"Sir," said the otherwise so-retiring girl, drawing herself up proudly, "I believe that I am not bound to give any account of my feelings to you." With these words, she endeavoured to go back on the gallery, in order to return into the cabin, whither the doctor dared not have followed her, but he barred her passage, and said, in a low tone, but gravely: "Bertha, I love you—love you with a passion that startles even myself. Bertha, you must be mine; do not rob me of every hope; say, at least, that you may, one day."
"Sir, you will oblige me to call for assistance if you do not let me go. You cannot hope to force me to love you? Farewell; if we ever meet again, may this conversation be forgotten by both of us. I bear no ill-will towards you."
With these words, she stepped past the doctor, who no longer sought to detain her, but looked darkly after her, and then murmuring something between his teeth, quickly regained the upper deck; without looking round, he jumped off the other side of the paddle-box in a bound or two on to the lower deck of the boat, strode over the plank, and disappeared in a few minutes more among the buildings of the town.
The Captain was as good as his word, as to their early departure; it was not yet seven o'clock when his bell sounded for the first time, and soon after, the mooring ropes were got in. Strauss, who wished to take leave of his new friends, could scarcely press their hands, before the engines began to work, and in a very short time more, the boat panted, hissing and foaming, down the stream towards the father of the waters—the Mississippi.
At breakfast, all the 'tween deck passengers assembled in the lower deck, but they were not a little astonished on finding that Dr. Normann had disappeared so mysteriously without taking leave. Pastor Hehrmann, it is true, might have given them some explanation, for he had been an unintentional spectator from the upper, or so-called hurricane deck, of the whole interview between his daughter and the doctor; but the latter, in hurrying off, had not observed Hehrmann, and as his daughter said nothing on the subject, the pastor determined not to allude in any way to what had taken place.
"What can have become of the doctor!" exclaimed Becher, when he had been sought for everywhere, and the conviction forced itself upon them that he was not on board. "This morning I saw him running hastily into the town. I called after him, too, but he either did not, or would not hear me."
"Probably," suggested the elder Siebert, "he went to look after something or other, and did not think that the boat would start so soon. Is his luggage still on board?"
"If I am not much mistaken, he carried that under his arm," replied Becher, "but I will not positively affirm it."
M. Von Schwanthal now gave a different turn to the conversation as well as to the thoughts of the settlers, by describing the Museum—where, on the preceding evening, he had fallen in with our four-leaved shamrock, Schmidt, the shoemaker, the tailor, and the brewer,—in such a droll manner, that all assembled round him.
"They call it a Museum of Natural History," he said, laughing; "a couple of cupboards full of stuffed birds, and hideous drawn-out beasts, are the only things that belong to natural history in the place; but there are plenty of other things; for example, mammoth's bones, Indian weapons and dresses; a cuirass, picked up after the battle of Waterloo, on which, if I mistake not, the hero's blood yet sticks; a French postillion's boot—the latter was shown as something particularly curious; a piece of steam-boiler that had burst and was blown from the steamer, I don't know how many hundred yards, upon the shore; snakes in spirits-of-wine; and, above all things, a horrible room-full of relics of criminals; ropes and nightcaps of people who have been hanged; awfully distorted heads of malefactors in spirits; hands and feet cut off; knives and axes, with which deeds of murder have been done, and on which the blood may yet be seen. Pish! a shudder runs through me at the very thought of it."