Helen answered, "No doubt, although I have not read them."
Returning her the letters, he said, "I shall be compelled to detain you, while I have given your friends a pass to their destination."
Tears fell fast from her eyes as she turned them from his gaze and realized her helplessness and the futility of all she had thus far endured. For the first time her courage failed her. After an interval of several moments she looked up and discovered the packet still alongside; which astonishing fact caused her to inquire why it lingered.
Evidently, Captain Belknap thought this circumstance would have evaded even her keen observation. Laying his hand gently on her shoulder and looking kindly into her tear-streaming eyes, he said with a quiet laugh, "I'm only joking with you, and yet in my dreary sailor life the past four days have been too happy for me willingly to part with you."
"Please let me go! please let me go!" she pleaded.
"Why, certainly," he replied, "though I shall miss you more than you can ever know. Forgive me for this joke and let us part friends."
Wiping away the tears, which had given place to smiles, she laid both her hands in his and said, "I will not only forgive, but bless you for your kindness."
Drawing her hand into his arm, the captain took her on board the packet and gave her a pass to New Orleans.
The passage down the river occupied several days, the boat touching at only a few points. The little party from Rodney, still under the direction of Miss Gerard, who never relaxed the discipline of her authority, were chiefly dependent on each other for society: for obvious reasons she was reluctant to form acquaintances on board, and so great was her vigilance that whenever Mrs. Clayton's voice became too animated or her language of a nature to attract suspicion she would pinch her arm with a severity that could not be mistaken.
One evening the purser, Mr. Anderson, came to Miss Gerard with a book in his hand. After introducing himself he remarked that he had with him a most entertaining novel, and it had occurred to him that perhaps she would like to read it. Naturally, after passing through so many ordeals, Helen asked herself, "Now, what can this man want?" However, she replied without hesitation, "With pleasure: after a couple of days, when I have read it, I wish you would come to the cabin and I will return it to you;" and again she said to herself, "In this way I shall see more of this man and learn his motive." At a later day she discovered that he was from New Orleans, a paroled Confederate prisoner who knew of the Claytons. How he became an ally at a critical moment will presently appear.