At this moment they drew near a tavern, the door of which was brilliantly lighted.
The lamp-light fell upon the face of the younger man.
The two men entered the tavern, and Pauline Corsi remained a few paces from the threshold, looking after them.
"Can I be mistaken?" she said, "and yet it seems like some bewildering dream. I might—after thirteen weary years—and to-night!"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE ABDUCTION.
The same moonlight which illumined the meeting of Pauline Corsi and the strangers in the streets of New Orleans, shone on the smooth bosom of the Mississippi, and on the white walls of the villa residence of Augustus Horton.
The house and plantation of Hortonville were some miles from the wood in which the duel between Augustus and Gilbert had taken place.
The scenery which surrounded the villa was exquisitely beautiful, and the building itself, seen beneath the light of the moon with its lamp-lit windows gleaming like pale gems in the glory of the summer's night, had the appearance of some fairy palace rather than any earthly habitation.
You might almost have expected to see those white walls melt into thin air and fade away from your gaze.