joy had crossed it as onr eyes met to im clouded the instant after, as dropping her eyes anH averting her head she allowed her father to coxM dnct her from the neighborhood of the spot wherM I stood. ' 1 Here, then, was a new source of embarrassment This unlucky rencontre might not unnaturally to xnibcopbtruction. ilr Harman might well beli'e*J that 1 b*d purposely foUowed bift xaoveuaeste ; whiUi tven to Alice my conduct in wilfully throwhig mjj|

self in her way, and in perhaps thereby arousing the angry suspicions of her lather, must appear cruel and inconsiderate, Shonld T disembark at the next stopping* place, ami there await the Sunflower, by which I might prir&uo my solitary way to New Orleans ? No, sorely ; for such u step would argne that I felt myself to be in the wrong ; that I acknowledged my own un worthiness to pretend to the hand of a rich man's daughter ; that I shrunk from the displeasure of my former employer. No : up to this time my conduct had been opeu and manly, and I resolved that for the future I would act as I had hitherto done. It was enough that I had not infringed the laws of hospitality, or used my influence over Alice so as to tempt her to set at noug'ifc the just authority of her only surviving parent. I need not slink off like a culprit because by pure accident she and I were passengers by the same steamer. No intrusion from me was to be feared , I should not even place myself in Miss Harman's path ; and yet — and yet — all the while that I thna reasoned with myself I knew it was the chance of again looking on the dear face that I loved so well that pleaded with me to remain on board. Passengers in an American river steamer, with their common meals, common saloons, and the breeay promenade of the buricanedeck, are thrown yery much together, and I should have more than one opportunity of seeing her to whom I was forbidden to speak. The mulatto waiter, or under-steward, of whom I have already made mention, was like most of his colour given to chatter, and unreservedly communicative about himself and others. His name he told me was Lysander, to which classical prefix he had chosen to add the patronymic of Randolph, having been a boy on Colonel Norman Randolph's estate before the war, during which he bad played the part of a contraband, and had much to tell of the hard, ships and semi-starvation endured by runaway slaves on the other side of the Federal lines. He had been in the pantry of one of our West Indian mail packets, and had visited England, and had acquired a sort of Anglomania, which I have noticed before in Creole blacks who have been charmed to find their dark skin rather in the light of a passport to English sympathies than a badge of inferiority As a Britisher he took me under his cordial protection, waited on me with patronising kindness, and whispered in my ear the names of those dishes of the long bill of fare which were in his opinion the choicest tit-bits of what was, I own, a very sumptuous dinner, I was not hungry, however, and Lysander presently grew tired of recommending some 'bootiful fis,' caught in ft lake among the rocky hills of Tennessee, and brought in ice to the river bank, or collops of ' black-tail venison, shot in Big Swamp, Arkansaw State,' and allowed me to dream away my time as I listed. Alice looked very beautiful 1 thought, but sadder and more womanly than before, a thought paler too. She was very silent, and never looked towards me, nor did her father, who conversed with, as it appeared to me, more than usual volubility, with some fellow travellers who knew him, I could not help fancying that Mr Harman's seemingly high spirits were no index to his real state of mind, and the same might be said of Gregg, who was full of boastfulness and merriment at the other end of the table, but who carefully avoided catching my eye. » Deep in the afternoon, my mulatto friend Lysauder brought me a crumpled letter, ill folded and hastily written, but heedful ly sealed with black wax, from Massa Cap'en Gregg I .' It contained merely these worHs : 'Do you remember a passage in a French book you lont me. wheie a coon got a note with this in it : ' Fly — fly — fly ' " three times repeated ? The boat, stops at Vidalia, and there is a good inn there.— P.M. G,' I sat staring for some time at this extraordinary document It certainly implied a warning, but of what evil could it bid me to beware ?