the last scene, nor close her ears to the last groan of my victim!  She shall see and hear all, or comply with all that I demand!  It must be done:  but how?  How shall I see her? how obtain her presence? how command her attention?  Pshaw! shall a few beardless soldiers keep me back, and baffle me in this?  Shall I dread the shadow now, and shrink back when the sun shines out that makes it?  I will not fear.  I will see her.  I will bid defiance to them all!  She shall know my power, and upon one condition only will I use it to save him.  She will not dare to refuse the condition; she will consent; she will at last be mine:  and for this I will do so much—­go so far—­ay, save him whom I would yet be so delighted to destroy!”

Night came; and in a small apartment of one of the lowliest dwellings of Chestatee, Edith and her father sat in the deepest melancholy, conjuring up perpetually in their minds those images of sorrow so natural to their present situation.  It was somewhat late, and they had just returned from an evening visit to the dungeon of Ralph Colleton.  The mind of the youth was in far better condition than theirs, and his chief employment had been in preparing them for a similar feeling of resignation with himself.  He had succeeded but indifferently.  They strove to appear firm, in order that he should not be less so than they found him; but the effort was very perceptible, and the recoil of their dammed-up emotions was only so much more fearful and overpowering.  The strength of Edith had been severely tried, and her head now rested upon the bosom of her father, whose arms were required for her support, in a state of feebleness and exhaustion, leaving it doubtful, at moments, whether the vital principle had not itself utterly departed.

At this period the door opened, and a stranger stood abruptly before them.  His manner was sufficiently imposing, though his dress was that of the wandering countryman, savoring of the jockey, and not much unlike that frequently worn by such wayfarers as the stagedriver and carrier of the mails.  He had on an overcoat made of buckskin, an article of the Indian habit; a deep fringe of the same material hung suspended from two heavy capes that depended from the shoulder.  His pantaloons were made of buckskin also; a foxskin cap rested slightly upon his head, rather more upon one side than the other; while a whip of huge dimensions occupied one of his hands.  Whiskers, of a bushy form and most luxuriant growth, half-obscured his cheek, and the mustaches were sufficiently small to lead to the inference that the wearer had only recently decided to suffer the region to grow wild.  A black-silk handkerchief, wrapped loosely about his neck, completed the general outline; and the tout ensemble indicated one of those dashing blades, so frequently to be encountered in the southern country, who, despising the humdrum monotony of regular life, are ready for adventure—­lads of the turf, the muster-ground, the general affray—­the men who can whip their weight in wild-cats—­whose general rule it is to knock down and drag out.