CHAPTER LIX.

A HASTY MESSENGER.

In the company of Hickman, I had walked off to some distance from the crowd, in order that our conversation should be unrestrained.

As the moments passed, the old hunter warmed into greater freedom of speech, and from his manner I fancied he had still other developments to make. I had firm faith in his devotion to our family-as well as in his personal friendship for myself-and once or twice I was on the eve of revealing to him the thoughts that rendered me unhappy. In experience, he was a sage, and although a rude one, he might be the best counsellor I could find. I knew no other who possessed half his knowledge of the world-for Hickman had not always lived among the alligators; on the contrary, he had passed through various phases of life. I could safely trust to his devotedness: with equal safety I might confide in the resources of his judgment.

Under this belief, I should have unburdened myself of the heavy secrets weighing upon my mind-of some of them at least-had it not been that I fancied he already knew some of them. With the reappearance of Yellow Jake I knew him to be acquainted: he alleged that he had never felt sure about the mulatto's death, and had heard long ago that he was alive; but it was not of him I was thinking, but of the designs of Arens Ringgold. Perhaps Hickman knew something of these. I noticed that when his name was mentioned in connection with those of Spence and Williams, he glanced towards me a look of strange significance, as if he had something to say of these

wretches.

I was waiting for him to make a disclosure, when the footfall of a fast-going horse fell upon my ear. On looking up, I perceived a horseman coming down the bank of the river, and galloping as earnestly as if riding a 'quarter-race.'

The horse was white, and the rider black; I recognised both at a glance; Jake was the horseman.

I stepped out from among the trees, in order that he should see me, and not pass on to the church that stood a little beyond. I hailed him as he advanced.

He both saw and heard me; and abruptly turning his horse, came galloping up to the spot where the old hunter and I were standing.

He was evidently upon an errand; but the presence of Hickman prevented him from declaring it aloud. It would not keep, however, and throwing himself from the saddle, he drew near me, and whispered it into my ear. It was just what I was expecting to hear-Arens Ringgold was at the house.

"That dam nigga am thar, Massr George.' Such was literally Jake's muttered announcement. I received the communication with as much show of tranquillity as I could assume: I did not desire that Hickman should have any knowledge of its nature, nor even a suspicion that there was anything extraordinary upon the tapis; so, dismissing the black messenger with a word, I turned away with the hunter; and, walking back to the church enclosure, contrived to lose him in the crowd of his comrades. Soon after, I released my horse from his fastening; and, without saying a word to any one-not even to Gallagher-I mounted, and moved quietly off.

I did not take the direct road that led to our plantation, but made a short circuit through some woods that skirted close to the church. I did this to mislead old Hickman or any other who might have noticed the rapid arrival of the messenger; and who, had I gone directly back with him, might have held guesses that all was not right at home. To prevent this, I appeared to curious eyes, to have gone in an opposite direction to the right one.

A little rough riding through the bushes brought me out into the main up-river road; and then, sinking the spur, I galloped as if life or death were staked upon the issue. My object in making such haste was simply to get to the house in time, before the clandestine visitor-welcome guest of mother and sister-should make his adieus.

Strong reasons as I had for hating this man, I had no sanguinary purpose; it was not my design to kill Arens Ringgold-though such might have been the most proper mode to dispose of a reptile so vile and dangerous as he. Knowing him as I did, freshly spurred to angry passion by Hickman's narrative of his atrocious behaviour, I could at that moment have taken his life without fear of remorse.

But although I felt fierce indignation, I was yet neither mad nor reckless. Prudential motives-the ordinary instinct of self-safety-still had their influence over me; and I had no intention to imitate the last act in the tragedy of Samson's life.

The programme I had sketched out for myself was of a more rational character.

My design was to approach the house-if possible, unobserved-the drawing-room as well-where of course the visitor would be found-an abrupt entrée upon the scene-both guest and hosts taken by surprise-the demand of an explanation from all three-a complete clearing-up of this mysterious embroglio of our family relations, that was so painfully perplexing me. Face to face, I should confront the triad-mother, sister, wooer-and force all three to confession.

