Had the youth been in good health, he would not probably have been shaken overmuch, and he certainly would not have been alarmed superstitiously. But his nerves were disordered by a week's debauch; he was not far removed from delirium tremens; he was hardly sane. During one of those minutes which take more life out of a man than an ordinary month, he was speechless, motionless, paralytic with terror. The spectre stirred; it slid to the corner of the bed; it turned to approach him.

With an effort which filled his hair and bedewed his skin with a perspiration like that of death, Roland threw up his benumbed hands and cried in a squeaking whisper, "Go away!"

It wouldn't go; on the contrary it came nearer; it tried to lie down beside him. In disgust and horror, fearful of being embraced by this mouldering visitant, Roland tumbled to the back side of the bed. Scarcely was he there ere the ghost stood beside him. Back again he bounced, and back glided the spectre. Roland seemed to himself a mass of shuddering gooseflesh, on the point of disintegration and dissolution, ready to drop to pieces. If the shrouded tormentor had dipped skeleton fingers into him and taken out handfuls of loose carcass, he would not have been astonished. Pieces of him might have rubbed off on the bedclothes without exciting his surprise. Escape at last: he leaped from the bed and ran: bang went his head against door-posts and walls; he never minded it; he flew. At the prospect of safety his voice came to him in the long shrill scream of a child, which recovers its breath after a fall. Still yelling, he reached the stairway, and fell headforemost. It was a lucky circumstance for him that flabby, blubbery Jacob Philpot had gone to sleep on the landing. Philpot awoke with a grunt, rolled somebody or something off his stomach, tumbled down the remaining stairs after it, drew his revolver and commenced firing. What was the matter he did not know, but his Southern instinct led him to have immediate recourse to his shooting-iron, and he blazed away in the darkness like a platoon. It seemed to him that a dozen people got off him and ran away screeching. His last ball brought down a glass chandelier in the parlor, with a crash which nearly bereft him of his lowdown senses. Then there was silence; next a tumult of negro voices; servants bearing lights flowed into the hall; and thus the scene ended.

Roland reappeared next morning, with the stains of earth and herbage on his back, showing how he had passed the close of the night. At the breakfast-table there was a period of sulky silence. Roland kept one eye shut; sometimes the right, sometimes the left; the open one always glaring at Philpot. The doughty countenance of the latter had an expression like that of a dog who discovers that he has attempted to bite his master, mistaking him for a stranger.

"I say, old porpus chops, you come mighty near finishin' me last night," began the heir of the Duchesne estate.

"I didn't know it was you," returned the victim of rum dropsy, with a bestial humility. "I'd a shot myself sooner than fired at you."

'Oh, you would, would you?" said Roland, with a squint of harrowing incredulity. "Let's see you do it next time. I wouldn't mind if you tried it on now. Don't hold in on my account."

"How could I know who was thar?" pleaded Philpot, "You mounted me in the dark like a bag o' cotton. Got your boot in my mouth the first lick. I thought the niggers was insurrected." "Somethin' got into my room last night, and wanted to light on

me."

"Like enough niggers. Was it black?"

"No, it was white-whiter than a grave-stone-had a skull and grinned at me. By Jiminy! I sweat all my whiskey out of me in less 'n a minute."

"Look a here, Roland," implored Philpot, "jest keep an eye on yerself. I'm afeard it was the man with the poker."

"I don't go it half so hard as you do. Why, I got to bed last night, and you keeled up on the stairs."

"Yes, I know. But it don't matter about me. Now you, jest come into this property, you'd be a heavy loss to yerself. Let's try, jest for a day or two, to stay sober. Don't let's get outside of more 'n a bottle apiece, and that plain whiskey. These wines and mixed drinks are bad for the health."

"I pint. Let's have a temperance society. Tell old Tom to give us our two bottles, and lock up the rest and hide the key."

