atchez he
was--he was, well, you know----"

"Almost upon the point?"

"Quite so. I thought, I believed that between there and----"

"Say between there and Baton Rouge----"

"Well, yes----"

"He would come to the main point?"

"Yes."

"And he did not?"

"You can best answer. It was at Natchez that you and those ruffianly
boys ran off with Mr. Davidson's boat!"

"That's all, your Honor," I remarked. "Take the witness, Mr.
Davidson!"

"But what right you have to cross-question me, I don't know!"
commented Mrs. Daniver, addressing a passing sea-gull, and pulling
down the corners of her mouth most forbiddingly.

"My disused and forgotten art comes back to me once in a while, my
dear Mrs. Daniver," I answered exultantly. "Pray, do you notice how
beautiful all the world is this morning? The sky is so wonderful, the
sea so adorable, don't you see?"

"I see that we are a long way from home. Tell me, are these sharks
here?"

"Oodles," said I, "and very large. No use trying to swim away. And
yonder coast is inhabited only by hostile cannibals. Barataria itself,
over yonder, is to-day no more than a shrimp-fishing village, part
Chinese, part Greek and part Sicilian. The railway runs far to the
north, and the ship channel is far to the east. No one comes here. It
is days to Galveston, westward, and between lies a maze of
interlocking channels, lakes and bayous, where boats once hid and may
hide again. Once we unship our flag mast, and we shall lie so saucy
and close that behind a bank of rushes we never would be seen. And we
do not burn coal, and so make no smoke. Here is my chosen hiding
ground. In short, madam, you are in my power!"

"But really, how far----"

"Since you ask, I will answer. Yonder, to the westward, a bayou comes
into Cote Blanche. Follow that bayou, eighty miles from here, and you
come to the house of my friend, Edouard Manning, the kindest man in
Louisiana, which is to say much. I had planned to have the wedding
there."

"Your effrontery amazes me--I doubt your sanity!" said Aunt Lucinda,
horrified. "But what good will all this do you?"

She had a certain bravery all her own, after all. Almost, I was on the
point of telling her the truth; which was that I had during the long
night resolved once more to offer my hand to Helena, and if she now
refused me, to accept my fate. I would torture her no more. No, if now
she were still resolute, it was my purpose to sail up yonder bayou, to
land a