interest in the affair—rushed forward, and saw
what haunts my memory still. Carried on a
door by several strong men was the dead body
of a young man, quite a youth, partially wrapped
in a gaudy Indian blanket. An old man, grey-
haired and venerable of aspect, was weeping
over the passive form, while a crowd of angry
men, with clenched fists and brandished
weapons, surrounded it. Meanwhile, one tall fellow,
carrying on a pole, as if it were some ghastly
banner, the bloody shirt of the murdered man,
was haranguing a dense mass of human beings,
above whose dark heads we saw the ominous
glancing of ax-heads and rifle-barrels.

"See what you've brought on us, Mr. Phillips!"
said Jones, bitterly; and he ground his
teeth as he spoke.

"The pot and the kettle, I calculate!"
answered Phillips, sulkily; "better keep your
breath to try and cheat the hangman!"

There was a yell from the mob beneath: " Kill
'em! Burn the house over their heads! Forward,
bhoys!" And twenty shots were fired, splintering
the Venetian blinds and crashing into ceiling
and wainscot.

"Stand to it!" cried one of the boldest of
the besieged. "Blaze away, gentlemen, and we
shall beat 'em yet." The speaker fired a rifle
at the broad mark of the crowd; a cry of pain
succeeded, and then a savage roar.

In a moment there was firing enough on
both sides. The reports were deafening, doors
and windows rattled again, the room was full
of smoke, and the sulphurous steam of the
gunpowder half choked me as I got my back
against the wall in a recess between the
windows, and awaited in comparative security the
issue of the affray. I knew nothing of the
quarrel. Trojan and Tyrian were alike to me,
only I wished with all my heart that Mr. Jones
had been less hospitable, or I less complying.
The besieged fought hard, firing incessantly
with revolver and gun, while I heard Mr. Jones
encouraging them. But four were already
down, wounded, on the floor; one of them
mortally hurt, to judge by the blood that bubbled
from his lips as he gasped for breath. I knelt
beside the poor wretch, to offer such unskilful
help as I could afford, when there was a crash,
a whoop, and a rush, and the barricade was
scaled or forced, and the citizens came pouring
in, furious as a storming party. Borne down,
trampled, sick, and giddy, I was dragged from
the scuffle, and found myself in the street,
pinioned and a prisoner. Beside me were the
majority of my new acquaintances, tattered,
bruised, and their faces hardly to be seen
through their masks of blood and gunpowder.
They were all bound and captive.

"Drag 'em forward. Up to the big oak.
The court sits theer!" bawled fifty voices; and
we were roughly hauled or pushed to a grassy
space, where a huge solitary tree spread its
branches, while under its shade stood a score of
farmers and boatmen, well armed.

"Now for it!" shouted the crowd; "we've
got 'em, redhanded."

Some one twitched my sleeve, and pointed to
the oak, into whose boughs several men had
climbed, and were busy in reeving—as I saw with
horror—a rope and running noose to every branch
strong enough to serve as an impromptu gallows.

"Silence for Judge Lynch!" bawled an
amateur crier.

A gaunt farmer represented the redoubtable
judge, and addressed the assembly.

"Fellow citizens, I'm no forky-tongued.
lawyer, nor yet no stump speaker, but it's,
easy to clap the saddle on the right hoss.
We've had our hosses stole, our niggers 'ticed
away, our liquor hocussed, and our dollars
spirted out of our pouches. That's bad enough,
but when it kem's to blood——"

Here a roar drowned the orator's voice. Next,
the crier shouted that the jury had been
impanelled, and the prisoners must be put to the
bar. I was thrust forward with the rest.

"Guilty, or not?" was the stern demand.

Some of them, trembled very much. Jones
and Phillips were calm, but it was the calm of
desperation.

"Guilty, or not guilty?"

"Bring the farce to an end," cried Jones.
"You've got us; more ass I to run back into
the trap. Do your worst!"

"Are those ropes ready aloft there?" Judge
Lynch called out.

"All ready, Judge," was the rejoinder.

"Then, gentlemen of the jury, your verdict."

"Guilty! All guilty!"

The wild judge exclaimed, "I kin pass but one
sentence. Death. A halter apiece, and a good
riddance to the city and State!"

A yell of approval broke forth; we were
hustled beneath the tree, and a halter soon
encircled every neck. Then I found my voice,
and loudly appealed: protesting my entire
innocence, and that I was a harmless traveller, an
Englishman, and so forth. A peal of incredulous
laughter decided my appeal.

"Britishers ain't licensed to rob and murder,
ye'll larn to your cost," said an old farmer, who
held me.

"Smother the hypocrite!" exclaimed a boatman.

"Did ye hear the cantin', cowardly skunk,"
cried another fellow.

"Can't ye take pattern by your captain,
Jones there, and die like a man?"

My eyes following the man's pointed finger,
I beheld the blackened face and staring
eyeballs of my late acquaintance, as his struggling
body dangled some yards above.

"Now for Phillips," was the cry; and I
closed my eyes, not to see the wretch's execution.

"Morgan third; the Britisher fourth,"
announced Judge Lynch. " Up with Phillips!
Haul and hold."

"Tchick!" cried somebody, with an unfeeling
laugh,

"Whisht! howld your sneaking tongue, not
to mock the dyin'," sternly replied some honest
Patlander hard by.

"Now, Morgan!" was the next summons.