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[[top margin]] [[handwritten]] E. Richa [[?]] [[/handwritten]] [[/top margin]]

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[[decorative title in center top]] THE LIBERATOR [[/decorative title in center top]]

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THE LIBERATOR 
IS PUBLISHED
EVERY FRIDAY MORNING,
AT THE
ANTI-SLAVERY OFFICE, 21 CORNHILL.

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ROBERT F. WALLCUT, GENERAL AGENT.
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[[pointing hand bullet point]] TERMS - Two dollars and fifty cents per annum, in advance.

[[pointing hand bullet point]] Five copies will be sent to one address for TEN DOLLARS, if payment be made in advance.

[[pointing hand bullet point]] All remittances are to be made, and all letters relating to the pecuniary concerns of the paper are to be directed, (POST PAID,) to the General Agent.

[[pointing hand bullet point]] Advertisements making less than one square in[[?]]ted three times for 75 cents -- one square for $1 00.

[[pointing hand bullet point]] The Agents of the American, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio Anti-Slavery Societies are authorised to receive subscriptions for the Liberator. 

[[pointing hand bullet point]] The following gentlemen constitute the Financial Committee, but are not responsible for any of the debts of the paper, viz. :-- FRANCIS JACKSON, ELLIS GRAY LORING, EDMUND QUINCY, SAMUEL PHILBRICK, and WENDELL PHILLIPS.

[[pointing hand bullet point]] In the columns of THE LIBERATOR, both sides of every question are impartially allowed a hearing.

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[[decorative font]] No Union with Slaveholders! [[/decorative font]]

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS 'A COVENANT WITH DEATH AND AN AGREEMENT WITH HELL.'

[[pointing hand bullet point]] 'Yes ! IT CANNOT BE DENIED -- the slaveholding lords of the South prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution, three special provisions TO SECURE THE PERPETUITY OF THEIR DOMINION OVER THEIR SLAVES. The first was the immunity, for twenty years, of preserving African slave trade ; the second was THE STIPULATION TO SURRENDER FUGITIVE SLAVES -- an engagement positively prohibited by the laws of God, delivered from Sinai ; and, thirdly, the exaction, fatal to the principles of popular representation, of a representation for SLAVES -- for articles of merchandize, under the name of persons . . . . . in fact, the oppressor representing the oppressed ! . . .  To call government thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the understanding of mankind. It is doubly tainted with the infection of riches and slavery. Its reciprocal operation upon the government of the nation is to establish an artificial majority in the slave representation over that of the free people, in the American Congress ; AND THEREBY TO MAKE THE PRESERVATION, PROPAGATION AND PERPETUATION OF SLAVERY THE VITAL AND ANIMATING SPIRIT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.' -- [[italics]] John Quincy Adams. [[/italics]]  

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WM. LLOYD GARRISON, EDITOR. [[decorative font]] Our Country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind. [[/decorative font]] J. B. YERRINTON & SON, PRINTERS.

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VOL. XXV.  NO. 47. BOSTON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1855. WHOLE NUMBER 1116.

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REFUGE OF OPPRESSION. 

THE BLESSINGS OF SLAVERY. 

Extract from a shallow, impudent, and thoroughly satanic work, entitled "Sociology of the South; or, the Tailure [[seems like this should be "Failure"]] of Free Society (!)--by George Fitzhugh, of Port Royal, Virginia' :--

