week, where there was n't half the proof you have.

To do it

they had to call out the whole police force, but they did it; and if such things are done in Boston, we can't expect much better in New York. But you see, Colonel, with this knife in my hand, I can now do one of two things: I can either kill this man, or kill myself. In either case you lose. The law hangs me if I kill him, and if I kill myself the sexton puts all of me he can lay hold of under the ground. Now, Colonel, if you refuse my terms, I'm fully resolved to do one of these two things, probably the first, for I have scruples about the second."

66

“The cussed nigger talks as ef he was readin' from a book!” exclaimed Hyde, in astonishment. 'Wall, Peek, what tairms do yer mean?”

"You must promise that, on my letting this man go, you'll allow me to walk freely out of this room, and go where I please unattended, on condition that I'll return at five o'clock this afternoon and deliver myself up to you to go South with you of my own accord, without any trial or bother of any kind."

The Colonel gave a furtive wink at the policeman Iverson, and replied: "Wall, Peek, that's no more nor fair, seein' as you're sich a smart respectible nigger. But I reckon yer'll go and stir up the cussed abolitioners.”

"I'll promise," returned Peek, "not to tell any one what's going on."

Hyde whispered in Iverson's ear, and the latter nodded

assent.

"Wall, Peek," said Colonel Hyde, "if yer 'll swar, so help yer Gawd, yer'll do as yer say, we'll let yer go."

"Please write down my words, sir," said Peek, addressing Blake..

The policeman took pen and paper, and wrote, after Peek's dictation, as follows: :

"We the undersigned swear, on our part, so help us God, we will allow Peculiar Institution to quit this room free and unfollowed, on his promise that he will return and give himself up at five o'clock this P. M. And I, Peculiar Institution, swear, on my part, so help me God, I will, if these terms are carried out, fulfil the above-named promise."

"Sign that, you five gentlemen, and then I'll sign," said Peek.

The five signed. The paper and pen were then handed to Peek, and he added his name in a good legible hand, and gave the paper to Blake.

Having done this, he pulled the rope from Charlton's arms, and threw it on the floor, then returned his knife to the sheath, and picked up his cap.

But as he started for the door, Colonel Hyde drew his revolver, stood in his way, and said: "Now, nigger, no more damn nonsense! Did yer think Delancy Hyde was such a simple cuss as to trust yer? Officers, seize this nigger."

"Iverson stepped forward to obey, but Blake, with the assured gesture of one whose superiority has been felt and admitted, motioned him aside, and said to Hyde, "I'll take your revolver."

The Colonel, either thrown off his guard by Blake's cool air of authority, or supposing he wanted the weapon for the purpose of overawing the negro, gave it up. Blake then walked to the door, threw it open, and said: "Peculiar Institution, I fulfil my part of the contract. Now go and fulfil yours; and see you don't come the lawyer over me by breaking your word."

Before Colonel Delancy Hyde could recover from the amazement and wrath into which he was put by this act, Peculiar had disappeared from the room, and Blake, closing the door after him, had locked it, and taken out the key and thrust it in his pocket.

"May I be shot," exclaimed the Colonel, "but this is the damdest mean Yankee swindle I ever had put on me yit, damned if it ain't! Here I've been to a hunderd dollars expense to git back that ar nigger, and now I'm tricked out of my property by the very man I hired to help me git it. This is Yankee all through, damned if it ain't!"

Charlton, still pale and trembling from his recent shock, had yet strength to put in these words: "I must say, Mr. Blake, your conduct has been unprofessional and unhandsome. There is n't another officer in the whole corps that would have committed such a blunder. I shall report you to your superiors."

Blake shook his finger at him, and replied, "Open your lips again, you beggarly hound, and I'll slap your face."

Charlton collapsed into silence. Blake took a chair and said, "Amuse yourselves five minutes, gentlemen, and then I'll open the door."

