"Let us leave him just as he is," said Tom.
"But it looks cruel," the girl replied.
"He suffers from sleeplessness; to wake him would be more cruel. Let's do as he told us."
The girl put the bench out of the way, that he might not fall over it in the dark; and out of the room they tip-toed and silently they closed the door. By the hand he led her to the road, and with a coo and a song they strolled homeward. The clouds were scattered and acres of light lay on the cleared land; but the woods were dark and the shadows were black, and he walked with his arm about her. They heard the galloping of a horse and stepped aside to let the rider pass, and when he had passed, with his head in the moonlight and his horse in the dark, the young man said: "I know that fellow."
"Why didn't you speak to him?" she asked.
"Because it wouldn't do for me to have any words with him. He's the man that's trying to organize the negroes."
He left her at Wash Sanders' gate; he heard her feet upon the steps, and looking back he caught the kiss she threw at him.
CHAPTER XIX.
A steamboat ride to New Orleans will never lose its novelty. Romance lies along the lower river. The land falls away and we look down upon fields bounded by distant mist, and beyond that dim line one's fancy gallops riotously. Not alone the passenger, but the seasoned captain of the boat stands musing and motionless, gazing upon the scene. In his mind he could carry the form and the rugged grandeur of a mountain; upon a crag he could hang his recollection, but this flat endlessness is ever an unencompassed mystery.