There, behind the closed window of the second story, absently gazing out straight before him, stood William Roux! Mr. Lafitte knew him at the first glance, and an infernal joy bathed his heart. Afraid the next instant that he would be seen, he drew back into a narrow alley near by, still gazing up at the window. But he had no reason for apprehension, for the negro was apparently lost in reverie, and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking straight before him. The entire abstraction of Roux’s manner suggested to Mr. Lafitte that there was no other person up there in the room, and a demoniac idea leaped at once into the brain of the slaveholder and took possession of him. Here was the carriage within fifty paces just round the corner. What was to prevent him from quietly walking up into that room, taking Roux by the arm, and quickly marching him off to it? It flashed into his mind just how Roux would behave. The submissive, docile negro, so different from that sullen, fiery Antony, overcome with fright he would never think of struggling, and with the old servile habit of instant obedience falling again upon him, cowed by the stern mandate, paralyzed by the strong grasp, thunder-stricken by the unexpected appearance of his old master, he would just march along without a word. Quickly he would walk him, cram him into the carriage, pull down the curtains, and drive away like fury. Ha! the moment when he should have him safe, rushed upon his brain like fire. One bold stroke—now for it! Emerging from the alley, he quickly crossed the street, and mounted the wooden steps which he saw led up to Roux’s room. The door was ajar, and pausing for one moment to listen, with torrents of hellish exultation pouring through his being, he recognized by the silence that Roux was alone. Softly pushing open the door, which floated inward without a sound, he saw his victim standing with his back to him at the window, and crossing the floor on noiseless tiptoe, he tapped him on the shoulder. Roux turned with a start, and with his black face flaring into ashen fright, he would have fallen to the floor, but Lafitte caught him by the throat with both hands, and upheld him. “Not one word, you dog!” he hissed, glaring into his bulging eyes. “I have you! Stand!” He released his throat, and Roux stood with a terrific look of agony on his visage, which seemed at once to have grown thin and grey. “Oh, Master Lafitte!” he gasped in a horrified whisper, his whole frame shaking as if he had the palsy. “Silence, cur!” hissed the slaveholder, grasping his arm like a vice. “Come with me! Not a word—not a sign—or I’ll dash your brains out.”