It was done. All day these two teetotallers suffered with thirst on their quart apiece. At evening, sober, wretched and desperate, they extorted the key of the wine-vault from Tom, and drank themselves a trifle drunker than usual. It was long past midnight when Philpot went under the table, an indistinct mass of snoring pulp, much in the state of a stranded jelly-fish, and not greatly differing from one in features and expression. With his two hands

479

on the board, as if about to address an audience, Roland struggled to his perpendicular, turned himself as slowly and carefully as if he were a crate of china, and set off lurchingly for his bedroom, one eye sagaciously open. At the stairs he halted, the ascent looked a mile high, and straight up at that, moreover he was vaguely afraid of the ghost. A little before he had not wanted assistance, but now he thought he should like some niggers. "What those fellahs gone to bed for? Why don't they set up for me? I'll teach 'em their business. I'll light on 'em. D-n 'em!" Such were his reflections, and such he supposed were his words, as he zig-zagged from wall to wall toward the rear of the house. It was a spacious edifice in reality, and to Roland it now seemed illimitable. Moreover, the footing was unsteady; the floors keeled up before him and behind him, it was like walking a deck in a storm. After a laborious and eventful journey, he found a back door, strove obstinately with it, swore at it and got it open. Stepping into a piazza, faintly illuminated by starlight, he fell over something. A nondescript! wrapped in loose drapery, a pack of unassorted, scrabbling-legs and arms, a mysterious monster, soft in some spots and tough as timber in others, a most clamorous monster, too, squealing and bellowing in various voices. Suddenly invigorated by terror, Roland grappled with it, rolled over it, went under it and lost himself in the middle of it. Among the amazing members of the creature there seemed to be one wooden one, which was particularly hard on him, grinding his shins, mashing his nose and pinching his fingers.

"H-o-o!" howled the caitiff, "who dat fightin' me? Hi yah! Jumboloro got you. Now guess you catch it. H-0-0-0!" And then followed a burst of goblin laughter, "Wah, wah, wah."

After a fierce struggle they tumbled apart and rose. There was a brief pause for breath, during which they faced each other in silence, like two game-cocks. Then the monster began to dance; squeaking and bellowing and tossing its drapery, it capered about Roland; legs and arms, or perhaps fins, of various lengths, went out and in marvellously; now and then it stamped with what sounded like a hoof.

Roland had made a tolerable fight thus far, but this demonstration was too much for his whiskey-rotted nerves, and he undertook to retreat. The moment he faced about, down came the nondescript's head, there was a miscellaneous charge of legs and fins and hoofs, one awful butt, and the drunkard was on his face. He rolled over on his back just in time to witness a new horror. With a rush of drapery a white object passed through the piazza into the hall, where it turned and revealed a skeleton-head, the eye sockets faintly blazing. Uttering a simultaneous shriek, the late combatants skedaddled in any number of different directions. The last sound which Roland heard was that awful hoof going from him through the darkness. For the second time in forty-eight hours he passed the night out of doors. By afternoon of the next day the house servants were full of stories about ghosts, vondoos and obis. There was an influenza of fright on the place, everybody caught it, and had it badly, like a second attack of measles; niggers and white folks, they were all laid up with it.

"I say, I never believed in ghosts before," observed Roland to the chalky-faced Philpot. "But hanged if it don't begin to smell pretty strong of 'em. What's to be done, old porpus-chops?"

"Better quit till the 'state is settled. Reckon it ain't quite squar, this livin' on a dead man afore the lawyers is done with him. Told ye; 'n the fust place, didn' feel easy 'bout it."

"What would the boys say to hear we was scared out by ghosts?"

bills."

"Boys be cussed! If they say anything, ask 'em to settle thar "I guess I won't go till I've inquired into the character of this old institution among the neighbors," decided Roland. "Have up some horses, Philpot. We'll ride round."

The Rambeau house being the nearest, they made their first visit there. Philpot, like a meek lowdowner, as he was, wanted to stop in the hall, but Roland nudged him, trod on his toes and winked at him authoritatively, and the two entered the parlor together. With a slight flush in her pale, massive face, Madame Rambeau rose to receive the heir of the Duchesne estate. Her eye was very investigating, she was querying whether the young man would do, she glanced to see how he was received by Ninette. A very politic and a slightly greedy lady was Madame Rambeau. Ninette answered the awkward bow of Roland by a cold inclination of the head, and without rising. Even Madame found the young man "horrid," could hardly conceal her dislike of his gashed lip, sore nose, swelled face and plug-ugly manner, began to feel that he could not by any possibility be made to do. Still, she had told Ninette to treat him decently, in case he should call; she had tried to hint to her that a fortune is to a husband what 我

480

sugar is to a pill, and she was secretly wrathful at the girl's averted face and chill demeanor. Daughters have so little sympathy with the troubles and anxieties of mothers! Daughters, in short, are so hardhearted! So felt Madame.

