d, Mrs.
Miller, and at once Tony was heard to say in a loud voice, "O Lord,
thou knowest that the white people are not fit to die; but, as for old
Tony, whenever the angel of the Lord comes, he's ready." At that
moment, Mark tapped lightly on the door. "Who's dar?" thundered old
Tony. Mark made no reply. The old man commenced and went through with
the same remarks addressed to the Lord, when Mark again knocked at the
door. "Who dat dar?" asked Uncle Tony, with a somewhat agitated
countenance and trembling voice. Still Mark would not reply. Again Tony
took up the thread of his discourse, and said, "O Lord, thou knowest as
well as I do that dese white folks are not prepared to die, but here is
Old Tony, when de angel of de Lord comes, he's ready to go to heaven."
Mark once more knocked at the door. "Who dat dar?" thundered Tony at
the top of his voice.

"De angel of de Lord," replied Mark, in a somewhat suppressed and
sepulchral voice.

"What de angel of de Lord want here?" inquired Tony, as if much
frightened.

"He's come for poor old Tony, to take him out of the world" replied
Mark, in the same strange voice.

"Dat nigger ain't here; he die tree weeks ago," responded Tony, in a
still more agitated and frightened tone. Mark and his companions made
the welkin ring with their shouts at the old man's answer. Uncle Tony
hearing them, and finding that he had been imposed upon, opened his
door, came out with stick in hand, and said, "Is dat you, Mr. Mark? you
imp, if I can get to you I'll larn you how to come here wid your
nonsense."

Mark and his companions left the garden, feeling satisfied that Uncle
Tony was not as ready to go with "de angel of de Lord" as he would have
others believe.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PRISON.

While poor little Clotelle was being kicked about by Mrs. Miller, on
account of her relationship to her son-in-law, Isabella was passing
lonely hours in the county jail, the place to which Jennings had
removed her for safe-keeping, after purchasing her from Mrs. Miller.
Incarcerated in one of the iron-barred rooms of that dismal place,
those dark, glowing eyes, lofty brow, and graceful form wilted down
like a plucked rose under a noonday sun, while deep in her heart's
ambrosial cells was the most anguishing distress.

Vulgar curiosity is always in search of its victims, and Jennings'
boast that he had such a ladylike and beautiful woman in his possession
brought numbers to the prison who begged of