CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SEPARATION.
All hope of escape was over. The mulatto slowly descended the ladder, muttering to the man below that he had only been making some alterations in the window shutters.
Cora Leslie re-opened her eyes to behold her father bending over her, his face almost ghastly with agitation.
The Octoroon was terrified by the pale and horror-stricken countenance. "Is it all a dream?" she murmured, passing her hand across her forehead; "speak, dearest father, what has happened?"
"I am ruined, Cora," answered Gerald Leslie, in a hoarse whisper. "But come the worst, we love each other. There is no dark cloud between us now. We may be penniless, but at least we are united."
The reader must understand that, as yet, the Octoroon was unaware of all the miseries of her position. Educated in England—reared upon a free soil, where slavery is unknown, she never dreamt that she would be sold because of her father's insolvency. She had neither seen nor heard of a slave sale. How was she to imagine that she, delicately nurtured, tenderly beloved, was to be sold with all the other goods and chattels upon the estate?
"Come the worst, dearest father," she repeated, "we will never part again."
Gerald Leslie was silent.
He had no power to speak. Taking his daughter by the hand, he led her down stairs into the largest apartment in the Pavilion, where Silas Craig, with the sheriff and his assistants, were assembled.
The hardest heart might have been melted as the father and daughter entered the room. Cora, pale and trembling, yet lovely in her pallor, robed in white, and graceful as those lilies which seemed the best emblems of her delicate beauty.
Gerald Leslie, proud, calm, and erect, although despair was stamped on every feature of his face.
But the brutal nature of Silas Craig was incapable of pity; he felt only a fiendish joy in the humiliation of one who had always despised him.
"I expected to see you, Mr. Craig," said Gerald, addressing the lawyer with icy contempt, "but I thought that you would come alone. May I ask why you are accompanied by these people?"
"Merely as a matter of precaution," answered Silas; "I have no doubt these gentlemen will find their presence useless; for of course you are prepared to meet your engagements. You have not forgotten that this is the day that your acceptance for a hundred thousand dollars falls due. Mr. Horton has given me full power to act in his name as well as my own. Have you the money ready, my dear Mr. Leslie?"
Gerald Leslie felt the sting of the mocking sneer with which these words were accompanied.
"I am not yet prepared with the money," he answered; "but I have every reason to hope the New York steamer will bring the required sum before night."
"It is from the house of Richardson you expect the money, I believe," said Silas Craig.
"It is."
"In that case I am sorry to inform you that a telegram has just reached New Orleans announcing the failure of that house."
Gerald Leslie clasped his hands in silence.
"Was that your only resource, Mr. Leslie?" asked Craig.
Still the planter made no reply.
"You see, then," continued the lawyer, "that the presence of these gentlemen is not altogether useless. You can proceed at once to business," he added, turning to the men.
Cora Leslie wondered at the silent despair of her father.
"Why bow your head, dearest father?" she said, "if your ruin leaves no stain upon your honor. We do not fear poverty. Let us go!"
Craig looked at the Octoroon with a sardonic smile.
"I could have wished that your father had explained to you why you cannot follow him from this place, Miss Leslie," he said; "it will be a painful disclosure for me to make."
"What, sir?" exclaimed Cora, looking alternately from the lawyer to her father.
Gerald Leslie clasped her in her arms.
"My daughter was born in England, Mr. Craig," he said. "She has nothing to do with this business!"
"Your memory fails you this morning, Mr. Leslie," answered Silas; "your daughter was born on this plantation, and is the child of a certain Quadroon slave, called Francilia. The proofs are in my possession."
"What of that?" asked Cora; "what matters whether I was born in England or Louisiana?"
The lawyer took a memorandum-book from his pocket.
"Since your father will not enlighten you, Miss Leslie," he said; "the law must answer your question." He opened the book and read aloud from one of its pages:
"'The children of a slave belong to the owner of the mother.' In other words," added the lawyer, as he replaced the book in his pocket, "Mr. Leslie is your master as well as your father; you are, therefore, his property, and that of his creditors."
"Father!" cried Cora, wildly; "do you hear what this man says? You are silent! Oh, Heaven, it is then true?"
For a moment her anguish overcame her; then, turning to Craig, she said:
"What, then, would you do with me, sir?"
"Alas, my poor child," answered Silas, with affected compassion, "you will be sold with the others."
With a shriek of horror the Octoroon buried her face upon her father's breast.
"Sold!" she exclaimed, in a stifled voice; "sold!"
The mulatto Toby stood by, contemplating the scene with mute despair.
"Mr. Craig," said Gerald Leslie, "will not all that I possess suffice to pay the debt I owe? Why this useless cruelty? Do you fear that the produce of the sale will not be enough to repay you? If it should be so, I swear to you that I will employ the last hour of my life to endeavor to liquidate your claim. If, then, there yet remains one sentiment of pity in your heart, do not rob me of my child!"
"If I were disposed to grant your prayer, Mr. Leslie," answered Silas, "the law is inexorable. All must be sold."
"No, no; who could question your right to do as you please in the matter?"
"You forget," answered the lawyer; "you forget the fifty thousand dollars due to Augustus Horton; I am here to represent his interests as well as my own."
"Augustus Horton," cried Cora; "you hear, father, you hear. It is to deliver me to him that they would separate me from you."
"Reassure yourself, Miss Leslie," said Silas Craig; "the law requires that the slaves upon a property shall be sold by public auction. That auction will take place at noon to-morrow. Mr. Leslie has only to purchase you if he can command the means."
But Cora heard him not.
The name of Augustus Horton awakened all her terror of the persecution of a base and heartless profligate.
She imagined herself already in his power—his slave—his to treat as his vile passion prompted.
Wild with terror, she clung convulsively to her father.
"No, no," she cried; "do not abandon me. I shall die; I shall go mad. Do you forget that that man is the murderer of my mother?"
"Silence, silence!" whispered Gerald; "unhappy girl, do not infuriate him."
"I hope, Mr. Leslie," said Craig, as Cora still clung to her father, "that you will not oblige us to have recourse to violence."
"Kill me, kill me, sooner than abandon me to that man," cried Cora.
The mulatto drew a knife from his pocket and handed it to the agonized father.
"Kill her, master," he whispered; "better that than she should meet the fate of her mother."
Gerald pushed the slave from him with a gesture of horror. "No, no!" he exclaimed; "all hope is not yet lost! Between this and to-morrow surely something can be done. I will see Gilbert. We will save you. Cora, my beloved; we will save you."
Two of the men approached the father and daughter to take the Octoroon from Gerald's arms.
But Cora only clung to him more convulsively.
"Father, father!" she shrieked.
At a gesture from Craig they seized her in their arms and dragged her away.
Happily for the wretched girl, consciousness once more deserted her, and she sunk fainting in the arms of the brutal wretches whose business it was to secure her.
Silas Craig looked on at this heart-rending scene with an evil light shining in his red, rat-like eyes.
"For years and years, Mr. Gerald Leslie," he said, "you and the like of you have carried it with a high hand over me. But my turn has come at last, I guess. You look rather small to-day. It's a hard thing for a man to be so poor as to have to sell his favorite daughter."
"Wretch!" cried the agonized father; "this is your hour of triumph; but remember that Heaven suffers such as you to prosper for a while that it may the better confound them in the end. A being capable of infamy such as this must be capable of crime. Guilty deeds long forgotten are sometimes strangely brought to light, and it may be your turn to grovel in the dust and ask for mercy of me."
In spite of his hardihood in crime the color forsook Silas Craig's face, and left it of a dusky white. The random shot had struck him too forcibly. The man of guilt trembled.