quite
lately that Vincent had taken to going out sailing.

After considerable trouble he succeeded in getting at one of the slaves
upon Mr. Furniss' plantation. But he could only learn from him that
Vincent had been unaccompanied, when he went out in the boat, either by
young Furniss or by any of the plantation hands; that he had taken with
him only his own slave, and had come and gone as he chose, taking out
and fastening up the boat himself, so that no one could say when he had
gone out, except that his horse was put up at the stables. The slave
said that certainly the horse had only stood there on two or three
occasions, and then only for a few hours, and that unless Mr. Wingfield
had walked over he could never have had the boat out all night, as the
horse certainly had not stood all night in the stables.

Andrew Jackson talked the matter over with his son, and both agreed that
Vincent's conduct was suspicious. His own people said he had been away
for five days in the boat. The people at Furniss' knew nothing about
this, and therefore there must be some mystery about it, and they
doubted not that that mystery was connected with the runaway slave, and
they guessed that he had either taken Tony and landed him near the mouth
of the York River on the northern shore, or that he had put him on board
a ship. They agreed, however, that whatever their suspicions, they had
not sufficient grounds for openly accusing Vincent of aiding their
runaway.

CHAPTER V.

SECESSION.

While Vincent had been occupied with the affairs of Tony and his wife,
public events had moved forward rapidly. The South Carolina Convention
met in the third week in December, and on the 20th of that month the
Ordinance of Secession was passed. On the 10th of January, three days
after Vincent returned home from his expedition, Florida followed the
example of South Carolina and seceded. Alabama and Mississippi passed
the Ordinance of Secession on the following day; Georgia on the 18th,
Louisiana on the 23d, and Texas on the 1st of February.

In all these States the Ordinance of Secession was received with great
rejoicings: bonfires were lit, the towns illuminated, and the militia
paraded the streets, and in many cases the Federal arsenals were seized
and the Federal forts occupied by the State troops. In the meantime the
Northern slave States--Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky,
and Missouri--remained irresolute. The general feeling