Just before the last bell rang Thomson came aboard with his slaves. Even the rude passengers were moved by the beauty of the slave girl. Every soft curve of her waist and supple body was followed by the close-fitting cotton gown; her hair, worn short since captivity, clustered in a rich, ravelled plume about her brows and neck; the soft, gazelle-like eyes were large with anxiety, but her step was firm, and she bore herself like a young princess as she crossed the deck to go below. The girlish figure appealed to Warren’s tender heart. He was used to the society of famous beauties in the proudest court of the Old World; he had flirted and danced with them in the abandonment of happy youthful hours, and more than one lovely girl had been smitten with his frank, good-looking boyish face and honest, manly bearing, but never before had his heart contracted and thrilled as it did now under the one appealing glance thrown hurriedly and timidly in his direction by the young slave girl. Scarcely were they under way when the threatening storm was upon them. It began in a dreary drizzle with occasional mutterings of thunder. Warren noticed that Judah was seated on the deck in the slave-pen next an airshaft, and he concluded to find the cabin communication with the shaft and reach Judah by it. The night fell fast. Maxwell hid himself in his stateroom before supper, having made the pleasing discovery that a port-hole in his stateroom opened directly beside Judah’s seat on the deck. A note was easily slipped to the slave telling him of Mr. Maybee’s plan, and asking what was the best course to pursue, then he sat there in the darkness waiting a movement on Judah’s part, assured that his fertile brain would find a plan of escape. In the cabin Thomson was the center of a congenial set of kindred spirits, young Virginians, going back to St. Louis after a campaign against the Free Soilers. They were reciting the glories of the expedition,--singing, shouting and making night hideous. Their favorite song ended in an uproarious chorus: You Yankees tremble, and Abolitionists fall; Our motto is, Southern Rights For all! One of their number had been fatally shot in a quarrel at an hotel in Kansas City; they were carrying the body home, and had ordered the coffin brought in and placed in the center of the cabin, where, as they said, the poor fellow might have the comfort of witnessing one more good time even though beyond the possibility of joining in it. In the gambling and drinking bout that followed, Thomson was the most reckless, and soon he, and the rest of the party, was stretched upon the floor, on tables, and lounges in a drunken stupor from which nothing could arouse them. The few women passengers were fastened in their staterooms.