A FUGITIVE AND A VAGABOND
"That is the bitterest of all,—to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing!"—Daniel Deronda.
The morning after the fight David and Pepeeta hurried on to Louisville, and from there took a steamer to New Orleans.
However hard it is to find stepping-stones when one wishes to rise, those by which he can descend have been skilfully planted at every stage of life's journey, and Satanic ingenuity could not have devised an instrument better fitted to complete the destruction of the young mystic's moral nature than a Mississippi steamboat, such as he found lying at the wharf. He had been subjected to the fascination of love, now he was to be tried by that of money. It is by a series of such consecutive assaults upon every avenue of approach to the soul that it is at last reduced to ruin.
Pepeeta was radiant with joy as they embarked. "How happy I am!" she cried. "It seems as if I had left my old life and the old world behind me!"
"And I am happy to see you glad," answered the wretched youth, whose heart lay in his bosom like lead and whose conscience was writhing with a torture of whose like he had never even dreamed. They embarked unknown and unobserved; but as soon as the first confusion had passed, their singular beauty and unusual appearance made them the cynosure of every eye.
"Who is that splendid fellow?" women asked each other, as David passed with Pepeeta on his arm, while under their breaths men swore that his companion was the loveliest woman who had ever set foot on a Mississippi steamer.
The pilot forgot to turn his wheel and the stevedores to put out the gang plank when she stood looking at them. Love, and her freedom, had transfigured her. She was radiant with health, happiness and hope, and entered into the novelty and excitement of this floating world with the ardor of a child.
All was gaiety and animation oh board the vessel. People from countries widely separated mingled with each other and chatted with the greatest freedom on every subject of human interest. Acquaintances were made without the formality of an introduction, and it was not long before the two adventurers were drawn into conversation.
"I have traveled all over the world," said a gentleman of foreign air, "but I have never seen anything so picturesque as this boat. Look at the variegated colors and styles of these costumes, at the manifold types of countenance, at the blending of races—black and white and red! Listen to the discordant but altogether charming sounds, the ringing of the great bell, the roar of the whistle, the splash of the paddlewheels, the songs of the negroes, and the clatter of dishes in the cabins! It is a hurly-burly of noise! Then what varied scenery, what constant excitement at the landing, what a hodge-podge, a pot-pourri of merchandise! There is nothing like it in the world."
"Wait until you see a race with another steamer," said an officious Yankee, who rejoiced in a knowledge which frequent trips had given him.
"Are they exciting?" asked the foreigner.
"Well I should say! I have seen horse races and prize fights in my day, but I never ran against anything that shook up my nerves like a race between two of these river boats! Every pound of steam is crowded on, the engines groan like imprisoned devils, a darkey sits on the safety valve, the stokers jam the furnaces, the passengers crowd the gunwales, everybody yells at the top of his voice until pandemonium is mere silence compared to it! And then the betting! Lord, you never saw betting if you never saw a river race."
"They bet, do they?"
"Bet? They don't do anything else! Just got on at Louisville? Oh! well, you'll see sights in the cabin to-night that will open your eyes. Isn't that so?" he asked, turning to a southern planter who had been edging his way toward Pepeeta.
"Reckon the gentleman'll see a little gambling, sah, if that's what you refeh to. I've heard those that ought to know say that a Mississippi river boat is the toughest spot on top of earth for little games of pokah and that soht of thing, sah. 'Spect the gentleman can be accommodated if he likes a lively game of chance."
"I don't expect to be surprised in that line," the foreigner said, with the air of one who knew a thing or two; "for I have been in Monte Carlo, Carlsbad and every famous gambling place in Europe."
"Well, sah, I don't know; I have never been in those places myself, but I have heard those who have say that what they play there is mere 'penny ante' to what goes on in one of these yere Mississippi boats. Like a little game now and then myself, sah. Glad to have you join me."
While these men and others pretended to address their remarks to David or to each other, their free glances were more and more directed to Pepeeta who began to be embarrassed by them and gently drew David away to more retired places. He went with her reluctantly, for he was in need of excitement. The thought of his crime was constantly agitating his heart, the prostrate form of the doctor with the bloody wound on his forehead was never absent from his mind, and through all the ceaseless rumble around him he could hear the dull thud of the stone upon the hard skull. The efforts which he made to throw off these horrible weights that crushed him were like those of a man awakening from a nightmare. He scarcely dared to speak for fear of uttering words which would betray him and which seemed to tremble on his lips. Had he been on shore he would have fled to the solitude of a forest; but here he was resistlessly impelled to that other solitude—a crowd. The necessity of being gay with his beautiful bride and of concealing every trace of his terror and remorse taxed his resources to their utmost limit, and in his nervousness he kept Pepeeta moving with him all day long. At its close she was completely exhausted, and retired early to her stateroom. Freed from her company and craving relief from thought, David made his way straight to the gambling tables where the nightly games were in full swing.
