upon a gang of the most desperate smugglers in that part of the
country. They surrounded him, without violence, but in such a manner
as to show that it would be resorted to if he offered resistance,
and gave him to understand he must spend the evening with them,
since they had met so happily. The officer did not attempt
opposition, but only asked leave to send a country lad to tell his
wife and family that he should be detained later than he expected.
As he had to charge the boy with this message in the presence of the
smugglers, he could found no hope of deliverance from it, save what
might arise from the sharpness of the lad's observation, and the
natural anxiety and affection of his wife. But if his errand should
be delivered and received literally, as he was conscious the
smugglers expected, it was likely that it might, by suspending alarm
about his absence from home, postpone all search after him till it
might be useless. Making a merit of necessity, therefore, he
instructed and dispatched his messenger, and went with the
contraband traders, with seeming willingness, to one of their
ordinary haunts. He sat down at table with them, and they began to
drink and indulge themselves in gross jokes, while, like Mirabel in
the "Inconstant," their prisoner had the heavy task of receiving
their insolence as wit, answering their insults with good-humour,
and withholding from them the opportunity which they sought of
engaging him in a quarrel, that they might have a pretence for
misusing him. He succeeded for some time, but soon became satisfied
it was their purpose to murder him out-right, or else to beat him in
such a manner as scarce to leave him with life. A regard for the
sanctity of the Sabbath evening, which still oddly subsisted among
these ferocious men, amidst their habitual violation of divine and
social law, prevented their commencing their intended cruelty until
the Sabbath should be terminated. They were sitting around their
anxious prisoner, muttering to each other words of terrible import,
and watching the index of a clock, which was shortly to strike the
hour at which, in their apprehension, murder would become lawful,
when their intended victim heard a distant rustling like the wind
among withered leaves. It came nearer, and resembled the s