"Why, I am no more fit to be a Colonel than I am to be a professor of Sanscrit and Chinese literature."
"That needn't stand in the way at all. That is of no consequence."
Ravenel laughed outright, and waited for an explanation.
"Your Lieutenant-Colonel and Major will be experienced officers—that is, for volunteers," said Carter. "They will know the drill, at any rate. Your part will be simply to give the thing a local coloring, as if the New Orleans people had got it up among themselves."
Here he burst into a horse-laugh at the idea of saddling Louisianians with the imputation of desiring and raising nigger soldiers for putting down the rebellion and slavery.
"You will have nothing to do with the regiment," he went on. "As soon as it is organized, or under way, you will be detached. You will be superintendent of negro education, or superintendent of negro labor, or something of that sort. You will have the rank and pay of Colonel, you see; but your work will be civil instead of military; it will be for the benefit of the niggers."
"Oh, indeed!" answered the Doctor, his face for the first time showing that the proposition had for him a pole of attraction. "So officers can be detached for such purposes? It is perfectly honorable, is it?"
"Quite so. Army custom. About the same thing as making an officer a provost-marshal, or military governor, or mayor."
"Really, I am vastly tempted. I am vastly flattered and very grateful. I must think of it. I will consider it seriously."
In his philanthropic excitement he rose and walked the room for some minutes. The windows were open and admitted what little noise of population there was in the street, so that Miss Ravenel and the Colonel, sitting near each other, could exchange a few words without being overheard by the abstracted Doctor. I suspect that the young lady was more angry at this moment than on any previous occasion recorded in the present history. Colburne would have quailed before her evident excitement, but Colonel Carter, the widower, faced her with a smile of good-natured amusement. Seeing that there was no prospect of striking a panic into the foe, she made a flanking movement instead of a direct attack.