Zed's intelligence certainly was a great relief to my mind; yet I was not entirely at my ease; for there were various points which seemed strange to me, and I could not feel satisfied till they were accounted for. Nevertheless, Billy Byles's plan seemed the only feasible one for the moment. Therefore, telling Zed to follow as fast as he could, I rode towards Jerusalem. We found the town somewhat more orderly and quiet than it had been on the preceding day, although it appeared that several parties of military had arrived during the night and that morning, and two pieces of artillery were planted in the square. Provisions had arrived likewise; and breakfast was going on with great zeal in the inn and the different houses which had given shelter to the fugitives. In the inn we found Mr. Thornton and all his family; but his first question showed me that he himself had obtained no satisfactory information. "What news do you bring?" he said. "Do aunt Bab's people know anything of our poor girl?" "Nothing whatever," I replied; "but we have since got some important intelligence." And I told him all we had heard from Zed. "That is satisfactory, at all events," he said, with a brighter look. "We shall hear more soon, and most likely see her come trotting in in the course of the day. I dare say she has gone to some plantation where the people are on their guard, and feel secure. At all events, she is safe, and our worst fears are allayed." He then went on to inform me that he had spoken with the young ladies whom Colonel Halliday had brought in, and found that Bessy had certainly never been with them. He had brought them, however, Mr. Thornton said, from a house quite close to the high-road after having made a tour with his party through the woods in search of the insurgents. He had returned on his search, immediately after having lodged them in safety, and he might have met with Bessy either before or afterwards. "The only strange thing is," continued Mr. Thornton, "that Halliday himself has never returned; but I trust he will appear very soon." Mrs. Thornton, who always was rather of a despondent disposition, here expressed a hope--which, with her, generally meant a dread of an exactly opposite event--that Colonel Halliday had not met with a superior party of the negroes, and been defeated. A friend of mine, who was somewhat of a susceptible and apprehensive character himself, but who took especial care never to express any gloomy forebodings, used to declare that he always eschewed, the society of what he called _dread-ful_ people; "for when I am in a fright about anything myself," he said, "they are sure to drive me half mad with all sorts of possibilities."