II

At early dawn the steamboat slowed down, and a scow, manned by two
bare-footed negroes with sweep oars, rounded to. In a few moments the
major, two guns, two valises, Jack, and I were safely landed on its wet
bottom, the major's bag with its precious contents stowed between his
knees.

To the left, a mile or more away, lay Crab Island, the landed estate of
our host,--a delicate, green thread on the horizon line, broken by two
knots, one evidently a large house with chimneys, and the other a clump of
trees. The larger knot proved to be the manor house that sheltered the
belongings of the major, with the wine-cellars of marvelous vintage, the
table that groaned, the folding mahogany doors that swung back for bevies
of beauties, and perhaps, for all I knew, the gray-haired, ebony butler in
the green coat. The smaller knot, Jack said, screened from public view the
little club-house belonging to his friends and himself.

As the sun rose and we neared the shore, there came into view on the near
end of the island the rickety outline of a palsied old dock, clutching
with one arm a group of piles anchored in the marsh grass, and extending
the other as if in welcome to the slow-moving scow. We accepted the
invitation, threw a line over a thumb of a pile, and in five minutes were
seated in a country stage. Ten more, and we backed up to an old-fashioned
colonial porch, with sloping roof and dormer windows supported by high
white columns. Leaning over the broken railing of the porch was a
half-grown negro boy, hatless and bare-footed; inside the door, looking
furtively out, half concealing her face with her apron, stood an old negro
woman, her head bound with a bandana kerchief, while peeping from behind