At the sound of the artillery, Baker rolled from the sofa, and gleefully exclaiming, “We’ll get ’em now —— them!” he reeled from the front to the rear door, pistol in hand, chafing under the restraint of his self-appointed nurse, like a hound in the leash when the horn of the huntsmen is heard. A tramping sound in the back yard drew both men to the door. “Who ish dat?” demanded Dan, peering into the darkness of a shady part of the enclosure. “There goes a —— nigger! Here he goes! Here he goes!” shouted the old slave-catcher. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” cried the Jew; but while he yet spoke it was too late. “I’ve got ’im! I’ve got ’im!” cried the old man, running to his fallen game. “Co im quick! Co im quick, Meester Paker! Somebody vill shoot _you_,” and the excited little man caught the murderer’s arm and dragged him into the house, while the dusky form of Nat Wellman crept on all fours into a yard still further to the rear, and found safety in a deeper shade. Filled with such terrors the night wore on, and Marmor’s were not the only infants that sobbed themselves to sleep in the midst of those dreadful alarms, though many were laid in the shadows of the cornfields or the dampness of the swamps that surrounded the besieged town. “_Ich vill make ine shling, vat vill make_ Old Bob _shleep, so Ich vill_!” muttered Dan, as he mixed a few drops of laudanum with a fresh mug of the steaming beverage. “Ich hab no more mens killed by mine house.” The patient was at length awakening great echoes in his bed room, with his stentorian breathings, notwithstanding renewed disturbances upon the premises, and that most Christian Jew stole up to Marmor’s retreat. “For your life, Meester Marmor, do co hide somevare! Dey pe hunt you, and say dey vill purn your house. Dey shware dey vill hab you. Dey say you be ine —— scallavag, ine republican, and dat you pringht ammunition to de nigger militia.” “It is false!” said Marmor, “the only ammunition I ever brought to this town is republican newspapers.” “Dat make no odds. Dat pad ’nough, dey tink, and dey pe hunt you; dey co tru mine house shust now. Dey find Shimmy’ (Jimmy, Marmor’s servant) in yo’ yard, and dey vip ’im to tell vo you ist; but he know notting.” The hunted man fled to the house top, where he lay long, listening to the crashing of his printing presses and furniture, and the shrieks and cries of colored women and children whom he saw violently dragged from their houses by fiendish men athirst for the blood of their husbands and fathers for whom they sought; and wondering if his own mother was suffering similar indignities, he blamed himself for hiding. He saw houses fired, in various directions, but the flames were soon extinguished by the less reckless of the assailants, or by the occupants, some of whom were thus captured.