"I am that man," John Brown spoke, promptly, coming forward with the sword in his hand and the rifle leaning beside him.

"I want you to surrender to the United States authority, of which I am an officer."

"You will be protected from the populace, and handed over to the civil authorities of Virginia for trial."

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They would hang me and my men."

"With that I have nothing to do. Do you surrender?"

"I demand permission to cross the river on the bridge, and at the farther end of the bridge I will let my prisoners go, and we shall then have to fight for our lives. I consider this fair, lieutenant."

"I will not surrender. I will die here, resisting the United States!"

"Are you John Brown, who fought at Black Jack in Kansas?"

'Yes;

I was there. Were you there, too?"

“I am Lieutenant James E. B. Stuart, of the First Regular Cavalry, which prevented you renewing the skirmish."

"Why, I know you, sir. And now you know, lieutenant, how I came to be here."

"You won't surrender, Brown?”

'Not on your conditions."

Very well, sir "—in a tone of indifference.

"Stand to your arms, men!" the metallic voice of John Brown exclaimed. "Distribute yourselves to the best advantage. We shall not yield to such terms.”

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Captain Brown," interposed Taylor, respectfully, “I did not come here to fight the United States."

"Nor I," said the other man, Anderson.

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"We have fought well, Captain Brown, but we can't fight our country," Taylor continued. 'Our Canadian constitution reads, 'Look to no dissolution of the Union, but simply to amendment and repeal.'

"Yes, Captain Brown," added Anderson, "and further it says, 'Our flag shall be the same our fathers fought under in the Revolution.' I was the first man, captain, to come to Maryland with you;

I helped you find the Kennedy farm for our headquarters. I have made war upon Virginia, but not upon the United States."

“Do as you please, men. I shall fight. In Kansas my son submitted to the regulars, and was marched in chains under the burning sun, fettered to a dragoon's horse, and he lost his mind."

The two men, Anderson and Taylor, unbuckled their belts of arms and threw them aside, set their rifles in a corner, and retired without fear or haste to a space within that corner, in line with the doors.

The dying son of John Brown sought to raise himself and take a gun; but his eyes glazed, and he could not see. Ned Coppock went to his relief, and put Watson's head upon his lap.

The negro man Green, troubled but not dismayed, exclaimed: "What will become of me? Colored men ain't got no country an' no flag."

Stand by your gun, Shields," young Coppock replied. “I won't see you imposed on.-Captain Brown, we're three left."

He resigned Watson Brown's care to a colored man, and came forward with his rifle.

“We are three,” said John Brown, firmly; "but we shall have re-enforcements."

As he spoke, the old man vaulted into the upper works of the engine, crouched there, and bent his eye to his rifle.

Green knelt at one side of the engine, and Coppock at the other side, each sheltered by a wheel.

The two dead men were used by some of the prisoners as defenses, among other articles.

In the intensity of that moment, John Brown turned to his prisoners and remarked, calmly:

“Your safety, gentlemen, is in not changing your positions during the assault."

Probably every prisoner there muttered or thought of some act of his own, or said some reverent word.

Lloyd Quantrell thought of the negro man he had saved, and of the Dunker sacrament he had taken.

Regularly moving men were heard outside; their side-arms were heard to rattle to the decision of their tread, and the words

"First file, forward!-second file, forward!" These came close to the doors; their very breathing could be heard. The ragged port-hole revealed them to a few within.

So

could the prisoners be heard to breathe, and the shivering voice muttered like a spell to its own fears:

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'Be on the qui vivy!”

'Number one and two!" from outside.

In an instant fierce blows from great hammers were delivered upon the door, and the weight of those hammers expelled the breaths of the men who swung them through the air.

The door trembled with the weight of those blows, but was large enough to distribute their power, and ropes stretched within made the door recoil. Only some ragged parts of the door fell with the shock of the sledges.

Quantrell saw Brown looking down his rifle-breech, keen as a squirrel looking along a bough.

"The first eight from each file-forward!" spoke the same voice of high nervous energy, in tones low pitched.

In a moment a tremendous sound came from the door as if a cannon-ball had struck it. The very building seemed to quiver. "Are you ready, men?" from the bushy, squirrel-eyed bandit leader.

"Ready, captain!" from two cool voices, of one black man and one white.

