The Octoroon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895* edition. Excerpt: ... Don Juan. I had a motive for my silence." "And you speak now" "Because I think it the time to speak." Don Juan, paced the apartment backward and forward with folded arms, and his head bent upon his breast. Presently pausing before Pauline Corsi's embroidery frame, he said in a hoarse whisper: "Do you mean to betray me?" "Nor "Why, then, tell me all this T "Because I would ask the reward of thirteen years' silence." "And that reward?' "Is easy for you to grant. I am tired of dependence, even on your goodness. Make me your wife, and let me share the wealth acquired by the guilt whose secret I know."--i--CHAPTER XVIH. THE DUEL BY MOONLIGHT. The plantation of Silas Craig, at Iberville, was situated, as we have already said, upon the borders of a wood; a luxuriant forest, stretching for miles upon the banks of the Mississippi, varied every here and there by undulating dells and pools of water, lying hidden beneath the shadow of giant trees, whose branches had waved for centuries above a solitude, broken only by the fleet foot of the Indian. It was in this forest that the unhappy and martyred Quadroon, Francilia, lay in her quiet grave, a grassy mound, marked only by the rude wooden cross erected at its head by the faithful mulatto, Toby. Here, at least, the lovely child of an accuised and trampled race was free. Here no master dared molest her tranquil slumber. Death sets the slave and the prisoner alike at liberty. The red sun sunk in crimson splendor beneath the purple waters of the mighty river; upon every forest-tree gleamed golden reflections of the dying light; upon the bosom of each quiet pool the last sunbeams faded and flickered in the shadowy twilight, while,...


Genre: Historical