“It pays to send them to New Orleans. Mr. Fackler told me it was a slaver, but advised us to take it, rather than to wait for the next boat, which, under the circumstances, might be delayed. We are fleeing for our lives, Milly, do not forget that, and we cannot be too particular, lest we lose them.”
I said only, “Oh!” but Robert understood my dissatisfaction, and went to the deck unhappy.
I was too cross to care. Never in all my life, before or since, have I been so long and so willingly ill-tempered. I asked myself for no reason; I never tried to make an excuse for the mood. I just gave way to the feeling, and rather enjoyed my 173 wickedness. Mary looked at me with strange questions in her gray eyes. Lilly crept into my arms, or clung to my skirts. I petted them when Robert was not present; when he was, it pleased me to speak sharply, or not answer their questions at all. Evidently, then, it was Robert who had offended me. Poor fellow! He tried being cheerful and bringing me little bits of ship gossip. I perfectly scorned to see there was anything in life worth smiling at. Then he tried being a little aloof, and only looked at me with hasty glances, and I was troubled. I could not gaze into his sorrowful eyes, and not see in them “Love’s philtred euphrasy.” But one day pitiful love, nay loving pity, bid the tides of memory cast on my soul a little spray of tears. It happened thus:
I had dressed the children, gone to the deck with them, and been compelled to come back to the cabin immediately. The air quivered with heat; the river, rolling rapidly onward, was like a river of death; there was no whirr of bird’s wings over it, no sound of a bird’s song on its banks, and vegetation there was apparently withered. The blacks on the lower deck were absolutely silent and motionless, except for a woman’s long drawn wail, always quickly stopped by a man’s passionate command. The captain spoke to no one; the officers passed constantly to and fro, always bent on some duty; in fact, even my short observations convinced me, that every man on the ship was watching the lower deck. I said to Mary, “Let us go to our room, dear,” and she answered, “Please, Mamma, and put on my nightgown; these things”—pointing to her dress and shoes and stockings—“they hurt Mary so much.”
I was granting the child her request, when Robert looked into the cabin. “I heard you and the children were on deck,” he said. “I was glad you were taking a little change. Why did you come in?”
“I could not endure the sight of the river.”
“It is a grand river, Milly; you should not speak ill of it.”
“It is like the river of sorrows—’ Acheron sad and black and deep.’ I hate it with my whole soul,” and I spoke with passionate force, throwing down Mary’s coral necklace to emphasize 174 my words, and scattering its scarlet and gold beads on the floor.
The child uttered a cry, and Robert said, “Hush, Mary! Papa will pick them up for you.”
“The Acheron, Milly?” he queried, as he gathered the scattered beads; “I have heard of it, but I cannot place it. Where is it?”