“We can look out for that. Come! Let us start at once.”
The two women sallied forth into the street, and proceeded some distance, Esha looking frequently behind with a caution that proved to be not ill-timed. Suddenly she darted across the street, and going up to a negro-boy who stood looking with an air of profound interest at some snuff-boxes and pipes in the window of a tobacconist, seized him by the wool of his head and pulled him towards a carriage-stand, where she accosted a colored driver of her acquaintance, and said: “Look har, Jube, you jes put dis little debble ob a spy on de box wid yer, and gib him a twenty minutes’ dribe, an’ den take him to Massa Ratcliff’s, open de door, an’ pitch him in, an’ I’ll gib yer half a dollar ef yer’ll do it right off an’ ahx no questions; an’ ef he dars ter make a noise you jes put yer fingers har,—dy’e see,—and pinch his win’pipe tight. Doan let him git away on no account whatsomebber.”
“Seein’ as how jobs air scarss, Esha, doan’ car ef I do; so hahnd him up.”
Esha lifted the boy so that Jube could seize him by the slack of his breeches and pull him howling on to the driver’s seat. Then promising a faithful compliance with Esha’s orders, he received the half-dollar with a grin, and drove off. Rejoining Madame Volney, Esha conducted her through lanes and by-streets till they stopped before the house occupied by Peek. He was at home, and asked them in.
“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” was his first inquiry. Esha replied by narrating the summary proceedings she had taken to get rid of the youth who had evidently been put as a spy on her track.
“That was well done, Esha,” said Peek. “Remember you’ve got the sharpest kind of an old lawyer to deal with; and you must skin your eyes tight if you ’spect to ’scape being tripped.”
“Wish I’d thowt ob dat dis mornin’, Peek; for ole Semmes has jes done his wustest,—carried off dat darlin’ chile, Miss Clara.”
Peek could hardly suppress a groan at the news.
“Now what’s to be done?” said Madame Volney. “Think of something quickly, or I shall go mad. That smooth-tongued Semmes,—O that I had the old scoundrel here in my grip! Can’t you find out where he has taken that dear child?”
“That will be difficult, I fear,” said Peek; “difficult for the reason that Semmes will be on the alert to baffle us. He will of course conclude that some of us will be on his track. He would turn any efforts we might make to dog him directly against us, arresting us when we thought ourselves most secure, just as the boy-detective was arrested by Esha.”