No further comments were offered by any of the company upon the communications of this official double-dealer, after his departure; for all seemed to think that the single shot of Dunning had rendered all further comments on his speech, and his motives in coming there to make it, entirely superfluous. And they therefore proceeded, as if nothing but an ordinary interruption had occurred, to the business on which they were engaged when the judge came in--that of passing some fresh resolves expressive of their determination to hold the Court House in defiance of the threats of their opponents, and of their now settled purpose of no longer submitting, on any conditions, to the continuance of a court which had proved itself so corrupt and treacherous. After this, and making arrangements for the posting and relieving of guards at the doors for the night, a part of the company left the house to seek lodgings elsewhere, as the usual hour of rest had now arrived. When the nonplused and disconcerted Chandler left the Court House, he rapidly took his way back to his quarters, from which he had been started out by Patterson and Gale, to see if he might not be able to accomplish by fair words what they had failed to effect by foul. Although he had put the best possible face upon the mortifying occurrence he had just been compelled to meet, and had made, as he believed, a handsome exit from the company, yet he felt keenly conscious that he had not only utterly failed in the object of his visit, but that much of his late base conduct was known. He perceived this in the allusions of Dunning, the pith of which he had affected not to understand. He had seen it, he had felt it, in the significant and knowing glances that had been exchanged on every side around him, and especially in the bitter derisive laugh that had assailed his tingling ears. He had also been taught a new lesson in the interview! He had seen, in the firm manner and determined looks of those he had been confronting--he had seen that which told him of a spirit at work among the people, that the loyal party, with all their boasted strength, might not long be able to quell. He began now, with the instinctive sagacity of the true office-seeker, to perceive the possibility, perhaps probability, that the power of dispensing office and patronage was about to change hands, and he inwardly trembled for his own safety. He found himself, in short, in one of those straits, to which men of his character are not unfrequently reduced--that of being wholly at a loss to decide which side was most likely to become the strongest. Could he have foreseen and decided this, his mind would have been comparatively at ease; for he could have then trimmed his sails, so as to steer clear of the political breakers which he knew were somewhere ahead. Some course, however, he must decide upon; and after lamenting his inability to pierce the future, so far as to know which party was destined to