The garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most other garrets, was a great, desolate space, dusty, hung with cobwebs, and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulent family that had inhabited the house in the days of its splendor had imported a great deal of splendid furniture, some of which they had taken away with them, while some remained standing desolately in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, or stored away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in which this furniture was brought, stood against the sides of the garret. There was a small window there, which let in through its dingy, dusty panes, a scanty, uncertain light on the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables that had once seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly place; but ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among the superstitious negroes, to increase its terrors. Some few years before, a negro woman who had incurred Legree's displeasure was confined there for several weeks. What passed there, we do not say; the negroes used to whisper darkly to each other; but it was known that the body of the unfortunate creature was one day taken down from there, and buried; and after that it was said that oaths and cursings, and the sound of violent blows, used to ring through that old garret, and mingled with wailings and groans of despair. Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of this kind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next one that told stories about that garret should have an opportunity of knowing what was there, for he would chain them up there for a week. This hint was enough to repress talking, though of course it did not disturb the credit of the story in the least.

Gradually, the staircase that led to the garret, and even the passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one in the house, from every one fearing to speak of it, and the legend was gradually falling into desuetude. It had suddenly occurred to Cassy, to make use of the superstitious excitability, which was so great in Legree, for the purposes of her liberation and that of her fellow-sufferer.

The sleeping-room of Cassy was directly under the garret. One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change all the furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some considerable distance. The under-servants, who were called on to effect this movement, were running and bustling about with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned from a ride.

"Oh! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb you! Only groans, and people scuffling, and rolling round on the garret floor, half the night, from twelve to morning!"

"People up garret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh, "who are they, Cassy?"

Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of Legree with an expression that went through his bones, as she said—

"To be sure, Simon; who are they? I'd like to have you tell me. You don't know, I suppose."

With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip, but she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and looking back, said—

"If you'll sleep in that room, you'll know all about it. Perhaps you'd better try it!" and then immediately she shut and locked the door.

Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door, but apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home; and from that hour, with the most exquisite address, she never ceased to continue the train of influences she had begun.

In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner, that when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it, which in a high wind increased to a perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be those of horror and despair.

These sounds were from time to time heard by the servants, and revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend. A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself encompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit land is indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, "a land of darkness and the shadow of death," without any order, where the light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.

Legree had had the slumbering moral element in him roused by his encounters with Tom—roused, only to be resisted by the determinate force of evil; but still, there was a thrill and commotion of the dark inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread.

The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He was her owner—her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew, wholly, and without any possibility of help or redress, in his hands; and yet so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it. When he first bought her, she was, as she had said, a woman delicately bred; and then he crushed her without scruple beneath the foot of his brutality. But as time and debasing influences and despair hardened womanhood within her, and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had become in a measure his mistress, and he alternately tyrannized over and dreaded her.

This influence had become more harassing and decided since partial insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled cast to all her words and language.

A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old sitting-room, by the side of a flickering wood fire that threw uncertain glances round the room. It was a stormy, windy night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises in rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters flapping, the wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling down the chimney, and every once in a while puffing out smoke and ashes, as if a legion of spirits were coming after them. Legree had been casting up accounts and reading newspapers for some hours, while Cassy sat in the corner, sullenly looking into the fire. Legree laid down his paper, and seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had noticed Cassy reading the first part of the evening, took it up, and begun to turn it over. It was one of those collections of stories of bloody murders, ghostly legends, and supernatural visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated, have a strange fascination for one who once begins to read them.

Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after page, till finally, after reading some way, he threw down the book with an oath.

"You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?" said he, taking the tongs and settling the fire. "I thought you'd more sense than to let noises scare you."

"Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at sea," said Legree. "Never come it round me that way. I'm too tough for any such trash, tell ye."

Cassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the corner. There was that strange light in her eyes that always impressed Legree with uneasiness.

"Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind," said Legree. "Rats will make a devil of a noise. I used to hear 'em sometimes down in the hold of the ship; and wind—Lords' sake, ye can make any thing out o' wind."

Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and therefore she made no answer, but sat fixing them on him with that strange, unearthly expression as before.

"Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through the entry, and open a door when you've locked it and set a chair against it?" said Cassy; "and come walk, walk, walking right up to your bed, and put out their hand, so?"

Cassy kept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree as she spoke, and he stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till when she finished by laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he sprung back with an oath.

"Oh, no—of course not—did I say they did?" said Cassy, with a smile of chilling derision.

"I'll have this yer thing examined. I'll look into it this very night. I'll take my pistols"——

"Do," said Cassy; "sleep in that room. I'd like to see you doing it. Fire your pistols—do."

"Don't swear," said Cassy; "nobody knows who may be hearing you. Hark! What was that?"

A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the room, began, and slowly struck twelve.

For some reason or other, Legree neither spoke nor moved—a vague horror fell on him—while Cassy, with a keen, sneering glitter in her eyes, stood looking at him, counting the strokes.

"Twelve o'clock—well, now we'll see," said she, turning and opening the door into the passage-way, and standing as if listening.

"Simon, come here," said Cassy in a whisper, laying her hand on his, and leading him to the foot of the stairs; "do you know what that is? Hark!"

A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came from the garret. Legree's knees knocked together, his face grew white with fear.

"Hadn't you better get your pistols?" said Cassy, with a sneer that froze Legree's blood. "It's time this thing was looked into, you know. I'd like to have you go up now; they're at it."

"Why not? There aint any such thing as ghosts, you know! Come!" and Cassy flitted up the winding stairway, laughing, and looking back after him. "Come on."

"I believe you are the devil," said Legree. "Come back, you hag; come back, Cass. You shant go."

But Cassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her open the entry doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of wind swept down, extinguishing the candle he held in his hand, and with it the fearful, unearthly screams; they seemed to be shrieked in his very ear.

Legree fled frantically into the parlor, whither in a few moments he was followed by Cassy, pale, calm, cold as an avenging spirit, and with that same fearful light in her eye.

"What for?" said Cassy. "I only went up and shut the doors. What's the matter with that garret, Simon, do you suppose?" said she.

"Oh, it aint. Well," said Cassy, "at any rate, I'm glad I don't sleep under it."

Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening, Cassy had been up and opened the garret window. Of course, the moment the doors were opened, the wind had drafted down and extinguished the light.

This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy played with Legree, until he would have sooner put his head into a lion's mouth than to have explored that garret. Meanwhile, in the night, when everybody else was asleep, Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of provisions sufficient to afford subsistence for some time; she transferred, article by article, a greater part of her own and Emmeline's wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only waited a fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution.

By cajoling Legree, and taking advantage of a good-natured interval, Cassy had got him to take her with him to the neighboring town, which was situated directly on the Red River. With a memory sharpened to almost preternatural clearness, she remarked every turn in the road, and formed a mental estimate of the time to be occupied in traversing it.

At the time when all was matured for action, our readers may perhaps like to look behind the scenes, and see the final coup d'etat.

It was now near evening. Legree had been absent on a ride to a neighboring farm. For many days Cassy had been unusually gracious and accommodating in her humors, and Legree and she had been apparently on the best of terms. At present we may behold her and Emmeline in the room of the latter, busy in sorting and arranging two small bundles.

"There, these will be large enough," said Cassy. "Now put on your bonnet, and let's start; it's just about the right time."

"I mean they shall," said Cassy, coolly. "Don't you know that they must have their chase after us, at any rate? The way of the thing is to be just this: We will steal out the back door, and run down by the quarters. Sambo or Quimbo will be sure to see us; they will give chase, and we will get into the swamp; then they can't follow us any further till they go up and give the alarm, and turn out the dogs, and so on; and while they are blundering round and tumbling over each other, as they always do, you and I will just slip along to the creek that runs back of the house, and wade along in it till we get opposite the back door; that will put the dogs all at fault, for scent won't lie in the water. Every one will run out of the house to look after us, and then we'll whip in at the back door, and up into the garret, where I've got a nice bed made up in one of the great boxes. We must stay in that garret a good while; for I tell you he will raise heaven and earth after us. He'll muster some of those old overseers on the other plantations, and have a great hunt, and they'll go over every inch of ground in that swamp. He makes it his boast that nobody ever got away from him. So let him hunt at his leisure."

