suddenly disappeared. Hearing of it, and
suspecting he had been spirited away by Dawsey, Joseph Preston went to
Trenton, and, procuring a judge's order for Mulock's arrest as an
absconding witness, caused a thorough search to be made for him in Jones
and the adjoining counties. He himself visited Chalk Level, in Harnett
County, and there found him, living again with his white wife. That lady
had previously won and lost a second spouse, but, it appeared, was then
in such straits for another husband, that she was willing to take up
with her own cast-off household furniture. Whether a new marriage
ceremony was performed, or not, I never learned; but I have been
reliably informed that Mulock complained bitterly of his wife for having
defrauded him of twenty-five of the fifty dollars she had agreed to pay
as consideration for his again sharing her 'bed and board.'

Mulock admitted having received four hundred dollars from Dawsey for
absenting himself, and gave, as an excuse for accepting the bribe, his
conviction that Mrs. Dawsey could not be found guilty on his testimony.
After his arrest he was confined in the same jail with the 'retired'
schoolmistress.

The second trial was approaching; but, late on the night preceding the
sitting of the court, the jailer's house--which adjoined and
communicated with the prison--was forcibly entered by four armed men
disguised as negroes. They bound and gagged the jailer, his wife, and
two female servants, and, seizing the keys, entered the jail, and
carried Mulock off by force. The keeper heard a desperate struggle, and
it was supposed Mulock was foully dealt by. The footprints of four men
were the next morning detected leading to a spot on the bank of the
river, where a boat appeared to have been moored; but there all traces
were lost, and the overseer's fate is still shrouded in mystery.

Mrs. Dawsey, whose cell adjoined Mulock's, was not disturbed, but public
suspicion connected her husband with the affair. There was, however, no
evidence against him, and he went 'unwhipped of justice.'

The lady was arraigned for trial on the following day, but, no witnesses
appearing against her, she was--after a tedious confinement of ten
months--set at liberty. Thus, at last, she achieved 'a plantation and a
rich planter;' but her darling object in life--to lead and shine in
society, for which her education and character peculiarly fitted
her--she missed. With the exception of her brutal husb