to wrench it from his grasp.

The men closed in on him. A short passionate fight and the slender, proud,
gray-haired man lay panting on the floor.

Four powerful assailants held his hands and feet, and the negro smith,
with a grin, secured the rivet on the right ankle and turned the key in
the padlock on the left.

As he drove the rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised
blood from the old Mexican War wound stained the iron.

Dr. Cameron lay for a moment in a stupor. At length he slowly rose. The
clank of the heavy chains seemed to choke him with horror. He sank on the
floor, covering his face with his hands and groaned:

"The shame! The shame! O God, that I might have died! My poor, poor
wife!"

Captain Gilbert entered and said with a sneer:

"I will take you now to see your wife and friends if you would like to
call before setting out for Columbia."

The doctor paid no attention to him.

"Will you follow me while I lead you through this town, to show them their
chief has fallen, or will you force me to drag you?"

Receiving no answer, he roughly drew the doctor to his feet, held him by
the arm, and led him thus in half-unconscious stupor through the principal
street, followed by a drove of negroes. He ordered a squad of troops to
meet him at the depot. Not a white man appeared on the streets. When one
saw the sight and heard the clank of those chains, there was a sudden
tightening of the lip, a clinched fist, and an averted face.

When they approached the hotel, Mrs. Cameron ran to meet him, her face
white as death.

In silence she kissed his lips, kissed each shackle on his wrists, took
her handkerchief and wiped the bruised blood from the old wound on his arm
the iron had opened afresh, and then with a look, beneath which the
Captain shrank, she said in low tones:

"Do your work quickly. You have but a few moments to get out of this town
with your prisoner. I have sent a friend to hold my son. If he comes
before you go, he will kill you on sight as he would a mad dog."

With a sneer, the Captain passed the hotel and led the doctor, still in
half-unconscious stupor, toward the depot down past his old slave
quarters. He had given his negroes who remained faithful each a cabin and
a lot.

They looked on in awed silence as the Captain proclaimed:

"Fellow citizens, you are the equal of any white man who walks the ground.
The white man's day is done. Your turn has come."

As he pass