y here to-night, and you will not falter for a moment. As soon as it
is dark Flora and Esther will row me across the channel, and I will send
the Buckra's agent on a fast horse with a note to the Governor. If the
other house servants return, you will tell them that I am ill and that
Flora and Esther are nursing me. You will lock the gates, and open them
to no one unless your Buckra should return. Do you understand?"

The slave rolled her eyes, but nodded. She might have defied the
Captain-General, but not one of the Fawcetts.

There were two hours before dark. Rachael was conscious of every nerve
in her body, and paced up and down the long line of rooms which
terminated in the library, until Alexander's legs were worn out trotting
after her, and he fell asleep on the floor. Twice she went to the roof
to look for Hamilton's sloop, but saw not a sail on the sea; and the
streets of Charles Town were packed with negroes. England sent no
soldiers to protect her Islands, and every free male between boyhood and
old age was forced by law to join the militia. It was doubtful if there
were a dozen muscular white men on Nevis that night, for the birthday of
a Governor was a fete of hilarities. Unless the militia returned that
night, the blacks, if they really were plotting vengeance, and she knew
their superstitions, would have burned every house and cane-field before
morning.

The brief twilight passed. The mist rolled down from the heights of
Nevis. Rachael, with Alexander in her arms, and followed by her maids,
stole along the shore through the thick cocoanut groves, meeting no one.
They were far from the town's centre, and all the blacks on the Island
seemed to be gathered there. The boat was beached, and it took the
combined efforts of the three women to launch it. When they pushed off,
the roar of the breakers and the heavy mist covered their flight. But
there was another danger, and the very physical strength of the slaves
departed before it. They had rowed their mistress about the roadstead
before St. Kitts a hundred times, but the close proximity of the reef so
terrified them that Rachael was obliged to take the oars; while Flora
caught Alexander in so convulsive an embrace that he awoke and protested
with all the vigour of his lungs. His mother's voice, to which he was
peculiarly susceptible, hushed him, and he held back his own, although
the gasping bosom on which he rested did not tend to soothe a nervous
child. But