that I have described with a listless pleasure, difficult to analyze, a
sort of dreamy acceptance of my condition, the very memory of which
exasperated me, later, almost to self-contempt.

A crimson cord hung at one side of my bed, continued from a bell-wire at
some distance, the tassel of which I touched lightly, and, at the very
first signal, Mrs. Clayton appeared through the hitherto only unopened
door, to know and do my bidding.

The clock on the mantel-shelf struck nine as she stood beside me, and
made respectful inquiries concerning my wants and condition;
understanding which, she disappeared, to return a few minutes later,
followed by an ancient negress, bearing a silver waiter.

I recognized in this sable assistant (or thought I recognized at a
glance) my companion in shipwreck; but, upon making known my
convictions, was met with a prompt denial by the sable dame herself,
who, shaking her head, gave me to understand, in a few broken words,
that she "no understood English--only Spanish tongue!"

Her dress--handsome and Frenchified--her creole coiffure, and the long
gray locks that escaped from her crimson kerchief bound over her ears,
as well as her more refined deportment, did indeed seem to discredit my
first idea, which came at last (notwithstanding these discrepancies) to
be fixed, and proved one link in the long chain of duplicity I untangled
later.

At the time, however, I gave it little thought, but partook with what
appetite I might of the choice and delicate repast provided for me, in
this truly princely hotel, whose fame I discovered had not been
over-trumpeted. On my previous visits to New York, the Astor House had
been unfinished, and had made in its completion a new era certainly in
the "tavern-life" of that inhospitable city of publicans. When the
delicious coffee and snowy bread, the eggs of milky freshness, the
golden butter, the savory rice-birds, the appetizing fish, had each and
all been merely tasted and dismissed, and the exquisite China, in which
the breakfast was served, duly marveled at as an unprecedented
extravagance on the part even of John Jacob Astor, Mrs. Clayton came to
me with kindly offers of assistance in the performance of my toilet,
still a matter of difficulty in my feeble hands.

My long hair, yet tangled and clogged with sea-water, was to be at last
unbound and thoroughly combed, cleansed, and oiled, so that the black
and glossy braids, that had been my chief personal