The driver scrambled to his seat, and lashed the horses, while the negro sprang inside. Away they rattled at a furious pace, with the howling multitude surging along on either side and behind them. Muriel and Harrington, flushed and bathed with perspiration, sat, with disordered dresses, holding up the inanimate form of the slaveholder, while Brown, in a reek of sweat, busied himself with beating off the hands that clutched momently at the carriage door. Along Grove street into May, and from thence up West Centre into Myrtle, the frightened horses tore like a whirlwind; but before they reached Myrtle, the clamor was receding, and the crowd had thinned and fallen behind, unable to keep up with them, but still following in the distance. “We’re safe!” cried Harrington, joyfully. “Faith, yes,” returned Muriel, gaily, her golden eyes glowing in the faint pink flush of her face, “but it was warm work while it lasted.” CHAPTER XX. EXPLANATIONS. For a few moments they all were silent. “Mr. Brown,” said Muriel, breaking the pause, “we owe you the most cordial thanks. You have saved this man’s life.” “I’m afeard, Miss Eastman, that his life’s not worth saving,” returned the negro, in an exhausted voice, wiping away, with his shirt-sleeve, as he spoke, the streaming moisture which shone on his swart visage. “He’s in a fit, aint he, Mr. Harrington?” he added, glancing at the slaveholder, who sat, flaccid and inanimate, between the young man and Muriel. “No, he has only fainted,” replied Harrington. “We must revive him.” He removed the Southerner’s hat, took off his neckcloth, and opened his shirt, to give him air, while Muriel busied herself with fanning him, using his hat for that purpose. She had dropped her fan and parasol on the steps at the time when Tugmutton had screamed to them what was going on in Roux’s room. “I should just like to know the rights of this matter, Mr. Harrington,” said Brown, “for I’ve got no clar understandin’ of it, any way. The fust thing I knew, I heerd a hollerin’ in the street, and I caught a sight of that boy of Roux’s tearin’ like mad from house to house, bawlin’ somethin’ or other, and the folks comin’ out and runnin’ in all sorts of ways, shoutin’, till the street filled with ’em. I stood a minute, and then I run down to Tug. ‘Hullo, you young devil,’ says I, ‘what’s to pay.’ ‘There’s a kidnapper luggin’ off father,’ he bawls, and off he goes like a shot, hollerin’ that into the houses, and dodgin’ about like a Ingy rubber ball. I sung out, ‘come on, men,’ and I put for Roux’s, knife in hand, lickedy split. That’s all I know.”