University of Virginia Library

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
SEEING IS BELIEVING.

WHEN, after some detention, Esha returned to the garden,
and could not see Clara, she ran up-stairs and
sought her in all the rooms. Then returning to the garden
she looked in the summer-house, in the grape-arbor, everywhere
without avail. Suddenly she caught sight of a small
black girl, a sort of under-drudge in the kitchen, who was
standing with mouth distended, showing her white teeth, and
grinning at Esha's discomfiture. It was the work of a moment
for Esha to seize the hussy, drag her into the wash-house, and
by the aid of certain squeezings, liberally applied to her cervical
vertebræ, to compel her to extrude the fact that Missie
Clara had been forcibly carried off by two men, and placed in
a carriage, which had been driven fast away.

When Esha communicated this startling information to Madame
Volney, the wrath of the latter was terrible to behold. It
was well for Lawyer Semmes that his good stars kept him that
moment from encountering the quadroon lady, else a sudden
stop might have been put to his professional usefulness.

After she had recovered from her first shock of anger, she
asked: “Why has n't Peek been here these five days?”

“'Cause he 'cluded 't wan't safe,” replied Esha. “He seed
ole Semmes war up ter su'thin, an' so he keep dark.”

“Well, Esha, we must see Peek. You know where he
lives?”

“Yes, Missis, but we mus' be car'ful 'bout lettin' anybody
foller us.”

“We can look out for that. Come! Let us start at once.”

The two women sallied forth into the street, and proceeded

some distance, Esha looking frequently behind with a caution
that proved to be not ill-timed. Suddenly she darted across
the street, and going up to a negro-boy who stood looking with
an air of profound interest at some snuff-boxes and pipes in
the window of a tobacconist, seized him by the wool of his
head and pulled him towards a carriage-stand, where she accosted
a colored driver of her acquaintance, and said: “Look
har, Jube, you jes put dis little debble ob a spy on de box wid
yer, and gib him a twenty minutes' dribe, an' den take him to
Massa Ratcliff's, open de door, an' pitch him in, an' I 'll gib
yer half a dollar ef yer 'll do it right off an' ahx no questions;
an' ef he dars ter make a noise you jes put yer fingers har,
— dy'e see, — and pinch his win'pipe tight. Doan let him git
away on no account whatsomebber.”

“Seein' as how jobs air scarss, Esha, doan' car ef I do; so
hahnd him up.”

Esha lifted the boy so that Jube could seize him by the
slack of his breeches and pull him howling on to the driver's
seat. Then promising a faithful compliance with Esha's orders,
he received the half-dollar with a grin, and drove off.
Rejoining Madame Volney, Esha conducted her through lanes
and by-streets till they stopped before the house occupied by
Peek. He was at home, and asked them in.

“Are you sure you were n't followed?” was his first inquiry.
Esha replied by narrating the summary proceedings
she had taken to get rid of the youth who had evidently been
put as a spy on her track.

“That was well done, Esha,” said Peek. “Remember
you 've got the sharpest kind of an old lawyer to deal with;
and you must skin your eyes tight if you 'spect to 'scape being
tripped.”

“Wish I 'd thowt ob dat dis mornin', Peek; for ole Semmes
has jes done his wustest, — carried off dat darlin' chile, Miss
Clara.”

Peek could hardly suppress a groan at the news.

“Now what 's to be done?” said Madame Volney. “Think
of something quickly, or I shall go mad. That smooth-tongued
Semmes, — O that I had the old scoundrel here in my grip!
Can't you find out where he has taken that dear child?”

“That will be difficult, I fear,” said Peek; “difficult for the
reason that Semmes will be on the alert to baffle us. He will
of course conclude that some of us will be on his track. He
would turn any efforts we might make to dog him directly
against us, arresting us when we thought ourselves most secure,
just as the boy-detective was arrested by Esha.”

“But what if Ratcliff should return?”

“That 's what disturbs me; for the papers say he has escaped.”

“Then he may be here any moment?”

“For that we must be prepared.”

“But that is horrible! I pledged my word — my very life
— that the poor child should be saved from his clutches. She
must be saved! Money can do it, — can't it?”

“Brains can do it better.”

“Let both be used. Is not this a case where some medium
can help us? Why not consult Bender?”

