ought I. Under legal authority, and in the keeping of the officers, I
should be protected from the gibes and insults that were being showered
upon me. Everything short of personal violence was offered; and there
were some that seemed sufficiently disposed even for this.

I saw the forest opening in front. I supposed we had gone by some
shorter way to the clearings. It was not so, for the next moment we
emerged into the glade. Again the glade!

Here my captors came to a halt; and now in the open light I had an
opportunity to know who they were. At a glance I saw that I was in the
hands of a desperate crowd.

Gayarre himself was in their midst, and beside him his own overseer, and
the negro-trader, and the brutal Larkin. With these were some
half-dozen Creole-Frenchmen of the poorer class of _proprietaires_,
weavers of cottonade, or small planters. The rest of the mob was
composed of the very scum of the settlement--the drunken boatmen whom I
had used to see gossiping in front of the "groceries," and other
dissipated rowdies of the place. Not one respectable planter appeared
upon the ground--not one respectable man!

For what had they stopped in the glade? I was impatient to be taken
before the justice, and chafed at the delay.

"Why am I detained here?" I asked in a tone of anger.

"Ho, mister!" replied one; "don't be in such a hell of a hurry! You'll
find out soon enough, I reckon."

"I protest against this," I continued. "I insist upon being taken
before the justice."

"An' so ye will, damn you! You ain't got far to go. _The justice is
hyar_."

"Who? where?" I inquired, under the impression that a magistrate was
upon the ground. I had heard of wood-choppers acting as justices of the
peace--in fact, had met with one or two of them--and among the rude
forms that surrounded me there might be one of these. "Where is the
justice?" I demanded. "Oh, he's about--never you fear!" replied one.
"Whar's the justice?" shouted another. "Ay, whar's the justice?--whar
are ye, judge?" cried a third, as if appealing to some one in the crowd.
"Come on hyar, judge!" he added. "Come along!--hyar's a fellar wants
to see you!"

I really thought the man was in earnest. I really believed there was
such an individual in the mob. The only impression made upon me was
astonishment at this rudeness towards the magisterial representative of
the law.

My misconception was short-lived, for at this moment Ruffin--t