The description of the hurricane went to St. Christopher by sloop two days later (there were no English papers on St. Croix), and was not heard from for two weeks. Meanwhile Alexander forgot it, as writers have a way of forgetting their infants of enthusiastic delivery. There was much to do on St. Croix. The negroes were put at once to rebuilding and repairing, and masters, as well as overlookers and agents, were behind them from morning till night. Mr. Mitchell had not returned, and Alexander was obliged to take charge of his estates. When he was not galloping from village to village and mill to mill, driving the sullen blacks before him, or routing them out of ruins and hollows, where they huddled in a demoralized stupor, he was consoling his aunt for the possible sacrifice of Mr. Mitchell to the storm. Alexander was quite confident that the hurricane had spared Tom Mitchell, whomsoever else it may have devoured, but his logic did not appeal to his aunt, who wept whenever he was there to offer his arm and shoulder. At other times she bustled about among her maids, who were sewing industriously for the afflicted. Alexander was grateful for the heavy task Mr. Mitchell's absence imposed, for there was no business doing in Christianstadt, and his nerves were still vibrating to the storm he had fought and conquered. His rigorous self-control was gone, his suppressed energies and ambitions were quick and imperious, every vial of impatience and disgust was uncorked. As he rode through the hot sunlight or moved among the Africans, coaxing and commanding, getting more work out of them by his gay bright manner than the overlookers could extract with their whips, his brain was thumping with plans of delivery from a life which he hated so blackly that he would wrench himself free of it before the year was out if he had to ship as a common sailor for New York. It seemed to him that the vacancies in his brain ached. His imagination was hot with the future awaiting him beyond that cursed stretch of blinding water. For the first time he fully realized his great abilities, knew that he had in him the forces that make history. All the encouragement of his mother and Hugh Knox, the admiration and confidence of such men as Mr. Cruger, the spoiling of his relatives, and his easy conquest or equally flattering antagonism of the youth of the Island, had fostered his self-confidence without persuading him that he was necessarily a genius. Strong as his youthful ambitions had been, burning as his desire for more knowledge, much in his brain had been dormant, and a humorous philosophy, added to the sanguineness of youth and a deep affection for a few people, had enabled him to bear his lot with unbroken cheerfulness. But the clashing forces of the Universe had roused the sleeping giant in his brain and whirled his youth away. His only formulated ambition was to learn first all that schools could teach him, then lead great armies to battle.