"My name is Roland," said the legatee, advancing with one moist eye closed and the other fixed on Ninette. "And this is my friend and bar-my friend, Mr. Philpot.

"Have the goodness to sit down," replied Madame Rambeau. "But why call yourself Roland? The name should now be Duchesne, should it not ?"

"You're right, ma'am. Duchesne. That's the will. That's so. But I haven't got used to it yet. New thing."

"Ah! but you are so well paid for it!' smiled the lady. "The Duchesne estate is worth a name, even an aristocratic one, like yours.

"Heavy old estate," admitted Roland. Big thing." Madame's eyes flashed--this coarse, stupid boor was intolerable, she wanted to hurt him.

"Are you descended from the great Roland--the Roland of Charlemagne?" she asked. He was mad, you know. I hope brain affection does not run in the family." Roland had not a suspicion that he was being satirized; her sneer, smothered in smiles, was to him quite impalpable. Moreover, not being a student of Ariosto, he was puzzled by her allusion to Orlando Furioso. He glanced askant at Philpot for guidance. But that worthy, overwhelmed by the presence of "high-toned” people, sat meek and speechless on the edge of the chair, his napless hat between his greasy knees and his white eyes fixed on the floor.

"You beat me, ma'am," confessed Roland. You do beat me I don't know whether I'm descended from the old chap or Was he much mad?"

bad. not.

"He entirely lost his wits, and they had to be sought for in the moon," said Madame, gravely.

"The devil!" muttered Roland, turning a glance of bewilderment upon Philpot. The latter slightly elevated his colorless eyes, and whispered out of one corner of his tobacco-stained mouth, "Some vondoo business. I reckon."

"Queer country, anyway, ma'am," continued Roland. "My old house over there is haunted, or somethin' like it."

"Ah! is it?" answered Madame, calmly. "But, of course, it is. I knew it."

"The what's his name you did! How long has it been so?' "About fifty years."

"What? and old Duchesne lived there all the while?"

"But it killed him at last, you know."

"I say, Philpot, that's what made the old boy drink so,' pered Roland, opening both his eyes with a start.

" whis

Philpot, wiping the perspiration from his putty-colored face, responded with a groan of assent and dismay. After some further conversation the visitors departed.

When the door had closed behind them, Ninette spoke for the first time since their appearance.

距

"Mamma, how could you tell them that the Duchesne place has been haunted ?"

I am sure he

"I meant," replied the mother, haunted by vice." "Ah! but that is too bad on our poor old friend. was good when he cried over Jeanie Deans." "Besides, I want that brute to be driven away," continued the elder lady. "I want time for Vincent to be found, and to arrive. Every day that this creature stays strengthens his claim to the estate. Possession, I have always heard, is nine points of the law." Thus, in her womanly and dense ignorance of law, talked Mad

ame.

What with the skeleton-headed apparition, and his drunken fight with the equally drunken Jumboloro, and Madame Rambeau's adroit hints of ancient hauntings, our friend Roland went home convinced that the Duchesne place was no fitting residence for human beings.

"Hanged if I don't travel to morrow! he said to Philpot, as they ambled along. And before I come back, I'll have a new house built. I ain't goin' to live in a grave, with ghosts and vondoos, Philpot. It ain't my style. It never was, and I ain't goin' to begin it now, you bet your pile on it."

That evening, Ninette, alone in the Rambeau veranda, was pondering and, perhaps, crying over the question, "Where was Vincent ?" The Duchesne estate was now a matter of minor consequence to her, so overwhelming was her anxiety as to the fate of the man she loved. Not a word from him for three weeks; no reply to letters of inquiry sent to Mobile. It was insupportable, it was horrible.

