CHAPTER XL.
THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND.
“Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look.”
Shakespeare.
Yes, Ratcliff had escaped. His temper had not been sweetened by his forced visit to the North. In Fort Lafayette he had for a while given way to the sulks. Then he changed his tactics. Finding that Surgeon Mooney, though a Northern man, had conservative notions on the subject of the “nigger,” he addressed himself to the work of befooling that functionary. Inasmuch as Nature had already half done it to his hands, he did not find the task a difficult one.
In his imprisonment Ratcliff had ample time for indulging in day-dreams. He grew almost maudlin over that photograph of Clara. Yes! By his splendid generosity he would bind to him forever that beautiful young girl.
He must transmit his proud name to legitimate children. He must be the founder of a noble house; for the Confederacy, when triumphant, would undoubtedly have its orders of nobility. A few years in Europe with such a wife would suit him admirably. Slidell and Mason, having been released from Fort Warren in Boston harbor, would be proud to take him by the hand and introduce him and his to the best society.
These visions came to soften his chagrin and mitigate the tediousness of imprisonment. But he now grew impatient for the fulfilment of his schemes. Delay had its dangers. True, he confided much in the vigilance of Semmes, but Semmes was an old man, and might drop off any day. A beautiful white slave was a very hazardous piece of property.
It was not difficult for Ratcliff to persuade Surgeon Mooney that his health required greater liberty of movement. At a time when, under the Davis régime, sick and wounded United States soldiers, imprisoned at Richmond in filthy tobacco-warehouses, were, in repeated instances, brutally and against all civilized usages shot dead for going to the windows to inhale a little fresh air, the National authorities were tender to a degree, almost ludicrous in contrast, of the health and rights of Rebel prisoners. If any of these were troubled with a bowel complaint or a touch of lumbago, the “central despotism at Washington” was denounced, by journals hostile to the war, as responsible for the affliction, and the people were called on to rescue violated Freedom from the clutches of an insidious tyrant, even from plain, scrupulous “old Abe,” son of a poor Kentuckian who could show no pedigree, like Colonel Delancy Hyde and Jefferson Davis.