The event proved that Russel was right.

Anne's bedroom was in the back part of the cottage, opposite the little grove where stood her school-room.

She was awakened, about one o'clock, that night, by a broad, ruddy glare of light, which caused her at first to start from her bed, with the impression that the house was on fire.

At the same instant she perceived that the air was full of barbarous and dissonant sounds, such as the beating of tin pans, the braying of horns, and shouts of savage merriment, intermingled with slang oaths and curses.

In a moment, recovering herself, she perceived that it was her school-house which was in a blaze, crisping and shrivelling the foliage of the beautiful trees by which it was surrounded, and filling the air with a lurid light.

She hastily dressed, and in a few moments Clayton and Russel knocked at her door. Both were looking very pale. "Don't be alarmed," said Clayton, putting his arm around her with that manner which shows that there is everything to fear; "I am going out to speak to them."

"Indeed, you are going to do no such thing," said Frank Russel, decidedly. "This is no time for any extra displays of heroism. These men are insane with whiskey and excitement. They have probably been especially inflamed against you, and your presence would irritate them still more. Let me go out: I understand the ignobile vulgus better than you do; besides which, providentially, I have n't any conscience to prevent my saying and doing what is necessary for an emergency. You shall see me lead off this whole yelling pack at my heels in triumph. And now, Clayton, you take care of Anne, like a good fellow, till I come back, which may be about four or five o'clock to-morrow morning. I shall toll all these fellows down to Muggins', and leave them so drunk they cannot stand for one three hours."

So saying, Frank proceeded hastily to disguise himself in a shaggy old great coat, and to tie around his throat a red bandanna silk handkerchief, with a very fiery and dashing

tie, and surmounting these equipments by an old hat which had belonged to one of the servants, he stole out of the front door, and, passing around through the shrubbery, was very soon lost in the throng who surrounded the burning building. He soon satisfied himself that Tom Gordon was not personally among them, that they consisted entirely of the lower class of whites.

"So far, so good," he said to himself, and, springing on to the stump of a tree, he commenced a speech in that peculiar slang dialect which was vernacular with them, and of which he perfectly well understood the use.

With his quick and ready talent for drollery, he soon had them around him in paroxysms of laughter; and, complimenting their bravery, flattering and cajoling their vanity, he soon got them completely in his power, and they assented, with a triumphant shout, to the proposition that they should go down and celebrate their victory at Muggins' grocery, a low haunt about a mile distant, whither, as he predicted, they all followed him. And he was as good as his word in not leaving them till all were so completely under the power of liquor as to be incapable of mischief for the time being.

About nine o'clock the next day he returned, finding Clayton and Anne seated together at breakfast.

"Now, Clayton," he said, seating himself, "I am going to talk to you in good, solemn earnest, for once. The fact is, you are checkmated. Your plans for gradual emancipation, or reform, or anything tending in that direction, are utterly hopeless; and, if you want to pursue them with your own people, you must either send them to Liberia, or to the Northern States. There was a time, fifty years ago, when such things were contemplated with some degree of sincerity by all the leading minds at the South. That time is over. From the very day that they began to open new territories to slavery, the value of this kind of property mounted up, so as to make emancipation a moral impossibility. It is, as they told you, a finality; and don't you see

how they make everything in the Union bend to it? Why, these men are only about three tenths of the population of our Southern States, and yet the other seven tenths virtually have no existence. All they do is to vote as they are told as they know they must, being too ignorant to know any better.

"The mouth of the North is stuffed with cotton, and will be kept full as long as it suits us. Good, easy gentlemen, they are so satisfied with their pillows, and other accommodations inside of the car, that they don't trouble themselves to reflect that we are the engineers, nor to ask where we' are going. And, when any one does wake up and pipe out in melancholy inquiry, we slam the door in his face, and tell him 'Mind your own business, sir,' and he leans back on his cotton pillow, and goes to sleep again, only whimpering a little, that we might be more polite.'

They have their fanatics up there. We don't trouble ourselves to put them down; we make them do it. They get up mobs on our account, to hoot troublesome ministers and editors out of their cities; and their men that they send to Congress invariably do all our dirty work. There's now and then an exception, it is true; but they only prove the rule.

"If there was any public sentiment at the North for you reformers to fall back upon, you might, in spite of your difficulties, do something; but there is not. They are all implicated with us, except the class of born fanatics, like you, who are walking in that very unfashionable narrow way we've heard of.”

Well," said Anne, "let us go out of the state, then. I will go anywhere; but I will not stop the work that I have begun."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

FLIGHT.

THE party of fugitives, which started for the North, was divided into two bands. Harry, Lisette, Tiff, and his two children, assumed the character of a family, of whom Harry took the part of father, Lisette the nurse, and Tiff the manservant.

The money which Clayton had given them enabling them to furnish a respectable outfit, they found no difficulty in taking passage under this character, at Norfolk, on board a small coasting-vessel bound to New York.

Never had Harry known a moment so full of joyous security as that which found him out at sea in a white-winged vessel, flying with all speed toward the distant port of safety.

Before they neared the coast of New York, however, there was a change in their prospects. The blue sky became darkened, and the sea, before so treacherously smooth, began to rise in furious waves. The little vessel was tossed baffling about by contrary and tumultuous winds.

When she began to pitch and roll, in all the violence of a decided storm, Lisette and the children cried for fear. Old Tiff exerted himself for their comfort to the best of his ability. Seated on the cabin-floor, with his feet firmly braced, he would hold the children in his arms, and remind them of what Miss Nina had read to them of the storm that came down on the Lake of Gennesareth, and how

Jesus was in the hinder part of the boat, asleep on a pillow. "And he's dar yet," Tiff would say.

"I wish they'd wake him up, then," said Teddy, disconsolately; "I don't like this dreadful noise! What does he let it be so for?"

Before the close of that day the fury of the storm increased; and the horrors of that night can only be told by those who have felt the like. The plunging of the vessel, the creaking and straining of the timbers, the hollow and sepulchral sound of waves striking against the hull, and the shiver with which, like a living creature, she seemed to tremble at every shock, were things frightful even to the experienced sailor; much more so to our trembling refugees.

The morning dawned only to show the sailors their bark drifting helplessly toward a fatal shore, whose name is a sound of evil omen to seamen.

It was not long before the final crash came, and the ship was wedged among rugged rocks, washed over every moment by the fury of the waves.

All hands came now on deck for the last chance of life. One boat after another was attempted to be launched, but was swamped by the furious waters. When the last boat was essayed, there was a general rush of all on board. It was the last chance for life. In such hours the instinctive fear of death often overbears every other consideration; and the boat was rapidly filled by the hands of the ship, who, being strongest and most accustomed to such situations, were more able to effect this than the passengers. The captain alone remained standing on the wreck, and with him Harry, Lisette, Tiff, and the children.

"Pass along," said the captain, hastily pressing Lisette on Doard, simply because she was the first that came to hand. "For de good Lord's sake," said Tiff, "put de chil'en on board; dere won't be no room for me, and 't an't no matter! You go 'board and take care of 'em," he said, pushing Harry along.