us recovering
the overseer's trail.

"Why not," he said, "strike at once for the end of his route? Why follow
the slow steps he took in order to throw us off the track? He has not
come back to this road. Ten miles below there is another one leading
also to the railway. He has taken that. We might as well send Sandy and
the dog back and go on by ourselves."

"But if bound for the Station, why should he wade through the creek
here, ten miles out of his way? Why not go straight on by the road?" I
asked.

"Because he knew the dog would track him, and he hoped by taking to the
run to make me think he had crossed the country instead of striking for
the railroad."

I felt sure the Colonel was wrong, but knowing him to be tenacious of
his own opinions, I made no further objection.

Directing Sandy to call on Madam P---- and acquaint her with our
progress, he then dismissed the negro-hunter, and once more led the way
up the road.

The next twenty miles, like our previous route, lay through an unbroken
forest. As we left the watercourses, we saw only the gloomy pines, which
there--the region being remote from the means of transportation--were
seldom tapped, and presented few of the openings that invite the weary
traveller to the dwelling of the hospitable planter.

After a time the sky, which had been bright and cloudless all the
morning, grew overcast, and gave out tokens of a coming storm. A black
cloud gathered in the west, and random flashes darted from it far off in
the distance; then gradually it neared us; low mutterings sounded in the
air, and the tops of the tall pines a few miles away, were lit up now
and then with a fitful blaze, all the brighter for the deeper gloom that
succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a
great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash, half
way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the rain--not
filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in broad,
blinding sheets--poured full and heavy on our shelterless heads.

"Ah! there it comes!" shouted the Colonel. "God have mercy upon us!"

As he spoke, a crashing, crackling, thundering roar rose above the
storm, filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled
beneath our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer
the sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were
unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great