rprised delight, till she remembered that it was "only Cousin Ronald
and not dolly at all."

But Cousin Ronald had a higher object than his own or the children's
amusement: he was trying to divert their thoughts from the doings of the
Ku Klux, lest they should grow timid and fearful.

Chapter Nineteenth.

"Revenge at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils."
--MILTON.

George Boyd, who was of most vindictive temper, had laid his plans for
the night of the raid upon Ion, to wreak his vengeance not upon Travilla
only, but also upon the woman on whose clothing he had left the impress
of his bloody hand.

With this in view, he went first to the kitchen department where, as he
had learned through the gossip of the servants, she now passed the
night, intending afterward to have a hand in the brutal flogging to be
meted out to Mr. Travilla. He headed the attacking party there, and it
was he who received upon his person the full broadside from Aunt Dicey's
battery of soap ladles.

The pain was horrible, the scorching mass clinging to the flesh and
burning deeper and deeper as he was borne shrieking away in the arms of
his comrades.

"Oh take it off! take it off! I'm burning up, I tell you!" he yelled as
they carried him swiftly down the avenue; but they hurried on,
seemingly unmindful of his cries, mingled though they were with oaths
and imprecations, nor paused till they had reached the shelter of the
woods at some little distance on the opposite side of the road.

"Curse you!" he said between his clenched teeth, as they laid him down
at the foot of a tree, "curse you! for keeping me in this agony. Help me
off with these--duds. Unbutton it, quick! quick! I'm burning up, I tell
you; and my hands are nearly as bad as my face. Oh! oh! you fiends! do
you want to murder me outright? you're bringing all the skin with it!"
he roared, writhing in unendurable torture, as they dragged off the
disguise. "Oh kill me! Bill, shoot me through the head and put me out of
this torment, will you?"

"No, no, I daren't. Come, come, pluck up courage and bear it like a
man."

"Bear it indeed! I only wish you had it to bear. I tell you it can't be
borne! Water, water, for the love of heaven! carry me to the river and
throw me in. My eyes are put out; they burn like balls of fire."

"Stop that yelling, will you!" cried a voice from a little distance,
"you'll betray us. We're whipped, and there's troops coming