dark, and the smell of the wretches confined there was worse than it
should have been. And the incessant weeping of some of the women was
annoying, inasmuch as it drowned many of the profane communications of
the overseer who was showing Eliphalet the sights. Then a fine-linened
planter from down river had come in during the conversation, and paying
no attention to the overseer's salute cursed them all into silence, and
left.

Eliphalet had ambition, which is not a wholly undesirable quality. He
began to wonder how it would feel to own a few of these valuable
fellow-creatures. He reached out and touched lightly a young mulatto
woman who sat beside him with an infant in her arms. The peculiar dumb
expression on her face was lost on Eliphalet. The overseer had laughed
coarsely.

"What, skeered on 'em?" said he. And seizing the girl by the cheek, gave
it a cruel twinge that brought a cry out of her.

Eliphalet had reflected upon this incident after he had bid the overseer
good-by at Cairo, and had seen that pitiful coffle piled aboard a steamer
for New Orleans. And the result of his reflections was, that some day he
would like to own slaves.

A dome of smoke like a mushroom hung over the city, visible from far down
the river, motionless in the summer air. A long line of steamboats
--white, patient animals--was tethered along the levee, and the Louisiana
presently swung in her bow toward a gap in this line, where a mass of
people was awaiting her arrival. Some invisible force lifted Eliphalet's
eyes to the upper deck, where they rested, as if by appointment, on the
trim figure of the young man in command of the Louisiana. He was very