A repeated rapping brought no response.  At length he broke a window, and entered the house like a thief.

“Janet, Janet!” he called in alarm, “where are you?  It is only I,—­Will!”

There was no reply.  He ran from room to room, only to find them all empty.  Again he called his wife’s name, and was about rushing from the house, when a muffled voice came faintly to his ear,—­

“Is dat you, Doctuh Miller?”

“Yes.  Who are you, and where are my wife and child?”

He was looking around in perplexity, when the door of a low closet under the kitchen sink was opened from within, and a woolly head was cautiously protruded.

“Are you sho’ dat’s you, doctuh?”

“Yes, Sally; where are”—­

“An’ not some w’ite man come ter bu’n down de house an’ kill all de niggers?”

“No, Sally, it’s me all right.  Where is my wife?  Where is my child?”

“Dey went over ter see Mis’ Butler ’long ‘bout two o’clock, befo’ dis fuss broke out, suh.  Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy, suh!  Is all de cullud folks be’n killt ‘cep’n’ me an’ you, suh?  Fer de Lawd’s sake, suh, you won’ let ’em kill me, will you, suh?  I’ll wuk fer you fer nuthin’, suh, all my bawn days, ef you’ll save my life, suh!”

“Calm yourself, Sally.  You’ll be safe enough if you stay right here, I ’we no doubt.  They’ll not harm women,—­of that I’m sure enough, although I haven’t yet got the bearings of this deplorable affair.  Stay here and look after the house.  I must find my wife and child!”

The distance across the city to the home of the Mrs. Butler whom his wife had gone to visit was exactly one mile.  Though Miller had a good horse in front of him, he was two hours in reaching his destination.  Never will the picture of that ride fade from his memory.  In his dreams he repeats it night after night, and sees the sights that wounded his eyes, and feels the thoughts—­the haunting spirits of the thoughts—­that tore his heart as he rode through hell to find those whom he was seeking.  For a short distance he saw nothing, and made rapid progress.  As he turned the first corner, his horse shied at the dead body of a negro, lying huddled up in the collapse which marks sudden death.  What Miller shuddered at was not so much the thought of death, to the sight of which his profession had accustomed him, as the suggestion of what it signified.  He had taken with allowance the wild statement of the fleeing fugitives.  Watson, too, had been greatly excited, and Josh Green’s group were desperate men, as much liable to be misled by their courage as the others by their fears; but here was proof that murder had been done,—­and his wife and children were in the town.  Distant shouts, and the sound of firearms, increased his alarm.  He struck his horse with the whip, and dashed on toward the heart of the city, which he must traverse in order to reach Janet and the child.