We passed on rapidly—as fast as the crowd could make way through the bushes—and I was glad of this. I presumed I was about to be conducted before a magistrate, or “justice of the peace,” as there called. Well, thought I. Under legal authority, and in the keeping of the officers, I should be protected from the gibes and insults that were being showered upon me. Everything short of personal violence was offered; and there were some that seemed sufficiently disposed even for this.
I saw the forest opening in front. I supposed we had gone by some shorter way to the clearings. It was not so, for the next moment we emerged into the glade. Again the glade!
Here my captors came to a halt; and now in the open light I had an opportunity to know who they were. At a glance I saw that I was in the hands of a desperate crowd.
Gayarre himself was in their midst, and beside him his own overseer, and the negro-trader, and the brutal Larkin. With these were some half-dozen Creole-Frenchmen of the poorer class of proprietaires, weavers of cottonade, or small planters. The rest of the mob was composed of the very scum of the settlement—the drunken boatmen whom I had used to see gossiping in front of the “groceries,” and other dissipated rowdies of the place. Not one respectable planter appeared upon the ground—not one respectable man!
For what had they stopped in the glade? I was impatient to be taken before the justice, and chafed at the delay.
“Why am I detained here?” I asked in a tone of anger.
“Ho, mister!” replied one; “don’t be in such a hell of a hurry! You’ll find out soon enough, I reckon.”
“I protest against this,” I continued. “I insist upon being taken before the justice.”
“An’ so ye will, damn you! You ain’t got far to go. The justice is hyar.”
“Who? where?” I inquired, under the impression that a magistrate was upon the ground. I had heard of wood-choppers acting as justices of the peace—in fact, had met with one or two of them—and among the rude forms that surrounded me there might be one of these. “Where is the justice?” I demanded. “Oh, he’s about—never you fear!” replied one. “Whar’s the justice?” shouted another. “Ay, whar’s the justice?—whar are ye, judge?” cried a third, as if appealing to some one in the crowd. “Come on hyar, judge!” he added. “Come along!—hyar’s a fellar wants to see you!”