“I—­I accept your words in the same spirit with which they are offered,” I stammered, hardly aware of what I said.  “They are of greatest worth to me.”

I bowed low above the white hand resting so confidingly within mine, anxious to escape from the room before my love gave utterance to some foolish speech.  Yet even as I turned hastily toward the door, I paused with a final question.

“The negro who guided me here, Madame; is he one in whom I may repose confidence?”

“In all things,” she answered gravely.  “He has been with the De Noyan family from a child, and is devoted to his master.”

“Then I take him with me for use should I chance to require a messenger.”

With a swift backward glance into her earnest dark eyes, an indulgence I could not deny myself, I bowed my way forth from the room, and discovering Alphonse upon the porch, where he evidently felt himself on guard, and bidding him it was the will of his mistress that he follow, I flung my rifle across my shoulder, and strode straight ahead until I came out upon the river bank.  Turning to the right I worked my way rapidly up the stream, passing numerous groups of lounging soldiers, who made little effort to bar my passage, beyond some idle chaffing, until I found myself opposite the anchorage of the Spanish fleet.

In the character of an unsophisticated frontiersman, I felt no danger in joining others of my class, lounging listlessly about in small groups discussing the situation, and gazing with awe upon those strange ships of war, swinging by their cables in the broad stream.  It was a motley crew among whom I foregathered, one to awaken interest at any other time—­French voyageurs from the far-off Illinois country, as barbarian in dress and actions as the native denizens of those northern plains, commingling freely with Creole hunters freshly arrived from the bayous of the swamp lands; sunburnt fishermen from the sandy beaches of Barataria, long-haired flatboat-men, their northern skin faintly visible through the tan and dirt acquired in the long voyage from the upper Ohio; here and there some stolid Indian brave, resplendent in paint and feathers, and not a few drunken soldiers temporarily escaped from their commands.  Yet I gave these little thought, except to push my way through them to where I could obtain unobstructed view of the great ships.

The largest of these, a grim monster to my eyes, with bulging sides towering high above the water, and masts uplifting heavy spars far into the blue sky, rendered especially formidable by gaping muzzles of numerous black cannon visible through her open ports, floated just beyond the landing.  I measured carefully the apparent distance between the flat roof of the sugar warehouse, against the corner of which I leaned in seeming listlessness, and the lower yards of her forward mast—­it was no farther than I had often cast a riata, yet it would be a skilful toss on a black night.