"Yes!' soliloquised I, with the eagerness of my intention driving the spur into the flanks of my horse-Yes-confess they shall-they must-one and all, or'

With the first two I could not define the alternative; though some dark design, based upon the slight of filial and fraternal love, was lurking within my bosom.

For Ringgold, should he refuse to give the truth, my resolve was first to 'cowhide' him, then kick him out of doors, and finally command him never again to enter the house-the house, of which henceforth I was determined to be master.

As for etiquette, that was out of the question; at that hour, my soul was ill attuned to the observance of delicate ceremony. No rudeness could be amiss, in dealing with the man who had tried to murder me.

CHAPTER LX.

A LOVER'S GIFT.

As I have said, it was my design to make an entrance unobserved; consequently, it was necessary to observe caution in approaching the house. To this end, as I drew near the plantation, I turned off the main road into a path that led circuitously by the rear. This path would conduct me by the hommock, the bathing-pond, and the orange-groves, without much danger of my approach being noticed by any one. The slaves at work within the enclosures could see me as I rode through the grounds; but these were the 'field-hands.' Unless seen by some of the domestics, engaged in household affairs, I had no fear of being announced.

My messenger had not gone directly back; I had ordered him to await me in an appointed place, and there I found him.

Directing him to follow me, I kept on; and having passed through the fields, we rode into the thick underwood of the hommock, where halting, we dismounted from our horses. From this point I proceeded alone.

As the hunter steals upon the unexpecting game, or the savage upon his sleeping foe, did I approach

the house-my home, my father's home, the home of mother and sister. Strange conduct in a son and a brother-a singular situation.

My limbs trembled under me as I advanced, my knees knocked together, my breast was agitated by a tumult of wild emotions. Once I hesitated and halted. The prospect of the unpleasant scene I was about to produce stayed me. My resolution was growing weak and undecided.

I

Perhaps I might have gone back—perhaps I might have waited another opportunity when I might effect my purpose by a less violent developmentbut just then voices fell upon my ear, the effect of which was to strengthen my wavering resolves. My sister's voice was ringing in laughter, that sounded light and gay. There was another-only one. easily recognised the squeaking treble of her despicable suitor. The voices remaddened me-the tones stung me, as if they had been designedly uttered in mockery of myself. How could she behave thus? how riot in joy, while I was drooping under dark suspicions of her misbehaviour?

Piqued as well as pained, I surrendered all thought of honourable action; I resolved to carry through my design, but first-to play the listener.

I drew nearer, and heard clearer. The speakers were not in the house, but outside, by the edge of the orange-grove. Softly treading, gently parting the boughs, now crouching beneath them, now gliding erect, I arrived unobserved within six paces of where they stood-near enough to perceive their dresses glistening through the leaves-to hear every word that passed between them.

Not many had been spoken, before I perceived that I had arrived at a peculiar moment-a crisis. The lover had just offered himself for a husband had, perhaps for the first time, seriously made his declaration. In all probability it was this had been eliciting my sister's laughter.

'And really, Mr Ringgold, you wish to make me your wife? You are in earnest in what you have said?' "Nay, Miss Randolph, do not mock me; you know for how many years I have been devoted to you.'

'Indeed, I do not. How could I know that?' "By my words. Have I not told you so a hundred times?'

'Words! I hold words of little value in a matter of this kind. Dozens have talked to me as you, who, I suppose, cared very little about me. The tongue is a great trifler, Mr Arens.'

But my actions prove my sincerity. I have offered you my hand and my fortune; is not that a sufficient proof of devotion?'

'No, silly fellow; nothing of the sort. Were I to become your wife, the fortune would still remain your own. Besides, I have some little fortune myself, and that would come under your control. So you see the advantage would be decidedly in your favour. Ha, ha, ha!'

'Nay, Miss Randolph; I should not think of controlling yours; and if you will accept my hand'

"Your hand, sir? If you would win a woman, you should offer your heart-hearts, not hands, for me.' 'You know that is yours already; and has been for long years: all the world knows it.'

'You must have told the world, then; and I don't like it a bit.'