"Cassy, how well you have planned it!" said Emmeline. "Who ever would have thought of it, but you?"

There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Cassy's eyes—only a despairing firmness.

The two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and flitted, through the gathering shadows of evening, along by the quarters. The crescent moon, set like a silver signet in the western sky, delayed a little the approach of night. As Cassy expected, when quite near the verge of the swamps that encircled the plantation, they heard a voice calling to them to stop. It was not Sambo, however, but Legree, who was pursuing them with violent execrations. At the sound, the feebler spirit of Emmeline gave way, and, laying hold of Cassy's arm, she said:

"If you do, I'll kill you," said Cassy, drawing a small, glittering stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes of the girl.

The diversion accomplished the purpose. Emmeline did not faint, and succeeded in plunging with Cassy into a part of the labyrinth of swamp so deep and dark that it was perfectly hopeless for Legree to think of following them without assistance.

"Well," said he, chuckling brutally, "at any rate they've got themselves into a trap now—the baggages! They're safe enough! They shall sweat for it."

"Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! all hands!" called Legree, coming to the quarters when the men and women were just returning from work; "there's two runaways in the swamps! I'll give five dollars to any nigger as catches 'em. Turn out the dogs! Turn out Tiger, and Fury, and the rest!"

The sensation produced by this news was immediate—many of the men sprang forward officiously to offer their services, either from the hope of the reward, or from that cringing subserviency which is one of the most baleful effects of slavery; some ran one way, and some another; some were for getting flambeaux of pine-knots; some were uncoupling the dogs, whose hoarse, savage bay added not a little to the animation of the scene.

"Mass'r, shall we shoot 'em, if we can't cotch 'em?" said Sambo, to whom his master brought out a rifle.

"You may fire on Cass, if you like; it's time she was gone to the devil, where she belongs; but the gal, not," said Legree. "And now, boys, be spry and smart; five dollars for him that gets 'em; and a glass of spirits to every one of you, any how."

The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, and whoop, and shout, and savage yell of man and beast, proceeded down to the swamp, followed at some distance by every servant in the house. The establishment was of consequence wholly deserted when Cassy and Emmeline glided into it the back way. The whooping and shouts of their pursuers were still filling the air; and, looking from the sitting-room windows, Cassy and Emmeline could see the troop, with their flambeaux, just dispersing themselves along the edge of the swamp.

"See there!" she said, pointing to Cassy, "the hunt is begun! Look how those lights dance about. Hark! the dogs! Don't you hear? If we were only there, our chance wouldn't be worth a picayune. Oh, for pity's sake, do let's hide ourselves. Quick," said Emmeline.

"There's no occasion for hurry," said Cassy, coolly; "they are all out after the hunt—that's the amusement of the evening! We'll go up stairs by and by. Meanwhile," said she, deliberately taking a key from the pocket of a coat that Legree had thrown down in his hurry, "meanwhile I shall take something to pay our passage."

She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which she counted over rapidly.

"Don't!" said Cassy; "why not? Would you have us starve in the swamps, or have that that will pay our way to the free States? Money will do anything, girl." And as she spoke, she put the money in her bosom.

"Stealing," said Cassy, with a scornful laugh. "They who steal body and soul needn't talk to us. Every one of these bills is stolen—stolen from poor, starving, sweating creatures, who must go to the devil at last for his profit. Let him talk about stealing! But come, we may as well go up garret; I've got a stock of candles there, and some books to pass away the time. You may be pretty sure they won't come there to inquire after us; if they do, I'll play ghost for them."

When Emmeline reached the garret, she found an immense box, in which some heavy pieces of furniture had once been brought, turned on its side, so that the opening faced the wall, or rather the eaves. Cassy lit a small lamp, and, creeping round under the eaves, they established themselves in it. It was spread with a couple of small mattresses and some pillows; a box near by was plentifully stored with candles, provisions, and all the clothing necessary to their journey, which Cassy had arranged into bundles of an astonishingly small compass.

