from the burnt plain, and reduced, by the whirling of the wind, to an impalpable but poisonous powder.
For over an hour did the atmosphere carry this cinereous cloud; during which period lasted the imprisonment of the travellers.
At length a voice, speaking close by the curtains of the carriole, announced their release.
“You can come forth!” said the stranger, the crape scarf thrown back above the brim of his hat. “You will still have the storm to contend against. It will last to the end of your journey; and, perhaps, for three days longer. But you have nothing further to fear. The ashes are all swept off. They’ve gone before you; and you're not likely to overtake them this side the Rio Grande.”
“Sir!” said the planter, hastily descending the steps of the carriage, “we have to thank you for—for”
“Our lives, father!” cried Henry, supplying the proper words. “I hope, sir, you will favour us with your name?”
“Maurice Gerald!” returned the stranger; “though, at the Fort, you will find me better known as Maurice the mustanger.”
“A mustanger!” scornfully muttered Calhoun, but only loud enough to be heard by Louise.
“Only a mustanger!” reflected the aristocratic Poindexter, the fervour of his gratitude becoming sensibly chilled.
“For guide, you will no longer need either myself, or my lazo,” said the hunter of wild horses. “The cypress is in sight: keep straight towards it. After crossing, you will see the flag over the Fort. You may yet reach your journey’s end before night. I have no time to tarry; and must say adieu.”
Satan himself, astride a Tartarean steed, could not have looked more like the devil than did Maurice the Mustanger, as he separated for the second time from the planter and his party.
But neither his ashy envelope, nor the announcement of his humble calling, did aught to damage him in the estimation of one, whose thoughts were already predisposed in his favour—Louise Poindexter.
On hearing him declare his name—by presumption already known to her—she but more tenderly cherished the bit of cardboard, chafing against her snow-white bosom; at the same time muttering in soft pensive soliloquy, heard only by herself:—
“Maurice the mustanger! despite your sooty covering—despite your modest pretence—you have touched the heart of a Creole maiden. Mon Dieu—mon Dieu! He is too like Lucifer for me to despise him!”
