to New Orleans, and took an early opportunity to inform the creditors
that he should remain a very short time. He made no allusion to his
proposed bargain, and when they alluded to it he affected great
indifference.

"I should be willing to give you five hundred dollars to release my
musical friend," said he. "But as for those daughters of Mr. Royal, it
seems to me, upon reflection, to be rather a quixotic undertaking to
go in pursuit of them. You know it's a difficult job to catch a slave
after he gets to the North, if he's as black as the ace of spades; and
all Yankeedom would be up in arms at any attempt to seize such white
ladies. Of course, I could obtain them in no other way than by
courting them and gaining their goodwill."

Mr. Bruteman and Mr. Chandler made some remarks unfit for repetition,
but which were greeted with shouts of laughter. After much dodging
and doubling on the financial question, Fitzgerald agreed to pay two
thousand five hundred dollars, if all his demands were complied with.
The papers were drawn and signed with all due formality. He clasped
them in his pocket-book, and walked off with an elastic step, saying,
"Now for Nassau!"




CHAPTER VII.


The scenery of the South was in the full glory of June, when Mr.
Fitzgerald, Rosa, and Floracita were floating up the Savannah River in