At the slaveholding South, all is peace, quiet, plenty and contentment. We have no mobs, no trades unions, no strikes for higher wages, no armed resistance to the law, but little jealousy of the rich by the poor. We have but few in our jails, and fewer in our poor houses. We produce enough of the comforts and necessaries of life for a population three or four times as numerous as ours. We are wholly exempt from the torrent of pauperism, crime, agrarianism, and infidelity, which Europe is pouring from her jails and almshouses on the already crowded North. Population increases slowly, wealth rapidly. In the tide water region of Eastern Virginia, as far as our experience extends, the crops have doubled in fifteen years, whilst the population has been almost stationary. In the same period, the lands, owing to improvements of the soil and the many fine houses erected in the country, have nearly doubled in value. This ratio of improvement has been approximated or exceeded wherever in the South slaves are numerous. We have enough for the present, and no Malthusian spectres frightening us for the future. Wealth is more equally distributed than at the North, where a few millionaires own most of the property of the country. (These millionaires are men of cold hearts and weak minds; they know how to make money, but not how to use it, either for the benefit of themselves or of others.) High intellectual and moral attainments, refinement of head and heart, give standing to a man in the South, however poor he may be. Money is, with few exceptions, the only thing that ennobles at the North. We have poor among us, but none who are over-worked and under-fed. We do not crowd cities because lands are abundant and their owners kind, merciful and hospitable. The poor are as hospitable as the rich, the negro as the white man. Nobody dreams of turning a friend, a relative, or a stranger from his door. The very negro who deems it no crime to steal, would scorn to sell his hospitality. We have no loafers, because the poor relative or friend who borrows our horse or spends a week under our roof, is a welcome guest. The loose economy, the wasteful mode of living at the South, is a blessing when rightly considered; it keeps want, scarcity and famine at a distance, because it leaves room for retrenchment. The nice, accurate economy of France, England and New England, keeps society always on the verge of famine, because it leaves no room to retrench, that is to live on a part only of what they now consume. Our society exhibits no appearance of precocity, no symptoms of decay. A long course of continuing improvement is in prospect before us, with no limits which human foresight can descry. Actual liberty and equality with our white population has been approached much nearer than in the free States. Few of our whites ever work as day laborers, none as cooks, scullions, ostlers, body-servants, or in other menial capacities. One free citizen does not lord it over another; hence that feeling of independence and equality that distinguishes us; hence that pride of character, that self-respect, that gives us ascendancy when we come in contact with Northerners. It is a distinction to be a Southerner, as it was once to be a Roman citizen.
  In Virginia we are about to reform our constitution. A fair opportunity will be afforded to draw a wider line of distinction between freemen and slaves, to elevate higher the condition of the citizen, to inspire every white man with pride of rank and position. We should do more for education. We have to educate but half of society ; at the North they attempt to educate all. Besides, here all men have time for self-education, for reading and reflection. Nobody works long hours. We should prohibit the exercise of mechanic arts to slaves (except on their master's farm) and to free negroes. We should extend the right of suffrage to all native Virginians, and to Southerners who move to Virginia, over twenty-one years of age. We should permit no foreigner and no Northerner, who shall hereafter remove to the State, to vote in elections. We should have a small, well-drilled, paid militia, to take the place of the patrol and the present useless militia system. All men of good character should serve on juries without regard to property qualification. Thus we should furnish honorable occupation to all our citizens, whilst we cultivated and improved their minds by requiring them all to take part in the administration of justice and of government. We should thus make poverty as honorable as it was in Greece and Rome; for to be a Virginian would be a higher distinction than wealth or title could bestow. We should cease to be a bye-word and reproach among nations for our love of the almighty dollar. We should be happy in the confidence that our posterity would never occupy the place of slaves, as half mankind must ever do in free society. Until the last fifteen years, our great error was to imitate Northern habits, customs and institutions. Our circumstances are so opposite to theirs, that whatever suits them is almost sure not to suit us. Until that time, in truth, we distrusted our social system. We thought slavery morally wrong, we thought it would not last, we thought it unprofitable. The Abolitionists assailed us; we look more closely into our circumstances; became satisfied that slavery was morally right, that it would continue ever to exist, that it was as profitable as it was humane. This begets self-confidence, self-reliance. Since then, our improvement has been rapid. Now we may safely say, and we are the happiest, most contented and prosperous people on earth. The intermeddling of foreign pseudo-philanthropists in our affairs, though it has occasioned great irritation and indignation, has been of inestimable advantage in teaching us for a right estimate of our condition. This intermeddling will soon see; the poor at home in thunder tones demand their whole attention and all their charity. Self-preservation will compel them to listen to their demands. Moreover, light is breaking in upon us from abroad. All parties in England now agree that the attempt to put down the slave-trade has greatly aggravated his horrors, without it all diminishing the trade itself. It is proposed to withdraw for fleet from the African coast. France has already given notice that she will withdraw hers. America will follow the example. The emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies is admitted to be a failure in all respects. The late masters have been ruined, the liberated slaves refused to work, and are fast returning to the savage state, and England herself has sustained a severe blow the present diminution and prospective annihilation of the once enormous imports from her West Indian colonies.

In conclusion, we will repeat the propositions, in somewhat different phraseology, with which we
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set out. First – That Liberty and Equality, with their concomitant Free Competition, beget the war in society that is as destructive to its weaker members as the custom of exposing the deformed and crippled children. Secondly – That slavery protects the weaker members of society just as do the relations of parent, guardian and husband, and is as necessary, as natural, almost as universal as those relations.
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THE NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY.

'I see nothing national in most of the political combinations of the day. Certainly, that most recent of the wretched formations – that which calls itself 'Republican,' for no reason that I can discover but because it proposes to represent and take care of one-half of the Republic only, on the principle of hostility to the other half – cannot pretend to have the first element of nationality about it. If that party is national, judged by its own platform and the recorded sentiments of its leading organs and advocates, then it is because the Union can be perfected by setting one-half of the States at deadly feud with the other half, justice established by libeling the judiciary and trampling on constitutional laws domestic tranquility insured by servile insurrections, the common defense provided for by civil war, the general welfare promoted by intestine commotions, and the blessings of liberty secured to us – the white race of the country – and our posterity, by the overthrow, all for love of the black race, of the best guaranties of popular liberty ever devised in any system of Government since the world began.

