had seized upon Ashley at his kinsman's grave, the instinct for revenge. He said to himself that those Americans, after all, were gente de rayon, and felt a certain satisfaction that he had been the instrument of calling into action a sentiment that did the gringo so much credit.

Meanwhile the heat of noon passed, and Ashley's horse stood with patient dejection in the shadow of the huge cactus to which he had been tethered, not even taking advantage of the freedom allowed by the length of the riata, so little temptation to browse was offered by the sparse and coarse tufts of herbage which struggled into existence here and there. The time wore on, and an occasional stamp attested his disapprobation of a master who lay prone upon the ground under a mesquite when the sun shone hottest, and when the cool breeze of afternoon swept over the silent spot, stood long and still beside the grave he had not sought, and yet felt infinite reluctance to leave.

It was a foolish thought, but as he gazed across the broad valley to the great square of buildings set among the fields, he imagined how indeed the dead man might at times steal forth to visit again those fertile scenes where he had lived and loved. As he stood there, Ashley could see the people like pigmies passing in and out the great gateway, or going from hut to hut in the village.

There was one figure-it seemed that of a woman-which his eye sought from time to time, as it appeared and disappeared in the milpahs and bean fields, and at last on the open road that lay between them and the hacienda de beneficio. He was becoming quite fascinated by its hesitating, yet persistent, progress, when he was startled by a sound; and glancing up, he saw a man leaning upon the crumbling wall, and regarding him with a gaze so bewildered, so fixed, that involuntarily he moved a step towards him.

The man started as if some frightful spell

had been broken. Ashley saw that he crossed himself, and muttered some invocation; yet he had not the look of a nervous man or a coward, but rather that of a somnambulist pacing the earth under the impulse of some horrible dream. The man was not ill-looking-no, decidedly not; and though his skin was deeply browned as if from much exposure, and his cheek bones were prominent, giving his face a certain cast below the eyes that was plebeian or Indian in character, the eyes themselves were dilated and brilliant, and the straight nose and pointed beard gave him the air of a Spanish cavalier, though he wore the broad sombrero and serape of a common soldier of the rural order. Perhaps on ordinary occasions a more practiced eye than that of Ashley Ward would have accepted him for what he purported to be: but the American, with an extraordinary feeling of repulsion, little accounted for by the mere sense of intrusion caused by his unexpected appearance, at once leaped to the conclusion that his dress-though he had no appearance of strangeness in it was virtually a disguise, and that instead of a soldier of the ranks, the man before him was of no ordinary position or character.

He seemed to have risen out of the ground, so stealthily had he approached. It would have been quite possible for him, tall as he was, to have skirted the wall without observation from any one within the enclosure. But undoubtedly he had taken no precaution in that solitary place, which, except at funeral times, was shunned as the haunt of ghosts and ill-omened birds and reptiles; and thus had come unexpectedly upon the motionless figure of the tall young man, clothed in a plain riding-suit of black, the bright, conspicuous locks at the moment uncovered, the face fair, of a characteristic American type, but associated in the mind of the observer with one he had seen but twice or thrice--all on the mad night when the moon had shone down upon it,

quivering in the death agony above which he had exulted.

The two men held each the other's gaze in silence for a full minute, both unmindful of the common courtesy usual in such chance encounters in solitary places. Then, recovering from the superstitious awe which had overpowered him, the Mexican stepped over the broken wall. Ashley noticed as he did so that heavy silver spurs were on his heels, and that the fringed sides of the leathern chaparreras were stained as though with hard riding--and as if from habit, rather than any purpose of menace, his nervous hand closed upon the pistol in his scarlet faja, as with a few long strides he reached the spot on which Ashley stood with that air of defiance that a sudden intrusion upon a solitude however secure, naturally arouses in a man who is neither a coward, nor an adept in the self-command that is perhaps the most perfect substitute for invincible courage.

"Señor," said the Mexican, "your pistols are on your saddle. You are right-this is an evil habit to wear them so readily at one's side. Pardon me if in my surprise I assumed an attitude of menace, but these are troublous times. One scarcely expects to find a caballero alone in such a place."

He looked around him with a smile, which did not hinder a quiver of the lip, expressing an excitement which his commonplace words denied.

Ashley regarded him with ever-increasing repugnance. It was true his pistols hung from the saddle, but there was a small knife in his belt, and his hand wandered to it stealthily as he answered: "Señor, I make no inquiry why you are here, and on foot--which you must acknowledge might well cause some curiosity in this place; but in all courtesy I trust your errand is a happier one than mine. Whatever it is, I will not intrude upon it longer than will suffice to plant this cross." And with an air of perfect security, but with the knife in hand,

he bent to the work, which the other regarded with an almost incredulous gaze---the preservation of a grave or its tokens. being a sort of sentimentality to which by tradition and training he was a stranger; and to see it exhibited for the first time in this God's acre of peones, almost sufficed to dissipate the impression the unexpected encounter had made upon him. As Ashley quietly pursued his work, the new-comer had an opportunity to look at him narrowly. After all, this was like many another American! Yet there was something that brought the sweat to the brow of the soldier; he pushed back his hat, and breathed hard. As he did so, Ashley braced the cross against his knee. The action brought the letters into clear and direct view. The eyes of the Mexican rested upon them. He fell back

a step or two in superstitious awe, involuntarily exclaiming :

"Christo! was he buried here ? and who are you?'

