Faintly audible to the apothecary of the rue Royale through that deserted stillness which is yet the marked peculiarity of New Orleans streets by night, came from a neighboring slave-yard the monotonous chant and machine-like tune-beat of an African dance.

There our lately met _marchande_ (albeit she was but a guest, fortified against the street-watch with her master's written "pass") led the ancient Calinda dance with that well-known song of derision, in whose ever multiplying stanzas the helpless satire of a feeble race still continues to celebrate the personal failings of each newly prominent figure among the dominant caste.

There was a new distich to the song to-night, signifying that the pride of the Grandissimes must find his friends now among the Yankees: "Miche Hon're, alle! h-alle! Trouve to zamis parmi les Yankis.
Dance calinda, bou-joum! bou-joum! Dance calinda, bou-joum! bou-joum! Frowenfeld, as we have already said, had closed his shop, and was sitting in the room behind it with one arm on his table and the other on his celestial globe, watching the flicker of his small fire and musing upon the unusual experiences of the evening.

Upon every side there seemed to start away from his turning glance the multiplied shadows of something wrong.

The melancholy face of that Honore Grandissime, his landlord, at whose mention Dr.Keene had thought it fair to laugh without explaining; the tall, bright-eyed _milatraisse_; old Agricola; the lady of the basil; the newly identified merchant friend, now the more satisfactory Honore,--they all came before him in his meditation, provoking among themselves a certain discord, faint but persistent, to which he strove to close his ear.