Having expounded with some particularity the precarious tenure by which I held my office and my life in those “thrilling regions” where my duties lay, I ought to explain by what unhappy chance I am still able to afflict the reader.  There lived in Selma a certain once wealthy and still influential citizen, whose two sons, of about my own age, had served as officers in the Confederate Army.  I will designate them simply as Charles and Frank.  They were types of a class now, I fear, almost extinct.  Born and bred in luxury and knowing nothing of the seamy side of life—­except, indeed, what they had learned in the war—­well educated, brave, generous, sensitive to points of honor, and of engaging manners, these brothers were by all respected, by many loved and by some feared.  For they had quick fingers upon the pistol-trigger withal, and would rather fight a duel than eat—­nay, drink.  Nor were they over-particular about the combat taking the form of a duel—­almost any form was good enough.  I made their acquaintance by chance and cultivated it for the pleasure it gave me.  It was long afterward that I gave a thought to its advantages; but from the time that I became generally known as their friend my safety was assured through all that region; an army with banners could not have given me the same immunity from danger, obstruction or even insult in the performance of my disagreeable duties.  What glorious fellows they were, to be sure—­these my late antagonists of the dark days when, God forgive us, we were trying to cut one another’s throat.  To this day I feel a sense of regret when I think of my instrumentality, however small, in depriving the world of many such men in the criminal insanity that we call battle.

Life in Selma became worth living even as the chance of living it augmented.  With my new friends and a friend of theirs, whose name—­the more shame to me—­I cannot now recall, but should not write here if I could, I passed most of my leisure hours.  At the houses of themselves and their friends I did most of my dining; and, heaven be praised! there was no necessity for moderation in wine.  In their society I committed my sins, and together beneath that noble orb unknown to colder skies, the Southern moon, we atoned for them by acts of devotion performed with song and lute beneath the shrine window of many a local divinity.

One night we had an adventure.  We were out late—­so late that it was night only astronomically.  The streets were “deserted and drear,” and, of course, unlighted—­the late Confederacy had no gas and no oil.  Nevertheless, we saw that we were followed.  A man keeping at a fixed distance behind turned as we turned, paused as we paused, and pursued as we moved on.  We stopped, went back and remonstrated; asked his intentions in, I dare say, no gentle words.  He gave us no reply, but as we left him he followed.  Again we stopped, and I felt my pistol plucked out of my pocket.  Frank had unceremoniously possessed himself of it and