Ashley glanced up. There was a revelation to him in the disordered and ashy countenance. He dropped the cross, sprang over the grave, and seized the stranger by the right arm. "Who are you who ask?" he cried, "What do you know of the man who is buried there?"

"Caramba! you are a brave man to put such questions!" retorted the new comer, wrenching himself free. Ashley had spoken in English, but the violence of his act had interpreted his words. "Take your pistols and defend yourself, if you are here for vengeance. Kill him, yes-I killed him as I would a dog. Faith, I thought it was his accursed ghost that had risen to challenge me!"

"I am his cousin! Assassin, give me reasons for your deed!" cried Ashley furiously, yet with a remembrance that to every criminal should be allowed some chance of justification.

But the Mexican seemed little inclined to profit by it.

"Reasons!" cried he. "Yes, such reasons as I gave him when I thrust the knife into his heart." He raised his pistol and fired. The shot passed so close to Ashley's temple that he heard it whiz through the air. In the same instant the two men clinched. The horse, which during the controversy had plunged and reared madly, broke away and careering over the graves, galloped wildly down the hillside. A fresh horse with its rider dashed into the enclosure, and a voice cried, "Por Dios, mi General! What adventure is this? Mount! mount, there is no time to be lost!"

The combatants at the sound of a voice had involuntarily paused. Had the knife been in the hand of the Mexican it would have sheathed itself in his opponent's heart; but Ashley, less ready in its use, arrested his hand midway. His passion half spent, the scarcely healed wound throbbing in his shoulder, his strength exhausted, he had much ado to keep himself from staggering.

"A touch of my sabre would finish him," said the new comer coolly, as he reined in his restive horse, and put his hand on the long weapon swinging from his saddle. But the officer stopped him.

"No killing in cold blood," he exclaimed. "'Tis a madman, but his fury is over. What brings you here, Reyes? Were you not to wait at the emboscado?"

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"Wait!" he retorted, "this is no time to wait! We are already a day too late. A thousand men are on the road before us, mi General! We let them pass us this morning as we lingered on the opposite side. of the mountain in el Zahuan del Infierno." And the troops are there still!" cried the other furiously., "Where is el Choolooke? Did you not think to bring me a horse? Hombre, back to the Zahuan. We must begin the march this very night. I know Ruiz; he will yield in a moment at sight of me!"

"Not he!" answered Reyes, "He has a new patrona; Doña Isabel herself is with him."

"Isabel!" cried the soldier with an oath "Ah, then, Tres Hermanos is partisan at last! Carrhi! she shall find what she has begun shall be soon ended!" He put a small silver whistle to his lips, and blew a shrill blast, which was answered by a neigh. A black horse lifted its head and looked over the wall with a gaze of almost human intelligence.

"He followed me at a word," said Reyes, "and stood by the wall like a statue when I bade him. Never was there such another as your prieto, mi General. Even the stampede of that broncho that was tethered here, could not startle him."

"Ay, I discipline horses better than men; eh, Choolooke ?" The horse with its jingling accoutrements had cantered into the inclosure, and with one bound his owner was in the saddle. All had passed in the few minutes in which Ashley was recovering breath, and in utter bewilderment endeavoring to gain some insight into the meaning of this rapid transformation scene, of which he himself had formed a part. As his late opponent sprang into the saddle, he could have fancied he heard the sound of the bugle, so alert were his movements, so soldierly his bearing.

But in the midst of his involuntary admiration, he did not forget the extraordinary relations in which they stood to each other. He threw himself before the horse at the imminent risk of being trampled down. "Your name !" he cried. "By your own admission you are my cousin's murderer. We must meet again! I am Ashley Ward; and you?"

"Out of the way," cried the rider, checking his horse by a dexterous turn of his hand. "My name? Ah yes-tell them there," and he nodded in the direction of the hacienda, "they will soon have

reason never to forget it!" He hesitatedplunged the spurs into his already impatient steed, and dashed furiously away, followed

by Reyes, yet rising in his stirrups to shout back in defiance the name "Ramirez !" Louise Palmer Heaven.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the situation of public affairs was so entirely. novel and unexpected that every man's attention was more or less absorbed by it. Almost every man had some plan to propose for dealing with the case, and many, perhaps the majority, of the people, had even two or more specifics, any of which would prove infallible.

