Gates were opening and shutting, errands were being carried by negro
boys on bareback horses, Charlie Mandarin of St. Bernard parish and an
Armand Fusilier from Faubourg Ste. Marie had on some account come--as
they told the ladies--"to take breakfast;" and the ladies, not yet
informed, amusedly wondering at all this trampling and stage whispering,
were up a trifle early. In those days Creole society was a ship, in
which the fair sex were all passengers and the ruder sex the crew. The
ladies of the Grandissime mansion this morning asked passengers'
questions, got sailors' answers, retorted wittily and more or less
satirically, and laughed often, feeling their constrained
insignificance. However, in a house so full of bright-eyed children,
with mothers and sisters of all ages as their confederates, the secret
was soon out, and before Agricola had left his little cottage in the
grove the topic of all tongues was the abysmal treachery and
_ingratitude_ of negro slaves. The whole tribe of Grandissime believed,
this morning, in the doctrine of total depravity--of the negro.

And right in the face of this belief, the ladies put forth the
generously intentioned prayer for mercy. They were answered that they
little knew what frightful perils they were thus inviting upon
themselves.

The male Grandissimes were not surprised at this exhibition of weak
clemency in their lovely women; they were proud of it; it showed the
magnanimity that was natural to the universal Grandissime heart, when
not restrained and repressed by the stern necessities of the hour. But
Agricola disappointed them. Why should he weaken and hesitate, and
suggest delays and middle courses, and stammer over their proposed
measures as "extreme"? In very truth, it seemed as though that
drivelling, woman-beaten Deutsch apotheke--ha! ha! ha!--in the rue
Royale had bewitched Agricola as well as Honore. The fact was, Agricola
had never got over the interview which had saved Sylvestre his life.

"Here, Agricole," his kinsmen at length said, "you see you are too old
for this sort of thing; besides, it would be bad taste for you, who
might be presumed to harbor feelings of revenge, to have a voice in
this council." And then they added to one another: "We will wait until
'Polyte reports whether or not they have caught Palmyre; much will
depend on that."

Agricola, thus ruled out, did a thing he did not fully understand; he
rolled up the "_Philippique Generale_" and "T