'Catharine Dawsey, you are charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of Phyllis Preston. I arrest you. Please come with me.' 'By ----, sir!' cried Dawsey; 'this lady is my wife!' 'It makes no difference whose wife she is, sir. She is my prisoner.' 'She must not be touched by you, or any other man!' yelled Dawsey, drawing his pistol. Before he could fire, he rolled on the ground, insensible. The sheriff had struck him a quick blow on the head with a heavy cane. As her husband fell, Mrs. Dawsey sprang upon the driver's seat, and, seizing the reins from the astonished negro, applied the lash to the horses. They reared and started. The panic-stricken crowd parted, like waves in a storm, and the spirited animals bounded swiftly down the avenue. They had nearly reached the cluster of liveoaks which borders the small lake, when a man sprang at their heads. He missed them, fell, and the carriage passed over him; but the horses shied from the road into the trees, and in an instant the splendid vehicle was a mass of fragments, and Mrs. Dawsey and the negro were sprawling on the ground. The lady was taken up senseless, and badly hurt, but breathing. The driver was dead! The crowd hurried across the green to the scene of disaster. Joe and I reached the man in the road at the same instant. It was Ally! We took him up, bore him to the edge of the pond, and bathed his forehead with water. In a few minutes he opened his eyes. 'Are you much hurt, Ally?' asked Joe, with almost breathless eagerness. 'I reckon not, massa Joe,' said Ally; 'my head, yere, am sore, an' dis ankle p'raps am broke. Leff me see;' and he rose to his feet, and tried his leg. 'No, massa Joe; it'm sound's a pine knot. I hain't done fur _dis_ time.' 'Thank God!' exclaimed Joe, with an indescribable expression of relief. Mrs. Dawsey was borne to the mansion, the negro carried off to the quarters, and, in a few moments, the crowd once more gathered around the auctioneer's stand. Dawsey, by this time recovered from the sheriff's blow, was cursing and swearing terribly over the disaster of his wife and--his property. 'Twenty-five hundred dollars gone at a blow! D--n the woman; didn't she know better than that?' As he followed his wife into the house, the sheriff said to the administrator, who was a justice of the peace: 'Make me out a warrant for that man--obstructing the execution of the law.' The warrant was soon made out, and in fifteen minutes, Dawsey, raving like a wild animal, was driven off to jail at Trenton. Mrs. Dawsey, too much injured to be removed, was left under guard at the mansion, and the sale proceeded. Boss Joe and Aggy ascended the block, and 'Master Joe' took a stand beside them.