For the first time, a party of purely sectional character at all formidable in its proportions has arisen in this country. We have had abolition parties, but none considerable enough to create much alarm. Now, for the first time, we have a party organization, certainly of no mean pretensions, already embracing several States, and seeking and claiming to be able to rouse the whole North to United action on the single sentiment of hostility to the other half of the Union on account of Slavery. It expects to absorb the main strength of the two great parties, Whig and Democratic, into itself. It claims to have had already the formal surrender of the Whig party in this State; and those who happen to have the name and official agencies of that party in keeping, have been bold enough to pretend to make such surrender. It numbers among its candidates for the fall election in the state, several Democrats of considerable mark. It looks, besides, no doubt, full support from the various stripes of Abolitionists, and it may draw largely upon our foreign population. It appeals to fanaticism, and it will attract to itself [[line of print hidden by fold of paper]]
that sort of fears hostility to slavery which can be satisfied with nothing short of sacrificing to that one feeling and consideration, all other political issues, duties and obligations whatsoever. It is not to be denied or doubted that this new party is having some success – enough at least to demand the serious observation and attention of the country; and, so far as it has or can have vitality and success, I am bound to say that I think it deserves nothing but execration, is a bold menace to the integrity of the Union, such as cannot be justified or excused, unless treason can be justified or excused.' – [[italics]]Letter of Hon. D. D. Barnard, of N.Y.[[/italics]]
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SELECTIONS.
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From the National Era.
AN UNSCRUPULOUS CALUMNIATOR.

Before closing our comments on the letter from the Hon. D. D. Barnard, we would direct attention to a portion of it, more treasonous and wicked than any menace ever hurled from the lips of slaveholders. Speaking of the Republicans, he says:

'I think a political party based solely on the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the North is essentially and necessarily an instrument for dissolving the Union of these States, whoever may or may not so intend. I think the triumph of such a party in a Presidential election would be [[italics]]ipso facto[[/italics]] a dissolution of the Union; and for one I do not profess to be simple enough to believe that some of those who are engaged in this movement do not see it exactly in the light that I do. If such a party can really command the whole North in the next election for president – which is, of course precisely what it aims and proposes to do – it can have but one antagonist, namely a Southern party, based on the principle of self-preservation. But everybody knows that the non-slaveholding States have an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes, and, whether the South should go into the contest or not, (and it probably would not,) the result would be the election, not merely of a Northern President, but a President for the North, who could no more make an Administration for the whole United States, then a Governor of the smallest State in the Union could do the same thing. Such a President could never cross the Potomac or enter the capital of the nation. Neither he nor any official under him could ever pass the boundary or tread the soil of any slave State, unless to carry the desolation of war into its borders.'

This man is guilty of encouraging rebellion and treason. He virtually invokes Civil War. His infamous prediction is in effect an invitation to a minority, fairly and constitutionally out-voted, to rise in arms, set at defiance constitutional majority, and overthrow the Constitution and Union. He is the first Northern man who has blackened his soul by giving countenance to a Treason, that no Slavery-Propagandist has yet dared to suggest.

Southern men, representing Southern views of Slavery, have been elected to the Presidency, and what 'National' Southern man has volunteered the opinion that the North would never endure such a visitation - that the Southern President elect would never be permitted to enter the Presidential mansion? Suppose Wise or Davis, or even Atchison himself, the very impersonation of Vandal Propagandism, should be nominated by the Slavery Party for the Presidency, could you find any drivelling Southerner so cowardly as to cry out, in alarm, 'the election of such a man will be a dissolution of the union - he will never enter the capital - never can he tread the soil of Washington, unless to carry the desolation of war in his train? What party at the North would dream of civil war, should the Slavery-Party succeed in installing, by a Constitutional majority, a Slavery-Propagandist in the Presidential chair? It comes to this, then, in the judgement of this man, and the Straight-out Whigs whom he represents: The Slavery Party may elect a President, and it is becoming that the Free States submit; but if the Republican Party elect a President, as a matter of course the Slave States will rebel, and set fire to the temple of our Union: the minority of the Republic must rule, the majority, submit: if the majority assert its Constitutional power, in a Constitutional way, it may thank itself, if civil war should follow! What is the practical conclusion? What is the language of this Northern traitor and his associates to the Slavery Propaganda? We disapprove your aggressions, but abhor your opponents. You have done wrong, but we shall not permit your opponents to right the wrong. We shall oppose any further aggressions on your part; but if you succeed in them, we shall submit. We expect you to unite the South always for Slavery: but as the uniion of the Free States for Freedom would be sectional, we shall always resist it to the death. You may elect what Presidents you please, and we pledge you the acquiescence of the North; but as you will not of course tolerate the election of a man pledged against the domination of the Slave Power, we will not suffer it. Much as we dislike Slavery - and what Northern man loves it? - we shall forego our opposition to you in your determination to use the Federal Government as an instrument of Slavery-extension, and wage war alone upon that traitorous Republican Party which seeks to prohibit the extension of slavery, and wrest the Federal Government from your power. To the death we swear ourselves your allies, and their foes.
  
