been a stranded hulk, cast on one of these inhospitable shores, where he fasted and prayed, and fancied that answering voices came to him in the moaning of the wind and the sullen swell of the sea.

Our readers behold him now, stretched on the grass beside the hut of Harry and Lisette, in one of his calmest and most communicative moods.

The children, with Lisette and the women, were searching for grapes in a distant part of the enclosure; and Harry, with the other fugitive man, had gone to bring in certain provisions which were to have been deposited for them in a distant part of the swamp by some of their confederates on one of the plantations. Old Tiff was hoeing potatoes diligently in a spot not very far distant, and evidently listening to the conversation with an ear of shrewd attention.

"Yes," said Dred, with that misty light in his eye which one may often have remarked in the eye of enthusiasts, "the glory holds off, but it is coming! Now is the groaning time! That was revealed to me when I was down at Okerecoke, when I slept three weeks in the hulk of a ship out of which all souls had perished."

"Rather a dismal abode, my friend," said Clayton, by way of drawing him on to conversation.

"The Spirit drove me there," said Dred, "for I had besought the Lord to show unto me the knowledge of things to come; and the Lord bade me to go from the habitations of men, and to seek out the desolate places of the sea, and dwell in the wreck of a ship that was forsaken for a sign of desolation unto this people. So I went and dwelt there, and the Lord called me Amraphal, because hidden things of judgment were made known unto me. And the Lord showed unto me that even as a ship which is forsaken of the waters, wherein all flesh have died, so shall it be with the nation of the oppressor."

"How did the Lord show

upon pursuing his inquiry.

you this?" said Clayton, bent

"Mine ear received it in the night season," said Dred,

"and I heard how the whole creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for the adoption; and because of this he hath appointed the tide."

"I don't see the connection," said Clayton. cause of this?"

66

Why be

Because," said Dred, "every day is full of labor, but the labor goeth back again into the seas. So that travail of all generations hath gone back, till the desire of all nations shall come, and He shall come with burning and with judgment, and with great shakings; but in the end thereof shall be peace. Wherefore, it is written that in the new heavens and the new earth there shall be no more sea."

These words were uttered with an air of solemn, assured confidence, that impressed Clayton strangely. Something in his inner nature seemed to recognize in them a shadow of things hoped for. He was in that mood into which the mind of him who strives with the evils of this world must often fall a mood of weariness and longing; and heard within him the cry of the human soul, tempest-tossed and not comforted, for rest and assurance of the state where there shall be no more sea.

"So, then," he said unto Dred, "so, then, you believe that these heavens and earth shall be made new."

"Assuredly," said Dred. "And the King shall reign in righteousness. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, - the poor and him that hath no helper. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence. He shall sit upon a white cloud, and the rainbow shall be round about his head. And the elect of the Lord shall be kings and priests on the 'earth."

"And do you think you shall be one of them?" said Clayton.

Dred gave a kind of inward groan.

"Not every one that prophesieth in his name shall be found worthy!" he said. "I have prayed the Lord, but he hath not granted me the assurance. I am the rod of his

wrath, to execute vengeance on his enemies. magnify itself against him that lifteth it?"

Shall the axe

The conversation was here interrupted by Harry, who, suddenly springing from the tree, came up, in a hurried and agitated manner.

"The devil is broke loose!" he said.

"Tom Gordon is

out, with his whole crew at his heels, beating the swamp ! A more drunken, swearing, ferocious set I never saw! They have got on to the trail of poor Jim, and are tracking him without mercy!"

A dark light flashed from Dred's eye, as he sprang upon his feet.

"The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; yea, the wilderness of Kadesh. I will go forth and deliver him!"

He seized his rifle and shot-bag, and in a few moments was gone. It was Harry's instinct to have followed him; but Lisette threw herself, weeping, on his neck.

"Don't go

don't!" she said. "What shall we all do without you? Stay with us! You'll certainly be killed, and you can do no good!"

"Consider," said Clayton, "that you have not the familiarity with these swamps, nor the wonderful physical power of this man. It would only be throwing away your life."

The hours of that day passed gloomily. Sometimes the brutal sound of the hunt seemed to sweep near them, — the crack of rifles, the baying of dogs, the sound of oaths, and then again all went off into silence, and nothing was heard but the innocent patter of leaf upon leaf, and the warbling of the birds, singing cheerily, ignorant of the abyss of cruelty and crime over which they sang.

Towards sunset a rustling was heard in the branches of the oak, and Dred dropped down into the enclosure, wet, and soiled, and wearied. All gathered round him, in a moment.

"Where is Jim?" asked Harry.

"ain!" said Dred. "The archers pressed him sore, ar he hath fallen in the wilderness!"

There was a general exclamation of horror. Dred made a movement to sit down on the earth. He lost his balance, and fell; and they all saw now, what at first they had not noticed, a wound in his breast, from which the blood was welling. His wife fell by his side, with wild moans of sorrow. He lifted his hand, and motioned her from him.

"Peace," he said, "peace! It is enough! Behold, I go unto the witnesses who cry day and night!"

The circle stood around him in mute horror and surprise. Clayton was the first who had presence of mind to kneel and stanch the blood. Dred looked at him; his calm,

large eyes filled with supernatural light.

"All over!" he said.

He put his hand calmly to his side, and felt the gushing blood. He took some in his hand and threw it upward, crying out, with wild energy, in the words of an ancient prophet,

'O, earth, earth, earth! Cover thou not my blood!"

Behind the dark barrier of the woods the sun was setting gloriously. Piles of loose, floating clouds, which all day long had been moving through the sky in white and silvery stillness, now one after another took up the rosy flush, and became each one a light-bearer, filled with ethereal radiance. And the birds sang on as they ever sing, unterrified by the great wail of human sorrow.

It was evident to the little circle that He who is mightier than the kings of the earth was there, and that that splendid frame, which had so long rejoiced in the exuberance of health and strength, was now to be resolved again into the eternal elements.

'Harry," he said, "lay me beneath the heap of witness. Let the God of their fathers judge between us!"

CHAPTER XXX.

THE BURIAL.

THE death of Dred fell like a night of despair on the hearts of the little fugitive circle in the swamps- - on the hearts of multitudes in the surrounding plantations, who had regarded him as a prophet and a deliverer. He in whom they trusted was dead! The splendid, athletic form, so full of wild vitality, the powerful arm, the trained and keen-seeing eye, all struck down at once! The grand and solemn voice hushed, and all the splendid poetry of olden time, the inspiring symbols and prophetic dreams, which had so wrought upon his own soul, and with which he had wrought upon the souls of others, seemed to pass away with him, and to recede into the distance and become unsubstantial, like the remembered sounds of mighty winds, or solemn visions of evening clouds, in times long departed.

On that night, when the woods had ceased to reverberate the brutal sounds of baying dogs, and the more brutal profanity of drunken men; when the leaves stood still on the trees, and the forest lay piled up in the darkness like black clouds, and the morning star was standing like a calm angelic presence above them, there might have been heard in the little clearing a muffled sound of footsteps, treading heavily, and voices of those that wept with a repressed and quiet weeping, as they bore the wild chieftain to his grave beneath the blasted tree. Of the undaunted circle who had met there at the same hour many evenings before, some had dared to be present to-night; for, hearing the report of the hunt, they had left their huts on the plantations by stealth,