California, turned us most reluctantly down the river after Bierstadt and I had made the fullest notes and sketches attainable. Bad weather on the coast falsified our expectations. For a week we were rain-bound in Portland, unable to leave our hotel for an hour at a time without being drenched by the floods which just now set in for the winter season, and regretting the lack of that prescience which would have enabled us to accomplish one of the most interesting side-trips in our whole plan of travel. While this pleasure still awaited us, and none in particular of any kind seemed present, save the in-door courtesies of our Portland friends, it was still among the memories of a lifetime to have seen the Columbia in its Cataracts and its Dalles.
OUR LAST DAY IN DIXIE.
It was not far from eleven o'clock at night when we took leave of the Rebel President, and, arm in arm with Judge Ould, made our way through the silent, deserted streets to our elevated quarters in the Spotswood Hotel at Richmond. As we climbed the long, rickety stairs which led to our room in the fourth story, one of us said to our companion,—
"We can accomplish nothing more by remaining here. Suppose we shake the sacred soil from our feet to-morrow?"
"Very well. At what hour will you start?" he replied.
"The earlier, the better. As near daybreak as may be,—to avoid the sun."
"We can't be ready before ten o'clock. The mules are quartered six miles out of town."
That sounded strange, for Jack, our ebony Jehu, had said to me only the day before, "Dem is mighty foine mules, Massa. I 'tends ter dem mules myself; we keeps 'em right round de corner." Taken together, the statements of the two officials had a bad look; but Mr. Davis had just given me a message to his niece, and Mr. Benjamin had just intrusted Colonel Jaquess with a letter—contraband, because three pages long—for delivery within the limits of the "United States"; therefore the discrepancy did not alarm me, for the latter facts seemed to assure our safe deliverance from Dixie. Merely saying, "Very well,—ten o'clock, then, let it be,—we'll be ready,"—we bade the Judge good-night at the landing, and entered our apartment.
We found the guard, Mr. Javins, stretched at full length on his bed, and snoring like the Seven Sleepers. Day and night, from the moment of our first entrance into the Rebel dominions, that worthy, with a revolver in his sleeve, our door-key in his pocket, and a Yankee in each one of his eyes, had implicitly observed his instructions,—"Keep a constant watch upon them"; but overtasked nature had at last got the better of his vigilance, and he was slumbering at his post. Not caring to disturb him, we bolted the door, slid the key under his pillow, and followed him to the land of dreams.
It was a little after two o'clock, and the round, ruddy moon was looking pleasantly in at my window, when a noise outside awoke me. Lifting the sash, I listened. There was a sound of hurrying feet in the neighboring street, and a prolonged cry of murder! It seemed the wild, strangled shriek of a woman. Springing to the floor, I threw on my clothes, and shook Javins.
"Wake up! Give me the key!
