own life hung on a thread. If any wrecker
espied me, the villains would not hesitate at
another crime. But how could I go? I could
carry the child with ease, but her poor
mother!

Thank God! Juba, in person! I had quite
forgotten that I had ordered the young negro to
follow me; I had far outstripped him, but I
looked up and saw his black face. He was
dreadfully alarmed at the fierce shouts and
excited gestures of the wreckers, and was on
the point of making off when I caught him by
the collar. Between us, we contrived to carry
the young woman over the dreary sandhills
between us and the lighthouse, the child being
sufficiently recovered to walk. We laid our
patient on my bed, and when Aunt Polly had
exhausted her first transports of astonishment,
she proved an excellent nurse. Thanks to
the care and zeal of the kind negress, Mrs.
Fairfax gradually revived. It was from her
own lips that I learned her name and position
in life. She was the young wife of a gentleman
of good fortune in North Carolina, and nephew
to the Governor of that State. But—poor
thing!—I could not disguise from her that she
was a widow, though I spared her the
additional pang of knowing that her husband had
been one of those who had been inhumanely
thrust back into the sea to perish, although I
had little doubt that one of the murdered men
had been Captain Fairfax, whose description
tallied with that of the poor victim I had
beheld.

Leaving the widow weeping over her recent
loss, while she clasped her rescued child as if she
feared to lose her too, I went to make preparations
for leaving the island. Most fortunately,
I had employed my leisure in repairing the
dismantled boat. The latter had no mast,
but it was now watertight, and a pair of the
old oars were fit for use. Before I slept, I
brought the boat from the creek, and moored
it to the quay, ready for a start. My great
fear was that, before we could escape, some
of the wreckers might discover that I had
been an eye-witness of their crimes and had
saved some of the passengers on board the
foundered ship, which I now learned was the
Astarte, of Boston. On this account, shortly
after daybreak I caused mattresses and pillows
to be placed in the boat; and Aunt Polly, Juba,
and I, carried down Mrs. Fairfax, who was too
much exhausted to walk. The child followed,
and Aunt Polly arranged the blankets and cloaks
around the invalid, while Juba was to take one
oar, and I the other. The black lad was not
wholly unused to a boat, having rowed on the
river near Wilmington. In case of pursuit,
which, however, seemed improbable, I had placed
the loaded gun in the boat, had hidden one of
the cutlases under my pea-coat, and concealed
the other in the sand. We were just ready to
push off, when I remembered that my sketches
and drawings, which I was loth to leave, were
still within the lighthouse. I ran back, put
the portfolio under my arm, and was on the
threshold of my late dwelling, when the figure
of a tall man appeared in the doorway—Japhet
Brown!

His face was swollen and coarse with drink,
and his fiery eyes drooped as they met mine.

"Whither away, chap? Yew seem in a
plaguy hurry;" he growled, and extended his
hand.

"I am going out. I have no time for
conversation;"

The young villain burst out into oaths and
curses.

"Conceited British hound, who be yew, to
refuse to shake an honest man's hand?"

"A murderer's hand, you mean!" I cried,
indignantly, though I repented the words before
they were well out.

Japhet turned livid with passion. " You know
too much, my gentleman. I'll stop your jaw
pretty smart."

So saying, he threw himself upon me, but I
was luckily armed, and I drove him out of the
lighthouse, pursuing him, cutlas in hand, for
a short distance. Then I went back to the
boat. Juba and I were not first-rate rowers,
the boat was heavy, and our progress was slow.
Before we were half-way across the sound,
I descried a swift whale-boat cleaving the
waters, on our track. No doubt the wretch
Japhet had given the alarm to his comrades, and
had we been overtaken, the secret would have
been preserved by the sacrifice of all our lives.
But a sloop passing within hail picked us up,
and carried us to the mainland. Before nightfall
we were able to place Mrs. Fairfax and her little
daughter under the safe care of her husband's
relations.

I have little more to tell. The gratitude
of the Fairfax family pressed upon me a large
pecuniary reward. This I declined, but I gladly
accepted patronage which enabled me to leave
for Europe two years later, with—for an artist
—a purse reasonably heavy. A States Marshal,
backed by an armed force, was despatched to
Cape Hatteras, with a warrant for the apprehension
of the guilty. But some delay had occurred,
and the Browns fled to Texas, in which remote
region, years afterwards, I read of the execution,
by lynch law, of Japhet and his father, for
robbery and murder.

At the completion, in March, of
SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON'S NEW WORK,
A STRANGE STORY,
Will be commenced
A NEW NOVEL, BY MR. WILKIE COLLINS.