Nov. 27,

Presently there was an outburst of joyful shrieks and bellows from the greenery, near the gate; and in another moment Jumboloro appeared in the shadowy pathway which led up to the mansion. The bacchanalian old faun was outdoing himself; it seemed as if his sound leg would run clear away from his hobbed one, and dismember him; his raiment waved, his stick slashed the orange branches, and the whites of his eyes illuminated the evening.

Prancing, jerking, snorting, and squeaking up to the veranda, he bellowed, "I-0-0-0! This time he come. Mas'r Henry Vincent! Here he be for sure. Jumboloro tell you both times. Wah, wah, wah.

Strong desire is always ready to take the wings of hope, and carry us aloft. Ninette prag to her feet, with the ery, "Oh, Jumboloro! is it true?"? Then, seeing another figure coming up the walk, she rushed down the steps, ran through the flower-scented gloom, and threw herself into eager arms.

"My darling! my goddess! my glorious beauty!" whispered the stranger, turning her head back to look into her face. After a time, no doubt pleasantly filled, there came a moment when she was able to say, "Oh! what has kept you so long?? "I am ashamed to tell you," he answered. But I may as well make a clean breast of it. Such a thing shall never have a chance to happen again. I was invited to a bachelor supper in New Orleans. After supper, as I was going home, or going somewhere. I don't know where-pardon me, my dear child; I assure you it is the last folly of the kind. Well, don't know what happened til next morning. But then I found myself on a vessel dropping down the river. They told me that I had shipped myself for a common sailor. I don't believe it. I believe that I was kidnapped while I was asleep. You will forgive me, won't you?" "What an outrage!" exclaimed Ninette. to be punished.”

"The wretches ought

"Well, I made a row, as you may suppose. After a few days I frightened the captain, and he took me into the cabin. Finally, we met a vessel bound for New Orleans; and so, instead of visiting Havre, here I am. You are not angry with me? You don't despise me, Ninette?"

"Oh Henry!" she sighed, lifting her face to worship him. "You are sufficiently punished," she said, presently. "You have lost the Duchesne estate. But I ought not to have told you so suddenly," she added, tenderly. "Don't mind it. We shall not need

it.

We can be very happy without it." "You dear child," he whispered, caressing her hand. "Tell me the whole story."

"It has gone to a hideous little wretch--a barkeeper, or something of that sort -who calls himself Edward Roland. Oh, there is no doubt about it. The will said Edward Roland. Nobody comprehends; but so it is."

"My name is Edward Roland," he answered, with a smile. "Henry! what do you mean?” che exclaimed, stepping back from him. "Who are you?"

Now, I have got to tell you another bad affair, and this time you will be really angry," he stammered. "It was a duel." "Oh!" answered Ninette, in a tone of relief. Duels were not crimes in the eyes of Southern girls.

"I was a second," he continued. "One of the principals was killed. So the authorities of Mobile got out warrants for all the parties concerned. I was not to blame. I had tried to bring about a peaceable settlement. Still, I didn't want to be arrested. So I ran away. I took the name of Henry Vincent, and lived for a while in Carrollton. Then I came up here to visit my father's old friend, Duchesne. That is the whole mystery, Ninette. Are you angry with me?" If she was angry she did not show it in the usual way, for she let him seize her hands once

more.

"I knew about this other Roland," he added. Duchesne knew him, too-used to drink at his place. But he probably never heard him called anything but Ned. I heard of the fellow's claim in New Orleans, and have seen my lawyer about it. The will is badly worded, of course; but my right can be maintained. Your mother is a witness as to what Roland was meant.

Some weeks after Edward Roland, the barkeeper, had been dispossessed by Edward Roland, the gentleman (now Duchesne 1, the conversation at the Rambeau dinner-table turned on the ghost of the Duchesne mansion.

"Perhaps I had best explain," said Madame Rambean. It was a little trick of my own. Cato here managed it admirably." Cato grinned from ear to ear, and went on serving the table. "What was the use of it?" demanded Ninette. "Well-it was soothing," answered Madame.

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