“Is that you, Sam?  Where are they?”

“Mas’r Haley ‘s a-restin’ at the tavern; he’s drefful fatigued, Missis.”

“And Eliza, Sam?”

“Wal, she’s clar ‘cross Jordan.  As a body may say, in the land o’ Canaan.”

“Why, Sam, what do you mean?” said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.

“Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own.  Lizy’s done gone over the river into ’Hio, as ’markably as if de Lord took her over in a charrit of fire and two hosses.”

Sam’s vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress’ presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.

“Come up here, Sam,” said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the verandah, “and tell your mistress what she wants.  Come, come, Emily,” said he, passing his arm round her, “you are cold and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much.”

“Feel too much!  Am not I a woman,—­a mother?  Are we not both responsible to God for this poor girl?  My God! lay not this sin to our charge.”

“What sin, Emily?  You see yourself that we have only done what we were obliged to.”

“There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,” said Mrs. Shelby.  “I can’t reason it away.”

“Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!” called Sam, under the verandah; “take these yer hosses to der barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?” and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.

“Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was,” said Mr. Shelby.  “Where is Eliza, if you know?”

“Wal, Mas’r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin’ on the floatin’ ice.  She crossed most ’markably; it wasn’t no less nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the ’Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk.”

“Sam, I think this rather apocryphal,—­this miracle.  Crossing on floating ice isn’t so easily done,” said Mr. Shelby.

“Easy! couldn’t nobody a done it, without de Lord.  Why, now,” said Sam, “’t was jist dis yer way.  Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead,—­(I’s so zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizy, that I couldn’t hold in, no way),—­and when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind.  Wal, I loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead.  Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out de side door; she went down de river bank;—­Mas’r Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter.  Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and over t’ other side ice a sawin’ and a jiggling up and down, kinder as ’t were a great island.  We come right behind her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough,—­when she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’ other side of the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a jumpin’,—­the ice went crack! c’wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a boundin’ like a buck!  Lord, the spring that ar gal’s got in her an’t common, I’m o’ ’pinion.”