  This is the detestable position occupied by Messrs. Barnard, Hunt, Winthrop, Choate, and their deluded followers. It is to such men, and such counsels, that we owe Pro-Slavery Propagandism, Nullification, the manifold usurpations, the insolence, and the overshadowing tyranny of the Slave Power. To such men and such counsels, we owe the division, consequent weakness, and abject subservience of the Free States. It is they who, should civil war ever grow out of this conflict between Slavery and Freedom, will have to answer to God and the world for its crimes and desolations.

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From the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
NATIONAL CONVENTION OF COLORED MEN.

  The following resolutions, among others, were adopted by the Convention of Colored Men, lately held in Philadelphia :--
 
  Resolved, That Education, the great elevator of mind, is what we need, and what we must have, to place us on an equal footing with other men, and we will improve such opportunities as are afforded us to secure it for ourselves and our children.
  Resolved, That, in the first place, our people be mad to feel necessity of securing real estate, and that i requires union with us, as a people, to sustain each other, that we obtain the great object which is in our view, viz: our social, civil and political rights, and that we encourage our people in agricultural pursuits on lands of their own. 
  Resolved, That we rejoice in the legislative act of Massachusetts, by which her common schools are open to every class of her citizens, believing that the school-room is, when really free, the greatest leveler of al species of prejudice. 
  Resolved, That as no one class can elevate that may be adopted by this and other National Conventions will fail of their purpose, unless the people realize the necessity of individual application and effort. 
  Resolved, That we recommend to our mothers and sisters to use every honorable means to secure for their sons and brothers, places of profit and trust in stores, and other places of business, such as will throw a halo around this prescribed people, that shall, in coming time, reject honor on those who have laid the corner-stone to our platform of improvement. 
  Resolved, That we use our influence to prevent our boys from taking employment in cities at places of amusement, where marked distinction on account of color is made the order of exercises. 
  Resolved, That, considering our relative position as a part of the nation, in the capacity of the real procedures of the wealth of the nation and this country, we therefore recommend to all our youth, of both sexes, to learn some useful trade or come mechanical art, as a means of doing away with prejudice against color, and thus show to the world that we aspire to, and can arrive at, the highest eminence, from which slavery and civil and social oppression have debarred us. 
  Resolved, That this convention gladly seize the opportunity of expressing toward Passmore Williamson their sincere admiration for his fidelity to principle, and his heroic devotion to the cause of freedom, and they beg him to accept for himself and his injured and bereaved family assurance of their deepest and most heartfelt sympathy. 
  Resolved, that Mr. Williamson, by his promptness on this, as on all occasions when called upon to fly to the aid of the slave, when striving for his freedom, has entitled himself to the highest regard and warmest admiration of every man who has a heart to appreciate the value of freedom, or despise the chains of oppression. 
  Resolved, That a Committee of five be appointed to wait upon and present to Mr. Williamson this expression of the National Convention. 
  Whereas, every man and woman are by right the owners of themselves, and, except under legal contract voluntarily entered into, or to appease justice violated by crime, this right cannot be alienated, all laws for the holding of slaves, and all Fugitive Slave Bills to reclaim them, to the contrary notwithstanding; therefore;
  Resolved, That this convention approve of and honor the conduct of Ballard, Curtis, Braddock, Still, Martin and Moore, who bore off, in the face of difficulty, Jane Johnson and her children, from the steamer on the Delaware, and thus secured to her what she had been robbed of, her own and her children's freedom. 
  The following named persons were announced to form the Committee to visit Passmore Williamson: Robert Purvis, Pa. ; John S. Rock, M. D. Mass. ; George T. Downing. R. I. : Stephen Myers, N. Y. : and R. H. Freeman, New Jersey. 
  The project for establishing a Colored College was not approved by the Convention. While the subject was under consideration, Fredrick Douglass said : 
  'From the assurances made to me by Mrs. Stowe, I fully expected that on her return we should have sufficient funds to make a start in the college, but the Garrisonian Abolitionists had sent her packs of letters, and user their papers to prevent the contribution of funds toward it. They argued that we should hot have such an Institution as long as there were slaves in the country, but in this I think they had the cart before the horse, for it is my impression that every blow stuck by a blacksmith at the North lightens the gains of the three millions held in bondage at the South. He thought that he could have collected $10,000, but he has not the time, for he had a large weekly paper to control, one that was formerly partially supported by the Abolitionists, but they had withheld their support, because the right to vote as well as to talk was advocated in its columns. Colored people read the Ledger in Philadelphia, the Herald in New York's, but they did not sustain their own papers.'
  [It is hardly necessary to say the Mrs. Stowe, in the disposition of the fund entrusted to her, has acted in accordance with the dictates of her own judgement and conscience. The insinuation that the 'Garrisonians' have interfered in the matter with a purpose hostile to the colored people is a mere outbreak of Mr. Douglass's unscrupulous malice. - EDS. STANDARD]
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[[Title]]THE SLAVE-HUNTER AND HIS DOOM.[[Title]]
  The [?]following[?] thrilling extract is taken from the new and [?]soul-stirring[?] work, entitled 'CASTE: a Story of Republican Equality, by Sydney A. Story, Jr.'-just published by Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston :-
  Kissy found her way without difficulty to the lonely house where her husband lay, feverish and growing with pain and thirst, for there was no water nearer than the river, and he had not wet his lips since the morning of the day on which the accident occurred which disabled him from walking. 
  Braving the danger of discovery in being seen by any chance traveller, the devoted wife took the pail in which she had brought her provisions, and went to the river for water, with which she happily returned without meeting any one. The refreshing draught was like nectar to the parched lips of the sufferer, and wet bandages constantly applied to his bruised and swollen limb reduced the inflammation so much that in a day or two the tormenting pain had nearly subsided, and he was able to hobble about the rooms by the help of a crutch, which he contrived to make from a piece of the fence which kissy brought him. 
  It was necessary to keep carefully concealed in the day-time; for though the vicinity was without inhabitants, the country road run through it, and traveller often passed that way. The miserable clay-eaters plodded to market with their scanty bundles of fagots, behind shadowy caricatures of horses, or skeleton mules, so starved and weak that they seemed to be leaning for support against the thrills, rather than exerting any force to draw the slight dray on which the load was placed. From such creatures there was nothing to fear. They were too stupid to think, and too superstitious to dare, any invasion of the haunted premises. 

