“Your honor!” said Emily, bitterly.  “It is but a poor dependence for an unprotected female.”

“Gently, Miss Dumont!  Do not rouse the demon within me by such taunts.”

“I fear the worst demon of your nature is already in the ascendency.”

“Enough!  Will you go, or will you not?” said Maxwell, impatiently.

“I will not!”

“Then I must claim you as my slave,—­do not start!—­and compel you.”

“Bond or free, I will not stir from beneath this roof with you,” replied Emily, with calm resolution.  All hope, if she had cherished any, was gone.  Silently she breathed a prayer for strength and meekness to endure all; for fortitude to enable her to struggle till death with the oppression of her enemy; and for courage to meet any emergency in which her lot might be cast.

“It must be done!  I will hesitate no longer!” said Maxwell, seizing Emily by the arm.

“Look here, you varmint, that won’t do here!” exclaimed the mistress of the house, who, much against her inclination, had remained silent during the past fifteen minutes.  “It shan’t be said that Jerry Swinger’s ruff couldn’t protect a stranger.”

“But, woman, she is my property,” answered Maxwell, not a little intimidated by the ferocious aspect of the matron.

“Do not believe him, good woman, do not believe him!” exclaimed Emily, as she saw the woman was a little staggered by the attorney’s claim.

“No, ma’am, I won’t believe him,” responded Mrs. Swinger, as her heart triumphed over the argument of the lawyer.

“It matters little whether you believe me or not.  Here is the bill of sale, and, in the name of the law, I take what is mine.”

The hostess was not a little perplexed by the document, and Emily observed, with terror, that she wavered in her purpose.

“It is a gross forgery!” exclaimed Emily, with a glance of earnest pleading, which the rough but kind-hearted woman could not resist.

“I don’t care nothin’ about your bill of sale!  The gal is safe,” said Mrs. Swinger, with emphasis.

Maxwell, resolving to execute his design, again seized Emily by the arm, and was on the point of hurrying her out of the cabin.

Mrs. Swinger was a stout, masculine woman, brought up in the woods, and never fainted in her life, even in presence of an alligator or a panther.  So she had no scruples in seizing Mr. Maxwell by the nape of the neck, and giving him a kind of double twist, which sent him reeling into the corner of the cabin.

“I’ll teach you to put your hands upon an onprotected female, you varmint, you!” said she, and, going to the door, she screamed “Jerry” three times, with a voice that would have done honor to a Stentor.

“Now, stranger,” said she, elevating her tall form to its full height, and, with a gesture like a queen of the Amazons, pointing to the door, “take yourself off, or my Jerry will tote you down to the river, and drown you like a kitten!”