e road that skirted two sides of
the plantation, then half way up a little hill, where it gathered in a
circle about the open grave.

Twilight was past, thick clouds hid the moon and the torches shone out
like stars in the darkness.

"Mamma, what dey doin' now?" asked Harold.

"Listen! perhaps you may hear something," she answered, and as they
almost held their breath to hear, a wild, sweet negro melody came
floating upon the still night air.

"They're singing," whispered Vi, "singing Canaan, 'cause Uncle Mose, and
little Baby Ben have got safe there."

No one spoke again till the strains had ceased with the ending of the
hymn.

"Now Mr. Wood is talking, I suppose," remarked Eddie, in a subdued tone,
"telling them we must all die, and which is the way to get to heaven."

"Else praying," said Vi.

"Mamma, what is die?" asked Harold leaning on her lap.

"If we love Jesus, darling, it is going home to be with him, and oh, so
happy."

"But Baby Ben die, and me saw him in Aunt Dicey's house."

"That was only his body, son; the soul--the part that thinks and feels
and loves--has gone away to heaven, and after a while God will take the
body there too."

For obvious reasons the services at the grave were made very short, and
in another moment they could see the line of torches drawing rapidly
nearer, till it reached the quarter and broke into fragments.

"We will go down now," Elsie said, rising and taking Harold's hand,
"papa, grandpa and Uncle Horace will be here in a moment."

"Mamma," whispered her namesake daughter, "how good God was to keep them
safe from the Ku Klux!"

"Yes, dearest, let us thank him with all our hearts."

Chapter Fourteenth.

"The more the bold, the bustling, and the bad,
Press to usurp the reins of power, the more
Behooves it virtue, with indignant zeal,
To check their combination."
--THOMSON

The spirit of resistance was now fully aroused within the breasts of
our friends of Ion and the Oaks. Mr. Travilla's was a type of the
American character; he would bear long with his injuries, vexations,
encroachments upon his rights, but when once the end of his forbearance
was reached, woe to the aggressor; for he would find himself opposed by
a man of great resources, unconquerable determination and undaunted
courage.

His measures were taken quietly, but with promptness and energy. He had
been seeking proofs of the identity of the raiders, and found them in
the case of one