ms, drained
imperfectly by some ditches of the Choptank. He supposed it might be
almost midnight, from the position of those brilliant constellations
which shone down equally upon his mother and himself--she in her
innocence and he in his anxiety--and shone, also, perhaps, upon his poor
father's grave in isle or ocean.

Within an hour blood was to be shed, no doubt, and rapine done, and he
knew not the road to escape by nor the hole to hide in. Yet in that hour
he had to make his choice,--to fight for liberty, or go to the jail,
the whipping-post, or, perhaps, the gallows.

Levin considered ruefully his vagrant past, and how little could be said
in extenuation of him in a court of justice, except by his mother's
faith, which was no more evidence than a negro's oath.

Once it arose in his mind to surprise Van Dorn, overcome him, cast him
out in a ditch, and drive to some one of the little farmhouses and rest,
till day should give him his whereabouts and remedy.

Levin was not a coward, and his muscles were hard, and his feet could
cling to a smooth plank like a bird's to a bough; but his heart relented
to the fierce, soft man so unsuspectingly sitting with his back to him,
when Levin reflected that he must, perhaps, put an end to Van Dorn's
life with his sailor's knife, if they grappled at all, and this day
expiring Van Dorn had paid a debt for him to the widow whose son was
next overtaken, and who cried, forwardly, without being addressed:

"Van Dorn, what you goin' to give me if I git a nigger?"

"This!" said Van Dorn, without a pause, reaching the boy a measured blow
with his whip-lash on the shoulder that made him literally fall from the
mule and grovel with pain.

"Discipline is what your mother failed to give you, _reprobo_. Manners I
shall teach you. Fall in the rear!"

Owen Daw crawled desperately on his mule and obeyed without parley, but
his audacity soon recovered enough to force his animal up to the wagon
tail and open whispered communications with Levin there.

Nothing had passed them for hours that Levin had seen, when suddenly a
horseman at a rapid lope stopped the wagon, and a hoarse negro voice
muttered:

"How de do, now? See me! see me!"

"Derrick Molleston?" spoke Van Dorn.

"See me! see me!"

"Get down and ride with me. Levin, are you awake?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Take this man's horse and ride him. John Sorden is ahead. It will
stretch your chilled limbs."

"May I go with him?" aske