ut feat and want
of tact as to proper management in conducting an assault, they felt
would insure the defeat of such a purpose, and thus the Spaniard had
remained unmolested for years in his present position, but in no way
relaxing the necessary degree of vigilance which should render safe his
household, for he knew full well the treacherous character of the
negroes, and that they were not for a moment to be trusted.

Maud, his daughter, was in no way ignorant of this state of affairs. She
fully understood the entire matter. Perhaps the fact that some portion
of the blood of that despised race ran in her own veins, led her to
conceive a plan for revenge which should embrace not only the party who
was the grave object of her hate, but even every person of white blood
in her father's household, not even excepting her father! No one, save a
North American Indian, can hold and nourish a spirit of revenge like a
Quadroon. It seems to be an innate trait of their nature, and ever ready
to burst forth in a blaze at any moment.

It was impossible to understand exactly by what course of reasoning Maud
had arrived at the purpose of attempting the destruction of the
household as she did. One would have supposed that she would have been
apt to adopt the easiest mode of arriving at the desired result, and
that with even her simple knowledge of poison, she might, with a little
adroitness, have taken the lives of all who were gathered under her
father's roof at a single meal; but the revengeful girl evidently had
some secret feeling to gratify, in the employment of the agents whom she
engaged for her purpose, and the blow she resolved should be struck, and
decisively, too, by the negro enemies of her father, who were his near
neighbors.

For this fell purpose, Maud held secret meetings with the chiefs,
represented that her father's strong-boxes were full of gold and silver
coin, and that the negroes had only to effect an entrance at night,
means for which she was herself prepared to furnish them, and at the
same time representing to them that they would have it in their power to
revenge themselves for all their past wrongs at her father's hands,
fancied or real. The negroes and their chiefs were only too intent upon
the treasures their fancy depicted, to think or care for Maud herself,
or to question the reason of her unnatural treachery. So they promised
to enter the stockade under her direction, rob the house, and then
screen the