“There is, perhaps, one chance in a hundred that he might
guide us aright,” said Peek. “That chance I will try, but I
have little hope he will find her. During the years I have
been searching for my wife I have now and then sought information
about her from clairvoyants; but always without success.
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. So
with these spiritual doings. Look for them, and you don't find
them. Don't look, and they come. I once knew a colored
boy, a medium, who was lifted to the ceiling before my eyes in
the clear moonlight. A white man offered him a hundred dollars
if he would show him the same thing; but it could n't be.
No sooner had the white man gone than the boy was lifted,
while the rest of us were not expecting it, and carried backward
and forward through the air for a full minute. Seeing is
believing.”

“But we 've no time for talking, Peek. We must act. How
shall we act?”

“Can you give me any article of apparel which Miss Clara
has recently worn, — a glove, for instance?”

“Yes, that can easily be got.”

“Send it to me at once. Send also a glove which the lawyer
has worn. Do not let the two come in contact. And be careful
your messenger is not tracked.”

“Do you mean to take the gloves to a clairvoyant?”

“Not to a clear-see'er, but to a clear-smeller, — in short, to
a four-footed medium, a bloodhound of my acquaintance.”

“O, but what hound can keep the scent through our streets?”

“If any one can, Victor can.”

“Well, only do something, and that quickly, for I 'm distracted,”
said Madame Volney, her tears flowing profusely.
“Come, Esha, we 'll take a carriage at the corner, and drive
home.”

“Not at the corner!” interposed Peek. “Go to some more
distant stand. Move always as if a spy were at your heels.”

The two women passed into the street. Half an hour afterwards
Esha returned with the glove. There was a noise of
firing.

“Dem guns am fur de great vict'ry down below,” said Esha.
“De Yankees, dey say, hab been beat off han'some at Fort
Jackson; an' ole Farragut he 's backed out; fines he can't
come it. But, jes you wait, Peek. Dese Yankees hab an
awful way of holdin' on. Dey doan know when dey air fair
beat. Dey crow loudest jes when dey owt ter shut up and
gib in.”

Esha slipped out of the house, looking up and down the
street to see if she were watched, and Peek soon afterwards
passed out and walked rapidly in the direction of St. Genevieve
Street. The great thoroughfares were filled with crowds of
excited people. The stars and bars, emblem of the perpetuity
of slavery, were flaunted in his face at every crossing. The
newspapers that morning had boasted how impregnable were
the defences. The hated enemy — the mean and cowardly
Yankees — had received their most humiliating rebuff. Forts
Jackson and St. Philip and the Confederate ram had proved
too much for them.

Peek stopped at a small three-story brick house of rather
shabby exterior and rang the bell. The door was opened by
an obese black woman with a flaming red and yellow handkerchief
on her head. In the entry-way a penetrating odor of
fried sausages rushed upward from the kitchen and took him
by the throat.

“Does Mr. Bender board here?”

“Yes, sar, go up two pair ob stairs, an' knock at de fust door
yer see, an' he 'll come.”

Peek did as he was directed. “J. Bender, Consulting Medium,”
appeared and asked him in. A young and not ill-looking
man, in shabby-genteel attire. Shirt dirty, but the bosom
ornamented with gold studs. Vest of silk worked with sprigs
of flowers in all the colors of the rainbow. His coat had been
thrown off. His pantaloons were of the light-blue material
which the war was making fashionable. He was smoking a
cigar, and his breath exhaled a suspicion of whiskey.

“How is business, Mr. Bender?” asked Peek.

“Very slim just now,” said Bender. “This war fills people's
minds. Can I do anything for you to-day?”

“Yes. You remember the young woman at the house I
took you to the other day, — the one whose name you said was
Clara?”

“I remember. She paid me handsomely. Much obliged to
you for taking me. Will you have a sip of Bourbon?”

“No, thank you. I don't believe in anything stronger than
water. I want to know if you can tell me where in the city
that young lady now is.”

Bender put down his cigar, clasped his hands, laid them on
the table, and closed his eyes. In a minute his whole face
seemed transfigured. A certain sensual expression it had worn
was displaced by one of rapt and tender interest. The lids of
the eyes hung loosely over the uprolled balls. He looked five
years younger. He sighed several times heavily, moved his
lips and throat as if laboring to speak, and then seemed absorbed
as if witnessing unspeakable things. He remained thus
four or five minutes, and then put out his hands and placed
them on one of Peek's.

