rom behind the curtain a voice skilfully thrown to
reach only him:

"Give them one verse more and we'll be ready!"

He gave it:

"Las' de cattlemaran and de curlicue,
De cattlemaran and de curlicue,
De cattlemaran and de curlicue,
De daddy-long-legs and de buggaboo.
Do you belong----?"

He stepped quickly from the "stage." The curtains drew apart. The scene
revealed was a drawing-room. In it stood alone, as if playfully
listening for something, the housemaid; not "Harriet" but Ramsey.
(Laughter and applause.)

XLVI

AFTER THE PLAY

Neither Hugh nor Ramsey slept a moment that night. And no more did the
Gilmores or "Harriet" or John the Baptist or even the senator or the
Californian. The play, second act, was cut without mercy and rushed to a
close to let its hero and heroine off at Napoleon, which Ned called a
"future city" but which, some years later, became a former city, by
melting into thin air, or thick water, and leaving not so much behind as
a candle-end or a broken bottle.

It was not far above there that these unsleeping passengers began to
remark a fresh rise in the river's flood, which her "family" and crew
had noticed much earlier by a difference in the nature and quantity of
its driftwood. Near the mouth of White River, about an hour's run above
Napoleon, a great floating tree stump, with all its roots, was caught on
the buckets of the "labboard" wheel--"like a cur on a cow's horn," said
Gilmore--and carried clear over it with a sudden hubbub in the
paddle-box, tenfold what ten curs could have made, bringing to his feet
every passenger not abed, and scaring awake every sleeping one. Neither
Ramsey nor Hugh ever forgot it, for it evoked the last stir in the
supine form of Basile, and a faint spasm in his cold grasp on Hugh's
fingers. Under his freer hand, on his all but motionless breast, lay his
mother's crucifix. Shortly before, while waiting for Hugh's tardy
coming, he had held a hand of his sister, whose other held her mother's.
On the edge of the berth, at his feet, sat Lucian, very pale, with
Julian standing by him. Both betrayed deep feeling yet kept a brave look
that was good to see even with eyes as prejudiced as Hugh's. Only Basile
himself was without tears.

How fashions change! There are styles even in death-bed scenes. This one
was of the old fashion, bearing a strong tinge of fatalism; no hopeful
make-believe to the dying that death was othe