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

They are all

difficulties, do something; but there is not. 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 man

servant.

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 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 board, 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.

Harry mechanically sprang into the boat, and the captain after him. The boat was full.

'O, do take poor Tiff do!" said the children, stretching their hands after their old friend.

"Clear away, boys, the boat's full!" shouted a dozen voices; and the boat parted from the wreck, and sunk in eddies and whirls of boiling waves, foam, and spray, and went, rising and sinking, onward driven toward the shore.

A few, looking backwards, saw a mighty green wave come roaring and shaking its crested head, lift the hull as if it had been an egg-shell, then dash it in fragments upon the rocks. This was all they knew, till they were themselves cast, wet and dripping, but still living, upon the sands.

A crowd of people were gathered upon the shore, who, with the natural kindness of humanity on such occasions, gathered the drenched and sea-beaten wanderers into neighboring cottages, where food and fire, and changes of dry clothing, awaited them.

The children excited universal sympathy and attention, and so many mothers of the neighborhood came bringing offerings of clothing, that their lost wardrobe was soon yery tolerably replaced. But nothing could comfort them for the loss of their old friend. In vain the "little dears" were tempted with offers of cake and custard, and every imaginable eatable. They sat with their arms around each other, quietly weeping.

No matter how unsightly the casket may be which holds all the love there is on earth for us, be that love lodged in the heart of the poorest and most uneducated, the whole world can offer no exchange for the loss of it.

Tiff's devotion to these children had been so constant, so provident, so absolute, that, it did not seem to them possible they could live a day without him; and the desolation of their lot seemed to grow upon them every hour. Nothing would restrain them. They would go out and look up