e. What a boat doing round here dis time o'
night? Dem's some niggers arter chickens, sure."

And little Phil, satisfied that he had fathomed the mystery, lay down
again in a fit of silent indignation. The boat was put about, but the
wind had died away, and the sail flapped idly against the mast. Harold,
glad of the opportunity for a little exercise, shipped the sculls and
bent to his work.

"Miss Oriana, put her head for the bank if you please. We shall have
less current to pull against in-shore."

The boat glided along under the shadow of the bank, and no sound was
heard but the regular thugging and splashing of the oars and the voices
of insects on the shore. They approached a curve in the river where the
bank was thickly wooded, and dense shrubbery projected over the stream.

"Wha' dat?" shouted Phil again, starting up in the bow and peering into
the darkness. A boat shot out from the shadow of the foliage, and her
course was checked directly in their path. The movement was so sudden
that, before Harold could check his headway, the two boats fouled. A
boathook was thrust into the thwarts; Arthur sprang to the bows to cast
it off.

"Don't touch that," shouted a hoarse voice; and he felt the muzzle of a
pistol thrust into his breast.

"None of that, Seth," cried another; and the speaker laid hold of his
comrade's arm. "We must have no shooting, you know."

Arthur had thrown off the boathook, but some half-dozen armed men had
already leaped into the frail vessel, crowding it to such an extent that
a struggle, even had it not been madness against such odds, would have
occasioned great personal danger to Oriana. Both Arthur and Harold
seemed instinctively to comprehend this, and therefore offered no
opposition. Their boat was taken in tow, and in a few moments the entire
party, with one exception, were landed upon the adjacent bank. That
exception was little Phil. In the confusion that ensued upon the
collision of the two boats, the lad had quietly slipped overboard, and
swam ground to the stern where his mistress sat. "Miss Orany, hist! Miss
Orany!"

The bewildered girl turned and beheld the black face peering over the
gunwale.

"Miss Orany, here I is. O Lor'! Miss Orany, what we gwine to do?"

She bowed her head toward him and whispered hurriedly, but calmly:

"Mind what I tell you, Phil. You watch where they take us to, and then
run home and tell Master Beverly. Do you understand me, Phil?"

"Yes, I doe