"Indeed!" said Silas. "Then I'm extremely sorry to hear it; as, of course, under those circumstances, I can no longer delay putting an execution upon your property, and sending the Leslie plantation and your valuable lot of niggers to the auctioneer's hammer." Having uttered this threat, he sat for some little time with his hands on his knees, and a smile of triumph upon his face, watching the countenance of the planter. Gerald Leslie's was a gloomy face to look upon in that moment; but it neither expressed grief nor humiliation, and his enemy was disappointed. It was not enough to ruin the man he hated. Silas Craig would have given half his fortune to see that haughty spirit lowered in the dust. The planter sat for some minutes in perfect silence, as if he were revolving some plan in his mind. Presently he looked up, and, without any alteration of his former manner, addressed the usurer thus: "Silas Craig, sooner than ask a favor of you, I would see every scrap of property I possess sold in the public sale-room, and would leave my native land a beggar. I do not ask you a favor, then; I offer you a bargain. If my property is sold to-day, it will be sold at a loss. You will be paid, it is true, but others, for whom (pardon me) I feel a great deal more concern, will lose. Two months hence that same property will, for certain commercial reasons known as well to you as to me, realize a much larger amount. Besides which, I have friends in the North who may come forward in the meantime to save me from ruin. Renew your bill at two months from to-day, and for those two months I will give you double the enormous interest I have been already paying--a ruinous bargain for me, and as valuable a one for you. But no favor; remember that! Do you accept?" "I do," said Silas, after a few moments' deliberation. "The interest ought to be trebled, though." The planter laughed bitterly. "I have offered you the utmost farthing I mean to offer," he said. "I accept it," answered Silas. "Give me pen, ink and paper, and I'll draw up the document." CHAPTER IV. CORA'S WELCOME. While the difficulties of the planter were becoming every day more painful to encounter, and more perilous to his future prospects of happiness, the good ship Virginia reached her destination, and in due time Mrs. Montresor and her two fair charges arrived at New Orleans. Cora Leslie had given her father no warning of her coming. It had pleased the loving girl to think that she should creep to his side when he least expected her, and that the happy surprise of her arrival would come upon him in the midst of his troubles.