  But pleasure parties sometimes drove by, waking the echoes with their mirth, and stopping to gather bouquets from the flowers which still flourished 'where once a garden smiled;' and others, less familiar with the place, cast curious glances at the closed windows, and sometimes peeped into the silent dwellings. 
  But at evening and early morning, the fugitive and his wife could venture forth securely; and when a little experience had abated their fears of visitors from the unseen world, they grew cheerful and happy, and again and again blessed the kind young hearts that had provided for them this asylum. 
  Several days had passed this, when, as they sat together at the window of an upper room late on evening, they saw a carriage approach, and stop at [[line of story missing due to fold in paper]] recognized Mass Hubert, as he [[?]]acscended[[?]] it, and entered the house. She lighted a candle-for they had not dared to keep one burning-and went down to show him the way up stairs. 
  He was standing at the hall door which he had pushed half open, and was about to call her, when he saw the gleam of the candle dimly lighting her dusky face, as she shaded it with her hand from the draft of air, and he smiled to think that she looked as weird and gnome-like as any of the inhabitants with which fancy had invested the place. 
  'Hillo, Kissy! how d'ye! The ghosts haven't carried you off yet I see, 'he said, as he came near.
  'O, Mass' Hubert, bless you, dec ain't no sich -least ways, dey ain't none here,' she answered, with a boldness that surprised him. 'How be Miss Helen and de rest?' she continued; 'I hopes you brings good new, massa. Michel says, 'pears like he ought to be getting' 'long, 'fore long.'
  'He is better the, is he?'
  'O laus! yes, Mass' Hubert-heap better-most well, on'y he can't walk 'shout a crutch. Come up and see him-take care de broken step, Massa.' 
  She led the way up stairs, and Hubert followed, to receive from the grateful negro a welcome so garrulous and warm that he was fain to check it, by entering upon some explanation of the arrangements he had made for Michel's further escape.
  The light of the candle, shining out the window, caught the eye of a traveller, who, at that unwonted hour, was coming alone and on horseback from the city of Columbia, not far distant. It was Bernard, [the slave hunter,] who, after several days of wild dissipation, had now set out on his return home; bringing with him the papers which Mrs. Bell had commissioned him to obtain. He checked the rapid pace with which his horse was bearing him along the silent street that gave back no sound to the footfall, and looked again. Yes, he certainly saw it; a dim but steady light, shining out into the darkness which shrouded the fields and houses, and for a minute his heart throbbed quickly, and, with a sudden impulse of fear, he shut his eyes and urged his horse forward in another direction. But second thought arrested his headlong career; and, pausing, he looked back, and at length turned his horse, and guided him slowly towards the light. 
  'I've heard all sorts o' stories about this place he muttered to himself, 'and sometimes I've thought I saw lights 'round the houses, but it was most always the moon shining on some pane o' glass, or something o' that kind,-but there ain't any moon to-night, and there's certainly the steadiest light I ever saw, and I should like to know if there really is such goings on here as the niggers tell for. Hang it!' he exclaimed, in a whisper, as coming nearer he saw the horse and low buggy standing at the road side, not far from the house. 'Hang it! if I ever knew before that ghosts came up from the other world with a real house and carriage. I always thought they were like cherubs, all head and shoulders, with white sheets, perhaps, but no particular conveniences for sitting down; much less for driving horses. These must be new fashioned kind o' fellers, and hang me if I don't take a peep at 'em.'
  So saying, he dismounted, and leading his horse into the field where the shadow of an outbuilding secured him from observation; he crept cautiously along till he reached the back door, which was directly under the window from which the light still gleamed, and which, the hinge being broken, stood always partly open. 
  Listening here, he heard the faint sound of voices, and beginning to believe that they proceeded from mortal and not spiritual beings, he silently ascended, till he could see the light against the half-open chamber door, and distinguish on the wall three shadows, which were certainly cast by something as substantial as flesh and blood. Chuckling inaudibly at his discovery, he slipped of his shoes, and crept on tiptoe along the entry and behind the door, where he could hear all that was said, and through the crack get a glimpse of the persons present. 
