d leaning
on his rifle.

He spoke in a subdued tone, Babylon being far off for the moment. Lamar
dozed again before he could answer.

"Don't try to move him,--it is too late," said Dorr, sharply.

The moonlight steeped mountain and sky in a fresh whiteness. Lamar's
face, paling every moment, hardening, looked in it like some solemn work
of an untaught sculptor. There was a breathless silence. Ruth, kneeling
beside him, felt his hand grow slowly colder than the snow. He moaned,
his voice going fast,--

"At two, Ben, old fellow! We'll be free to-night!"

Dave, stooping to wrap the blanket, felt his hand wet: he wiped it with
a shudder.

"As he hath done unto My people, be it done unto him!" he muttered, but
the words did not comfort him.

Lamar moved, half-smiling.

"That's right, Floy. What is it she says? 'Now I lay me down'----I
forget. Good night. Kiss me, Floy."

He waited,--looked up uneasily. Dorr looked at his wife: she stooped,
and kissed his lips. Charley smoothed back the hair from the damp face
with as tender a touch as a woman's. Was he dead? The white moonlight
was not more still than the calm face.

Suddenly the night-air was shattered by a wild, revengeful laugh from
the hill. The departing soul rushed back, at the sound, to life, full
consciousness. Lamar started from their hold,--sat up.

"It was Ben," he said, slowly.

In that dying flash of comprehension, it may be, the wrongs of the white
man and the black stood clearer to his eyes than ours: the two lives
trampled down. The stern face of the boatman bent over him: he was
trying to stanch the flowing blood. Lamar looked at him: Hall saw no
bitterness in the look,--a quiet, sad question rather, before which his
soul lay bare. He felt the cold hand touch his shoulder, saw the pale
lips move.

"Was this well done?" they said.

Before Lamar's eyes the rounded arch of gray receded, faded into dark;
the negro's fierce laugh filled his ear: some woful thought at the sound
wrung his soul, as it halted at the gate. It caught at the simple faith
his mother taught him.

"Yea," he said aloud, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me."

Dorr gently drew down the uplifted hand. He was dead.

"It was a manly soul," said the Northern captain, his voice choking, as
he straightened the limp hair.

"He trusted in God? A strange delusion!" muttered the boatman.

Yet he did not like that