"You are sad, dear mistress, you are uneasy?" said the mulatto. The intense watchfulness of the slave's affection enabled him to detect every varying shade in Cora's manner. He saw that her mind was disturbed by some anxiety. "I am anxious about Mr. Margrave, Toby," she replied; "he promised to rejoin us ere this." "The English gentleman may have had some difficulty in engaging a boat, dear mistress. You have seen the poor cabin in which your mother passed the two last months of her life. It is near this spot she reposes." The slave looked about him in the moonlight and presently paused at the foot of an enormous oak. Pushing aside the wild overgrowth which obscured it, he revealed a rough-hewn wood cross surmounting a humble mound of earth, which had been neatly turfed by the same faithful hand that had erected this simple monument. Upon the cross this inscription had been carved in letters cut deep into the wood: "FRANCILIA. July 7th, 1845." Below this name and date were three words. Those words were: "BLOOD FOR BLOOD." "See, Miss Cora," said the mulatto, "this is a lonely spot, though so near to the plantation. Few ever come here, for yonder dell is said to be haunted by the spirit of an Indian who was cruelly murdered there a hundred years ago. No hand has disturbed this cross. It may be that no human eye has ever seen the inscription, but the all-seeing eye of Providence has looked upon these words for fifteen weary years." "Oh, spirit of my murdered mother!" exclaimed the young girl, lifting her clasped hands toward the effulgent sky. "Spirit of the unhappy and injured one, look down upon your daughter! May heaven forgive the sins of him who caused thy unhappy fate. May heaven pity and pardon my wretched father. I cannot curse him. Here on the grave of his victim, on the grave of a victim of a wicked and cruel prejudice, I pity and forgive him, for he needs all pity, since he has sinned." At this moment the report of a gun sounded in the dell near at hand. Cora rose suddenly from her knees, pale and terrified. "Toby," she cried, "Toby, did you hear?" Before the mulatto could reply, Mortimer Percy sprang through the parted branches that bordered the dell, and rushed toward where they stood. He recoiled upon seeing Cora. "You here, Miss Leslie!" he exclaimed. "Yes, yes. Tell me what was that report?" "That! Some--some hunter, no doubt." He had scarcely spoken when a second gun was fired. "No, no, Mr. Percy!" cried Cora, wildly, "it is no hunter's carbine. A woman's unfailing instinct tells me of danger to him I love. Gilbert Margrave has been fighting a duel with your cousin." Augustus Horton appeared as she spoke, walking backward and gazing intently into the dell. "I must have surely hit him," he muttered. "See, see!" cried Cora, "His antagonist is safe. It is he who has fallen. Run, Toby, run to succor him."