  Kissy was just gathering her things together, in preparation for departure, and Hubert was giving some last directions. 
  ''Pears like I'll be powerful lonesome here tonight after you go,' said Michel. 'Couldn't Kissy stay till morning'?'
  'I could walk home, you know,' Kissy added, looking up at him, as she paused, with her hand on her husband's shoulder. 
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  'No, you had better come with me now. Michel must leave here early, in order to get to the depot in season. You understand, Michel,' Hubert, repeated, 'just how you are situated; for, if questioned, I don't want you to say any thing that I can't verify. I went to see Colonel Bell about you, but he was not at home; and I have written to your late owner, offering to buy you running, since that scoundrel who was after you suspected me of concealing you. I have received no answer, but as he will doubtless accept my offer, I have no hesitation in saying that you belong to me, and in taking you with me to Cuba. You know what time the train comes along to-morrow morning, and you had better plan your walk so as not to wait there long. You have been advertised; so the less attention you attract, the better; but if any one should recognize and arrest you before I get there, you can show the paper I have given you, and insist upon being kept there till I come. They won't think of disputing my word, of course; so you will be perfectly safe: only be sure to let nothing hinder you from being on the spot at the moment, for the cars wait for nobody. I wish there was some way for you to ride; but that can't be done, without letting some one else into the secret, which would not be advisable.'
  'O, neber mind 'bout dat, massa. I an walk on de scrutch very well dat far; de Lord bless you for all de goodness you'se showed a poor 'flicted nigger. One dese days, massa, when I gets well, you'll see you won't be sorry,' he added, drawing his form to its utmost height, and inflating his chest as if to express the swelling emotions that filled his heart. 
  'Well, I don't know as I object to the Lord's blessing, and you must try to do as well as you can,' said Hubert, trying to speak carelessly, to hide his own feelings, which were much affected. 
  'Come, now,' he added, 'it is time to be off. I will give you just two minutes to say good by, and then Kissy must come with me.'
  He walked into the entry, and waited till Kissy came out. For a little while, he stood so close to his mortal enemy, that it was only by a strong effort the latter suppressed his desire to stab him to the heart. Nothing but the hope that he was reserved for greater suffering, and more exquisite revenge, saved the life of Hubert at that unguarded moment. 
  Presently Kissy came, wiping away tears, and followed by Michel, who hobbled along to hold the candle for them. 
  'Be sure you put the light in that corner, where nobody can't see it out doors,' said Kissy, looking back to where he stood at the head of the stairs.
  'That is a wise precaution,' added Hubert; 'for the night is dark and a light shows a good way. [[words missing due to fold in the paper]] me at the depot.'
  'Yes, massa; by t'ee, Kissy; you'll hear great tings ob me, one dese yer days,' Michel cried, cheerfully, and turned back to his solitary room. 
  They had shut the door in going out, and the perfect silence that succeeded had in it something appalling. He had placed the light in a shaded corner, where its dim rays hardly lit the intense darkness of the lonely place, but yet caused flickering, tremulous shadows, that seemed instinct with life. He placed himself near the window, as if in the touch of the outer air was some communication from his fellows; but the darkness and loneliness oppressed him even more than before; he grew nervous and excited, and could not help fancying he heard the sound of suppressed breathing, and felt a consciousness of some one near. Unable to endure his terror, he determined to go down into the garden, where he had slept the first night that he came to this place, and, taking the light, had nearly reached the stairs, when he stumbled over the shows which Bernard had left behind him. Putting down the lamp to examine them, Michel uttered and exclamation of dismay.
  'De Lord preserve us! Somebody done been here dis night 'side us; and now may be ebery ting is lost, and Mass' Hubert got heself into strouble.'
  'That he will, you rascal, and you, too,' said a voice, while a strong grasp seized his coat. 
  Michel's heart stood still with mortal fear, and he recoiled and shrank together like on stricken with palsy, weak and trembling in every limb. He had not heard Bernard following him, and for a moment he thought Satan, whose domain he half believed himself to have invaded, had suddenly appeared to claim his victim. But when his captor, shaking him roughly, bade him get up, and threatened alternately to have him whipped to death the moment he got him to his master, and to cut his throat if he did not quietly consent to accompany him there, the negro began to recognize the satanic humanity into whose hands he had fallen; and as he recovered his scattered senses, and gradually rose to his feet, desperation too the place of fear. 