'Really, you are too harsh with me: you have had many proofs of how long and devotedly I have admired you. I would have declared myself long since, and asked you to become my wife'

'Indeed?' 'That exists no longer. I can now act as I please; and, dearest Miss Randolph, if you will but accept my hand'-

Your hand again! Let me tell you, sir, that this hand of yours has not the reputation of being the most open one. Should I accept it, it might prove sparing of pin-money. Ha, ha, ha!'

'I am aspersed by enemies. I swear to you, that in that sense you should have no cause to complain of my liberality.'

'I am not so sure of that, notwithstanding the oath you would take. Promises made before marriage are too often broken after. I would not trust you, my man-not I, i' faith.'

'But you can trust me, I assure you.'

'You cannot assure me; besides, I have had no proofs of your liberality in the past. Why, Mr Ringgold, you never made me a present in your life. Ha, ha, ha!'

'Had I known you would have accepted one-it would gratify me-Miss Randolph, I would give you anything I possess.'

Good! Now, I shall put you to the test: you shall make me a gift.'

"Name it-it shall be yours.'

'Oh, you fancy I am going to ask you for some trifling affair-a horse, a poodle, or some bit of glittering bijouterie. Nothing of the sort, I assure you.'

'I care not what. I have offered you my whole fortune, and therefore will not hesitate to give you a part of it. Only specify what you may desire, and I shall freely give it.'

"That sounds liberal indeed. Very well, then, you have something I desire to possess-and very much desire it-in truth, I have taken a fancy to be its owner, and had some designs of making offers to you for the purchase of it.'

'What can you mean, Miss Randolph ?' 'A plantation.'

'A plantation!'

Exactly so. Not your own, but one of which you are the proprietor.'

"Ah!'

'I mean that which formerly belonged to a family of half-bloods upon Tupelo Creek. Your father purchased it from them, I believe?'

I noted the emphasis upon the word 'purchased.' I noted hesitation and some confusion in the reply. 'Yes-yes,' said he; it was so. But you astonish me, Miss Randolph. Why care you for this, when you shall be mistress of all I possess?'

"That is my affair. I do care for it. I may have many reasons. That piece of ground is a favourite spot with me; it is a lovely place-I often go there. Remember, my brother is owner here-he is not likely to remain a bachelor all his life-and my mother may desire to have a home of her own. But no; I shall give you no reasons; make the gift or not as you please.'

'And if I do, you will '

'Name conditions, and I will not accept it-not if you ask me on your knees. Ha, ha, ha!'

'I shall make none, then: if you will accept it, it is yours.'

Ah, that is not all, Master Arens. You might take it back, just as easily as you have given it. How am I to be sure that you would not? I must have the deeds.'

'You shall have them.' 'And when?'

'Whenever you please-within the hour, if you desire it.'

'I do, then. Go, get them! But remember, sir, I make no conditions-remember that.'

were once under the rule of Og, king of Bashan. Considering their antiquity, they are in remarkable preservation; the houses lofty, with great slabs of stone for roofs, and stone doors carved into panels, and ornamented. A dead silence prevailed; yet so few are the signs of decay, that Mr Graham paced the streets expecting every moment to see one of the old inhabitants step forth to meet him.

Sir George Grey, governor of Cape Colony, is making a collection of all the newspapers, vocabularies, and scriptures in native African dialects which he can meet with, to be kept in the Library at Cape Town. He does not confine his researches to the south, but intends to include the whole of Africa in his scheme, if possible. This is doing a good work, one that will be eminently useful to philologists, and prove the means of preserving a knowledge of dialects which, in the course of a generation or two, will no longer exist as living speech. Mr Moffat (Livingstone's father-in-law), assisted by Mr Ashton, is publishing a monthly paper in the Bechuana language at Kuruman.

