"Ah! Gentlemens, you kill er pore gal when her daddy wuz erway, but you won't fight him, I see. Gentlemens, dare uster be bettah blood dan dat. I was in de war wid my marster, an' he showd good blood to de Yankees. Is it all gone, dat three uv you won't fight ur 'nigger,' ez you call him?" By this time the teacher had arrived, accompanied by two friends of Stephen. They came to report that the Negroes had disbanded and would give no more trouble. Stephen's two friends now approached him and stationing themselves on either side, begged him to leave. The old man's head drooped upon his bosom. He had at last collapsed, having been so long under a severe mental strain. His two friends supported him between them and bore him from the spot, Stephen repeating over and over in a broken voice: "Boys, dey don't fight fair. Dey don't fight fair, boys. Beulah! Beulah! your daddy can't do nuthin'. He would if he could. Boys, dey won't fight fair." The Negroes _en masse_ now gathered up their few belongings and removed to the city of R---- with all of its aggregation of vice, of temptation, of hardships, of alluring promises, of elusive hopes. As they enter this typical American city, we fain would follow them, but cannot just now. May the fates deal kindly with them. CHAPTER VIII. THE HINT NOT TAKEN. The eyes of the civilized world were now directed to the settlement wherein Beulah was murdered, in order to witness there the workings of the sentiment of justice. The poet's pen, the artist's brush, the sculptor's chisel, have long since despaired of adequately setting forth the natural charms of the Southland, the home of birds and flowers, grand with mountains, beautiful with valleys, restful in the girdling arms of her majestic streams, presided over by skies that are the bluest of the blue. Knowing the proud place given the Southland by the fiat of Nature, the world of mankind riveted its gaze upon her eagerly and pressed to know the fate of those who murdered Beulah. The great heart of the South throbbed with a sense of shame over the perpetration of the crime and now sought to shake itself loose from the benumbing influences of an ever-pervading race feeling that was so powerful as to render inoperative so many higher sentiments. The pulpit and the press spoke in terrible tones to the hearts and consciences of the whites in denunciation of the crime and in demand that the guilty parties be brought to trial.