  Since his first exclamation, he had not replied a word to all the brutal tirade pored out upon him, or made any resistance to the kicks and cuffs which had been so freely administered; but now, as he stood face to face with his captor, what thoughts swept through his brain! what visions of the happiness that had seemed so near, only to make his disappointment more profound and hopeless! The dim light shone over his companion's face, but his own was in shadow; else perhaps Bernard would not so recklessly have let him free. The latter was armed only with a bowie knife, which he had drawn and held to Michel's throat in the first moment of the seizure; but his craven fear was so obvious, and his submission seemed so entire, that, no longer apprehending danger or resistance, he now stood carelessly holding it in his hand, and looking about him, said, talking to himself,-
  'Ain't there a rope in all this cursed hole? I must have something or other to tie your hands with. How I'm going to get you away from here, I don't know. It will take you all night to hobble on that lame foot. Hang it, if I don't mean to tie you up, so you can't crawl into any hole to hide and leave you here till morning. I could if I had a rope: ain't there any about here? Tell me quick, if you don't want your throat cut.'
  He held the knife up with a threatening gesture, but held it still carelessly, expecting the mere sight of it to intimidate his crippled and unarmed captive. 
  But, with a sudden blow of his crotch, Michel struck the knife from his hand, and sprang upon him. It went whizzing far out of reach, and the next instant they closed in deadly conflict.
  Bernard was the taller and larger man, but Michel's muscles had been strengthened and hardened by a life of toil, so that he was a match for his antagonist. Not a word was spoken; only their hard breathings broke the silence, as they grappled, and strained, and painted. Both knew that the struggle was desperate; one fought for life, and one for more, far more than life, and every nerve was tense, and every sinew strong as steel. 
  For a long time the issue of the combat was doubtful; but at length Bernard stepped with his whole weight upon Michel's wounded foot, and the exquisite pain causing him to relax his hold an instant, Bernard was able to get his hand under 
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the handkerchief that was tied loosely round his neck, and twist it to choking tightness. In vain he struggled; the grasp was like that of a vice. He felt himself growing weak, gasping, suffocating; his head reeling, the blood surging to his brain; when, in that moment of nature's agony, his hand, falling powerlessly, grasped at his coat, and pricked itself against the point of the rude knife which he wore there, concealed in a private pocket. It was strange he had not thought of it before; it was stranger still that, at this moment of benumbing torpor, this lightning thought should flask across his mind, nerving his dying hand to one more effort. He seized the knife, made one quick thrust, guided by his dim and glazing eye, and then fell helplessly to the floor. 
  A faint shriek reached his dull ear; he felt some one fall beside him, and the strangling pressure on his throat relaxed. The light was extinguished, and it was many moments before he could so far recover the life which had nearly fled as to be able to raise himself upon his elbow and listen. There was no sound; the air was used, the darkness intense; of all the world, he seemed to himself at that instant the only living things. Where, then, was his enemy?
  He reached forth his hand, and it touched a face of clay,-warm, indeed, and slippery with blood, but motionless. He laid it on the breast, and knew that the heart had ceased to beat. 
  A cold sweat covered him: a trembling and horror seized him; it was the recoil of nature from blood, from murder, even though it be involuntary, and in self-defense. To be thus along, in darkness, with the corpse of the man he had killed-O, horrible! He raised himself, and, in doing so, his hand fell on his crutch; and, grasping it, he dropped his way hurriedly down the stairs, and out the back door into the garden. But, once safe under the kindly starlight breathed upon by the free air, other thoughts came to him; and, remembering the awful peril he had escaped, and the good he had secured, now beaming more brightly than ever before his mental eye, a stern sense of triumph entered his soul, a vengeful joy that nerved and thrilled him. 
