fty magnolia; its twinkling
pomegranates hanging their apples of scarlet and gold over the garden
wall; its little chameleons darting along the hot fence-tops; its
far-stretching, empty streets; its wide hush of idleness; its solitary
vultures sailing in the upper blue; its grateful clouds; its hot north
winds, its cool south winds; its gasping twilight calms; its gorgeous
nights,--the long, long summer lingered on into September.

One evening, as the sun was sinking below the broad, flat land, its
burning disk reddened by a low golden haze of suspended dust, Richling
passed slowly toward his home, coming from a lower part of the town by
way of the quadroon quarter. He was paying little notice, or none, to
his whereabouts, wending his way mechanically, in the dejected reverie
of weary disappointment, and with voiceless inward screamings and
groanings under the weight of those thoughts which had lately taken up
their stay in his dismayed mind. But all at once his attention was
challenged by a strange, offensive odor. He looked up and around, saw
nothing, turned a corner, and found himself at the intersection of Treme
and St. Anne streets, just behind the great central prison of New
Orleans.

The "Parish Prison" was then only about twenty-five years old; but it
had made haste to become offensive to every sense and sentiment of
reasonable man. It had been built in the Spanish style,--a massive,
dark, grim, huge, four-sided block, the fissure-like windows of its
cells looking down into the four public streets which ran immediately
under its walls. Dilapidation had followed hard behind ill-building
contractors. Down its frowning masonry ran grimy streaks of leakage over
peeling stucco and mould-covered brick. Weeds bloomed high aloft in the
broken gutters under the scant and ragged eaves. Here and there the
pale, debauched face of a prisoner peered shamelessly down through
shattered glass or rusted grating; and everywhere in the still
atmosphere floated the stifling smell of the unseen loathsomeness
within.

Richling paused. As he looked up he noticed a bat dart out from a long
crevice under the eaves. Two others followed. Then three--a dozen--a
hundred--a thousand--millions. All along the two sides of the prison in
view they poured forth in a horrid black torrent,--myriads upon myriads.
They filled the air. They came and came. Richling stood and gazed; and
still they streamed out in gibbering waves, until the wonder was