e at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side
window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so
heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and
thought of home.

When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the
theme was once more Phyllis.

"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.

"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."

Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed
back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold
one of his negroes!"

"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a
quadroom?"

"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"

"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!--dat de likes
o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin _make_ a niggeh out'n a
simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh
like a niggeh; but----"

Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"

"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but--I's seen it
done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come
Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"

"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was
good."

"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de
_Quak'ess_." The narrator shut her lips tight.

The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim
shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a
marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and
gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the _Votaress_
bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that
she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore
on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle,
ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the
ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the
region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general,
judge, or squire was in sight.

Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law
when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main
river. She had heard with awe that bit of history--not this
history,--the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four
hundred Creek Indians who were being deported