As long as he remained in Boston, every face seemed to
wear a look of condemnation. The mark was set upon him, and avenging
fiends pursued him. That very day he left the city in disguise. Through
what trials he passed will never be known. But destitute, friendless,
and broken-spirited, he wandered from city to city, a vagabond upon the
face of the earth. Nor did a sterner retribution long delay. In New
Orleans, he was so far reduced that he was obliged to earn a miserable
support in an oyster-saloon near the levee. One night, a fight began
between some drunken boatmen: and Sandford, though in no way concerned
in the affair, received a chance bullet in his forehead, and fell dead
without a word.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Bullion, at last, in spite of his armor of selfishness and stoicism, was
touched in a vital part. His dreams of wealth had vanished into air. The
confederate in New York in whom he had trusted had only made him a dupe.
Blindly following out his agreement, he found himself saddled with a
load of railroad-shares, useless for any present purpose, and all his
convertible property gone. The consciousness that he--the man of all
others who prided himself upon his sagacity--had been so easily
overreached was quite as humiliating as the idea of ruin itself.
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