First favorable moment; ah! but when would that be? Who was to convey the Harpers to Hazlehurst? Well, thank Heaven! not Harry. Scott Gholson? Gholson was due at headquarters. Poor Gholson! much rest for racked nerves had he found here; what with Ferry, and Harry, and the fight, and Quinn, I wondered he did not lie down and die under the pure suffocation of his "tchagrin." Even a crocodile, I believed, could suffer from chagrin, give him as many good causes as Gholson had accumulated. But no, the heaven of "Charlie Tolliver's" presence and commands--she seemed to have taken entire possession of him--lifted and sustained him above the clouds of all unkinder things. A faint stir at the threshold caught my ear and I discerned in the hall a young negro woman. The light of an unseen candle made her known at a glance; she had been here since the previous evening, as I knew, though it chanced that I had not seen her; Oliver's best wedding-gift, the slave maid whom I had seen with Charlotte in the curtained wagon at Gallatin. I stole out to her; she courtesied. "Miss Charlotte say ef you want he'p you fine me a-sett'n' on de step o' de stairs hafe-ways down." I inquired if she was leaving us. "She a-gitt'n' ready, suh; Misteh Goshen done gone to de sta-able to git de hosses." The girl suddenly seemed pleased with herself. "Mis' Charlotte would 'a' been done gone when de yethehs went--dem-ah two scouts what was sent ayfteh _him_--ef I hadn' spoke' up when I did." "Indeed! how was that?" "Why, I says, s' I, 'Mis' Charlotte, how we know he ain' gwine fo' to double on his huntehs? Betteh wait a spell, and den ef no word come back dat he a-doublin', you kin be sho' he done lit out fo' to jine de Yankees roun' Pote Hudsom.'" "Why did you tell her that? You want him caught; so do I; but you know she doesn't want to catch him, and you don't want her to. Neither do I. Nor neither do we want Lieutenant Ferry to catch him." "No, suh, dass so. But same time, while she no notion o' gitt'n' him cotch, she believe she dess djuty-bound to head-off his devilment. 'Tis dess like I heah' Mr. Goshen say to Miss Hahpeh, 'Dis ain't ow own li'l pri'--'" I waved her away and went back into the room; the Captain had called. He asked the time of night; I said it was well after two; he murmured, was quiet, and after a moment spoke my name. I answered, and he whispered "Coralie Rothvelt--she's here; I--recognized her voice--when they were singing. Did you know I knew her?" "Yes, Captain." "Daring game that was you fellows let her put up on us night before last, my boy,--and it hung by a thread. If our officers had only asked the old man his name--it would have been--a flash of light. If I had dreamed, when I saw--you and Ned Ferry--yesterday,--that Coralie Rothvelt was--Charlotte Oliver,--and could have known her then--as I've--learned to know her--to-day--from her--worst enemy,--you know,--" "Yes, Captain."