“Ah! this is a good hand,” said the young seer; “I like the
feel of it. I wish his would speak as well of him.”

“Of whom do you mean?”

“Of this one whose hands are on yours. Ah! he is weak
and you are strong. He knows the right, but he will not do
the right. He knows there is a heaven, and yet he walks
hellward.”

“Can we not save him?” asked Peek.

“No. His own bitter experiences must be his tutor.”

“Why will he try to deceive,” asked Peek; — “to deceive
sometimes even in these manifestations of his wonderful gift?”

“You see it is the very condition of that gift that he should
be impressible to influences whether good or bad. He takes
his color from the society which encamps around him. Sometimes,
as now, the good ones come, and then so bitterly he
bewails his faults! Sometimes the bad get full possession of
him, and he is what they will, — a drunkard, a liar, a thief, a
scoffer. Yes! I have known him to scoff at these great facts
which make spirit existence to him a certainty.”

“Can I help him in any way? Will money aid him to
throw off the bad influences?”

“No. Poor as he is, he has too much money. He does n't
know the true uses of it. He must learn them through suffering.
Leave him to the discipline of the earth-life. You know
what that is. How much you have passed through! How
sad, and yet how brave and cheerful you have been! It all
comes to me as I press the palm of your hand. Ah! you have
sought her so long and earnestly! And you cannot find her!
And you think she is faithful to you still!”

“Yes, and neither mortal nor spirit could make me think
otherwise. But tell me where I shall look for her.”

The young man lifted the black hand to his white forehead
and pressed the palm there for a moment, and then, with a
sigh, laid it gently on the table, and said: “It is of no use. I
get confused impressions, — nothing clear and forcible. Why
have you not consulted me before about your wife?”

“Because, first, I wished to leave it to you to find out what
I wanted; and this you have done at last. Secondly, I did not
think I could trust you, or rather the intelligences that might
speak through you. But you have been more candid than I
expected. You have not pretended, as you often do, to more
knowledge than you really possess.”

“The reason is, that I am now admitted into a state where
I can look down on myself as from a higher plane; so that I
feel like a different being from myself, and must distinguish between
me, as I now am, and him as he usually is. Do you
know what is truly the hell of evil-doers? It is to see them

selves as they are, and God as he is.[1] These tame preachers
rave about hell-fire and lakes of sulphur. What poor, feeble,
halting imaginations they have! Better beds of brimstone
than a couch of down on which one lies seeing what he might
have been, but is n't, — then seeing what he is! But pardon
me; your mind is preoccupied with the business on which you
came. You are anxious and impatient.”

“Can you tell me,” asked Peek, “what it is about?”

The clairvoyant folded his arms, and, bending down his head,
seemed for a minute lost in contemplation. Then looking up
(if that can be said of him while his external eyes were
closed), he remarked: “The bloodhound will put you through.
Only persevere.”

“And is that all you can tell me?” inquired Peek.

“Yes. Why do you seem disappointed?”

“Because you merely give me the reflection of what is in
my own mind. You offer me no information which may not
have come straight from your own power of thought-reading.
You show me no proof that your promise may not be simply
the product of my own sanguine calculations.”

“I cannot tell you how it is,” replied the clairvoyant; “I
say what I am impressed to say. I cannot argue the point
with you, for I have no reasons to give.”

“Then I must go. What shall I pay?”

“Pay him his usual fee, two dollars. Not a cent more.”

The clairvoyant sighed heavily, and leaning his elbows on the
table, covered his face with his hands. He remained in this
posture for nearly a minute. Suddenly he dropped his hands,
shook himself, and started up. His eyes were open. He
stared wildly about, then seemed to slip back into his old self.
The former unctuous, villanous expression returned to his face.
He looked round for his half-smoked cigar, which he took up
and relighted.

Peek drew two dollars from a purse, and offered them to him.

“I reckon you can afford more than that,” said Mr. Bender.

“That 's your regular fee,” replied Peek. “I have n't been
here half an hour.”

“O well, we won't dispute about it,” said the medium, thrusting
the rags into a pocket of his vest.

Peek left the house, the dinner-bell sounding as he passed
out, and another whiff from the breath of the sausage-fiend
that presided over that household pursuing him into the street.

