"Harry, I have given you my hand for the last time," he said, in a significant voice.
A piece of paper, carefully folded and worn by time, slipped from the letter which he held. Randolph seized it eagerly, and opening it, beheld a few lines traced in a handwriting which had long become historical. It was dated many years back, and was addressed to Colonel Rawdon.
"My Esteemed Friend:—
"I am glad to hear the girl, Herodia, whom, many years ago, I placed in your care, (acquainting you with the circumstances of her birth and paternity,) progresses toward womanhood, rich in education, accomplishments and personal loveliness. While nominally your slave, you have treated her as a daughter,—accept her father's heartfelt gratitude. In consequence of her descent, on her mother's side, she cannot (with safety to herself) be formally manumitted, nor can she be publicly recognized as the equal of your own daughter, or the associate of ladies of the white race. But it is my last charge to you, that she be honorably (even although secretly) married; and that the inclosed sealed packet which I send to you, be given to her eldest son, in case a son is born to her. That packet contains matters which, carried into action by such a son, would do much, yes, everything, to establish the happiness of all the races on this continent. Kiss for me, that dear daughter of mine, whom, in this life, I shall never behold.
"Yours, with respect and gratitude,
"—— ——."
A very touching,—an altogether significant letter.
Randolph pressed it to his lips in silence. Then inclosing it within his father's letter, he placed them both in a secret compartment of his trunk.
He seated himself, and folding his arms, gave himself up to the dominion of a crowd of thoughts, which flooded in upon his soul, like mingled sunshine and lightning through the window of a darkened room.
Bending over his trunk, he was examining, with an absent gaze, certain memorials of his old student brothers of Heidelberg. A small casket contained them all.
"This ring was given to me by poor Richmond, the English student. He was killed in a duel. And here is the watch of Van Brondt,—poor fellow! he died of consumption, even as his studies were completed, and a youth of poverty and hardship seemed about to be succeeded by a manhood of wealth and fame. And this,"—he took up a small vial, whose glass was incased in silver,—"this, Van Eichmer, the enthusiastic chemist, gave me. I wonder whether his dreams of fame, from the discovery embodied in this vial, will ever be realized? A rare liquid,—its powers rivaling the wonders of enchantment. He gave it to me under a solemn pledge not to subject it to chemical analysis, until he has time to mature his discovery, and make it known as the result of his own genius. He called it (somewhat after the fanciful fashion of the old alchemists) the 'Dream-Elixir.' I wonder if it has lost its virtues?"
Removing the buckskin covering which concealed the stopple, he then carefully drew the stopple, and applied the vial for a moment to his nostrils. The effect was as rapid as lightning. His face changed; his eyes grew wild and dreamy. His whole being was pervaded by an inexpressible rapture,—a rapture of calmness, (if we may thus speak) a rapture of unutterable repose. And like cloud-forms revealed by lightning, the most gorgeous images swept before him. He seemed to have been suddenly caught up into the paradise of Mahomet, among fountains, showering upon beds of roses, and with the white-bosomed houris gliding to and fro.