At sunrise the next morning I was half awake, grasping at the skirts of a pleasant dream, when Bob came in, blew about the room for awhile, and cried out 'Massa, did you order um wom bath?' 'No; clear out! Eh? warm bath? Yes; warm bath, to be sure.' And Bob went out, and came in directly with two wenches and a warm bath. 'How's the wind Bob?' 'De wind?' 'Yes; where's the wind' 'Dun know, Sah.' 'Well, go out in the balcony and see where it comes from.' Bob shouted through the open window, 'De wind come from de Souf.'
I made but one spring, and the blacks vanished. Going below, I found the house in commotion. The schooner was to sail at nine o'clock, and the signal would be the report of a two-pounder which the captain carried on his quarter-deck. At eight o'clock I had been all over town from the fort to the powder house; looked in at the church, where were some fifteen or twenty kneeling, silent and devotional; and was seated at breakfast, when we heard the captain's gun, an hour before the time. 'My God!' said I, 'I can't go without seeing Mrs. J---- and kind Mrs. G----; and then there's the pretty Di. Vernon!' (I had bade them good-by a dozen times.) I rushed into the street, and seeing half-a-dozen ladies not far off, gave them a touch-and-go shake; rushed up a wrong street, then back again, and finally came out on the square and saw the little schooner's sails bellied out full; passengers waving their handkerchiefs, and the people all around crying out to me to hurry, or I should lose my chance. But I _didn't_ hurry. The idea of hurry, after we had waited six weeks! That captain too, had he been asleep all this time, and just awaked? No; I did not hurry, but walked leisurely across the square, looking over my shoulder occasionally to see if ---- was any where in sight, for she had promised to be at the dock; and passing over the long wharf in the same stubborn way, I stepped on board the schooner with a stiffer upper lip than I ever remember to have had in that climate. The moment that my feet touched the deck, the ropes slipped and away flew the schooner; but in all this 'heat, haste and hunger,' from a half-swallowed breakfast, and consignments of pacquets and kind wishes that were left behind, the sentiment of my last look was burnt to a cinder.