along the river, and the other burst forth, in gleams from the sky and bloom upon the earth.
But these sights were not such as greatly to amuse our lieutenant, and the time passed heavily enough, until about eight o'clock, when, from the river's edge, he distinguished, crossing the bridge at Dorchester, the time-worn, bent figure of old dame Blonay. She was on her way to the garrison for the revelation of that intelligence which his father had by this time already unfolded. The lieutenant now understood a part of the design, and readily conceived that such was the purport of her visit to the village. Yet why had not her son undertaken the task himself? Why depute to an infirm old woman the performance of an object so important? The question puzzled him; and it was only a dim conjecture of the truth, which led him to believe that Goggle had made his way back to camp with the view to some farther treachery.
As the hag grew more distinct to his eye, in the increasing light, her sharp features—the subtle cast of her eye—the infirm crazy motion—bent shoulders, and witch-like staff which she carried, brought many unpleasant fancies to the mind of the observer; and the singular, and, to him, the superstitious fear which he had felt while gazing upon her, through the crevices of her hut the night before, came back to him with increased influence. He thought of the thousand strange stories of the neighbourhood, about the witchcraft practised by her and others. Indian doctors were then, all over the country, renowned for their cures, all of which were effected by trick and mummery, mixed up with a due proportion of forest medicines—wild roots and plants, the properties of which, known through long ages to the aborigines, were foreign to the knowledge, and therefore marvellous in the estimation of the whites. To their arts, the Gullah and the Ebo negroes, of which the colony had its thousands furnished by the then unscrupulous morality of the mother country and the northern colonies, added their spells and magic, in no stinted quantities, and of the foulest and filthiest attributes. The conjuration of these two classes became united in the practice of the cunning white, of an order little above them, and mother Blonay formed the representative of a sect in the lower country of South Carolina, by no means small in number or trifling in influ-
