An hour later Rand pushed back his heavy chair and rose from the table, ending the meal with as little ceremony as he had used in beginning it.  “I shall go write to Mr. Jefferson,” he announced, as the four passed into the hall.  “You, Adam, what will you do?”

“First I’ll smoke and then I’ll sleep,” said Adam.  The moonlight streamed in upon them through the open hall door.  “I’ll smoke outside.  That’s a southern moon.

“Kiss me, kiss me, flower o’ night! 
Madelon! 
’Ware the voices, ’ware the light! 
Madelon!

“Will you smoke with me, Mr. Bacon?  I’d like to try the Monticello leaf.”

“I have to go to the quarters for a bit,” answered the overseer.  “There’s sickness there.  I’ll join you later, Mr. Gaudylock.”

He went whistling away.  Adam sat down upon the broad steps whitened by the moon, filled his pipe, struck a spark from his flint and steel, and was presently enveloped in fragrant smoke.  The dancing-master, hesitating somewhat disconsolately in the hall, at last went also into the moonlight, where he walked slowly up and down upon the terrace, his thin, beruffled hands clasped behind his old brocaded coat.  What with the moonlight and the ancient riches of his apparel, and a certain lost and straying air, he had the seeming of a phantom from some faint, bewigged, perfumed, and painted past.

Lewis Rand paused for a moment before the door, and looked out upon the splendid night, then turned and passed into the library, where he called for candles, and, sitting down at a desk, began to write.  His letter was to the President of the United States, and it was written freely and boldly. “’Twas thus they did—­’twas so I did.  We won, and I am glad; they lost, and that also is to my liking.  As the party owes its victory to your name and your power, so I owe my personal victory to your ancient and continued kindness.  May my name be abhorred if ever I forget it!  The Federalists mustered strongly.  Mr. Ludwell Cary is extremely ‘well born,’ and that younger brother of his is—­I know not why, he troubles me.  There is a breath of the future about him, and it breathes cold.  Well!  I have fought and I have won.  ’Let the blast of the desert come:  I shall be renowned in my day!’ To-night, you see, I quote Ossian.  The moon is flooding the terrace.  Were you here in your loved home, we would talk together.  Adam Gaudylock is with me.  Lately he was in Louisiana, and then with a Mr. Blennerhassett upon the Ohio.  General Wilkinson is at New Orleans.  The Spaniards are leaving, the French well affected.  The mighty tide of our people has topped the mountains and is descending into those plains of the Mississippi made ours by your prophetic vision and your seizure of occasion.  The First Consul is a madman!  He has sold to us an Empire!  Empire!  Emperor—­Emperor of the West!  The sound is stately.  You laugh.  We are citizens of a republic.  Well!  I am content.  I aspire no higher.  I am not Buonaparte.