“Fool! Fool!” the empty building rang with the sound, and a score of frantic echoes shouted opprobrium upon him. He clasped his quivering hands above his head and sought to command his thoughts. He had been too drunk at the time to realize the fact, but the knife was a witness which would indubitably fix the crime upon him. Like all his personal accessories it was the handsomest thing of the kind that could be bought, and on the silver plate on the handle was engraved, according to his wont, his monogram. He started violently toward the hall. He must go back,--but he could never row the distance, exhausted, as he was, against the current. He would have the _Aglaia_ to steam up on some pretext, and in company with the skipper they would discover the body, when unperceived he could repossess himself of the knife. He was terrified at the prospect of the attempt. He felt himself already in toils. He tossed his hands above his head and wrung them wildly. A hoarse cry of agony burst from his lips, suddenly dying in his throat, for--was that an echo in the resounding vacancy? A strange sound, a great pervasive sound was filling all the air, as if the old house quavered, and groaned, and cried out in long endured anguish. There was a rush upon the staircase; he saw through the open doors of the drawing-rooms shadowy, flitting figures descending in crowds as if the ancient ghosts that had found harbor here were fleeing their refuge. Nay, only coils on coils of dust. As he rushed forth into the hall he perceived at the end of the long perspective the great Mississippi River, as in some strange dislocation of the angle of vision, reaching--illuminated and splendid--to the flaunting evening sky. And from the Mississippi River the lenses of the steam yacht _Aglaia_, focused on the old mansion of Duciehurst, saw it at one moment still and silent, majestic even, in its melancholy ruin, the sun lingering on its massive cornice and columnated portico. The next it slid as softly from vision as an immaterial mirage. The caving bank had gone down into the unimaginable depths of the river, carrying on its floods a thousand acres of disintegrating land and the turbulent waters of the liberated Mississippi were flowing deep over the cotton fields of Duciehurst plantation, two miles inland.