hey resumed their places, sounded through the court, and were
heard by those without. How heavily upon many a stout heart those
footsteps fell! They had taken their seats--then came another pause
--after which the monotonous tones of the clerk of the court were heard,
addressing the jury for their verdict. As the foreman rises every ear is
bent--every eye strained--every heart-string vibrates: his lips move, but
he is not heard; he is desired by the judge to speak louder; the colour
mounts to his before bloodless face; he appears to labour for a few
seconds with a mighty effort, and, at last, pronounces the words,
"Guilty, my Lord--all guilty!"

I have heard the wild war-whoop of the red Indian, as, in his own pine
forest, he has unexpectedly come upon the track of his foe, and the
almost extinguished hope of vengeance has been kindled again in his cruel
heart--I have listened to the scarcely less savage hurra of a storming
party, as they have surmounted the crumbling ruins of a breach, and
devoted to fire and sword, with that one yell, all who await them--and
once in my life it has been my fortune to have heard the last yell of
defiance from a pirate crew, as they sunk beneath the raking fire of a
frigate, rather than surrender, and went down with a cheer of defiance
that rose even above the red artillery that destroyed but could not
subdue them;--but never, in any or all of these awful moments, did my
heart vibrate to such sounds as rent the air when the fatal "Guilty" was
heard by those within, and repeated to those without. It was not grief
--it was not despair--neither was it the cry of sharp and irrepressible
anguish, from a suddenly blighted hope--but it was the long pent-up and
carefully-concealed burst of feeling which called aloud for vengeance
--red and reeking revenge upon all who had been instrumental in the
sentence then delivered. It ceased, and I looked towards the
court-house, expecting that an immediate and desperate attack upon the
building and those whom it contained would at once take place. But
nothing of the kind ensued; the mob were already beginning to disperse,
and before I recovered perfectly from the excitement of these few and
terrible moments, the square was nearly empty, and I almost felt as if
the wild and frantic denunciation that still rang through my ears, had
been conjured up by a heated and fevered imagination.

When I again met our party at the dinner table, I could not help f