Boats which screamed, and boats which had a dragon’s roar were backing out of the close ranks where they had stood wheel-house to wheel-house, and were dodging and bumping in the channel.  See, their guards are black with people!  Mrs. Colfax, when they are come out of the narrow street into the great open space, remarks this with alarm.  All the boats will be gone before they can get near one.  But Virginia does not answer.  She is thinking of other things than the steamboats, and wondering whether it had not been preferable to be killed by Hessians.

Ned spies the ‘Barbara Lane’.  He knows that her captain, Mr. Vance, is a friend of the family.  What a mighty contempt did Ned and his kind have for foot passengers!  Laying about him with his whip, and shouting at the top of his voice to make himself heard, he sent the Colonel’s Kentucky bays through the crowd down to the Barbara’s landing stage, the people scampering to the right and left, and the Carvel servants, headed by Uncle Ben, hanging on to the carriage springs, trailing behind.

Here was a triumph for Ned, indeed!  He will tell you to this day how Mr. Catherwood’s carriage was pocketed by drays and bales, and how Mrs. James’s horses were seized by the bridles and turned back.  Ned had a head on his shoulders, and eyes in his head.  He spied Captain Vance himself on the stage, and bade Uncle Ben hold to the horses while he shouldered his way to that gentleman.  The result was that the Captain came bowing to the carriage door, and offered his own cabin to the ladies.  But the niggers —–­he would take no niggers except a maid for each; and he begged Mrs. Colfax’s pardon—­he could not carry her trunk.

So Virginia chose Mammy Easter, whose red and yellow turban was awry from fear lest she be left behind and Ned was instructed to drive the rest with all haste to Bellegarde.  Captain Vance gave Mrs. Colfax his arm, and Virginia his eyes.  He escorted the ladies to quarters in the texas, and presently was heard swearing prodigiously as the boat was cast off.  It was said of him that he could turn an oath better than any man on the river, which was no mean reputation.

Mrs. Colfax was assisted to bed by Susan.  Virginia stood by the little window of the cabin, and as the Barbara paddled and floated down the river she looked anxiously for signals of a conflagration.  Nay, in that hour she wished that the city might burn.  So it is that the best of us may at times desire misery to thousands that our own malice may be fed.  Virginia longed to see the yellow flame creep along the wet, gray clouds.  Passionate tears came to her eyes at the thought of the humiliation she had suffered,—­and before him, of all men.  Could she ever live with her aunt after what she had said?  “Carrying on with that Yankee!” The horrible injustice of it!

Her anger, too, was still against Stephen.  Once more he had been sent by circumstances to mock her and her people.  If the city would only burn, that his cocksure judgment might for once be mistaken, his calmness for once broken!