ted that a planter of Maryland, with two relatives, had
followed an escaped slave to the settlement of Christianville,
Pennsylvania, where a little colony of fugitives had made common
cause together. In this case, as was prescribed under the law, the
slave owner had called to his aid a United States marshal, who in
turn had summoned a large posse of his own. These had visited the
home of the fugitive and called upon him to surrender himself to
his owner. This the fugitive had refused to do, and he was backed
in this refusal by a considerable party of men of his own race,
some of them free men, and some fugitive slaves, who had assembled
at his house.

"I'll have my property," asserted the slave owner, according to the
report, "or I'll eat my breakfast in hell." One of the Marylanders
had then fired upon the slave, and the fire was returned in general
by the negroes. The old planter, a man of courage, was struck to
the ground, killed by the blacks, his two relatives disabled, and
several other men on both sides were wounded. The fugitive himself
was not taken, and the arresting party was obliged to retire.
Naturally, great exultation prevailed among the triumphant blacks;
and this, so said numerous despatches, was fostered and encouraged
by comment of all the northern abolitionist press.

Josephine St. Auban pondered over this barbarous recountal of an
event which would seem to have been impossible in a civilized
community. "It comes," said she, musing, "it comes! _Ca ira_!
There will be war! Ah, I must hasten."

She turned to other papers, of private nature, in her desk. In a
half hour more, she had gone over the last remittance reports of
the agents of her estates in Europe. She smiled, nodded, as she
tapped a pencil over the very handsome totals. In ten minutes
more, she was ready and awaiting the call of Carlisle and Kammerer
in her reception-room. In her mind was a plan already formulated.

At heart frank and impulsive, and now full of a definite zeal, she
did not long keep them waiting to learn her mind.

"Are you still for the cause of freedom, and can you keep a secret,
or aid in one?" she broke in suddenly, turning toward Carlisle.
Looking at him at first for a time, inscrutably, as though half in
amusement or in recollection, she now regarded him carefully for an
instant, apparently weighing his make-up, estimating his sincerity,
mentally investigating his character, looking at the flame of hi