The stage-coach moves slowly along, and the shades of evening are closing in. Six or seven passengers are seated within, and are about as uncomfortable as stage-coach travelers could well be. There is but a single lady among them, and the chivalric spirit of the Southron has assigned to her the most comfortable place in the coach. We are interested in but one of these travelers, a man about forty-five or fifty years of age, something over medium size, whose appearance stamped him as a well-to-do Virginia planter. His face was smooth-shaven, and his hair, once dark, was silvered with the flight of years. His was a handsome face, and a pleasant one to look upon; there was something pleasing and attractive about its expression, and the mild gray eyes burned with no ambitious designs or fiery passions; his dress was plain gray homespun, commonly worn as the traveling dress of a Southerner at the time of which we write. His hat was of the finest silk, broad-brimmed and low-crowned, such as Southern planters invariably wore. Though unostentatious in manner, he was evidently a man accustomed to the manifold comforts of Southern life. He was, moreover, a man accustomed to looking at both sides of a question, and arriving at conclusions without bias or prejudice. His frame was a fine type of manhood, and his muscular arms showed him possessed of more than an ordinary degree of strength. This man alone of all the passengers maintained a silent and thoughtful mood as the coach passed on its way. A constant conversation was kept up by the other passengers on the weather, the roads, the journey, its termination, and last, but not least, the politics of the day. However, while the gentleman whom we have more particularly described, and now introduce to our readers as George W. Tompkins, of Virginia, sat moody and silent, and seemingly utterly oblivious of the discomforts within or the gloomy prospect without, his fellow passengers were continually talking, and continually jostling against him, without rousing Mr. Tompkins from his reverie. His mind was clouded by a horror that made him careless of present surroundings. He looked worn and weary, more so than any of the other passengers, and occasionally, when the coach rolled over smooth ground, he would lean back in his seat and close his eyes. No sooner done, however, than a thousand fantastic shapes would glide before his mental vision, that seemed to take delight in annoying him. Whenever he became unconscious to his real surroundings, shrieks seemed to sound in his ear, and he seemed to hear the cry: "Search, search, search! Your task's not over, your task's not over!" "And where shall I search?" he mentally asked. "Ah, where?" the voice wailed.