upon as ghosts or living beings.  The room was exactly in the state in which we last described it, with this difference merely, that the table, on which, the lamp and books had been placed now lay overturned, as if in the course of some violent scuffle, and its contents distributed over the floor.  The bed still remained, in the same corner, unmade, and its covering tossed.  It was evident no one had entered the apartment since the night of the attempted assassination.

The first act of Gerald, who bore the light, followed closely by Sambo, was to motion the latter to raise the fallen table.  When this was done be placed his lamp upon it, and sinking upon the foot of the bed, and covering his eyes with his hands, seemed for some moments utterly absorbed in bitter recollections.  The negro, meanwhile, an apparent stranger to the scene, cast his eyes around him with the shrinking caution of one who finds himself in a position of danger, and fears to encounter some terrific sight, then, as if the effort was beyond his power, he drew the collar of his cloak over his face, and shuffling to get as near as possible to the bed as though in the act he came more immediately under the protection of him who sat upon it, awaited, in an attitude of statue-like immobility, the awakening of his master from his reverie.

Gerald at length withdrew his hands from his pallid face, on which the glare of the lamp rested forcibly, and, with a wild look and low, but imperative, voice, bade the old negro seat himself beside him still lower on the bed.

“Sambo,” he inquired abruptly—­” how old were you when the Indian massacre took place near this spot.  You were then, I think I have heard it stated, the servant of Sir Everard Valletort?”

The old negro looked aghast.  It was long since direct allusion had been made to his unfortunate master or the events of that period.  Questioned in such a spot, and at such an hour, he could not repress the feeling of terror conjured up by the allusion.  Scarcely daring to exceed a whisper, he answered.

“Oh Massa Geral, for Hebben’s sake no talkee dat.  It berry long time ago, and break poor nigger heart to tink ob it—­”

“But I insist on knowing,” returned Gerald loudly and peremptorily; “were you old enough to recollect the curse that poor heart-broken woman, Ellen Halloway, uttered on all our race, and if so what was it?”

“No, Massa Geral, I no sabby dat.  Sambo den only piccaninny and Sir Ebbered make him top in e fort—­oh berry bad times dat, Massa Geral.  Poor Frank Hallabay e shot fust, because e let he grand fadder out ob e fort, and den ebery ting go bad—­berry bad indeed.”

“But the curse of Ellen Halloway, Sambo—­you must have heard of it surely—­even if you were not present at the utterance.  Did she not,” he continued, finding that the other replied not:  “Did she not pray that the blood of my great grand father’s children might be spilt on the very spot that had been moistened with that of her ill fated husband—­and, that if any of the race should survive, it might be only with a view to their perishing in some unnatural and horrible manner.  Was not this the case?”