“Yesterday he sent splendid dresses, laces, jewels, diamonds. He offers me a carriage, an establishment, and to settle on me enough to make me secure for the future. How he magnifies my hate by all these despicable baits!
“Sweet, be very prudent. While steadily maintaining towards this wretch, whom the law calls my master, the demeanor that may best assure him of my steadfast resolve, I take care not to arouse his anger; for I know what you want is opportunity. He may any time be called off suddenly to New Orleans. Be wary. Tell me what you propose. A string shall be let down from my window to-morrow night at ten by stealth, for I am watched. God keep thee, my husband, my beloved! How I shudder at thought of all thy dangers! Be sure, O William, tender and true, my heart will hold eternally one only image. Adieu!
Estelle.”
The next night I put her in possession of a rope and a boy’s dress, also of two files, with directions for filing apart the iron bars. I saw it would not be difficult to enable her to get out of the house. The dreadful question was, How shall we escape the search which will at once be made? For a week we exchanged letters. At last she wrote me that Ratcliff would the next day leave for New Orleans for his wife. I wrote to Estelle to be ready the ensuing night, and on a signal from me to let herself down by the rope.
These plans were successfully carried out. Disguised as a laboring boy, Estelle let herself down to the ground. Once more we clasped each other heart to heart. I had selected a moonless night for the escape. In order to baffle the scent of the bloodhounds that would be put on our track, I took to the river. In a canoe I paddled down stream some fifteen miles till daylight. There, at a little bend called La Coude, we stopped. It now occurred to me that our safest plan would be to take the next boat up the river, and return on our course instead of keeping on to the Mississippi. Our pursuers would probably look for us in any direction but that.
The Rigolette was the first boat that stopped. We went on board, and the first person we encountered was Ratcliff! He was returning, having learnt at the outset of his journey that his wife had left New Orleans the day before. Estelle was thrown off her guard by the suddenness of the meeting, and uttered a short, sharp cry of dismay which betrayed her. Poor child! She was little skilled in feigning. Ratcliff walked up to her and removed her hat.
I had seen men in a rage, but never had I witnessed such an infuriated expression as that which Ratcliff’s features now exhibited. It was wolfish, beastly, in its ferocity. His smooth pink face grew livid. Seizing Estelle roughly by the arm, he—whatever he was about to do, the operation was cut short by a blow from my fist between his eyes which felled him senseless on the deck.
The spectacle of a rich planter knocked down by an Irishman was not a common one on board the Rigolette. We were taken in custody, Estelle and I, and confined together in a state-room.
Ratcliff was badly stunned, but cold water and brandy at length restored him. At Lorain the boat stopped till Van Buskirk and half a dozen low whites, his creatures and hangers-on, could be summoned to take me in charge. Ratcliff now recognized me as his acquaintance of the theatre, and a new paroxysm of fury convulsed his features. I was searched, deprived of my money, then handcuffed; then shackled by the legs, so that I could only move by taking short steps. Estelle’s arms were pinioned behind her, and in that state she was forced into an open vehicle and conveyed to the house.
I was placed in an outbuilding near the stable, a sort of dungeon for refractory slaves. It was lighted from the roof, was unfloored, and contained neither chair nor log on which to sit. For two days and nights neither food nor drink was brought to me. With great difficulty, on account of my chain, I managed to get at a small piece of biscuit in my coat-pocket. This I ate, and, as the rain dripped through the roof, I was enabled to quench my thirst.