of Katharine was evidently at an end; and feeling towards her as he did, how painful was the new position in which he stood to her father! The subject distressed him; and he strove by a motion as rapid as that of the pursuit to escape from thoughts too little calculated to yield him satisfaction to win him to their indulgence. The parties were separated; the one on its way back to the garrison, the other, somewhat more imposing from its new acquisition of force, speeding boldly for the Cypress Swamp.

CHAPTER IX.

"I take the hand of my fierce enemy

In a true pledge-a pledge of earnest faith

I fain would seal in blood-his blood or mine."

WHILE the events which we have just recorded had been going on in one quarter, others not less imposing, though perhaps less important to the partisans, had taken place in the swamp. There, as we remember, Humphries, after the escape of Goggle, had bestowed his men in safety. Deeply mortified by that occurrence, the lieutenant had been more than usually careful of his remaining prisoners, as well as of his appointments of the camp. The fires had been well lighted, the several watches duly set, and all preparations were in even progress for the quiet passage of the night. To John Davis much of these matters had been given in charge, and, in their proper execution, he approved himself the same trusty soldier that we have elsewhere found him. The prisoners were put entirely and particularly under his direction; and having placed them separately, each securely tied, in the little bark huts which were scattered about the island, through the co-operation and continued presence of the sentries closely set around them, their custody was

quite as complete as, under existing circumstances, it could possibly have been made. Such, among others, was the condition of the luckless Hastings. His hut was isolated from the rest, and stood, on the very edge of the island, upon a slight elevation. Tied, hand and foot, with cords too stout for his strength, he lay upon a pile of rushes in the corner of his cabin, musing, doubtless, like most of his fellows who have experienced a sudden reverse, upon the vexatious instability of fortune. Nor did his musings prompt him at all times to that due resignation which a proper course of reflection, in such a case, would be most usually apt to occasion. He suffered himself to be too much disquieted by his thinking; and, at such moments, seeking to elevate himself from his prostrate condition, he would lose his balance, and roll away from his place, like a ball under some foreign compulsion. A few feeble efforts at release, resulting always in the same way, taught him at last to remain in quiet, though, had he known the fate of Sergeant Clough, upon whose bed of death he now lay at length, his reflections, most probably, would have been far less satisfactory than he now found them.

Even now they were far from agreeable. The sergeant chewed but the cud of bitter fancy; the sweet was all denied him in his dungeon of bark. He could not misunderstand or mistake the dangers of his position. He was the prisoner of the man he had striven to wrong in the tenderest part; he beheld the authority which that man exercised over those around him; he well knew the summary character of the times, which sanctioned so frequently the short shrift and certain cord; and, considering himself reserved for some such fearful mode of exit, as the meditative vengeance of Humphries might best determine, he bitterly denounced his own evil fortune, which had thus suffered him to be entrapped. He writhed about among his rushes, as these thoughts came more vividly to his mind; and despair of escape at length brought him a certain degree of composure, if not of resignation. He drew up

his knees, turned his face to the dark wall, and strove to forget his predicament in the kindly arms of sleep.

Yet there was hope for him at hand-hope of a change of condition; and any change was full of promise to Hastings. The hope which had been partially held out to him by Davis, before conducting him to the swamp, was now about to be realized. The watches had all been set, Humphries himself had retired; and, apart from the sentries, but a single trooper was visible upon the island, in the centre of which, by a blazing fire, he stood, with one foot of his horse over his knee, from the quick of which he was striving hard, with hook and hammer, to extract a pebble. From his couch of pine brush, under the dark shadow of a tree, Davis looked forth, momently and anxious, upon the horseman. At length he proved successful. The horse was led away to the end of the island, and, after a little while, the trooper himself had disappeared. With the exception of the sentries, all of his own placing, the partisans had each taken the shelter of his greenwood tree. Some were pillowed here, some there, in little clusters of two or three, their heads upon their saddles, their hands clutching fast rifle or broadsword, and the bridle hanging above, ready for sudden employment. Sometimes, a solitary trooper stretched himself, unaccompanied, under a remoter shelter, and enjoyed to himself those solacing slumbers which it is always so pleasant to share.

