ed
picture--the portrait of her who has his heart.

He gazes on it lovingly, but not long. For the script underneath claims
his attention. In this he recognises her handwriting, well-known to
him. Terrible the despair that sweeps through his soul, as he deciphers
it:--

"_Helen Armstrong_.--_For him she loves_."

The picture is in the possession of Richard Darke. To him have the
sweet words been vouchsafed!

"A charming creature!" Darke tauntingly continues, kissing the carte,
and pouring the venomous speech into his victim's ear. "It's the very
counterpart of her sweet self. As I said, she sent it me this morning.
Come, Clancy! Before giving up the ghost, tell me what you think of it.
Isn't it an excellent likeness?"

To the inhuman interrogatory Clancy makes no response--either by word,
look, or gesture. His lips are mute, his eyes without light of life,
his limbs and body motionless as the mud on which they lie.

A short, but profane, speech terminates the terrible episode; four words
of most heartless signification:--

"Damn him; he's dead!"

CHAPTER SIX.

A COON-CHASE INTERRUPTED.

Notwithstanding the solitude of the place where the strife, apparently
fatal, has occurred, and the slight chances of its being seen, its
sounds have been heard. The shots, the excited speeches, and angry
exclamations, have reached the ears of one who can well interpret them.
This is a coon-hunter.

There is no district in the Southern States without its coon-hunter. In
most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is
a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white
man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it
is usually delivered over to the "darkey."

In the old times of slavery every plantation could boast of one, or
more, of these sable Nimrods; and they are not yet extinct. To them
coon-catching is a profit, as well as sport; the skins keeping them in
tobacco--and whisky, when addicted to drinking it. The flesh, too,
though little esteemed by white palates, is a _bonne-bouche_ to the
negro, with whom animal food is a scarce commodity. It often furnishes
him with the substance for a savoury roast.

The plantation of Ephraim Darke is no exception to the general rule.
It, too, has its coon-hunter--a negro named, or nicknamed, "Blue Bill;"
the qualifying term bestowed, from a cerulean tinge, that in certain
lights appears upon the su