At last the serpent began to move its glittering head. The Grand Marshal, General Hopkins, set forth with a retinue of generals and aids, guards and riflemen. The horse artillery and various guard regiments followed with seven brass bands. The second division under Major General Stryker consisted of the Governor and his staff, the state artillery, State Fencibles and cadets, councilmen from various cities, foreign consuls, and members of the Society of the Cincinnati, escorting the water commissioners and engineers, all in barouches. The third division included officers of the army and navy and militia, “reverend the clergy,” judges, lawyers, professors, and students; the chamber of commerce and the board of trade. The firemen made up the fourth division. Four other divisions tailed after. It seemed that there could be nobody left to watch when so many marched. But the walks and windows, porches and roofs were a living plaster of heads and bodies. New York had more than doubled its numbers since the Erie Canal festival and had now nearly three hundred and fifty thousand souls within its bounds, as well as thousands on thousands of visitors. It gave RoBards’ heart another twinge to stand an obscure member of a fire-gang and watch Harry Chalender go by in a carriage as one of the victorious engineers. RoBards had fought him and his ambitions and must haul on a rope now like a harnessed Roman captive, while his victor triumphed past him in a chariot, or, worse, a barouche. Life had defeated RoBards again and again. With the loftiest motives he had been always the loser, and he could not understand things. Chalender was a flippant fencer with life; yet somehow he fought always on the winning side and the worthier side. His mortal offense had been condoned, outlawed, and the offended ones helped to conceal his guilt. It was bitter for an earnest man like RoBards to go afoot after such a rake as Chalender. Why should he have killed and hidden Jud Lasher in a wall, and let Harry Chalender, who had been as evil, ride by in state showered with the cheers due a hero, a savior of New York? RoBards would never cease to shudder lest it be found out that he had spared Chalender; and he would never cease to shudder lest it be found out that he had punished Jud Lasher. A jury would probably acquit him for killing Lasher, but only if he exculpated himself by publishing the disaster that had befallen Immy. If he had killed Chalender and published his wife’s frailty, a jury would have acquitted him for that, too. But why should it have befallen him to be compelled to such decisions and such secrecies?