of glowing smoke men and women struggled madly, and tore at each other like wild beasts, smothering their yells beneath the tumultuous elements.

From this lurid torrent the people scattered, both pursuers and pursued, out upon the open country. The poor wretches who were to die sought the darkest spots, hiding behind clumps of aloes and cactus hedges, or creeping under torn masses of wild vines, panting with terror and dread, and striving to hold the very breath that threatened to betray them.

Secure of their victims in the end, the triumphant hordes of negroes came huddling forth like demons, hooting, dancing, and rioting in the brazen light their own fiends' work had kindled. A group of palm trees stood close to the shore a little distance from the town, and to that point the insurgents swarmed in hundreds, dragging the pale beings whose death was to be their sport, brutally after them. When they reached the palm trees there was a rush from the crowd, and a score of dark objects leaped upon the slender stems, struggling upward, hustling over each other, the lowermost seizing his neighbor by the bare, glistening shoulders and hurling him down to the crowd amid wild shouts and stormy oaths.

At last the palms swayed and bent almost double under the burden of fiends, who dropped off by dozens into the yelling crowd. The beautiful trees, relieved of their weight, swayed back and penciled themselves against the flaming sky, not green and free as they had appeared a moment before; but with the bark torn from their delicate trunks, and the symmetrical foliage broken and ragged. From the point of each leaf flaunted a gorgeous scarf or tawdry ribbon—red, orange, purple, and flame colored—which fluttered wildly in the hot draughts of wind that swept over them from the burning town.

Out from the crowd, like sharks leaping in the black waves of a tempest, the negro women sprang upward, seizing the ribbons, tearing them away from the leaves, or bending down the stately trees until they took uncouth forms, and seemed tortured like the group of women and children whose death cries rang out from the midst of the fiendish dance. The mingled mirth and horror grew more and more maddening, till the sand all around refused to soak in the blood they had shed, and the naked feet of the dancers plashed to their own barbarous war cry, or stumbled over the dead bodies of the slain; for with every turn of the dance, an axe had fallen, and a soul gone shrieking up to its Maker.

Captain Mason saw all this from his boat, while it was far out in the harbor; with a cry of horror he seized the oars and worked them till they bent like saplings under his iron handling. But human strength was not equal to human cruelty. While he was yet some fathoms from the shore, the demons under the palm trees, scattered back to the town in search of fresh victims, leaving the dead and the dying to their agonies, with those mocking ribbons waving fantastically in the wind, as if a May dance had just passed beneath them.

Panting and breathless, their hearts burning with indignation, the captain and his men rested on their oars; their work of mercy cut short, for alas! rage is quicker than charity. They could see the pale, dead faces of the white women and children that had been murdered under the palm trees, with terrible distinctness. Their rich garments and delicate features, bespoke them of the higher classes, but there they lay, like soldiers heaped on a battle-field, with nothing but the stars of heaven to pity them—the pure stars that seemed affrighted by the tumult, and grew pallid in the smoke.

CHAPTER II.

THE JEWEL BOX.

As the captain sat with his face toward the palm trees, he saw a woman rise up from among the dead, and turn first toward the town, then seaward, in a wild despairing search for help.

The captain stood up in his boat and shouted aloud, while all hands pulled for the shore.

She heard him, reeled back against the stem of the nearest palm tree, and clung to it, waving her hand toward the boat. But as they looked, a young boy was standing at her side, grasping her garments with his hand, while his face was turned toward the boat. He seemed urging her to flee. Twice her arm was unwound from the palm, and a step tried, but she fell back again, as if severely hurt or frightened out of her strength. The boy still pleaded. They could see it in his gestures, in the eager hand that motioned toward the shore, which the boat almost touched.

He pointed this out; he pulled frantically at her garments; he fell upon his knees, lifting his clasped hands toward her imploringly.

Something gave her desperate strength. She left the palm, staggered, and sprang forward, more than keeping pace with the boy, who, clinging to her hand, rushed on with his great, wild eyes, uplifted to her face.

The captain sprang on shore, and met them on the verge of the surf. The woman reeled toward him blindly, with both hands outstretched, and fell into his arms headlong, as she must have fallen on the sand but for his presence.

He gathered her to his broad bosom, and wading through the surf, waist deep, laid her in the boat, upon a pile of jackets that his men hurriedly took off their persons, and cast at his feet.

She was coldly pale, and did not seem to breathe. But the captain had no time to remark this or any thing else. A group of negroes who had been pursuing their death work among the cactus hedges, saw the boy and turned upon him.

The lad saw them, and with a desperate bound, leaped into the surf—struggled, lost his foothold, and was in the very sweep of the undertow, when the captain snatched him away. The savages hurled their sharp missiles after him, which the water swallowed instantly. So, as they were without firearms, the boy was saved, while his pursuers raged and hooted on the shore.

When the boy saw his mother lying so pale and still in the boat, he struggled from the captain's arms, and kneeling by her side, pressed the beautiful face—for it was beautiful—between his little trembling hands, while in the purest and most pathetic French he besought her to look up. He told her that they were safe now—away on the sea, where nothing could hurt them. He entreated her to wake up, only for one minute, just long enough to kiss him, and then she might go to sleep again for ever so long.

The touching anguish in the boy's voice would have called any mother back to life. She opened her eyes; a look of divine tenderness came softly to her face, and died in a smile upon her lips, as the boy bent down with a gush of tearful gladness and kissed her.

"There," he said, touching her raven hair with infinite tenderness, "go to sleep now. Paul will sit by and watch."

She seemed to understand him, for a serene smile beamed on her face, and softly as white rose-leaves fall, the lids drooped over her eyes.

The child was satisfied, and looking up at the captain, said—"Yes, yes, she will have a sweet, long sleep. We will not wake her—I promised, you know. If I forget, and begin to kiss her, don't let me, please, sir, for she always wakes, and smiles, when I do that. How softly the boat rocks! Oh, it will make her well."

The captain turned away his face, for he knew how long that sleep would be.

Slowly and sadly they rowed toward the ship. Fire and massacre raged behind them, but there was safety and solemn stillness on the waters. The boy clung to his mother's garments, and drooped his head wearily. The motion of the boat—the soft stars, smiling down, and scattering their broken images on the waves—affected him peacefully. He longed to fall