and get here short of a week."

The Doctor laid his long fingers upon his brow and rolled his head from
side to side. Then, slowly raising it:--

"Well, Richling!" he said, "there must have been some mistake made when
you was put upon the earth."

Richling's thin cheek flushed. The Doctor's face confessed the bitterest
resentment.

"Why, the fleet is only eighteen miles from here now." He ceased, and
then added, with sudden kindness of tone, "I want you to do something
for me, will you?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, go to bed; I'm going. You'll need every grain of strength
you've got for to-morrow. I'm afraid then it will not be enough. This is
an awful business, Richling."

They went upstairs together. As they were parting at its top Richling
said:--

"You told me a few days ago that if the city should fall, which we
didn't expect"--

"That I'd not leave," said the Doctor. "No; I shall stay. I haven't the
stamina to take the field, and I can't be a runaway. Anyhow, I couldn't
take you along. You couldn't bear the travel, and I wouldn't go and
leave you here, Richling--old fellow!"

He laid his hand gently on the sick man's shoulder, who made no
response, so afraid was he that another word would mar the perfection of
the last.

When Richling went out the next morning the whole city was in an ecstasy
of rage and terror. Thousands had gathered what they could in their
hands, and were flying by every avenue of escape. Thousands ran hither
and thither, not knowing where or how to fly. He saw the wife and son
of the silver-haired banker rattling and bouncing away toward one of the
railway depots in a butcher's cart. A messenger from Kate by good chance
met him with word that she would be ready for the afternoon train of the
Jackson Railroad, and asking anew his earliest attention to her
interests about the lugger landing.

He hastened to the levee. The huge, writhing river, risen up above the
town, was full to the levee's top, and, as though the enemy's fleet was
that much more than it could bear, was silently running over by a
hundred rills into the streets of the stricken city.

As far as the eye could reach, black smoke, white smoke, brown smoke,
and red flames rolled and spread, and licked and leaped, from unnumbered
piles of cotton bales, and wooden wharves, and ships cut adrift, and
steam-boats that blazed like shavings, floating down the harbor as they
blazed. He stood for a moment to see a little revenue c