"My skin!" cried the man driving, a youngish man, of sharp, but not unkindly eyes, "thar's a sniptious gal. Come out yer and show yourself!"
Virgie felt the man's eyes resting on her, but not with the coarse ardor of his companion, who wore a wide slouched hat and red shirt, and was bandaged around the head and throat, yet from his ghastly pale face, like death, on which some blood seemed to be smeared, and to stain the bandage at his neck, lay a coarse leer, and he kissed his mouth at her, and uttered:
"O flexuosa! esquisita! It is dainty, Sorden!"
"Now ef we was a going t'other way, Van Dorn," the driver said, "we could give them a lift. Boy, what are you out fur? Where's your passes?"
"Yer they is. It's my wife an' me, gwyn to nurse a lady in Delaware."
"Let me see!" He puffed his cigar upon the paper, and exclaimed, "Prissy Hudson? why, my skin! that's my wife's nurse. And that ain't the same woman! where did you get this pass?"
"Go on, Sorden!" coughed the other man, "I'm bleeding. Let me lie down."
His eyes had lost their wanton fire, and were hollow and glazing. The driver caught him in his arms, and uttered the kind words,
"I love him as I never loved A male!"
"Give me back the passes!" exclaimed the mulatto man, as the wagon started south.