Here Mr. Memminger came in to talk over the state of the Rebel exchequer,—a subject which Mr. Davis generally disposed of by ignoring; his old experience in repudiation teaching him that the best mode of fancy financiering was,—if we may descend to the vernacular,—to “go it blind.”
“I’ll intrude no longer on your precious time,” said Ratcliff. “I go home to send you word that the renegade Tennessean, Farragut, and that peddling lawyer from Lowell, Picayune Butler, have been spued out of the mouths of the Mississippi.”
The “President” rose, pressed Ratcliff’s proffered hand, and, with a stiff, angular bow, parted from him at the door.
CHAPTER XLI.
HOPES AND FEARS.
“In the same brook none ever bathed him twice:
To the same life none ever twice awoke.”
Young.
Three days after his interview with the “remarkable man,” Ratcliff was at Montgomery, Ala. There he telegraphed to Semmes, and received these words in reply: “All safe. On your arrival, go first to my office for directions.” Ratcliff obeyed, and found a letter telling him not to go home, but to meet Semmes immediately at the house to which the latter had transferred the white slave. Half an hour did not elapse before lawyer and client sat in the curtained drawing-room of this house, discussing their affairs.
“I cannot believe,” said Ratcliff, “that Josephine intended to have the girl escape. She was the first to plan this marriage.”
“I did not act on light grounds of suspicion,” replied Semmes. “I had myself overheard remarks which convinced me that Madame was playing a double game. Either she or some one else has put it into the girl’s head that she is not lawfully a slave, but the kidnapped child of respectable parents.”