In commercial phrase, Turkey is looking up, and is about to satisfy one of her chiefest wants-means of communication between the interior and the seacoast. Smyrna already exports twice as much as any other Turkish port; what will it be when the projected railway of seventy miles to Aidin is completed, running through the rich fruit district of Asia Minor, along the valley of the Meander, and within nine miles of ancient Ephesus? It is expected that marvellous quantities of silk, grain, and madder, besides fruit, will be brought down to Smyrna. Another line of 250 miles is to run from Samsoun, on the Black Sea, through Pontus, to Sivas, the ancient Sevastia, in the valley of the Halys. There is something almost startling at first in the thought of railways, screaming locomotives, and first, second, and third class penetrating those old countries, rattling along within three leagues of one of the Seven Churches, and carrying new resources and new energies into the land which recalls the names of Mithridates, and Pythodoris, and Cæsar's Veni, vidi, vici.-Experience has shewn in Egypt, on the line from Alexandria to Cairo, that the greatest profit is made from the fares of the fellahs-small peasant-proprietors-who travel in numbers, and with a frequency truly surprising. We commend this fact to the consideration of railway directors here at home who may be in doubt as to the advantage of running third-class carriages with every train.

Russia is doing great things in the south-levelling roads, improving old harbours, and deepening the mouths of the Volga at Astrakhan by steam-power. The American engineers who went to raise the sunken vessels in the harbour of Sebastopol, have signally failed. The teredo, that active tunnel-borer, had anticipated them, so that the great men-of-war were found too weak to be lifted, and to have too little cohesion to be blown up; so there is nothing for it but to leave the once proud fleet at the bottom till the worms have finished it. Altogether, eighty vessels were sunk—an amazing number.-Elsewhere, Brother Jonathan has been more successful: his enterprising divers have got into the hold of the San Pedro, a Spanish war-ship that blew up in the Bay of Cumana in 1815, with three million dollars on board, while on her way to punish the revolutionary Mexicans.

The Board of Trade are going to do something wise and praiseworthy, and that is to set up a barometer for the use of fishermen at the several fishingports around the coast, beginning with Scotland; thus accomplishing the recommendation made by Dr Stark, president of the Meteorological Society of Scotland, as mentioned in our last. It appears that

in one or two places where a barometer was already kept, the men seeing a fall of the mercury, stayed at home; while at neighbouring ports, where no such friendly monitor was at hand, the men put to sea, were caught in a storm, and some perished.--An endeavour is making to advance meteorology as a science, by a widely extended scheme of observations, which will include Petersburg, Algiers, Dublin, Lisbon, Greenwich, Bourdeaux, and other placesParis to be the centre for discussion and publication. To facilitate the work, the mean of the several phenomena at the different stations will first be established, so that only the variations from that mean will have to be recorded. Especial attention is to be paid to the wind, on which the weather so much depends; and as the stations will intercommunicate by telegraph, it is thought that predictions of changes of the weather will be possible.

During the past winter an unusual cold prevailed in the south of Europe, after a spring-like temperature had set in here in England. At Turin and Naples its rigour was excessive; at Ferrara the Po was frozen, and men and cattle crossed on the ice; Malta shivered; Constantinople was frozen up and half-starved for want of food, owing to the deep snow having blocked the streets and roads; the highlands of Algeria wore for a while a strange white wintercoat; and it even actually snowed at Cairo. We need hardly say that such a phenomenon was never before witnessed in Egypt, not even by the oldest inhabitant, nor yet his great-grandfather.

At Brussels on the 17th January an extraordinary perturbation of the magnet was observed, shewing a considerable excess in all the phenomena-intensity, declination, &c., which lasted nearly the whole day; an aurora, too, was visible in the early morn; and soon afterwards came the news of the earthquake in the Neapolitan territory on the night of the 16-17th. The earthquake shocks have not yet ceased; and the city of Naples itself has been shaken.-The convulsions have been felt further east, and we hear that Corinth has ceased to exist except as a heap of ruins.-Science has a footing in Naples, St Januarius notwithstanding, and a quarto volume has recently been published by the Academy of Sciences in that city, giving full particulars of the eruptions of Vesuvius in 1850 and 1855, with ample maps and plans; and there is no doubt that Signor Scacchi, a first-rate geologist, will draw up an account of the calamitous phenomena of the present year.-And, incredible as it may appear, there is a Royal Academy of Sciences doing good work at Madrid, publishing their Memorias in quarto, filled with able articles on the climate, geology, and natural history of the several provinces of Spain. One of the latest contains a geological description of the Sierra Morena.

