sted to the utmost, for he lay for weeks in a stupor,
and when he recovered consciousness his reason had undergone a strange
eclipse. For a long time he could not recall a single event in his
history and when at last some of the most prominent began to re-present
themselves to his view it was vaguely and slowly, as mountain-peaks and
hill-tops break through a morning mist. This was not the only result of
the blow which his rival had struck him; it had left him totally blind.
Nothing could have been more pitiful than the sight of this once strong
man, more helpless than an infant, sitting in the sun where kind hands
had placed him. Months elapsed before he regained anything that could be
called a clear conception of the past. It did at length return, however.
Slowly, but with terrible distinctness he recalled the events which
preceded and brought about this tragedy. And as he reflected upon them,
jealousy, hatred and revenge boiled in his soul and finally crystallized
into the single desperate purpose to find and crush the man who had
wrecked his life.

He kept his story to himself; but made furtive inquiries of his
new-found friends and of the slaves and neighbors, none of which enabled
him to discover the slightest clue to the fugitives. So far as he could
learn, the earth might have opened and swallowed them, and so when he
had exhausted the sources of information in the region where the
accident occurred, he determined to go elsewhere.

Refusing the kind offers of a permanent refuge in the home of these
hospitable Kentuckians, he made his way back to Cincinnati, where he
hoped not only to find traces of the fugitives, but to recover the
jewels which Pepeeta had left behind her on the table, and which in his
frantic haste he had forgotten to take with him.

He learned the history of the jewels in a few short hours. Not long
after his own sudden disappearance and that of David and Pepeeta, the
judge had called at the hotel with an order for his property. The
unsuspecting landlord had honored it, and the judge not long afterward
left for parts unknown.

This discovery not only turned his rage to frenzy, but increased his
difficulties a hundred fold. Without friends and without money, he set
himself to attain revenge. Before a purpose so resolute, many obstacles
at once gave way, and although he could find no traces of David and
Pepeeta, he discovered that the judge had fled to New York City, and
thither he determine