"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll throw in a spice of Aaron Burr pepper that he happened to spill in my sight. You and Aaron appear to be thick. He and I are chums, too. He is one of us. The colonel is a lovely mole, very smooth and shiny, but he don't always tunnel deep enough to hide his track."
"Begone!"
"O, I'm going. If you won't buy, I'll keep. Good-bye, general."
He deliberately put on his slouch hat and backed out through the narrow doorway. As a parting salute he touched with his finger the red contusion on his forehead. Wilkinson stood a few seconds, in rigid silence, then stepped to the open door and called aloud:
"Palafox! Comeback!"
No answer was returned to the cry, nor did the vanished figure reappear. Not even the sound of his retreating footfalls could be heard. A dense fog had risen, shrouding the river and crawling over cottage and chapel and fort. Alone, in the boat's cabin, by the dim light of a flickering lamp, the general waited and waited, anxious to soothe and conciliate the malignant underling, once his minion, now an unscrupulous enemy, too dangerous to be despised. The proud officer listened for a returning step or a relenting voice, but heard no other noise than that made by the whining winds, and by the waters of the Mississippi fretting and swirling around the keel of his solitary boat.