Mr Dawson, inspector of roads, &c., at Newcastleon-Tyne, has laid a Report before the corporation of that town, shewing the comparative cost of macadamised and paved roads. The maintenance, he says, of 275,249 square yards of paving for a year cost less than a half-penny a yard, while to keep up 115,096 yards of macadam cost, for the same period, 4 d. a yard. Hence there was an expenditure of L.2000 more than would have been incurred for paving. Nearly 5000 tons of stone were broken and laid on the macadamised road; and of this, great part is wasted for want of heavy rollers to press it at once to a solid surface. In this latter respect, Hull sets a good example, for there the rollers are used.-It is known to engineers that in the fixing of screw-piles the timber is apt to twist, whereby its strength is diminished. M. Oudry, an engineer at Bayonne, has contrived a wrought-iron case or tube, in which he encloses the pile during the screwing in, then taking it off, uses it for others.-A school of

stokers is established at Lille, where the men are to be taught the elementary properties of steam, the utility and manipulation of the different parts of the machine, the way to burn coal with efficacy and economy, and so forth. With such a course of instruction as this, the loss and other ill consequences which attend on the ignorance of stokers will no longer have to be complained of; and in case of accident to the driver, there will be a man ready to take his place. A late return shews that 109,660 persons are employed on the railways in the United Kingdom, exclusive of the lines not yet finished.

Messieurs Mourier and Vallent exhibit in Paris a new ornamental metal, to which they give the name oréide, from its similarity in appearance to gold. It is made of pure copper, zinc, magnesia, salammoniac, and quicklime fused together; and when properly prepared, is very brilliant, and is easily cleaned by acidulated water.-And a metallic alloy is mentioned, composed of lead, tin, and bismuth, which is very fusible, and well suited for medals, ornaments, mouldings, and statuettes.-Veins of lead have been discovered in the base of Plinlimmon, near Llanidloes, of excellent quality, and so rich in silver as to yield twenty ounces per ton of the precious metal.-And in Huntingdonshire, on the estates of the Marquis of Huntley, at Orton, large deposits of iron-stone have been brought to light, and now only await the hand of industry and enterprise. But as regards iron, Cleveland will be for centuries to come our English California.

The Society of Arts have had their advertised statement and discussion about cotton, in the course of which it was shewn that if industry could only have fair-play in India, and land could be had on proper terms-two questions, by the way, of which Mr Ewart has given notice of motion in parliament-then we might get all the cotton we want from that great empire, and more. As it is, progress has been made. In 1834-35, India sent to England 38 million pounds of cotton; in 1855-56, 170 million pounds; and if we add to this the quantities sent to other countries, the total amounts to 237 million pounds.-Another subject discussed by the Society is electro-motive machines; and although Mr Allan, the author of the paper, feels confident that machines driven by electricity will some day be generally used as auxiliary to steam, the practical men who listened to him took a less hopeful view of the question.—M. Tréhonnais's paper on Agriculture in France, contained a bold summary of the causes which make cultivation of the soil such a miserable resource among our allies. One great evil is centralisation, attracting the principal landowners to the metropolis; another, the expenditure of enormous sums in the embellishment of Paris to the detriment

of the country; so that artisans and labourers forsake their homes, fields remain uncultivated, and the population, as shewn by the last census, actually

diminishes.

A few specimens of M. Niepce St Victor's photographs have been presented to the Royal Society. The especial merit of the new process is that the pictures will not fade. In a communication to the Photographic Society, M. Niepce says: Everything leads to the hope that pictures taken in this way will be much more stable than the photographs taken by the present process; and that this new mode of printing positives, so very simple and rapid, is the soughtfor solution of the important problem of the absolute fixing of photographic pictures.' Another result will probably be, that all the operations of photography will come to be carried on in full daylight. It is now clear, from the French savant's discoveries, that light communicates to certain substances which it has fallen upon, a real activity; or better, that certain