It was arranged that Antoine and Sam, well armed, and supported by the bloodhound, should remain and look after Ratcliff, not precipitating action, however, and not communicating with Clara, whose relief Peek had generously resolved should first come from the hands of Vance.
Then jumping into the carriage, Peek drove to Lafayette Square, and taking in Madame Josephine and Esha, returned to the St. Charles Hotel. Here he told Vance all he had done, and introduced the two women,—Vance greeting Esha with much emotion, as he recognized in her that attendant at his wife’s death-bed for whom he had often sought.
Four carriages were now drawn up on Gravier Street. Into one stepped Winslow, Hyde, and Vance; into another Semmes, Blake, Onslow, and Blake’s trusty servant, Sergeant Decazes, the escaped slave. Into the third carriage stepped Madame Josephine, Esha, and Peek; and into the fourth, Mrs. Gentry and Mr. Ripper.
This last vehicle must be regarded as the centre of interest, for over it the Loves and Graces languishingly hovered.
In introducing Ripper to Mrs. Gentry, Semmes had remarked, in an aside to the former: “A retired schoolma’am: some money there!” Here was a shaft that went straight to the auctioneer’s heart. In three minutes he drew from the lady the fact that, ten days before, she had received a visit from a Vigilance Committee, who had warned her, if she did not pay over to them five thousand dollars within a week, her house would be confiscated, sold, and the proceeds paid over to the Confederate treasury. “Five thousand dollars indeed!” said the lady, in relating the interview; “a whole year’s income! O, haven’t they been nicely come up with!”
The Confederate highwaymen had done what Satan recommended the Lord to do in the case of Job: they had tried Mrs. Gentry in her substance, and she had not stood the test. It had wrought a very sudden and radical change in her political notions. Even slavery was no longer the august and unapproachable thing which she had hitherto imagined; and she threw out a sentiment which savored so much of the abolition heresy, that Ripper, thinking to advance himself in her good opinion, avowed himself boldly an emancipationist, and declared that slavery was “played out.” These words, strange to say, did not make him less charming in Mrs. Gentry’s eyes.
The drive in the carriage soon offered an opportunity for tenderer topics, and before they reached Camelia Street, the enterprising auctioneer had declared that he really believed he had at last, after a life-long search, found his “affinity.” And from that he ventured to glide an arm round the lady’s waist,—a familiarity at which her indignation was so feebly simulated, that it only added new fuel to hope.
But Camelia Place was now reached, and the carriages stopped. The whole party were noiselessly introduced into the house. Vance darted up to the room where Clara’s note had instructed him he could find her. Seeing the key on the outside, he turned it, opened the door, and presented himself to Clara in the manner already related. The unsuspecting Ratcliff soon followed, and then followed the scenes upon which the curtain has already been raised.
As Vance left the house, with Clara on his arm, several of Ratcliff’s slaves gathered round them. To all these Vance promised immediate freedom and help. An old black hostler, named Juba, or Jube, who was also a theologian and a strenuous preacher, was spokesman for the freedmen. He proposed “tree chares for Massa Vance.” They were given with a will.
“An’ now, Massa Vance,” said the Reverend Jube, “may de Lord bress yer fur comin’ down har from de Norf ter free an’ help we. De Lord bress yer an’ de young Missis likewise. An’ when yer labors am all ended, an’ yer’v chewed all de hard bones, an’ swollerd de bitter pill, may yer go ober Jordan wid a tight hold on de Lord, an’ not leeb go till yer git clar inter de city ob Zion.”[[44]]