  He returned to the house, and, having found the candle, succeeded after some effort in lighting it, with matches which fortunately he happened to have in his pocket. It had been lying in a pool of blood, and the wick sputtered and smoked a while, before it could burn clearly enough to allow him to see distinctly what he had done. On the floor Bernard lay stretched upon his back. Apparently he did not move a muscle after he fell, for his arms were thrown out wide, and the knife still sticking in his eye, through which its keen point had pierced to the brain, and caused [[words not visible due to fold]].
  Michel gazed at him a long time; he wiped away the blood which [[words not visible due to fold]] first he remembered those features, and recognized the person he had killed. 'It ain't no sin to kill dat yer. I'se seen you,' (shaking his fist at the corpse,) 'I seen yer, wid de dogs, arter de niggers; and de Lord knows how may poor souls 'side myself I'se saved from worse dan death dis night. You can't do no more harm now, an' it'll be some time afore any body finds out how 'twas de debil took ye.'
  Here a sudden thought struck him. What if some one, knowing Bernard was coming this way, should miss him from his accustomed haunts, and track him here? What if Massa Hubert had been seen coming this way and going thence, in this same night? Michel knew that they had quarreled at Mr. Warner's about him, and if the quarrel was known, might not the circumstantial evidence point suspicion to his friend? He knew little of the forms of law, but his own sagacity told him it would be better for all if the murdered man was never found. 
  But how to hide him! He had no tools to dig a grave, even if he could carry the body down stairs, which would be difficult; and then a grave would be easily discovered in that soil, and here were traces of blood, which he had not time or means to efface. As he rejected one plan after another, his eye fell on the candle, which was burning low, and in an instant his determination was fixed. 
  The pieces of the broken step-ladder which had occasioned his accident still lay around, and he piled them together in a spot where the draught of air from the door and window caused the candle to flare most violently. There were some broken shutters, which he could tear from the windows, and one door that was off its hinges. He placed these around in such a way as to catch the flame, and then taking his bowie knife, he cut off his own wristbands, which had been stained with blood, and, thrusting them under the pile, tipped the candle so that the flame caught them, and left it thus upon the floor. 
  All was dry as tinder, and the little flame leaped, and curled, and sprang up higher to seize the larger bits of wood. He waited to see that his work was sure, and then went down, through the garden and away into the fields, looking back now and then to note how the flames grew larger and brighter, and sprang from room to room, flashing through heavy hangings of cobwebs, which it had taken years for time to spin, and licking the dust from the quaint moldings and carvings-a zealous purifier, that destroyed what it cleansed. 
  When he was at a safe distance, he paused, and leaning on the fence near, watched the conflagration. Around him was the night, now at its most hushed and witching hour; but, though he had formerly suffered so much from superstitious fear, the stern realities of the present had calmed him and made him bold. The air was heavy and oppressive in it stagnant quiet, and the darkness seemed almost tangible, like a veil floating between the earth and the millions of stars that shone in the blue ether. The crescent moon hung over the horizon with a faint, ghastly light, as if she sickened of the sights she might see in the world across whose zenith her path lay. 
  Clearer and brighter the flames shone out through the windows, and the cracks of the closed shutters, and smoke and sparks pursed out of the chimney, with a roar as if renewing again the old times, when festive voices made merry music around the hearthstones, and the house was illumined for nights of Christmas cheer. 
  Glowing every moment more vividly, the blaze swept from room to room; and at length it rushed from the windows, it pressed out through the roof, it wrapped the chimneys, it ran alone the scorched and dying vines, scintillating, flashing, irradiating with its glare all the murky landscape around. Then the roof fell in, the walls dropped away, the burning frame timbers stood up like tiery skeletons above the ignited mass, and the flames, no longer sparkling, leaping, and corruscating, rose in long, stay tongues of fire, that gradually grew feebler and lower, until all was consumed which could give them vitality; their life and vigor went out, and when darkness and the night resumed their silent reign, nothing remained to tell how Robert Bernard, the slave hunter, had perished from the earth.