ille, with eyes absurdly aflame, startled first his wife
by clutching her arm, and then Miranda by beckoning them into a door at
their right, past unheeded treasures of the Bazaar, and to a front
window. Yet through its blinds they could discover only what they had
just left; the carriage, with Anna still in it, the garden, the grove,
an armed soldier on guard at the river gate, another at the foot of the
steps, a third here at the top.

It was good to Anna to rest her head an instant on the cushioning
behind it and close her eyes. With his rag of a hat on the ground and
his head tightly wrapped in the familiar Madras kerchief of the slave
deck-hand, the attendant at the carriage side reverently awaited the
relifting of her lids. The old coachman glanced back on her.

"Missy?" he tenderly ventured. But the lids still drooped, though she
rose.

"Watch out fo' de step," said the nearer man. His tone was even more
musically gentle than the other's, yet her eyes instantly opened into
his and she started so visibly that her foot half missed and she had to
catch his saving hand.

"Stiddy! stiddy!" He slowly let the cold, slim fingers out of his as she
started on, but she swayed again and he sprang and retook them. For half
a breath she stared at him like a wild bird shot, glanced at the
sentinels, below, above, and then pressed up the stair.

Constance, behind the shutters, wept. "Go away," she pleaded to her
husband, "oh, go away!" but pushed him without effect and peered down
again. "He's won!" she exclaimed in soft ecstasy, "he's won at last!"

"Yes, he's win!" hoarsely whispered the aide-de-camp. "He's win the
bet!"

Constance flashed indignantly: "What has he bet?"

"Bet. 'He has bet three-ee general' he'll pazz down Canal Street and
through the middl' of the city, unreco'nize! And now he's done it,
they'll let him do the rest!" From his Creole eyes the enthusiast blazed
a complete argument, that an educated commander, so disguised and
traversing an enemy's camp, can be worth a hundred of the common run
who go by the hard name of spy, and may decide the fortunes of a whole
campaign: "They'll let him! and he'll get the prom-otion!"

"Ho-oh!" breathed the two women, "he's getting all the promotion _he_
wants, right now!" The three heard Anna pass into the front drawing-room
across the hall, the carriage move off and the disguised man enter the
hall and set down the travelling-bags. They stole away through the
li