trumpet had summoned them to the saddle; when they had wound slowly past the bridge, with their arms glittering in the sun; and when, two hours after, dinner was ready to be served, without Kate having returned, Mrs. Warren began, not only to be alarmed at her niece's disappearance, but to connect that disappearance with the advent of the cavalry.

"Deary me," she cried, wringing her hands, as she walked the parlor, "how could Charles leave us so unprotected. These rebel horsemen have carried off Kate, there isn't a doubt of it." For Mrs. Warren, with the prejudices of too many of her class, persisted in believing that the patriots were little better than highwaymen. "Oh! my poor niece! My poor niece!"

She burst into tears, and in this condition Pomp found her, when, some time later, he made his appearance to ask her whether dinner should be served immediately, or whether she would wait for Miss Aylesford.

"I couldn't eat," she answered. "Tell Dinah to keep the dinner waiting till my niece returns: that is, poor dear! if she ever returns. I've a presentiment she wont, though. I felt so dreadful, when she went away this morning, that I know something terrible would happen." And again she gave way to loud weeping.

Pomp, in consternation, summoned his mother, who, in turn, called in the assistance of the lady's maid. Opportunely, at this crisis, Pomp's other parent appeared, and he, as the only male present, proceeded to take the reins of authority into his own hands.

"Look a here, yer lazy, good-for-nuffin wagabond," he cried, turning to Pomp and cuffing him soundly, "how dare yer stand dar a-gapin', when yer know yer ought to be off a-lookin' up young Missus? Yer'll come to the gallous, some day, deed yer will.”

Pomp ran to a corner, defending his ears with his hands,

and protesting, in a whining tone, that he did not know where to go.

"Yer lie, yer young scape-grace," interrupted the irate parent. "Young Missus took der road to Uncle Lawrence's, and dar yer'll find her, if nuffin has happened. Go right off, not a word," and he menacingly followed the unwillingly retreating messenger, adding, "go, or I'll skin yer, deed I will. Maybe she's at Aunt Chloe's, or maybe her bridle's broke. Take der colt, and ride for dear life," he cried, elevating his voice louder and louder, as Pomp increased his distance.

Mrs. Warren, who had become quite hysterical, was gradually soothed by assurances that Kate had not met with any serious misadventure, and that the American cavalry, at least, had not interfered with her.

"I axed one ob de men," said Dinah, "who was de handsum officer a ridin' at de head; and he told me dat it was a grand furren count."

"Do you remember his name?" said Mrs. Warren, ea

gerly, her face brightening.

any harm to a gentlewoman.

taken."

"A nobleman wouldn't do You're sure you're not mis

"De blessed Lord knows I'se telling de truf," answered Dinah. "I wouldn't for de whole world lose my poor ole

soul, by telling a lie."

"You dont recollect his name? Was it Pulaski? The Count Pulaski, I believe, commands a regiment of cavalry in the American army."

"Dat's de name.

Count Poorlackey," cried Dinah. "Pulaski," said Mrs. Warren, correcting her, and smiling through her tears.

"Well, Poorlackey or Puleskaski; it's all one, I spose," replied Dinah, with an air of offended dignity. But, relenting immediately, she added, "Now, Missus, ef yer'll just eat a little bit of somethin', say de wing of dat boiled chicken,

dat's a spoilin' wid waitin,' you'll feel like anodder person; deed yer will."

The eloquence of Dinah, who continued expatiating on this subject for some time, finally induced Mrs. Warren to consent to her wishes. Buoyed up with the persuasion that Pomp would soon return, bringing intelligence of Kate, she ate with appetite, and indeed forgot for a season her niece, in the delicacies before her.

Meantime, Pomp had saddled the colt and set forth, but with reluctant steps, for his thoughts reverted to his adventure of the preceding evening, and his teeth shook in anticipation, when he remembered that his road would lie directly past the spot where he had been set upon, as he conscientiously believed, by the Arch Enemy. As he approached the head of the pond, he drew the colt into a walk, and began to soliloquize thus with himself:

Ef yer

"Yer's in a fix now, Pomp, ef ebber yer was. go after young Missus, de debbil will cotch you sure; and ef yer don't go, yer daddy'll skin you."

He had now reached the point where the two roads met, that to the right leading past the church and across the bridge, and that to the left conducting to Aunt Chloe's and Mr. Herman's. He came to a dead halt.

"Yer'll be a darn fool, Pomp," he soliloquized again, and his teeth began to chatter with the thought, "to run right into de jaws of de debbil, arter havin' got off once. He's a lyin' dar, like a roarin' lion, ready to jump out on yer."

As he thus reflected, he slowly turned the colt's head to the right.

"Pears to me," he resumed, glancing affrightedly over his shoulder towards the haunted road, "dat poor young Missus has been a took off by dis ole Satan; and dat it wouldn't do no good, sartin it wouldn't, to go arter her.

It would ony be givin' yerself, Pomp, to de debbil, deed it would."

The colt's head was now turned even more to the bridge, and Pomp had actually permitted it to walk a few paces in its direction, when suddenly he checked the animal.

"Pomp," he said, "what yer doin'? Yer'll get skinned alive, sartin sure. Yer ole daddy never said he'd do it, dat he didn't. Lor' Almighty, how he licked yer, Pomp, dat last time; and de more yer cried 'murder,' the more he said he'd giv' yer 'somethin' to cry murder fur,' deed he did." And Pomp rubbed sympathetically that portion of his person which had felt most keenly his sire's wrath.

It would have moved even the most serious to mirth to have seen Pomp's countenance, as he thus alternated in his fears. Twice he turned the colt's head towards the fatal road, and twice altered his mind, the whimsical contortions of his face, all the time, exceeding anything that Hogarth ever painted. At last there arose, out of the heart of the forest on the left, one of those low, long wails, which, on a sum mer day, is often the precursor of a coming storm. Pomp's already excited imagination needed only the smallest circumstance to decide him. The moan of the rising wind was to him irresistible proof of the presence of the Arch Enemy. He dug his heels into the flanks of the colt instinctively, and sped over the bridge, as yet with no fixed determination where to go, but only to escape as well from parental vengeance at Sweetwater, as from the supernatural foe and as he galloped off, his eyes were dilated to the size of saucers, his dark visage positively paled, and his teeth chattered, as if they would drop out of his jaws.

When Mrs. Warren found that Pomp did not return, all her old fears came back. It was night before she and her attendants finally abandoned the hope of seeing him, and then it was too late to take further action. Besides, her servants were, by this time, nearly as incapacitated as

herself. This was especially true of Dinah, who filled the house with her lamentations, declaring that Pomp had been carried off by Satan himself, "deed he had."

All that night Mrs. Warren walked her room, wringing her hands and sobbing, and occasionally falling into fits of hysterics.

THOUGH Major Gordon had been pinned to the earth by a bayonet, in the breach of the fortification, he was fortunately not killed. For a moment, indeed, he believed his last hour had come. He would, in fact, have perished, had it not been for Uncle Lawrence. When he saw all hope of victory gone, he dexterously threw himself down, across the prostrate body of our hero; by this stratagem, both covering his friend, and inducing the belief that he also was dead.

In the hurry and confusion of the melee it was not difficult to carry out this deception. The eager soldiery, fired with emulation of their comrades, hurried to be within the works as soon as possible, and consequently did not care to stop, in order to examine in whom of their fallen enemies life yet remained. It was enough for the victors that the way was