that the Colonel was reputed to be a man of great wealth, I consoled myself by thinking that he would not be urgent, and that he could wait, and that something might turn up (the desperate man's last hope) to save me. Overcome by fatigue and excitement, I dropped into a disturbed sleep, and never awoke until late the next morning, and then I was aroused by the voice of the Colonel at my door. His first words dispelled all my consoling dreams of the night before, and made me fully conscious of my desperate situation. He informed me that he would not have called so soon, but that he had received letters, and must be off immediately, and that necessity compelled him to call on me for the little amount due him; that he did not wish to disturb me, but supposed that I would have to go out in town to raise the money, and he wished to give me timely notice of his unexpected departure. You can well imagine my feelings, Morten, thus called on to pay two thousand dollars, when I had not so many cents. I asked him if he could not wait a few weeks, to which he replied, that, at any other time, he might do so; but that he had lost a large amount since he left home, had a demand for several thousand dollars in Nashville, and that it was absolutely necessary for him to have the money. I hesitated a moment, but at last mustered courage, and told him that it was impossible, just then, for me to pay him a cent. He pretended to become very much enraged, told me that it was not usual for a gentleman to play upon honour unless he had the means to meet his liabilities; and that himself and friend must have the amount due them, or that they would make public my negligence in paying a debt of honour. I fully felt the force of his remarks, especially his reference to the 'debt of honour,' on which he laid great stress; for you know it is customary and usual to call a gambling debt a debt of honour, and they are to be paid before all others, and on demand, or the debtor is for ever disgraced,-wherefore, and for what reason, I am unable to say, yet it is so; and men who never dream of paying an honest debt, contracted for the support of themselves and families, never think for a moment of neglecting a 'debt of honour.' The Colonel, seeing my situation, and that his threats had their full effect, suggested that our father would aid

me.

This I knew was impossible, for my father was then hard pressed for money, and at any rate I did not wish him to know that I gambled,-for although he is devoted to the turf, and bets high, you know he never plays cards."

"Go on," muttered Morten gloomily, nodding his head.

"All this I made known to the Colonel, who, after musing a moment, and hesitating as if in doubt, at last said he had a proposition to make me, which, if I would accede to, would free both you and myself from our responsibilities. Of course I was delighted, and all eagerness to hear his welcome plan, and urged him to make it known immediately. He then told me that our father had two race mares, and that he had a short time previous offered him two thousand dollars for them,-and if I would now deliver them over to him, he would give both you and myself a full release. My eager hopes were crushed in a moment, and I told him that his plan did not change my difficulties; and to obtain the mares, I would have to acquaint my father with my indebtedness and gambling. Then it was," added Lonz, grinding his teeth with rage, "that he fully developed his hellish scheme, and which, I have no doubt now, he had in contemplation from the first, saying there was no necessity for my father knowing anything about it, since I could take (he did not have courage to say steal) the mares without his knowledge. Now, for the first time fully understanding his infernal design, I flew into a violent passion, cursing and abusing him for a base-souled villain, and asking, at the same time, if he thought me so debased and abandoned as to be guilty of theft, and that, too, from the kindest and best of fathers. The Colonel, during the fury of my first outbreak, stood perfectly cool and indifferent, with a sneer upon his mouth, as if I had said nothing more than he had expected; but presently perceiving that I had become more calm, he answered, with a laugh, that I must indeed be very silly if I understood him to advise theft;' that he had made the proposal as a favour, and for my benefit, and that he did not desire the mares, but his money, and that for himself, he looked upon it in no other light than a borrowing of that sum from the old man; that I was his son, and had an interest in his estate; that sooner

or later it would all be ours; that it would only be an advancement, and that it was the duty of our father to furnish us money to live according to our station in society; and that at any rate he would have to give us the money to meet those debts, which he could not do without selling the mares; and thus the result would be the same at all events-with this difference only, that if we did not take the mares, our father would know of our gambling, and could not sell the horses for a sufficient amount to meet our liabilities; for that he, by his proposition, was giving us over $3000 for them.' With such specious arguments as these, and hints at our disgrace, was I tempted, Morten, and lead astray, and at last induced to agree to his vile and nefarious project. He did not remain long after I had fallen and agreed to his plan, merely stopping to make known when and where I should deliver the horses, remarking, as he passed out of the room, 'that I had made a terrible "bugaboo" out of nothing, and that the whole thing was a good joke, and that he would yet laugh at the old man how he had been fooled by the boys.' A curse on the plausible, smooth-tongued hypocrite!" shouted Lonz, abruptly breaking off his story, and in his passion striking his spurs heavily into the sides of his mare; "I was mad then, and could not see through his cunning, but I know him now, and the hour of my vengeance will yet come!"

