"Pray let us do so."
"It is six years since I first visited New Orleans; and being the bearer of letters to Colonel Forester was received hospitably and entertained in his house, where he then lived nominally alone, with the exception of his only daughter, Julia, at that time a beautiful girl of fourteen. Being very young myself, we were thrown much together, a sort of childish affection, half-liking and half love, grew up between us—not altogether childish either; for it constantly increased during the three years which I spent in the city, until it became a powerful passion. When I entered the army, on the first raising of the second dragoon regiment, and before leaving the city for the north-west, I had an explanation with the colonel; and it was understood, and agreed, that at some future period, which was left undecided, Julia should be my wife. We were permitted to correspond, and I mounted my horse and rode away with my regiment, as light-hearted and as happy a soldier as ever set jack boot in steel stirrup. I received letters from my betrothed, of which I shall only say that they were all that the most sanguine lover could desire.
"After a while, however, a difference in their tone became apparent. Not, indeed, in the manifestation of affection, but of hope. At length her letters ceased altogether; and I was months without receiving any tidings from her. When the present war broke out I was eastward to recruit and had no opportunity of visiting New Orleans, although my brain and my heart were both on fire to do so. Three months since I received, the first time for nearly a year, a short, hurried, agonizing note from Julia, entreating me to come near her, without an instant's delay, as her mistress was too great to be endured, and one way or other she must release herself from it. For once, fortune favoured me; for the same post which brought her letter brought orders to the captain of my company to send me forward instantly with the men we had raised, to the very city in which I most desired to be. A fortnight afterward I was on the spot, and learned all the infamous and horrid truth.
"Your friend, the high and honoured soldier, whom I had known of old—the very pattern and impersonation of uprightness, and chivalry, and true nobility of soul—had so far lapsed in the decline of his intellectual powers from his once glorious standard, as to have made a coloured woman—his own emancipated slave, and formerly his mistress—his lawful wife and the partner of his fortunes; placing her openly at the head of his table, and bringing his illegitimate daughters, the offspring of his foul concubinage, into equality of station and society with his own beautiful, and pure, and noble child—with my Julia!"
"Great God!" exclaimed the Partisan, bounding to his feet almost in fury; "great God! can this be so? Would that I had been near to him; for, by the Lord that liveth, if neither argument nor entreaty should have been power to prevail over such low and beast-like passion, my hand—my own hand, which has caressed his cheeks and played with his grey hairs so often—my own hand should have spared him the infamy, and slain him in his untainted honour."
"But this was not all, nor half of all, that poor Julia suffered; for the incarnate devil, whom I must call Mrs. Forester, not content with forcing the deluded old man into the rescinding of his will, and bequeathing all but a mere pittance to herself and base-born children, never ceased persecuting him day or night, till she procured his promise to send Julia secretly away to Europe, there to be immured in a convent; fearing unquestionably that if she should be married to an American gentleman and soldier, her husband would find some means to frustrate the enormities she had planned so artfully, and secure a share at least of the partial old man's fortunes. I had an interview with him, though not without much difficulty; I offered to forego all—to sign away all claim on her behalf and my own, provided he would give me her hand, portionless and alone. For a while I thought I had prevailed; but the fiend entered the room, and I saw the old man quail before the gaze of her fierce, snake-like eye, and all was lost. Then, I, too, lost my temper; and I swore by the God who made me, and by the hell to which that woman's deeds were leading her, that her plans should be frustrated, and that Julia should be my wife in spite of man or devil. I got brief leave of absence on the promise to join at head-quarters before the last day of the present month—embarked my recruits with my second lieutenant; and on the third day after, Forester's garden wall was scaled, his daughter's window broken, and before the day dawned she was my bride.
"Still flight was needful, and we fled; for by his wrath, and the unscrupulous wickedness of her who prompted him, we might still have been separated for a while, if not for ever. We fled, I say, to Natchez, and thence to Natchitoches, where by good fortune I found the little squad of dragoons who escort me, making their way down the river to join my party, which they had been detailed to enter as a veteran nucleus. With them, and this letter to yourself from an old friend of mine, who has, I believe, lived with you, Frank Arrowsmith of ours, I have made my way thus far safely.
"He gave me a letter to you, commending us to your care. He told me that if you would undertake it, you could guide us in safety into Taylor's camp, through all the guerrillas in Mexico."
"He did me too little and too much justice. Too little, in supposing that there was any if about it. The idea of Pierre Delacroix refusing to guide or assist a lady in the midst of danger. As to my being able to carry you safely into Taylor's camp, that's quite another thing."
"Is there so much danger?"