den showers which come
up so unexpectedly at the south. We once passed through a tornado in
Louisiana, which came in a shower that gathered upon a blue sky in less
than half an hour. It tore up tall trees as though they had been
cornstalks, and rolled up the Mississippi so that it looked like a
boiling caldron. In half an hour more the sun was shining gayly on the
scene of devastation, as though Nature had no terrors in her laboratory
of forces.

In an hour after the exciting scene on the lake, the Isabel had a gentle
breeze and fair weather. Cyd still maintained his position on the
forecastle, and Lily once more ventured into the standing room. Dan gave
her a minute account of the affray with the slave-hunters, and concluded
by stating his belief that all three of them had been drowned in the
lake.

Lily shuddered at the thought; for the taking of a human life, even in
defence of the freedom which she valued more highly than life itself,
seemed a terrible thing to her gentle heart.

"Perhaps they are not dead," said she.

"Perhaps not; but it is hardly possible that they could have swum
ashore. We were at least three miles from the land, and their boat was
all stove to pieces."

"Dey might hab hold on to de boat," suggested Quin.

"But there was an awful sea for a few moments. Why, the water dashed
clean over our decks," added Dan. "One of them may have saved himself,
but I am confident the other two must have been lost."

"Hi, Dan!" shouted Cyd, from his position at the heel of the bowsprit.

"What is it, Cyd?"

"Dar's someting ober dar," added Cyd, pointing over to leeward, as he
walked aft.

"What is it?"

"Cyd tinks it's de boat ob de slabe-hunters."

"Perhaps it is," said Dan, musing. "And our wounded or dying enemies may
be clinging to it. Shall we save them?"

"Hossifus! Dey kill us ef we does," exclaimed Cyd.

"'Lub your enemies,'" said Quin, piously. "Let us sabe dem if we can. We
kin tie dar hands and fotch 'em ober dar."

"I don't think they are there."

"We must save their lives," added the gentle Lily.

"And perhaps lose our own; but I will overhaul the boat, to satisfy
myself whether the men were lost or not," said Dan, as he let out the
main sheet, and put up the helm. "Stand by with the boat-hook, Cyd."

In a few moments the Isabel had run up to the wreck of the boat, and Cyd
grappled it with the boat-hook. There were no men clinging to it, but in
the bottom of the boat, covered