"Now, no more noise here," said the second clerk to the lifted man, restraining both his arms. "No, you stay right here. He didn't do a thing to you, you just stepped a little too spry and sort o' tripped up."
From his window shelf the first clerk, in the tail of his eye, saw the zealot and his group disperse while he, the clerk, talked laughingly to the soldier on one subject and gravely to the statesman on another.
"You can't challenge a man, general," he said, "who apologizes for calling you a poor peacemaker."
"By--! s-sir, I can and I sh-shall!" was the retort.
The clerk ignored it. He and the senator bent heads together again. "No," he said, "Hugh only told him he _feared_ it was Basile. In fact, it wasn't. It isn't."
"Who is it, then? It's a passenger and a bad case."
"Will you keep it dark--by the patient's own request--till the show's over to-night?"
The senator nodded. The two heads came closer. The general scorned to listen. The name did not reach him.
"Jove!" gasped the senator. "Come, general." They went.
The first clerk turned to the second clerk's elbow at the high desk, saying dryly: "They came to demand those shooting-irons and couldn't muster the brass."
Again the _Votaress_ was passing the Westwood and again was but a short mile behind the _Antelope_.
Led by Ramsey, the amateur players, including Hugh, had stopped rehearsing and were on the skylight roof, gathered about the commodore, the Gilmores, and the bell. In their company, though below them on the forward hurricane deck, the first mate leaned bulkily against the roof on which they stood. It was his watch. Ned was up at the wheel.
As early as the evening before, a good hundred and fifty miles back down the river, the _Antelope_, it will be remembered, had been close on the _Westwood's_ heels. So Gilmore reminded his wife. So Hugh needlessly reminded Ramsey. From the mate it was further learned that the pursuer had overhauled the pursued between Petit Goufre--which he and the whole company called Petty Gulf--and Grand Gulf; places named before the days of steam for their dangerous eddies. Yet, he went on to tell Ramsey, the swifter boat, with more freight to put ashore and with a larger appetite for cord-wood, had never got clean away. Even now, in full view ahead, she was down at half speed, wooding up from a barge in tow alongside. You could hear her crew singing as they trotted under their great shoulder loads of wood. The amateurs, except Hugh but including Ramsey, caught up their song and were promptly joined by a group around the bell of the _Westwood_ as that gallant loser foamed along between the _Votaress_ and the shore: