he time
comes to make it more available.

The affair of the arrest and subsequent action over, the sheriff and his
party retire from the plantation of Ephraim Darke, leaving its owner in
a state of frenzied bewilderment.

They go direct to Mrs Clancy's cottage; not to stay there, but as a
starting point, to resume the search for the body of her son, adjourned
since yester-eve.

They do not tell her of Dick Darke's arrest. She is inside her
chamber--on her couch--so prostrated by the calamity already known to
her, they fear referring to it.

The doctor in attendance tells them, that any further revelation
concerning the sad event may prove fatal to her.

Again her neighbours, now in greater number, go off to the woods, some
afoot, others on horseback. As on the day preceding, they divide into
different parties, and scatter in diverse directions. Though not till
after all have revisited the ensanguined spot under the cypress, and
renewed their scrutiny of the stains. Darker than on the day before,
they now look more like ink than blood!

The cypress knee, out of which Woodley and Heywood "gouged" the
smooth-bore bullet, is also examined, its position noted. Attempts are
made to draw inferences therefrom, though with but indifferent success.
True, it tells a tale; and, judging by the blood around the bullet-hole,
which all of them have seen, a tragic one, though it cannot of itself
give the interpretation.

A few linger around the place, now tracked and trodden hard by their
going and coming feet. The larger number proceeds upon the search, in
scattered parties of six or eight each, carrying it for as many miles
around.

They pole and drag the creek near by, as others at a greater distance;
penetrate the swamp as far as possible, or likely that a dead body might
be carried for concealment. In its dim recesses they discover no body,
living or dead, no trace of human being, nought save the solitude-loving
heron, the snake-bird, and scaly alligator.

On this second day's quest they observe nothing new, either to throw
additional light on the commission of the crime, or assist them in
recovering the corpse.

It is but an unsatisfactory report to take back to the mother of the
missing man. Perhaps better for her she should never receive it?

And she never does. Before it can reach her ear, this is beyond hearing
sound. The thunder of heaven could not awake Mrs Clancy from the sleep
into which she has fa