over his cheek with a more enchanting music than it made among the
chinks and crannies of the wall by Edith's bed-side. A few idle
dreams,--recollections of home, mingled with the anticipated scenes
of the future, the deep forest, the wild beast, and the lurking
Indian,--amused, without harassing, his sleeping mind; and it was not
until the first gray of dawn that he experienced any interruption. He
started up suddenly, his ears still tingling with the soft tones of an
unknown voice, which had whispered in them, "Cross the river by the Lower
Ford,--there is danger at the Upper." He stared around, but saw nothing
all was silent around him, save the deep breathing of the sleepers at his
side. "Who spoke?" he demanded in a whisper, but received no reply.
"River,--Upper and Lower Ford,--danger?--" he muttered: "now I would have
sworn some one spoke to me; and yet I must have dreamed it. Strange
things, dreams,--thoughts in freedom, loosed from the chains of
association,--temporary mad-fits, undoubtedly: marvellous impressions
they produce on the organs of sense; see, hear, smell, taste, touch, more
exquisitely _without_ the organs than _with_ them--What's the use of
organs? There's the poser--I think--I--" but here he ceased thinking
altogether, his philosophy having served the purpose such philosophy
usually does, and wrapped him a second time in the arms of Morpheus. He
opened his eyes almost immediately, as he thought; but his morning nap
had lasted half an hour; the dawn was already purple and violet in the
sky, his companions had left his side, and the hum of voices and the
sound of footsteps in and around the Station, told him that his
fellow-exiles were already preparing to resume their journey.

"A brave morrow to you, captain!" said the commander of the fortress, the
thunder of whose footsteps, as he approached the house with uncommonly
fierce strides, had perhaps broken his slumbers. A frown was on his brow,
and the grasp of his hand, in which every finger seemed doing the duty of