omething about it before I left the island,--I overheard
that Jerry Swinger and the mulatto boy speaking of it. But I own,
Vernon, I was too hasty, to judge you unheard."

"Max, who is this De Guy?"

"De Guy," said Maxwell, with feigned astonishment; "don't know him."

"Bah, Max! don't you know that you cannot _wool_ me? By the way, that
was a clumsy trick of yours, sending this De Guy after the girl. When he
had gone, the captain would have chased him, if I had not come and
assured them that the terrible Maxwell could not possibly be concerned
in the affair."

"Indeed! did you do me this essential service?" said Maxwell, forgetting
that he had denied his connection with De Guy.

"I did. If you had left the matter with me, I could have done it
better."

"Well, Vernon, I see you are all right yet; but the thing worked to a
charm. De Guy is the cleverest fellow out. The girl is safe."

"So I suppose," said Vernon, with an assumption of indifference.

"But all the sport is yet to come."

"Indeed," said Vernon, burning with anxiety, but striving to maintain
his accustomed easy and reckless air.

"Yes, Vernon, all the hard work we did up the river shall not be in
vain. I shall win the prize!" and Maxwell rubbed his hands at the
pleasant anticipation.

"Wish you joy, Max! But you don't mean to marry the girl?"

"Certainly."

"What! a quadroon?"

"Pshaw! that story is all blown through. Her old uncle, up the river,
got up that abstraction, so as to finger her property," said Maxwell,
forgetting, in his candor, the scruples which his companion had
expressed on a former occasion with relation to persecuting a white
woman,--scruples which Vernon did not seem disposed to press upon the
attorney's memory.

"You helped him through with his scheme?" answered Vernon, with a bold,
careless air.

"'Pon honor, I had nothing to do with it. Old Jaspar did it all
himself," replied Maxwell, with an oath.

"Looks a little like you, though," said Vernon, with a nonchalance which
provoked Maxwell, whose temper was not of the mildest tone.

"Nevertheless, it is none of mine, though the plan was a creditable one.
But it has brought old Jaspar into a wasp's nest."

"How's that?"

"I had my eye on the girl, ever since the colonel died. I saw through
Jaspar's plot, and a little bravado made him tell me all about it."

"Good!"

"Just so; and, as they are old clients of mine, why, I could not do less
than get them out of