She shut herself in, dropped to the berth's side, and let the tears run wild. The nurse and the still handsome Phyllis appeared promptly, together. But they found her full of sparkle; so full that Phyllis saw under the mask; a mask she herself had worn so often in her youth under a like desperation. "Mammy," said her mistress, "want to go somewhere with your baby, about sundown this evening?" For explanation the old woman glanced at Phyllis, but Phyllis's eyes were on Ramsey with a light whose burning carried old Joy's memory back twenty years. "Sundown?" echoed the nurse to gain time, "yass'm, o' co'se, ef--but, missie--sundown--dat mean' Natchez. You cayn't be goin' asho' whah Cap'm Hugh dess tell Phyllis yo' ma comin' aboa'd?" "Not ashore to stay," was the blithe reply as Phyllis aided the change of dress. "There'll be two or three of us." "Well, o' co'se, ef you needs me. Wha' fo' you gwine?" "To see the twins," sang Ramsey, "if we go at all." Then Phyllis knew she was trusted, and while with a puzzled frown the nurse watched her manipulate hooks and eyes she blandly asked: "Miss Ramsey, if Cap'm Hugh give' me leave kin I go too?" "Yes, you might ask him. Nobody's going unless he goes." The light came to old Joy. "Law'! missie, now you a-talkin'! Now you a-talkin' wisdom! Dah's whah I's wid you, my baby. I's wid you right dah, pra-a-aise Gawd!" All three, parting company, were happier for several hours. But the Californian's were not the only fond schemes, aboard the _Enchantress_, that could go to wreck. Nor had "California" met his last disappointment even on this journey. As he and his reinforcements came out on the boiler deck with a hundred others from the midday feast the deck-hands below, for quicker unloading at Canal Street on the morrow, were shifting a lot of sacked corn from the hold to the forecastle-deck and were timing their work to a chantey. The song was innocently chosen in reference solely to the piece of river in which they chanced then to be, but all the more for its innocence it touched in that gentle knight a chord of sympathy. "My own true love wuz lost an' found-- O hahd times!-- An' lost ag'in a-comin' round Hahd Times Ben'. Found an' lost, lost an' found, An' lost ag'in a-comin' round Hahd Times Ben'."[2] So it ran, while the _Enchantress_ turned southeast with that Lake Saint Joe of which "'Lindy" was "the pride" lying forest-hidden a few miles away on the starboard beam. The melody opened with a prolonged wail on its highest note and bore the tragic quality which so often marked the songs of slavery. Helped on by names of near-by landmarks--the Big Black River and the once perilous Grand Gulf--at the bottom of Hard Times Bend--it played on "California's" mind like summer lightning and seemed to call to his romantic spirit supernaturally. He could delay no longer to take his companions into his confidence.