system of which an illustration was before me, was only an embodiment in action of principles and wishes which many cherish; and it was obvious to view, that if the sentiments which Tyler had often expressed to me were united to the callous daring necessary to enforce them, and were adopted as rules of life by one whose energy was fitted to multiply examples of their sternness, a career like that which had come before me would be the necessary result. Certainly it was no common man who had thus combined the high-souled ardour of a reasoning intellect with the remorseless baseness of rapacious passion, and whose thoughtful eye of mind had rested alike upon the pure and lightencompassed forms of truth, and the dark and frightful face of treacherous violence. He had used the contempt with which the unattended flight of genius inspires the heart, but which is usually the queller of the ambition whose facility it asserts: he had wrought into his restless life that pride of power which in most great spirits turns into pity or cold arrogance. In him, might had flamed into malignity, and scorn had kindled into hate. The person before me he had employed when he needed him, and crushed when he was useless. It was, perhaps, only a just retribution that this feebler instrument of sin should perish by the hand to whose purposes it had lent itself; but there might be a safe regret that after years of permitted fault he had been struck down to darkness when he had first begun to retrace his errors. I turned from the melancholy picture, which was a monument equally of the triumph and the punishment of guilt, and turned my steps towards the door to join the party below, when my attention was caught by an open secretary, standing in one of the corners of the room, with a few papers lying confusedly within it and under it. I walked towards it and found that the lock had been forced and broken, and the contents, as it. seemed, except the few blank fragments which had met my eye, had been rifled. The murderer, I presumed, had been determined to quench the witness of the mute as well as of the living, and when he had silenced for ever the voice which might betray, had endeavoured to possess himself of what secrets might have been committed to the custody of written words, and had accordingly seized all the papers which the desk contained but those which a glance informed him were valueless. Availing myself of the suggestion which was thus brought before me that important information might be looked for in this channel of evidence. I examined with a careful scrutiny all the parts of the secretary with the hope that some receptacle might remain which had not been despoiled, and in which might be yet found notes or statements which might throw light upon transactions which, otherwise, so far as we were concerned, seemed now to be veiled in hopeless darkness. To my great delight, I presently detected a private drawer, very skilfully concealed in the lower part of the frame, and in it was an open and unfinished letter addressed to my father. I immediately carried it to him in the room below, where he was sitting, and he read it aloud. It was directed at the top of the sheet to him, but what followed had the form of a memorandum, as follows. It appeared to have been written shortly after the last communication to my father had been sent off. "In view of the possibility that the papers which I have, at two different times, sent to Mr. Stanley may not have reached him entire, may be lost by him, or may finally prove insufficient to accomplish the purpose for which they were designed, and that my death may seal the only source of knowledge to which he has access upon the points which interest me as deeply as they concern him, I now record two facts which may prove useful in guiding his inquiries and operations when I can no longer direct him. "The first of these, respects the place of concealment to which (Mr. Harold, or as Mr. Stanley will be more likely to recognize him by another name,) Mr. Torrens will probably resort, when, upon any serious alarm of danger he disappears from the world and all efforts to trace his retreat prove unavailing. On many occasions, on which I have observed his career when he has thought me absent or unconcerned, I have known him to vanish from amidst his comrades and remain for days or weeks in some spot to which a thousand eager eyes of fear or hate could find no trace. At such times, when the burning anxiety of numbers upon whom the fetters of dependent friendship had been so tightly riveted that their love might not know itself from loathing, had left no means untried to ascertain his residence, every room throughout the whole extent of a vast city has been visited-the roads through every quarter of the neighbourhood have been watched-and eager spies have been sent through every region that suggested a hope of detection-but neither his going, nor his resting, nor his return has been seen. Determined not to be fooled by a mystery like this, and wishing to obtain such a power over Torrens as an acquaintance with his hiding-place would necessarily give me, I bent all my exertions to the discovery of the secret he had been so successful in shrouding from exposure, and I finally prevailed. I have marked the locality of his hidden residence upon the chart which will be found in my bookcase, and have traced upon the same the course by which it is reached. The details of the manner by which a region, all but inaccessible, is traversed, it is beyond my power to explain upon paper; it is enough to say that they are full of difficulties. I have thought that the place and direction would be important to be known the adventurer who would explore them has need as well of courage as of conduct. "The other circumstance which it may serve Mr. Stanley to be aware of, is that there is one man who, if he yet live, is capable of prevailing against Harold, if he brings the strength he possesses to bear determinedly against him; and but one. If, therefore, what I have done prove ineffectual, it is of the utmost moment that he should be found on him will rest the only hope of conquering that power which now oppresses right. His name is Maxwell. I earnestly exhort Mr. Stanley to spare no time nor trouble in his endeavours to find him. He is " Here the writing terminated abruptly. If it had been the author's intention to communicate a knowledge of the means by which this person might be discovered, something had occurred to frustrate it fatally; and no clue remained to guide a search whose importance was so strongly asserted. When we had read this letter and pondered its statements, it remained to settle what it would be most expedient to do. My father's affairs rendered it necessary for him to return home without delay, and if he had had leisure, the enterprises suggested in this testamentary statement, were not such as it became him to engage in. He had been a good deal touched by the misfortunes and sufferings of Mr. Thompson, and as the secretary whom his business obliged him to employ, had recently left him, he offered that office to him and it was very gratefully accepted. I had determined to return at once to town, as the most likely place in which to hear of Maxwell, and we set off the next morning to accomplish together that portion of our journey which followed the same road. Seward wished him to visit one of his friends whose residence was in the neighbourhood, and after offering his services for any farther matter which I might be inclined to undertake, which I had neither occasion nor right farther to employ, he left us to go in the opposite direction. CHAPTER VI. He alone determines for himself What he himself alone doth understand, Few fit to rule themselves, but few that use COLERIDGE. As I continued my solitary ride, after my father and Mr. Thompson had parted from me at the point where their road turned off, I revolved in my mind the various incidents connected with Tyler, of which I had been a witness or a victim, and I endeavoured to anticipate what result awaited the scenes which I had yet to pass through. I reviewed the whole experience which had befallen me since I first met him upon my entrance into the world, that I might derive for the enlightenment of the future whatever counsel the past afforded. The acquaintance which of late I had obtained with his means and mode of conduct enabled me to trace the outline and object of that previous series of procedure, whose separate consequences I had felt, but whose continuous progress I had not seen, and thus to understand in some degree the character and course of action to which I must fit my efforts. It was obvious that Tyler was at the head of a company which himself had organized, consisting of men of desperate purposes and lawless principles who, what |