i
.^
F
•t
J P »
THE PARTISAN.
admitted, as one who had been waited for. There we shall leave him, conferring closely with a select few, busy, like himself, in preparations for a general uprising of the people. . CHAPTER XIX. r She is lost ! — She is saved!— -Goethe.
- Humphries, poor old man, placed himself at an
f L, eastern window, the moment his son had departed, to } watch for the first openings of the daylight. What a task had he to perform ! what a disclosure to make ! ^ and how should he evade the doubt, though complying with the suggestion of reason and his son alike, that he should, by the development he was about to make, compromise the safety of the latter. Should he be ! taken, the evidence of the father would be adequate to i his conviction, and that evidence he was now about to offer to the enemy. He was to denounce him as a rebel, an outlaw, whom the leader of a single troop might hang without a trial, the moment he was ar- rested. The old man grew miserable with his reflec- tions, and there was but one source of consolation. Fortunately, the supply of old Jamaica in the " Royal George " was still good ; and a tumbler of the precious beverage, fitly seasoned with warm spices and sugar, was not inefiectually employed to serve the desired purpose. And with this only companion, whose presence mo- mently grew less, the worthy landlord watched for the daylight from his window ; and soon the gray mist rose up like a thin veil over the tops of the tall trees, and the pale stars came retreating away from the more powerful array which was at hand. The hum of the night insects was over — the hoarse chant of the frog family was silent, as their unerring senses
