He sought to forecast the happenings of the next few hours. Murrell's friends would break jail for him, that was a foregone conclusion, but the insurrection he had planned was at an end. Hues had dealt its death blow. Moreover, though the law might be impotent to deal with Murrell, he could not hope to escape the vengeance of the powerful class he had plotted to destroy; he would have to quit the country. Ware gloated in this idea of craven flight. Thank God, he had seen the last of him! But as always his thoughts came back to Betty. Slosson would wait at the Hicks' place for the man Murrell had promised him, and failing this messenger, for the signal fire, but there would be neither; and Slosson would be left to determine his own course of action. Ware felt certain that he would wait through the night, but as sure as the morning broke, if no word had reached him, he would send one of his men across the bayou, who must learn of Murrell's arrest, escape, flight--for in Ware's mind these three events were indissolubly associated. The planter's teeth knocked together. He was having a terrible acquaintance with fear, its very depths had swallowed him up; it was a black pit in which he sank from horror to horror. He had lost all faith in the Clan which had terrorized half a dozen states, which had robbed and murdered with apparent impunity, which had marketed its hundreds of stolen slaves. He had utterly collapsed at the first blow dealt the organization, but he was still seeing Murrell, pallid and shaken. A step sounded in the hall and an instant later Hicks entered the room without the formality of knocking. Ware recognized his presence with a glance of indifference, but did not speak. Hicks slouched to his employer's side and handed him a note which proved to be from Fentress. Ware read and tossed it aside. “If he wants to see me why don't he come here?” he growled. “I reckon that old fellow they call Judge Price has sprung something sudden on the colonel,” said Hicks. “He was out here the first thing this morning; you'd have thought he owned Belle Plain. There was a couple of strangers with him, and he had me in and fired questions at me for half an hour, then he hiked off up to The Oaks.” “Murrell's been arrested,” said Ware in a dull level voice. Hicks gave him a glance of unmixed astonishment. “No!” he cried. “Yes, by God!” “Who'd risk it?” “Risk it? Man, he almost fainted dead away--a damned coward. Hell!” “How do you know this?” asked Hicks, appalled. “I was with him when he was taken--it was Hues the man he trusted more than any other!” Ware gave the overseer a ghastly grin and was silent, but in that silence he heard the drumming of his own heart. He went on. “I tell you to save himself John Murrell will implicate the rest of us; we've got to get him free, and then, by hell--we ought to knock him in the head; he isn't fit to live!” “The jail ain't built that'll hold him!!” muttered Hicks.