and addressing the resolute Grantham, bids him lay aside his weapon.  Albeit he confesses his surprise at such strange insolence and interference; but, being responsible for the life, thinks it well to hold a parley before taking it.  Forsooth his words fall useless on the ears of Nicholas, as defiantly he encircles the woman’s waist with his left arm, bears her away to the block, dashes the chains from her hands, and, spurning the honied words of Fladge, hurls them in the air, crying:  “You have murdered the flesh;—­would you chain the soul?” As he spoke, the guard, having ascended the watch tower, rings out the first alarm peal.  “Dogs of savage might! ring your alarms; I care not,” he continued, casting a sardonic glance at the tower as the sound died away on his ear.  His pursuers now made a rush upon him, but ere they had secured him he seized a heavy bludgeon, and repelling their attack, found some hundred of his companions, armed with stone hammers, rallying in his defence.  Seeing this formidable force thus suddenly come to his rescue, Mr. Fladge and his force were compelled to fall back before the advance.  Gallantly did Nicholas lead on his sable band, as the woman sought refuge in one of the cells, Mr. Fladge and his posse retreating into the guard-house.  Nicholas, now in full possession of the citadel, and with consternation and confusion triumphant within the walls, found it somewhat difficult to restrain his forces from taking possession of the guardhouse, and putting to death those who had sought shelter therein.  Calmly but firmly did he appeal to them, and beseech them not to commit an outrage against life.  As he had placed himself between the woman and her pursuers, so did he place himself before a file of his sable companions, who, with battle hammers extended, rushed for the great gates, as the second alarm rung out its solemn peal.  Counselling his compatriots to stand firm, he gathered them together in the centre of the square, and addressed them in a fervent tone, the purport of which was, that having thus suddenly and unexpectedly become plunged into what would be viewed by the laws of the land as insurrection, they must stand on the defensive, and remember it were better to die in defence of right than live under the ignorance and sorrow of slavery.

While our hero-whose singular exploit we have divested of that dramatic effect presented in the original-addressed his forlorn band in the area of the prison, strange indeed was the scene of confusion presenting along the streets of the city.  The alarm peals had not died ineffectual on the air, for as a messenger was despatched to warn the civil authorities of the sad dilemma at the prison, the great bell of St. Michael’s church answered the warning peal with two loud rings; and simultaneously the city re-echoed the report of a bloody insurrection.  On the long line of wharfs half circling the city, stood men aghast with fright; to the west all was quiet about the battery; to the