With the perfect quiet of all things around him, Davis rose from his own place of repose. He cautiously surveyed the course he proposed to take, andstealing carefully from the inclining shadow of one tree to that of another, he approached unobserved the hut of Sergeant Hastings. The sentinel was prompt. "Ho!-stand-the word!"

"Continental Congress! It's a big word, Ralph Mason, and hard to come at, the more so when it's a quick sentry like you, that doesn't give a body time to look it up. But that aint much of a fault, any how, in a soldier. Better too quick than too slow, and the

good sentry is more to the troop than the good horse, though the one may carry him off when the tories are too thick to be troubled. You can go now, Ralph; go to my straw, and you can lie down till I come to wake you up. I'm to ax the prisoner here some ques

tions."

Glad of this relief, the sentinel made his acknowledgments to his superior, and did not hesitate to avail himself of the proposed luxury. Taking his place for a moment, to and fro before the door of the hut, the Goose Creeker employed the time between the departure of the sentinel, and his probable attainment of the bed of rushes to which he had assigned him, in the meditation of that plan which his mind had partially conceived, while escorting his prisoners to the swamp, and of which he had given a brief hint to Hastings himself,—a plan which promised him that satisfaction for his previous injuries at the hands of Hastings, which his excited feelings, if not a high sense of honour, had long insisted upon as necessary to his comfort. The present time seemed a fitting one for his purpose; and the opportunity which it offered, as it might not occur again, was quite too good to be lost. Having properly deliberated, he put aside the bush which hung partially across the entrance, and at once passed into the hut of the prisoner. Hastings was not asleep, and started hastily at the intrusion. His worst fears grew active, as he saw the figure of one before him, whom, in the dimness of the place, he could not distinguish. He could only think of Humphries, and his breathing was thick and rapid, as he anticipated, each moment, some fearful doom at the hands of the avenger. His tones were hurried, as he demanded

"Who's there?—speak!-what would you?"

"Don't be scared, Sargeant Hastings; its me, John Davis-him they call Prickly Ash, of Goose Creek. Mayhap you remember sich a person. I'm that man." Hastings rather freely avowed his recollection.

"Well, I'm mighty glad you're not asleep, as I

didn't want to put hands on you for any business but one, and that's the one I come to see you about now. You're sure, now, Sargeant Hastings, you're wide awake, and able to talk about business."

The reply was in the gentlest and most conciliatory language. The tones were singularly musical indeed, for a throat so harsh as that which Davis formerly knew in possession of the same person; and the sighlike utterance which told the partisan that he was all attention, contrasted oddly, in the thoughts of Davis, with those notes which he had been taught hitherto to hear from the same quarter.

Well, if you're wide awake, Sargeant Hastings, I've some talk for you, you'll maybe be glad enough to hear, for it consarns both you and me a little."

"Any thing, Mister Davis-any thing you have to say, I shall be happy, very happy, to listen to."

"Very good," said the other; "that's very good, and I'm mighty glad to see you've got your mind made up to what's to come; and so, since you're ready to hear, I'm cocked and primed to speak, and the sooner I begin the better. Now, Sargeant Hastings, mind what I say, and dont let any of my words go into one ear and out of another. They're all words that cost something, and something's to be paid for them in the end. I give you this warning, as it aint fair to take a man unawares."

Hastings promised due heedfulness, and the other proceeded as follows:

"You see, then, Sargeant Hastings, you're not in garrison now; you're not at the Royal George, nor in any of them places where I used to see you, with the red-coats, and them lickspittles the tories, all about you, ready to back you agin their own countryman, whether you're right or wrong. You're turned now, as I may say, on the flat of your back, like a yellowbelly cooter, and nobody here to set you right but me, and me your enemy."

Hastings sullenly and sadly assented to the truth of this picture, in a groan which he accompanied by a