The military difficulty was felt to be not the only one; the "slavery question, "and beyond that the "negro question, " loomed up in vague and enormous proportions. Most persons realized that if the war went on the emancipation of the Southern slaves would be one of its consequences; but, after emancipation, what next? What could the general government do with four millions of emancipated negroes? The constitution knew nothing of the slave, except as a "person held to labor," just like an apprentice. Yet to emancipate the negroes, and make no provision for dealing with them as a constitutent element of the population, would be an experiment then deemed as wild as a mere return to barbarism.

The ultra abolitionists of course clamored foi emancipation, regardless of consequences; but they constituted but a small minority. In the Cabinet, Mr. Chase was regarded as their representative, and they had the support of Mr. Stanton, not because he had any philanthropic sympathy with their views, but because he felt that they represented the most aggressive antagonism against the South;

and in that antagonism he saw the path open for his restless activity and unscrupulous ambition. Judge Blair early expressed himself as troubled, not by the slavery question, but by the negro question. Governor Seward and Mr. Welles, though more conservative than Chase or Stanton, appeared disposed to feel their way, trusting to military force to quell the insurrection, and after that to time and fortune to solve the ensuing political difficulties.

Mr. Lincoln himself was probably the most perplexed member of all the Cabinet. He could not shake off the conscientious sense of responsibility for the course of public affairs, and he knew the negro character and that of the Southern whites, and foresaw in the sudden emancipation of the slaves, endless difficulty and trouble. He was sincerely desirous to deliver the government to his successor not only with its authority unimpaired, but with its structure unaltered. Yet how this was to be done consistently with a general emancipation, by authority of the general government, and how such emancipation was to be avoided if the war went on, were things equally difficult to foresee.

As one of the earliest fruits of the war, Washington and its vicinity were inundated with crowds of runaway slaves from the neighboring counties of Maryland and Virginia. They were assembled in contraband camps round the capital, and fed from the army rations without any authority of law, but as a mere matter of humanity, which

with these contrabands was the form in which the "negro question" first, and most earnestly, presented itself to the President; it confronted him every day and every hour, and in all possible forms.

Mr. Lincoln, in common with some others, was strongly impressed in favor of colonization as the solution of the negro question. At one time a proposal was put forward to establish a negro community in Florida, where the emancipated slaves might be assembled, and allowed to work out their own future, forming a negro State within the Union. At another time, Mr. Lincoln publicly recommended Central America to a delegation of blacks who waited on him, as suited by climate and so forth to colonization by their people.

The following episode in our history resulted from this favorite idea of the President. I became acquainted with the details. at the time, and relate them as they came to my knowledge.

In the fall of 1862 there appeared in New York a certain Mr. Koch, with a queer story and a queer project. His story in brief was this that at the World's Fair then recently held in Paris he had seen some specimens of cotton purporting to have been raised on the island of Santo Domingo, of surpassingly fine quality. The staple was fully seven and a half inches long, and the fibre fine and silky; altogether it excelled in every way the finest Sea Island cotton. It had been exhibited, I think, as an incentive to emigration to the island; and Mr. Koch's imagination had become excited with the prospect of great profits to be realized from this source.

To make sure, however, that he was proceeding on a safe basis, he determined to prove the whole thing experimentally, before proceeding further. For this purpose he went to Santo Domingo, planted a piece of ground with cotton, and cultivated it to maturity, with the result that just one hundred days after he put the seed into the ground he had

harvested, I forget how large a crop of cotton, of which he produced samples, surpassing in quality anything before exhibited in New York. He had accurate accounts of the amount of labor expended on the crop, and all items going to make up its cost.

On the strength of this experiment he had conceived the project of taking to Santo Domingo a colony of blacks from the United States, procuring a grant of land, and settling them on it, to raise cotton. He had accordingly secured from the Government of Santo Domingo, a grant, in fee, of the island of La Vache, lying off the south coast of the main island, and about twenty miles distant from shore, and in order to secure ample authority for all contingencies, he had not only obtained the ownership of the island, but an appointment of himself as civil and military governor thereof. With these documents he had come to the North and laid his project before the President.

Mr. Lincoln was entirely captivated by it; Mr. Seward approved, or at least acquiesced in it, and so did the Postmaster General, Judge Blair. The President made a contract with him for the transportation of the first colony of blacks, four hundred in number, to his island of La Vache, at the price, I think, of $100 per head; to be paid, one half when the colonists had embarked, and the other half when they were safely landed on the island.

He had made arrangements for the charter of a vessel, and other necessary preliminaries, and computed that he needed a cash capital of $70,000 to launch his project. With that sum in hand, he would be enabled to complete his contract with the President, put his first crop into the ground, and harvest it. The land, which had been granted him for nothing, was to be sold out to the colonists at a moderate price in parcels of twenty acres, and their crops were to pay for it, as well as for pecuniary advances to be made.

The President had made two private verbal