"There," said Cassy, as she fixed the lamp into a small hook, which she had driven into the side of the box for that purpose, "this is to be our home for the present. How do you like it?"

"I'd like to see Simon Legree doing that," said Cassy. "No, indeed, he will be too glad to keep away. As to the servants, they would any of them stand and be shot, sooner than show their faces here."

"I meant to stop your fainting," said Cassy, "and I did do it. And now I tell you, Emmeline, you must make up your mind not to faint, let what will come; there's no sort of need of it. If I had not stopped you, that wretch might have had his hands on you now."

The two remained some time in silence. Cassy busied herself with a French book; Emmeline, overcome with the exhaustion, fell into a doze, and slept some time. She was awakened by loud shouts and outcries, the tramp of horses' feet, and the baying of dogs. She started up with a faint shriek.

"Only the hunt coming back," said Cassy, coolly; "never fear. Look out of this knot-hole. Don't you see 'em all down there? Simon has to give it up for this night. Look how muddy his horse is, flouncing about in the swamp; the dogs, too, look rather crest-fallen. Ah, my good sir, you'll have to try the race again and again—the game isn't there."

"If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular to keep away," said Cassy. "No danger; we may make any noise we please, and it will only add to the effect."

At length the stillness of midnight settled down over the house. Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance on the morrow, went to bed.

Dream not the just by Heaven forgot,
Though life its common gifts deny—
Though with a bruised and bleeding heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every bitter tear,
And Heaven's long years of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.

The longest way must have its end—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning—an eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.

We have walked with our poor humble friend thus far in the valley of slavery—first through flowery fields of ease and indulgence—then through heart-breaking separations from all that man holds dear; again, we have wailed with him in a sunny island, where generous hands concealed his chains with flowers; and lastly, we have followed him when the last ray of earthly hope went out in night, and seen how, in the blackness of earthly darkness, the firmament of the Unseen blazes with stars of new and significant power. The morning star now stands over the mountains, and gales and breezes not born of earth show that the gates of day are unclosing.

The escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of Legree to the last degree, and his fury, as was natural, fell on the defenceless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the tidings among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom's eye, a sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he did not join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him to join, but having had of old experience of his inflexibility when commanded to take part in any deed of inhumanity, he would not in his hurry stop to enter into any conflict with him. Tom therefore remained behind with a few who had learned of him to pray, and offered up prayers for the escape of the captives.

When Legree returned, baffled and disappointed, all the long-working hatred of his soul towards his slave began to gather in a deadly and desperate form. Had not this man braved him steadily, resistlessly, powerfully, ever since he bought him? Was there not a spirit in him, which, silent as it was, burned on him like the fires of perdition?

"I hate him," said Legree that night, as he sat up in his bed. "I hate him—and isn't he MINE—can't I do what I like with him? Who's to hinder, I wonder?" and Legree clenched his fist and shook it as if he already had something in his hands that he could rend in pieces.

But then Tom was a faithful and valuable servant, and though Legree hated him the more for that, yet the consideration restrained him some.

The next morning he determined to say nothing as yet—to assemble a party from some neighboring plantations with dogs and guns to surround the swamp, and go about the hunt systematically. If it succeeded, well; if not, he would summon Tom before him; and his teeth clenched and his blood boiled as he thought of it. Then he would break that fellow down, and make him give up, or——

There was a dark pause there filled up by a dim inward whisper, to which his soul assented.

Ye say that the interest of the master is a sufficient protection to the slave. In the fury of man's mad will, he will wittingly and with open eyes sell his own soul to the Devil to get his ends; and will he be more careful of his neighbor's body?

"Well," said Cassy, the next day, from the garret, as she reconnoitered through the knot hole, "the hunt's going to begin again to-day."

Three or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about on the space front of the house, and one or two leashes of strange dogs were struggling with the negroes who held them, baying and barking at each other.

