THE RESCUE.

  AN hour's riding brought the party near the "Heritage Place;" the young men rode ahead to reconnoitre, and one soon returned and reported, to the astonishment of every one, that Toadvine was actually in the field; and that by leaving the main road, threading a deep, but not impassable sluiceway, he could be easily cut off from all connection with the house, and if he attempted escape after he discovered that he was to be arrested, he would have to take to the woods, when "he could be run down at leisure."

  Gen. Bledsoe at once decided upon taking advantage of the opportunity thus unexpectedly offered, to make an easy capture, and in another instant the horsemen were galloping to their several assigned places, distributing themselves so that Toadvine had no other way of escape than by striking into the fastnesses of the swamp.

  The doomed man soon discovered that there were persons in his vicinity, but still remained unconscious of his danger, and also of the extent of his crime. Two or three

  Rushing to his horse, that was cropping grass by the edges of one of the field roads, he leaped upon his back, and, as if Mildmay was most likely to now befriend him, he turned the animal's head towards Heritage Place; but before he had rode many yards he was hailed to stop—turning suddenly, he went headlong down the field, when again he discovered that the fowling-pieces bore directly upon him; desperate, and alarmed for his life, he now turned his horse's head, as Bledsoe had anticipated, toward the swamp, and fairly flew, with speed; accelerated no doubt, by a number of curs belonging to the negroes, barking and howling at his rear; with a bound he cleared the fence, and knowing the country well, it seemed as if he would escape, so rapidly did he disappear amid the rich mellow gloom.

  But Toadvine had those upon his track, who knew the swamp even better than himself,—persons who had, for years, pursued the deer and wild cat through the very labyrinth he was then threading; and those persons, conscious of their power, rode even leisurely along, knowing that the must, almost without an effort, soon fall into their hands.

  Mildmay, from the time that Toadvine left him, had been engaged in looking over papers, brought his recollection

  Mildmay, from an upper gallery, glanced over the field, just in time to see Toadvine's fearful leap, and as he discovered the armed men follow in pursuit, he was instantly impressed with the belief that something serious had happened.

  Without betraying his excitement, he ordered Wash to saddle his horse, that he might ride down and see what was going on. It was with difficulty that he could repress his impatience until the boy arrived with his steed, and still more was it painful to retain an ambling pace, when he descried Annie's affectionate eyes were bent upon him. But once relieved of the necessity for restraint, he put spurs to his horse, and followed swiftly on the new-made trail.

  In the meanwhile, it would seem that Gen. Bledsoe's party crossed the diameter of the circle made by Toadvine, in his ignorance of the ground he was going over, and ere the pursued was aware of it, he was surrounded. A dozen "shots" had sight upon him at once, and he was commanded to stop, and reigning up his horse, he sat in his saddle a perfect picture of blank despair.

  The pursuers rushed upon him, and checked their excited horses so close to his person, that his hair was fanned by the distended nostrils of their foaming steeds.

  "Dismount, you wretch!" cried Bledsoe, as he kept his

  To Toadvine, the command seemed to cause the world to be passing away as a sheet of fire. He knew that he was guilty of some crime, but the uncertainty of its extent magnified his fears, and he felt as if an awful judgment was upon him. Looking around, he saw faces familiar in appearance, yet glaring upon him with strange and intense passion; a confused ringing sound passed through his brain, and fainting, he fell from his horse.

  Before, however, he reached the ground, he was in the arms of one of the men, and by the time he recovered his senses, the rope that had deprived poor Jack of his life, was around another victim's neck.

  Toadvine, the instant he felt the cord, comprehended his fate, and uttered one long, loud shriek for mercy; but ere he could have repeated that heart rending cry, the power to do so would have been at an end for ever, had not Mildmay, glowing with excitement, rushed into the ring; checking his speed so abruptly, that his horse's hoofs ploughed their way deeply into the virgin soil.

  Dark and lowering looks were turned upon the intruder, which instantly cleared away, as some one exclaimed, "Mildmay, by the gods!"

  This name electrified with sudden life the sinking and terror-stricken Toadvine, who frantically seized Mildmay's feet, and begged him for the love of God, to interfere and save his life.

  The young man though calm, was, nevertheless embarrassed, and turning instinctively towards Gen. Bledsoe, whom he did not know, he begged to be informed as to the meaning of the scene enacted before him.

  The fact that Toadvine was Mildmay's overseer, and that it was Mildmay's wrongs the party was professedly about to redress, caused his unannounced and unexpected presence to be greeted with a respect that might, under other circumstances, with persons so excited, have been attended with a different result.

  Gen. Bledsoe, in a few and hastily-delivered words, explained the outrage.

  "And Jack is dead?" said Mildmay, snapping his eyes as if awakening from a sleep.

  "Yes, dead!" said Bledsoe, "and murdered by that skulking wretch who is hanging at your heel."

  "A shame and an outrage!" said Mildmay, his face darkening, as he kicked himself loose from the overseer's grasp.

