“That opportunity will be this very night.”
“So much the better! I’m ready. I had but one tie to bind me here; and that was Perdita. And she has fled. And what would I be to her, were she here? Nothing! Charles, this day’s news has made me ten years older already. O for an army with banners, to go down into that bloody region of the Rio Grande, and right the wrongs of the persecuted!”
“Be patient. We shall live to see the old flag wave resplendent over free and regenerated Texas.”
“Amen! Good heavens, Charles!—it appalls me, when I think what a different man I am from what I was when I crossed this threshold, one little hour ago!”
“In these volcanic days,” said Kenrick, “such changes are not surprising. These terrible eruptions, ‘painting hell on the sky,’ uptear many old convictions, and illumine many benighted minds.”
“Yes,” rejoined Onslow, “in that infernal flash, coming from my own violated home, I see slavery as it is,—monstrous, bestial, devilish!—no longer the graceful, genteel, hospitable, and fascinating embodiment which I—fond fool that I was!—have been wont to think it. The Republicans of the North were right in declaring that not one inch more of national soil should be surrendered to the pollutions of slavery.”
“Time flies,” said Kenrick. “Have you any preparations to make?”
“Yes, a few bills to pay and a few letters to write.”
“Can you despatch all your work by quarter to nine?”
“Sooner, if need be.”