Lafitte, with his ghastly visage bowed, shook like a leaf while Harrington, with a white face and flaming eyes, and with stem determination in every tone, uttered an admonition which rose to the dignity of the great issue between Liberty and Slavery. “I regret to say this to you in your present condition,” said the young man, after a pause, “but it is necessary that you should hear it, and understand it well. Now I will help you in.” Leaving Muriel on the sidewalk for a minute, he gravely assisted Lafitte up the steps of the hotel, and left him. “Now, dear fellow-soldier,” he said, returning, “we must go back and carry off Roux.” “Decidedly, yes,” replied Muriel, taking his arm, “for when the wolf gets well, he may have a hankering for the lamb. Come with us, Mr. Brown.” They took another carriage which was standing there, and drove back to Southac street. It may be said here, that Harrington had left Antony, soundly sleeping, in the care of Captain Fisher, who sat with the door bolted, and the pistol by him, keeping watch and ward, while the young man fulfilled his appointment with Muriel. Arriving an hour earlier than that assigned, Harrington had astonished her and her mother with the wild tale of his nocturnal adventure. That the brother of Roux should have arrived in Boston at this juncture, and that the young man, of all persons on earth, should have come upon him, were coincidences almost too marvellous for conception, and the two ladies dwelt upon them with speechless wonder. Not less marvellous to Harrington and Muriel, was their fortunate arrival at Roux’s house in the critical moment of his dreadful peril. Three minutes later, and the negro would have been a lost man. Reaching Southac street again, they found Roux weak and haggard with the terrible shock he had received. He was sitting in a chair near the stove as they entered. Tugmutton was frying potatoes in a spider, accompanying his operations with sage reflections on the recent incident, mingled with lofty reproofs to Roux for not having “squashed in,” as he phrased it, the head of the slaveholder, together with pompous comments on his own promptness and courage in having first roused the neighborhood, and then assaulted the kidnapper. On this last feat, the fat squab dwelt proudly, as the crown of the whole transaction, and Roux meekly listening, with great admiration, looked upon Tugmutton as more than ever a superior being.