to pass the night.

By the light of a candle he examined the room. A bed, with the
covers neatly turned back, revealed snowy pillows and sheets. A
worn, but clean, red carpet covered the floor. There was a dresser
with a beveled mirror, a washstand with a flowered bowl and pitcher;
the two or three chairs were softly upholstered. A little table held
books, papers, and a day-old cluster of roses in a jar. There were
towels on a rack and soap in a white dish.

Whistling Dick set his candle on a chair and placed his hat
carefully under the table. After satisfying what we must suppose to
have been his curiosity by a sober scrutiny, he removed his coat,
folded it, and laid it upon the floor, near the wall, as far as
possible from the unused bathtub. Taking his coat for a pillow, he
stretched himself luxuriously upon the carpet.

When, on Christmas morning, the first streaks of dawn broke above
the marshes, Whistling Dick awoke, and reached instinctively for his
hat. Then he remembered that the skirts of Fortune had swept him
into their folds on the night previous, and he went to the window
and raised it, to let the fresh breath of the morning cool his brow
and fix the yet dream-like memory of his good luck within his brain.

As he stood there, certain dread and ominous sounds pierced the
fearful hollow of his ear.

The force of plantation workers, eager to complete the shortened
task allotted to them, were all astir. The mighty din of the ogre
Labour shook the earth, and the poor tattered and forever disguised
Prince in search of his fortune held tight to the window-sill even
in the enchanted castle, and trembled.

Already from the bosom of the mill came the thunder of rolling
barrels of sugar, and (prison-like sounds) there was a great
rattling of chains as the mules were harried with stimulant
imprecations to their places by the waggon-tongues. A little vicious
"dummy" engine, with a train of flat cars in tow, stewed and fumed
on the plantation tap of the narrow-gauge railroad, and a toiling,
hurrying, hallooing stream of workers were dimly seen in the half
darkness loading the train with the weekly output of sugar. Here was
a poem; an epic--nay, a tragedy--with work, the curse of the world,
for its theme.

The December air was frosty, but the sweat broke out upon Whistling
Dick's face. He thrust his head out of the window, and looked down.
Fifteen feet below him, against the wall of the house, he could make
ou