Had his enemy, the gambler Colonel, beheld the dark smile playing around his thin and compressed lips at that moment of threatened revenge, he would have trembled, rather than exulted in the success of his schemes.

"It is not necessary," he continued, in quick, abrupt tones, again turning to Morten, "to recount how I found you overwhelmed with your desperate situation, and dreaming of a bloody death; and how, after long persuasion-a malediction on my tongue that it ever moved for such a purpose !—and after using all the arguments urged by the Colonel to myself, induced you to join me in the" here he hesitated, and Morten concluded the sentence-Theft! why do you not speak it out? for theft it was, notwithstanding the sophistry of yourself and that plausible scoundrel, the Colonel! But why was it that you did not tell me

of this before, and that he, our destroyer, was not only the purchaser, but the originator of that hellish scheme ?"

"The Colonel enjoined it upon me, for a reason known then only to himself, to be silent respecting his name in my conversations with you," answered Lonz.

"The base blackleg!" hissed Morten, between his firmly set teeth; "I have no doubt, now that I know all, that he and that friend of his swindled and deceived us in the play. I had my suspicions even then; and had I known that he was the instigator of this other matter, then would I have been convinced; and notwithstanding his pretended station in society, and wealth, would have denounced him to his teeth as an unprincipled scoundrel!"

"But why not now expose him to our father, for he has every confidence in him, and, on no other ground, I believe, than that he is a Virginian; for to him all things, whether man or beast, so they hail from Virginia, are perfect."—"I had thought of so doing," said Lonz; "and it seems the Colonel had some fears also, for on his return to H, he sought me out, and threatened, if I whispered his name in connexion with the loss of the horses, or if our father treated him with the least coldness, then would he take occasion to make some remark respecting the mares he had purchased, and upon the denouncement, say, that he had received them from us; thinking of course we had brought them in accordance with the contract made by him a few days before the theft; and that he had paid over to us the two thousand dollars consideration money, which he could establish by the testimony of his friend; and that notwithstanding all we might say, the circumstances attendant on the transfer of the horses, would go far to prove to our father, that he was innocent and had stated the truth; and that we, for the mere sake of gain, had stolen the mares, and had added falsehood, to treachery and theft."-"Yes, yes; the artful knave had cunningly spread out his snares," said Morten, in a desponding voice, "and we have been netted beyond the possibility of escape. We are denied even the poor privilege of a confession, and a reliance upon our desperate and hopeless position, as a pretext or excuse for our crime. His reputation, I care not how false and groundless, still, his reputation, supported

by the evidence of his friend, and my ignorance of his being the purchaser and instigator of the theft, will bear him up free from all suspicion, while circumstances and facts will convict and crush us in our endeavour to escape. Oh! would to God that we had never touched the fatal cards! or that we had confessed all to our father; for then, although he might have been sorrowed and sorely troubled, yet would he have saved us from crime and dishonour, and we would not now be trembling for fear of detection. But what has Burton to do with this matter?"

"You know," replied Lonz, "that after we had taken-"

"Damn your smooth, oily words," interrupted Morten; "say stolen, at once; for, theft it was, and theft it will be; and there is no use now to be trying to smooth it over; and I hate that word, for it is the same used by that cunning knave, when he was decoying us to our ruin."

“Well, then, if you will have it so," replied Lonz, glancing uneasily around, "you know, after we had stolen the mares, you returned to H, and I proceeded to the appointed rendezvous. I had scarcely gone a mile, when, at a sudden turn in the path, I came full upon a horseman galloping furiously, meeting me, and that horseman was Burton. During the confusion of the moment, while attempting to draw back and disentangle the horses, my mask slipped off, exposing my face full to view; and I am fully confidant, although I passed rapidly on without halting or answering his salutation, that I was recognised. Since then old Sisk, on account of his general bad character, and on account of the tracks of the horses traced near his home-for I passed through his premises-has been arrested for the theft, and will be tried at the next Circuit Court at M——————, for our crime. The attorney for the commonwealth, by reason of something he has heard, has had Burton summoned in this case; and now, if we do not find means to close his mouth, we will yet, after all we have done and suffered, be exposed by him, and be for ever ruined and disgraced."

"I see, I see it all, Lonz!" exclaimed Morten, his face pale with agony and terror, while heavy drops of perspiration stood his brow, (6 we are indeed standing upon a fearful precipice;

upon