being as black as midnight.  The custode showed us a stone post at the side of the cell, with the hole in the top of it, into which, he said, St. Peter’s chain had been fastened; and he uncovered a spring of water, in the middle of the stone floor, which he told us had miraculously gushed up to enable the Saint to baptize his jailor.  The miracle was perhaps the more easily wrought, inasmuch as Jugurtha had found the floor of the dungeon oozy with wet.  However, it is best to be as simple and childlike as we can in these matters; and whether St. Peter stamped his visage into the stone, and wrought this other miracle or no, and whether or no he ever was in the prison at all, still the belief of a thousand years and more, gives a sort of reality and substance to such traditions.  The custode dipped an iron ladle into the miraculous water, and we each of us drank a sip; and, what is very, remarkable, to me it seemed hard water and almost brackish, while many persons think it the sweetest in Rome.  I suspect that St. Peter still dabbles in this water, and tempers its qualities according to the faith of those who drink it.

* * * * *

=_William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870._= (Manual, pp. 490, 510.)

From “Eutaw, a Sequel to The Foragers.”

=_303._= THE BATTLE OF EUTAW.

Up to this moment nothing had seemed more certain than the victory of the Americans.  The consternation in the British camp was complete.  Everything was given up for lost by a considerable portion of the army.  The commissaries destroyed their stores, the loyalists and American deserters, dreading the rope, seizing every horse which they could command, fled incontinently for Charleston, whither they carried such an alarm that the stores along the road were destroyed, and the trees felled across it for the obstruction of the victorious Americans, who were supposed to be pressing down upon the city with all their might.

Equally deceived were the conquerors.  Flushed with success, the infantry scattered themselves about the British camp, which, as all the tents had been left standing, presented a thousand objects to tempt the appetites of a half-starved and half-naked soldiery.  Insubordination followed disorder....

No more could be done.  The laurels won in the first act of this exciting drama, were all withered in the second.  Both parties claimed a victory.  It belonged to neither.  The British were beaten from the field at the point of the bayonet, sought shelter in a fortress, and repulsed their assailants from that fortress.  It is to the shame and discredit of the Americans that they were repulsed.  The victory was in their hands.

* * * * *

From the “Life of Francis Marion.”

=_304._= CHARACTER AND SERVICES OF GENERAL MARION.

No commander had ever been more solicitous of the safety and comfort of his men.  It was this which had rendered him so sure of their fidelity, which had enabled him to extract from them such admirable service.  This simple entreaty stayed their quarrels; ...  No duel took place among his officers during the whole of his command.