"A hell of a feller fur an officer!" muttered the Colonel. "To let the nigger slide in that ar way, afore I'd ever a chance to take from him his money and watch, which in course owt to go to payin' my expenses. Cuss me if I

"Silence!" exclaimed Blake in a voice of thunder.

Cowed by the force of a reckless and impulsive will, all present now kept quiet. Colonel Hyde, who, deprived of his revolver, felt his imbecility keenly, went to the window and looked out. Iverson, who was a coward, tried to smile, and then, seeing the expression on Blake's face, looked suddenly grave. Captain Skinner gave way to melancholy forebodings. His companion, Biggs, refreshed himself with a quid of tobacco, and stood straddling and bracing himself on his feet as if he thought a storm was brewing, and expected a lurch to leeward to take him off his legs. As for Charlton, he drew a slip of paper toward him, and appeared to be carelessly figuring on it; although, when he thought Blake was not looking, his manner changed to an eager and anxious consideration of the matter before him.

The five minutes had nearly expired when Blake rose, turned his back to Charlton, and seemed to be lost in reverie. Charlton took this opportunity to hastily finish what he had been writing. He then enclosed it in an envelope, and directed it. This done, he motioned to Iverson, and held up the letter. The latter nodded, and pointed with a motion of the thumb to a newspaper on the table. Charlton placed the letter under it, coughed, and turned to warm himself at the stove. Iverson sidled toward the newspaper, but before he could reach it, Blake turned and dashed his fist on it, took up the letter, and whispered menacingly to Charlton, "Utter a single word, and I'll choke you."

Then unlocking and opening the door, he said to the other persons in the room, "Go! you can return, if you choose, at five o'clock."

"Give me my revolver," demanded the Colonel.

66

Say two words, and I'll have you arrested for trying to shoot an unarmed man," replied Blake.

The Colonel swallowed his rage and left the room, followed by Iverson and the two witnesses. Blake again locked the door and took the key.

"What's the meaning of all this?" asked Charlton, seriously alarmed.

"It means that if you open that traitor's mouth of yours till I tell you to, you'll come to grief.”

Charlton subsided and was silent.

Blake unfolded the paper he had seized, and read as follows: "You will probably find Peek, either at Bunker's in Broadway, or at his rooms in Greenwich Street, the side nearest the river, third or fourth house from the corner of Dey Street."

Blake thrust the paper back into his pocket, and, wholly regardless of Charlton's presence, began pacing the floor.

CHAPTER IX.

THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW.

"There is a law above all the enactments of human codes, the same throughout the world, the same in all times: it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud and loathe rapine and abhor bloodshed, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy than man can hold property in man." - Lord Brougham.

THE

HE policeman, Blake, was a Vermonter whose grandsire had been one of the eighty men under Ethan Allen at the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. The traditions of the Revolution were therefore something more than barren legends in Blake's mind. They had inspired him with an enthusiastic admiration of the republic and its institutions. His patriotism was a sentiment which all the political and moral corruption, with which a New York policeman is inevitably brought in contact, could not corrode or enfeeble.

Even slavery, being tolerated by the Constitution of the United States, was, in his view, not to be spoken of lightly. He shut his eyes and his ears to all that could be said in its condemnation; he opened them to all its palliating features and facts. Did not statistics prove that the blacks, in a state of slavery, increase in double the proportion they do in a state of freedom, surrounded by whites? This comforting argument was eagerly seized by Blake as a moral sedative.

The Fugitive-Slave Law he was satisfied was strictly in accordance with both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution of the United States. Therefore it must be honestly enforced. The Abolitionists, who were striving to defeat the execution of the law, were almost as bad as Mississippi repudiators who were swindling their foreign creditors. So long as we were enjoying the benefits of the Constitution, was it not mean and dastardly to undertake to jockey the South out of the obvious protection of that clause in it which has reference to the "person held to service or labor," which we all knew to mean the slave?