"Lord-a-mercy!" and groans from the fugitive negroes of the neighborhood who were back among the prisoners.

"Back!" from the open air. "Forward, now-smart, and all together!"

The door seemed to split and to lose cohesion in all its bolts, yet hung by the upper hinge; and below, where it was unhinged, a bright flash of daylight came in, and the legs of men in blue were

seen.

'In there, number one! Next man-file second! In with you! Use the bayonet!"

As the first marine came stooping through the fissure of the door, the colored man Green discharged his rifle; the man fell with a cry, and was dragged back from outside.

"In with you, number two!"

As the second marine came in, Coppock's gun went off; the man stumbled, but fell forward. Smoke, ascending from these rifles, filled the engine-house and slowly soared upward, and John Brown, lying along the top of the engine, was concealed in the smoke.

Lloyd Quantrell saw a small man in officer's dress creep in the

broken space at the bottom of the door, and peer around like a rat, as the smoke arose.

Suddenly this man, by two switches of a sword in his hand, extorted loud cries from both Taylor and Anderson, who had ceased to fight.

Quantrell saw this small officer's elbow and bright blade thrust vengefully again and right into the bodies of the same unresisting and unarmed companions, who fell howling to the brick floor.

His attention was for a moment diverted from this marine officer by a second one, possibly superior in rank to the first, who came half-way in and also peered around, and whose countenance was manly but unexcited.

The rifle of John Brown was leveled at this man; Quantrell looked to see him fall dead.

Brown kept the officer under his merciless aim a second, and then, seeing more marines come in, he put his rifle down and drew the sword of King Frederick.

His act was beheld by the first marine-officer, who had been looking everywhere, under strong excitement, as for the leader of this foray.

This officer drew his bloody blade, bounded upon the side of the engine, and with all his might slashed the old leader across the head, and then, by an upward blow, delivered with the whole fury of his feelings, he stabbed John Brown and felled him to the hard floor of the engine-house.

Hands seized one of the engines and hurled it forward. The door fell entirely outward, and the daylight shone upon the little prison and its huddling and furious or frightened beings: upon the smoke, the cries, the curses-the living, the groaning, and the dead.

The next thing Quantrell saw was the rush of a great multitude from the railroads and the river. They came with shrieks of— "Hang them! hang them!"

While groping his way out, Quantrell saw the maddened lieutenant of marines, who had killed Anderson and Taylor and stabbed John Brown, strike one of his fellow-prisoners, a respectable old Virginia gentleman, with the flat of his sword.

"Shame, sir!" cried Quantrell.

The maniacal officer turned upon our hero and smote him, also, with the flat of the same sword.

Quantrell staggered backward and fell into a strong pair of arms. "What! Bruder Lloyd. You here?"

It was Luther Bosler. He kissed Lloyd fervently in the Dunker fashion.

The next minute Lloyd Quantrell's bleeding face was passionately kissed also by Katy of Catoctin.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FREE-STATE LINE.

WHEN Luther Bosler and his father came in from plowing at the premature sounding of the bell, the news of an insurrection at Harper's Ferry had been confirmed, and Katy was almost distracted by her lover's danger and the loss of her ring; while Nelly Harbaugh, whose strong, worldly nature kindled at the great neighboring event, prodded Luther Bosler to take both the girls to Virginia.

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'Nay," Father Jake Bosler entreated, "wass is de use? Ich con's net goot afforde. Te wheat-ground ain't a-ready, Luter. Stay away from worltly contintions. Trouble comes time enough. Bi'mby."

"Fader," Katy spoke, "Lloyd's there: sell is olles."

Saying "That is all," she broke down, and Nelly Harbaugh cried :

'Dawdy Jake, you're hard on Katy: she's nervous; she's growing; it's a delicate time of life for Katy.”

Jake Bosler took his child in his arms and called her "leeb" and dowb," while the turtle-doves at the window made their plaintive "ah-coo-roo-coo-roo!"

"Katy," he said, "you is too good for te city mans. Stay with fader, and pe te likeness of my Olty to my poor heart till-Bi'm-by." His eyes were full of tears as he called her the only likeness of his dead wife. Katy threw her arms around his neck, crying:

"Oh, my heart pulls both-a-ways! But Lloyd pulls it the most!"

"Jake," spoke Luther Bosler, after reflection, to his father, "tese