  "A shame indeed," said Gen. Bledsoe, his face burning with excitement, "and that he may not serve others so, tuck him up boys, and let the buzzards have their rights."

  "You would not hang this man," said Mildmay, leaping from his horse, and literally throwing himself as a shield over Toadvine's prostrate form. "You would not hang this man. Let me beg of you, gentlemen, that the laws have their sway; let my injury go unredressed, rather than tarnish our honor with so great a wrong as this."

  "The laws be d—d," said a fellow, in an Arkansas blanket coat, seizing hold of Toadvine's shoulder. "If you've got nothing but the law to reach this 'ere gentleman

  At the mention of this name, Mildmay turned toward the person addressed and said:

  "General Bledsoe, for such I understand you to be, permit me to beg as a personal favor, that you will leave this man in the hands of the law. The case is too plain to fear that he will escape the penalty due to his crime, and to the extent of the law, will I see that he is prosecuted and punished."

  "What say you, gentlemen?" said Bledsoe, looking around upon the group of excited faces—and after scanning them for a moment, he said, with a graceful wave of the hand:

  "Mr. Mildmay, that creature is your prisoner."

  At this announcement, the spectators fairly rocked to and fro with the sudden reaction of their moral feelings, and Toadvine fell to the earth as if struck by the hand of death.

  "Well, he's made a die of it, any how," said the owner of the green blanket coat, looking at Toadvine with comical pity, and loosening the cord about his neck,—"but maybe," the fellow continued, "this will bring him too," and with the most affecting attention, he took his whiskey bottle from his pocket and held it to Toadvine's nostrils.

  "You see," said General Bledsoe, looking at Mildmay, and playfully pointing at the rough Samaritan before him, "you see that Ben Puckett isn't so bad a man after all, although he has a poor opinion of the laws."

  Mildmay forced a sickly smile, and asked, directing his

  "Certainly you can," said the general with vivacity, "and I will be responsible that Puckett will never let him go until he has the jailer's receipt in full for the amiable gentleman."

  "I'll go to jail," said Toadvine with a humble voice, and absolutely grown wan and pallid with the terror he had undergone.

  "Of course you will," said Puckett, while tying Toadvine's elbows behind him,—"of course you will; ain't I promised to take you?" and Puckett laughed at his own humor.

  The crowd now dispersed. All left evidently satisfied, for you could hear the merry, ringing laugh of different individuals, expressive of a consciousness of being relieved from a fearful responsibility.

  Toadvine, once on his way, soon arrived at Beechland jail. He managed, in the course of conversation along the road, to secure Puckett's friendship, but could not overcome the sturdy Kentuckian's innate sense of honor sufficient to induce him to let his prisoner go, as was suggested under the plea of "accidental escape." Puckett was too powerful a man, to make it probable that he could be mastered in a scuffle, and too ambitious mentally, to be willing to have it reported that he was outwitted, when placed in a responsible position.

  "And what do you 'spose," said Toadvine to Puckett, as Beechland appeared in view,—"what do you 'spose

  "'Cause you didn't own him," said Puckett with a patronizing manner.

  "Perhaps that was it," replied Toadvine, still as if in a dream, and riding a short distance he resumed: "I never heard such a fuss about killing a nigger before. Thar was Bill Stiger down at the 'Oaks' who chopped a darkee into pieces with a cane knife, and bragged on it arterwards, and he was never touched."

  "And didn't the Grand Jury find a bill?" inquired Puckett with solemnity.

  "Of course it ended," said Toadvine, overflowing with a sense of his own unjust treatment—"of course it ended, and Stiger could have gone to the Legislature the next 'lection, only he wouldn't."

  "Well, it's too bad," said Puckett with a sympathetic voice, "that they treat you so; but no matter, Toady," said he playfully, "Buss, Orcutt, and I, will come up in your room and play 'poker' and 'seven up,' and you shan't want for friends, you know—and we'll have a real good time of it, and no mistake."

  With this assurance, Toadvine, who was uncomfortably depressed in spirits, when left to his own reflections, brightened up, and saw that lying in jail a few weeks wasn't

  Upon arriving at the suburbs of Beechland, Puckett relieved Toadvine of the hated rope that had heretofore bound his elbows, the prisoner solemnly promising not to attempt to get away, and Puckett threatening to split Toadvine's head open, if he did forfeit his honor by any such performance; "for you see," said Puckett, opening for the last time the knots in the cord,—"you see, Toady, I gave my word to General Bledsoe, that I would take you to jail, and I must do it if I help you out agin at sundown."

  The ever busy Orcutt answered the first knock at the jail door, and he started back with some surprise at seeing Toadvine safe and sound before him:—"Why, I thought you went off this mornin'," said the jailer, unconscious of the severity of his allusion.

  "But he didn't, though," said Puckett mysteriously, "though he was at the 'went off place,' wasn't you, Toady."

  The jests were too suggestive to the overseer of the dark side of his situation, and with pallor upon his cheek, he requested to be shown to his room, saying that he "felt sick," and wanted rest.