s, the
amount of its trade and shipping was enormous. Among the scores and
hundreds of sea-going craft which lay moored along the wharfs and the
levees or swung at anchor in the stream, I felt certain I should find
one to bear me to Vera Cruz.

Of all the merchants of the city, I knew that few if any stood so well
with the Spanish authorities in the New World or carried on so extensive
a trade with the Spanish colonies as my acquaintance, Mr. Daniel Clark.
Accordingly I waited upon him the evening of my arrival, and stated my
keen desire to obtain passage to Vera Cruz.

He took occasion to congratulate me on my share in the expedition, a
general account of which had come to him, I suspect through secret
sources of communication with the Spaniards. He, however, shook his head
over my request for advice and assistance, until, in desperation, I
confessed that the object of my intended voyage was to meet the lady to
whom I was betrothed.

"Why did you not tell me that at the first, sir?" he snapped. "I set you
down for an agent of that double-dealing scoundrel and traitor James
Wilkinson."

"Mr. Clark," I replied, "General Wilkinson will, I presume, be subjected
to the searching cross-examination of the counsel for Colonel Burr.
Personally I have little liking for the General, and have so expressed
myself in the past. But for the present I think it only just to him, as
to Colonel Burr, to await the publication of the facts of this
deplorable scandal and the verdict of the trial."

"Ay, ay! You can take a dispassionate view, doctor. You have not shared
in all the heat and tumult of this last year. Very well. Be as
nonpartisan as you wish, just so you do not join in the hounding of
honorable men who chanced to show courtesies to that misguided dreamer,
Burr."

"Sir, I have no other thought, no other object in life that I can
consider until I have returned this to my lady," I said, showing him the
rosary.

He turned to his portfolio, and at once wrote a letter in a neat, clerky
hand. Having folded and addressed it, he handed it to me unsealed.

"Present that to Monsieur Lafitte. You will find his sloop, the _Siren_,
somewhere along the water front. Wait. Are you in funds?"

"Enough for the present, sir. But this Monsieur Lafitte--he sails for
Vera Cruz?"

"I have written him that you wish to land in that port. He bears papers
from me which will enable you to effect a landing and a stay of a few
weeks. Should you