The men were two of them overseers of plantations in the vicinity, and others were some of Legree's associates at the tavern bar of a neighboring city, who had come for the interest of the sport. A more hard-favored set, perhaps, could not be imagined. Legree was serving brandy profusely round among them, as also among the negroes who had been detailed from the various plantations for the day's service.

Cassy placed her ear to the knot hole, where she could overhear the conversation. A grave sneer overcast the dark, severe gravity of her face, as she listened and heard them divide out the ground, discuss the rival merits of the dogs, and give the orders about the firing, and the treatment in case of capture.

Cassy drew back, and, clasping her hands, looked upward and said—"Oh, great, Almighty God, we are all sinners—but what have we done, more than all the rest of the world, that we should be treated so?"

"If it wasn't for you, child," she said, looking at Emmeline, "I'd go out to them, and I'd thank any one of them that would shoot me down, for what use will freedom be to me? Can it give me back my children, or make me what I used to be?"

Emmeline, in her childlike simplicity, was half afraid of the dark, determined mood of Cassy. She looked perplexed, but made no answer. She only took her hand with a gentle, caressing movement.

"Don't," said Cassy, trying to draw it away; "if you do so, you'll get me to loving you, and I never mean to love anything again."

"Poor Cassy," said Emmeline, "don't feel so; if the Lord gives us liberty, perhaps he'll give you back your daughter. At any rate, I'll be like a daughter to you; I know I'll never see my poor old mother again; I shall love you, Cassy, whether you love me or not."

The gentle, childlike spirit conquered. Cassy sat down by her, put her arm around her neck, stroked her soft brown hair, and Emmeline then wondered at the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now soft with tears.

"Oh, Em," said Cassy, "I've hungered for my children, and thirsted for them, and my eyes fail with longing for them—here! here!" she said, striking her breast, "it's all desolate, all empty. If God would give me back my children, then I could pray."

"No, Cassy, he will be good to us; let us hope in Him," said Emmeline; "I always have had hope."

The hunt was long, animated, and thorough, but unsuccessful; and with grave ironic exultation Cassy looked down on Legree, as weary and dispirited he alighted from his horse.

"Now, Quimbo," said Legree, as he stretched himself down in the sitting room, "you jest go and walk that Tom up here right away—the old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter, and I'll have it out of his old black hide, or I'll know the reason why."

Sambo and Quimbo both, though hating each other, were joined in one mind by a no less cordial hatred of Tom. Legree had told them at first that he had bought him for a general overseer in his absence, and this had begun an ill-will on their part, which had increased in their debased and servile natures as they saw him becoming obnoxious to their master's displeasure. Sambo therefore departed with a will to execute his orders.

Tom heard the message with a forewarning heart, for he knew all the plans of the fugitives' escape and the place of their present concealment, and he knew the deadly character of the man he had to deal with, and his despotic power; and he felt strong in God to meet death rather than betray the innocent.

He set his basket down by the row, and looking up, said, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, Oh Lord God of truth;" and then quickly yielded himself to the rough, brutal grasp with which Sambo seized him.

"Aye, aye," said the giant, as he dragged him along, "ye'll cotch it now, I'll boun—mass'r back's up high—no sneaking out now—tell ye ye'll get it, and no mistake—see how ye'll look now, helpin massr's niggers to run away—see what ye'll get."

The savage words, none of them reached that ear; a higher voice there was saying, "Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." Nerve and bone of that poor man's body vibrated to those words, as if touched by the finger of God. He felt the strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation, seemed to whirl by him, as the landscape by the rushing car. His soul throbbed, his home was in sight, for the hour of release was at hand.

"Well, Tom," said Legree, walking up and seizing him by the collar of his coat, and speaking through his teeth in a paroxysm of rage—

"I have," said Legree, with grim, terrible calmness, "done—just—that—thing—Tom, unless you'll tell me what you know about these yer gals."

"D'ye hear?" said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed lion—"speak."

"I haint got nothing to tell, mass'r," said Tom, with a slow, firm, deliberate utterance.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.