George Mullholland has twice been dragged to the whipping-post, twice stripped before a crowd in the market-place, twice lashed, maddened to desperation, and twice degraded in the eyes of the very negroes we teach to yield entire submission to the white man, however humble his grade.  Hate, scorn, remorse-every dark passion his nature can summon-rises up in one torturing tempest, and fills his bosom with a mad longing for revenge.  “Death!” he says, while looking out from his cell upon the bright landscape without, “what is death to me?  The burnings of an outraged soul subdue the thought of death.”

The woman through whom this dread finale was brought upon him, and who now repines, unable to shake off the smarts old associations crowd upon her heart, has a second and third time crept noiselessly to his cell, and sought in vain his forgiveness.  Yea, she has opened the door gently, but drew back in terror before his dark frown, his sardonic scorn, his frenzied rush at her.  Had he not loved her fondly, his hate had not taken such deep root in his bosom.

Two or three days pass, he has armed himself “to the death,” and is resolved to make his escape, and seek revenge of his enemies.  It is evening.  Dark festoons of clouds hang over the city, lambent lightning plays along the heavens in the south.  Now it flashes across the city, the dull panorama lights up, the tall, gaunt steeples gleam out, and the surface of the Bay flashes out in a phosphoric blaze.  Patiently and diligently has he filed, and filed, and filed, until he has removed the bar that will give egress to his body.  The window of his cell overlooks the ditch, beyond which is the prison wall.  Noiselessly he arranges the rope, for he is in the third story, then paces his cell, silent and thoughtful.  “Must it be?” he questions within himself, “must I stain these hands with the blood of the woman I love?  Revenge, revenge-I will have revenge.  I will destroy both of them, for to-morrow I am to be dragged a third time to the whipping-post.”  Now he casts a glance round the dark cell, now he pauses at the window, now the lightning courses along the high wall, then reflects back the deep ditch.  Another moment, and he has commenced his descent.  Down, down, down, he lowers himself.  Now he holds on tenaciously, the lightning reflects his dangling figure, a prisoner in a lower cell gives the alarm, he hears the watchword of his discovery pass from cell to cell, the clashing of the keeper’s door grates upon his ear like thunder-he has reached the end of his rope, and yet hangs suspended in the air.  A heavy fall is heard, he has reached the ditch, bounds up its side to the wall, seizes a pole, and places against it, and, with one vault, is over into the open street.  Not a moment is to be lost.  Uproar and confusion reigns throughout the prison, his keepers have taken the alarm, and will soon be on his track, pursuing him with ferocious hounds.  Burning for revenge,