The claim of the southerner that the excitement at those tables, when the river traffic was at its height, had never been surpassed in the history of games of chance, was no exaggeration. Not a semblance of restraint was put upon the players, and experts from all over the world gathered to pluck the exhaustless supply of victims, as buzzards assemble to feed on carrion. Fortunes were made and lost in a night. Men sat down to play worth thousands of dollars, and rose paupers! They staked and lost their money, their slaves, their business and their homes. In the wild frenzy which such misfortunes kindle the most shocking crimes were committed, but the criminals were never called to account, for the law was powerless.
What the fugitive sought was diversion, and he found it! Tragedies became commonplace in those cabins. Men crowded into single hours the experience and excitement of months. It was this very night that an encounter occurred which is still a tradition on the river.
An old planter approached a table where his son, who did not know of his father's presence on the boat, was playing. He stood in the background and watched a gambler strip the boy of his last penny, and when the young fellow rose from his chair, white as a sheet, he turned to look into the whiter face of his father. The enraged parent did not speak a word, but took the seat left vacant by the boy and commenced playing. Rage at the financial loss, mortification at the boy's defeat, and old scores to be settled with this very gambler, conspired to rouse him to a frenzy. His terrible earnestness paralyzed the dealer, who seemed to form some premonition of a tragic termination and lost his nerve. In a little while, in the presence of a crowd of excited spectators, the father won back the exact amount his son had lost, and then rising from his chair sprang at the gambler, seized him, dragged him from the cabin and flung him into the river.
Terrible as was the furor which this tragedy aroused, it subsided almost as soon as the ripples of the water which closed over the drowning man, and the players returned to their games as if nothing had happened.
In the months which they had spent together the quack had indoctrinated David into all the best-known secrets of this vice, and besides this, had familiarized him with the use of a certain "hold out" of his own invention, with which he had achieved incredible results and which was new to the fraternity of the river. Having watched the players for a long time, David convinced himself that he could employ this trick successfully, and took his place at the table.
The young man's nerves were tested by the circumstances in which he found himself, if nerves are tested to tension anywhere, for he faced the most experienced masters of the craft who could be found anywhere in the world, and staked not only his little fortune, but his existence, for, as he had just seen, these determined and reckless men thought no more of taking life than of taking money.
David felt his way along with a coolness that astonished himself, and his very first experiment with the delicate apparatus concealed in his sleeve was such a brilliant triumph that he saw it was undetected. With a strengthened confidence, he made the stakes larger and larger, and his winnings increased so rapidly as to make him the center of attention. The crowd swarmed round the table. The spectators became breathless. The gamblers were first astonished, then bewildered. As their nerve failed them, David's assurance increased, and when day broke ten thousand dollars lay upon the table before him as the result of his skilful and desperate efforts.
Their loss astonished and enraged the gamblers to such a degree that with a preconcerted signal they sprang at their opponent, determined to regain their money by violence. The move was not unexpected, nor was he unprepared. He fought as he had played, and so won the sympathies of the bystanders that in an instant there was a general melée in which he was helped to escape with the winnings.
He was the hero of the trip, and a career had opened before him. Satellites began to circle around him and to solicit his friendship and patronage.
When he disembarked at New Orleans he had already entered into a partnership with one of the most notable members of the gambling fraternity, and purchased an interest in one of those "palaces" where games of chance attracted and destroyed their thousands.
The newspapers made the gay throngs of that gayest of all cities familiar with the incidents of David's advent. He and Pepeeta became the talk of the town. They rented a fashionable house, and swung out into the current of the mad life of the metropolis of the South.
For a little while this excitement and glory softened the pain in the heart of the man who believed himself to be a murderer and encouraged him to hope that it might eventually pass away. He played recklessly but successfully, for he was a transient favorite of the fickle goddess. When gambling lost its power to drown the voice of conscience, there was the race, the play and the wine cup! To each of them appealing in turn, he went whirling madly around the outer circles of the great maelstrom in which so many brilliant youths were swallowed in those ante-bellum days.