The course he now took was through stately streets occupied
by large and showy houses. He stopped before one, on the
door-plate of which was the name, Lovell. Here his friend
Lafour lived as coachman. For two weeks they had not met.
Peek was about to pass round and ring at the servant's door on
the basement story of the side, when an orange was thrown
from an upper window and fell near his feet. He looked up.
An old black woman was gesticulating to him to go away.
Peek was quick to take a hint. He strolled away as far as he
could get without losing sight of the house. Soon he saw the
old woman hobble out and approach him. He slipped into an
arched passage-way, and she joined him.

“What 's the matter, mother?”

“Matter enough. De debble's own time, and all troo you,
Peek. I 'se been watchin' fur yer all de time dese five days.”

“Explain yourself. How have I brought trouble on Antoine?”

“Dat night you borrid de ole man's carriage, — dat was de
mischief. Policeman come las' week, an' take Antoine off ter
de calaboose. Tree times dey lash him ter make him tell whar
dey can find you; but he tell 'em, so help him God, he dun
know noting 'bout yer.”

Peek reflected for a moment, and then recalled the fact that
Myers, the detective, had got sight of the coat-of-arms on the
carriage. Yes! the clew was slight, but it was sufficient.

“My poor Antoine!” said Peek. “Must he, then, suffer
for me? Tell me, mother, what has become of Victor, his
dog?”

“Goramity! dat dog know more 'n half de niggers. He
would n't stay in dat house ahfer Antoine lef; could n't make
him do it, no how.”

“Where shall I be likely to find the dog?”

“'Bout de streets somewhar, huntin' fur Antoine. Ef dat
dumb critter could talk, he 'd 'stonish us all.”

“Well, mother, thank you for all your trouble. Here 's a
dollar to buy a pair of shoes with. Good by.”

The old woman's eyes snapped as she clutched the money,
and with a “Bress yer, Peek!” hobbled away.

The rest of that day Peek devoted to a search for Victor.
He sought him near the stable, — in the blacksmith's shop, —
in the market, — at the few houses which Antoine frequented;
but no Victor could be found. At last, late at night, weary
and desponding, Peek retraced his steps homeward; and as he
took out the door-key to enter the house, the dog he had been
looking for rose from the upper step, and came down wagging
his tail, and uttering a low squealing note of satisfaction.

“Why, Victor, is this you? I 've been looking for you all
day.”

The dog, as if he fully understood the remark, wagged his
tail with increased vigor, and then checked himself in a bark
which tapered off into a confidential whine, as if he were afraid
of being heard by some detective.

Victor was a cross between a Scotch terrier and a thoroughbread
Cuba bloodhound, imported for hunting runaway slaves.
He combined the good traits of both breeds. He had the accurate
scent, the large size and black color of the hound, the wiry
hair, the tenacity, and the affectionate nature of the terrier.
In the delicate action of his expressive nose, you saw keenness
of scent in its most subtle inquisitions.

Late as was the hour, Peek (who, in the event of being
stopped, had the mayor's pass for his protection) determined
on an instant trial of the dog's powers, for the exercise of
which perhaps the night would in this instance be the most
favorable time. He took him to Semmes's office, and making
him scent the lawyer's glove, indicated a wish to have him find
out his trail. Victor either would not or could not understand
what was wanted. He threw up his nose as if in contempt,
and turned away from the glove as if he desired to have nothing
to do with it. Then he would run away a short distance,
and come back, and rise with his fore feet on Peek's breast.
He repeated this several times, and at last Peek said: “Well,
have your own way. Go ahead, old fellow.”

Victor thanked him in another low whine, uttered as if addressed

exclusively to his private ears, and then trotted off,
assured that Peek was following. In half an hour's time, he
stopped before a square whitewashed building with iron-grated
windows.

“Confound you, Victor!” muttered Peek. “You 've told
me nothing new, bringing me here. I was already aware your
master was in jail. I can do nothing for him. Can't you do
better than that? Come along!”

Returning to Semmes's office, Peek tried once more to interest
the dog in the glove; but Victor tossed his nose away as
if in a pet. He would have nothing to do with it.

“Come along, then, you rascal,” said Peek. “We can do
nothing further to-night. Come and share my room with me.”

He reached home as the clock struck one. Victor followed
him into the house, and eagerly disposed of a supper of bones
and milk. Peek then went up to bed and threw down a mat
by the open window, upon which the dog stretched himself as
if he were quite as tired as his human companion.