active for him, moving herself along the ground, though in doing so she dragged him with her.  But by degrees he got one hand at liberty, and with that he pulled a clasp knife out of his pocket and opened it.  “I will cut your head off if you do not let go my hair,” he said.  But still she held fast by him.  He then stabbed at her arm, using his left hand and making short, ineffectual blows.  Her dress partly saved her, and partly also the continual movement of all her limbs; but, nevertheless, the knife wounded her.  It wounded her in several places about the arm, covering them both with blood;—but still she hung on.  So close was her grasp in her agony, that, as she afterwards found, she cut the skin of her own hands with her own nails.  Had the man’s hair been less thick or strong, or her own tenacity less steadfast, he would have murdered her before any interruption could have saved her.

And yet he had not purposed to murder her, or even, in the first instance, to inflict on her any bodily harm.  But he had been determined to get money.  With such a sum of money as he had named, it might, he thought, be possible for him to win his way across to America.  He might bribe men to hide him in the hold of a ship, and thus there might be for him, at any rate, a possibility of escape.  That there must be money in the house he had still thought when first he laid hands on the poor woman; and then, when the struggle had once begun, when he had felt her muscles contending with his, the passion of the beast was aroused within him, and he strove against her as he would have striven against a dog.  But yet, when the knife was in his hand, he had not driven it against her heart.

Then suddenly, while they were yet rolling on the floor, there was a sound of footsteps in the passage.  Aaron Trow instantly leaped to his feet, leaving his victim on the ground, with huge lumps of his thick clotted hair in her hand.  Thus, and thus only, could he have liberated himself from her grasp.  He rushed at the door, and there he came against the two negro servant-girls who had returned down to their kitchen from the road on which they had been straying.  Trow, as he half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might be, or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them, upsetting one scared girl in his passage.  With the instinct and with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape, and he hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the three women together in the cottage.  Poor wretch!  As he crossed the road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but running at his best, another pair of eyes saw him, and when the search became hot after him, it was known that his hiding-place was not distant.

It was some time before any of the women were able to act, and when some step was taken, Anastasia was the first to take it.  She had not absolutely swooned, but the reaction, after the violence of her efforts, was so great, that for some minutes she had been unable to speak.  She had risen from the floor when Trow left her, and had even followed him to the door; but since that she had fallen back into her father’s old arm-chair, and there sat gasping not only for words, but for breath also.

At last she bade one of the girls to run into St. George, and beg Mr. Morton to come to her aid.  The girl would not stir without her companion; and even then, Anastasia, covered as she was with blood, with dishevelled hair, and her clothes half torn from her body, accompanied them as far as the road.  There they found a negro lad still hanging about the place, and he told them that he had seen the man cross the road, and run down over the open ground towards the rocks of the sea-coast.  “He must be there,” said the lad, pointing in the direction of a corner of the rocks; “unless he swim across the mouth of the ferry.”  But the mouth of that ferry is an arm of the sea, and it was not probable that a man would do that when he might have taken the narrow water by keeping on the other side of the road.

At about one that night Caleb Morton reached the cottage breathless with running, and before a word was spoken between them, Anastasia had fallen on his shoulder and had fainted.  As soon as she was in the arms of her lover, all her power had gone from her.  The spirit and passion of the tiger had gone, and she was again a weak woman shuddering at the thought of what she had suffered.  She remembered that she had had the man’s hand between her teeth, and by degrees she found his hair still clinging to her fingers; but even then she could hardly call to mind the nature of the struggle she had undergone.  His hot breath close to her own cheek she did remember, and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his beard as he pressed his face against her own; but she could not say whence had come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and motionless did she know that she had been wounded.

It was all joy with her now, as she sat motionless without speaking, while he administered to her wants and spoke words of love into her ears.  She remembered the man’s horrid threat, and knew that by God’s mercy she had been saved.  And he was there caressing her, loving her, comforting her!  As she thought of the fate that had threatened her, of the evil that had been so imminent, she fell forward on her knees, and with incoherent sobs uttered her thanksgivings, while her head was still supported on his arms.

It was almost morning before she could induce herself to leave him and lie down.  With him she seemed to be so perfectly safe; but the moment he was away she could see Aaron Trow’s eyes gleaming at her across the room.  At last, however, she slept; and when he saw that she was at rest, he told himself that his work must then begin.  Hitherto Caleb Morton had lived in all respects the life of a man of peace; but now, asking himself no questions as to the propriety of what he would do, using no inward arguments as to this or that line of conduct, he girded the sword on his loins, and prepared himself for war.  The wretch who had thus treated the woman whom he loved should be hunted down like a wild beast, as long as he had arms and legs with which to carry on the hunt.  He would pursue the miscreant with any weapons that might come to his hands; and might Heaven help him at his need as he dealt forth punishment to that man, if he caught him within his grasp.  Those who had hitherto known Morton in the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that day, thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into personal conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him.  The meek Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of peace, and living in accordance with his own doctrines.  The world had been very quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his appointed path.  But now the world was quiet no longer, nor was there any preaching of peace.  His cry was for blood; for the blood of the untamed savage brute who had come upon his young doe in her solitude, and striven with such brutal violence to tear her heart from her bosom.

He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the constables from St. George, and before the day was over, he was joined by two or three of the warders from the convict establishment.  There was with him also a friend or two, and thus a party was formed, numbering together ten or twelve persons.  They were of course all armed, and therefore it might be thought that there would be but small chance for the wretched man if they should come upon his track.  At first they all searched together, thinking from the tidings which had reached them that he must be near to them; but gradually they spread themselves along the rocks between St. George and the ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not escape unnoticed into the island.

Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage up to Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come down to her.