ministrator. She tore it
into fragments, and bade him leave the house. He refused to go without
Selma, and quietly seated himself on the sofa. Mrs. Preston then called
in ten or twelve of the field hands, and told them to eject him. They
either would not or dared not do it; and, without more delay, he
proceeded to search for Selma. At last he found her apartment. He burst
open the door, and saw her lying on a low, miserable bed, writhing in
agony from her wounds. Throwing a blanket over her, he lifted her in his
arms, and carried her to his cabin. Dinah carefully attended her, and
that night she thanked God, and--slept.

The next morning, before the sun was fully up, Dawsey and three other
white men, heavily armed, came to the cabin, and demanded admittance.
Ally refused, and barricaded the door. They finally stealthily effected
an entrance through a window in the kitchen, and, breaking down the
communication with the 'living room,' in which apartment the mulatto man
and his mother were, they rushed in upon them. Ally, the previous day,
had procured a couple of revolvers at Trenton, and Dinah and he,
planting themselves before the door of old Deborah's room, in which
Selma was sleeping, pointed the weapons at the intruders. The assailants
paused, when Dawsey shouted out: 'Are you afraid of two d--d
niggers--and one a woman!' Aiming his pistol at Ally, he fired. The ball
struck the negro's left arm. Discharging two or three barrels at them,
the old woman and her son then rushed upon the white men, and they FLED!
all but one--he remained; for Dinah caught him in a loving embrace, and
pummelled him until he might have been mistaken for calves-foot jelly.

Ally then sent a messenger to the administrator, who rode over in the
afternoon, and took Selma to his own house. There she remained till her
brother reached the plantation--three days before my arrival.

As soon as she was safely at Trenton, Selma wrote to her friends,
mailing the letters at that post office. She received no answers. Again
and again she wrote; the administrator also wrote, but still no replies
came. At last Ally suggested mailing the letters at Newbern, and rode
down with one to Joe, one to Alice, and one to Kate.

Her brother came on at once. In the first ebullition of his anger he
ejected his stepmother from the mansion. She went to Dawsey's, and, the
next day, appeared at the sale with that gentleman; and then announced
that for two months she had