as they
passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up
to the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels
resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs. Shelby flew to
the railings.

"Is that you, Sam? Where are they?"

"Mas'r Haley 's a-restin' at the tavern; he's drefful fatigued, Missis."

"And Eliza, Sam?"

"Wal, she's clar 'cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o'
Canaan."

"Why, Sam, what _do_ you mean?" said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and almost
faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.

"Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy's done gone over the
river into 'Hio, as 'markably as if de Lord took her over in a charrit
of fire and two hosses."

Sam's vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress'
presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.

"Come up here, Sam," said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the
verandah, "and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,"
said he, passing his arm round her, "you are cold and all in a shiver;
you allow yourself to feel too much."

"Feel too much! Am not I a woman,--a mother? Are we not both responsible
to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this sin to our charge."

"What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we were
obliged to."

"There's an awful feeling of guilt about it, though," said Mrs. Shelby.
"I can't reason it away."

"Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!" called Sam, under the verandah;
"take these yer hosses to der barn; don't ye hear Mas'r a callin'?" and
Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.

"Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was," said Mr. Shelby.
"Where is Eliza, if you know?"

"Wal, Mas'r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin' on the floatin'
ice. She crossed most 'markably; it wasn't no less nor a miracle; and I
saw a man help her up the 'Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk."

"Sam, I think this rather apocryphal,--this miracle. Crossing on
floating ice isn't so easily done," said Mr. Shelby.

"Easy! couldn't nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now," said Sam,
"'t was jist dis yer way. Mas'r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up
to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead,--(I's so
zealous to be a cotchin' Lizy, that I couldn't hold in, no way),--and
when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in
plai