eart should be like lead? Almost impatiently, she rose and sought
her father.

The Bishop, after deliberation, had decided to accompany Demming to
Charleston. He excused his interest in the man so elaborately and
plausibly that his daughter was reminded of Talboys.

Saturday morning all three--the Bishop, the vagabond, and
Talboys--started for Charleston. Talboys, however, did not know that
the Bishop was going. He bought Demming's ticket, saw him safely to a
seat, and went into the smoking-car. The Bishop was late, but the
conductor, with true Southern good-nature, backed the train and took
him aboard. He seated himself in front of Demming, and began to wipe
his heated brow.

"Why do they want to have a fire in the stove this weather?" said he.

"Well," said the cracker, slyly, "you see we hain't all been runnin',
an' we're kinder chilly!"

"Humph!" said the Bishop. After this there was silence. The train
rolled along; through the pine woods, past small stations where rose
trees brightened trim white cottages, then into the swamp lands, where
the moisture painted the bark of tall trees, and lay in shiny green
patches among them. The Southern moss dripping from the giant
branches shrouded them in a weird drapery, soft as mist. There was
something dreary and painful to a Northern eye in the scene; the tall
and shrouded trees, the stagnant pools of water gleaming among them,
the vivid green patches of moss, the barren stretches of sand. The
very beauty in it all seemed the unnatural glory of decay, repelling
the beholder. Here and there were cabins. One could not look at them
without wondering whether the inhabitants had the ague, or its South
Carolina synonym, the "break-bone fever." At one, a bent old woman was
washing. She lifted her head, and Demming waved his hat at her. Then
he glanced at the Bishop, now busy with a paper, and chuckled over
some recollection. He looked out again. There was a man running along
the side of the road waving a red flag. He called out a few words,
which the wind of the train tore to pieces. At the same instant, the
whistle of the engine began a shrill outcry. "Sunthin' 's bust, I
reckon," said Demming. And then, before he could see, or know, or
understand, a tremendous crash drowned his senses, and in one awful
moment blended shivering glass and surging roof and white faces like a
horrible kaleidoscope.

The first thing he noticed, when he came to himself, was a thin ribbon
of smo