The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-10-16

III II alSO, III Jel I1lnuJ6S,s Blep5 as
soundly as before, bnt the awakening
soon came again. 3
! I9opened my eyes to ace n girl
4 standing as the foot OF my bed. A
girl in white robes, with golden hair
ell about her shoulders, who wrung
4 her hands and cried: sob, wake up,
you are wanted at the cross roads"
| This time I started out OF bed,
bathed in q cold perspiration. ]
trembled like leaf. had no doubt
that I had received supernatural
warming.
/ "Ben.," I cried, "Ben., for the
third time have been told that am
wanted at the cross roads, and I am
going"
And I began to dress myself as
speedily as possible, listening the
while to the storm raging wilder and
wilder than at any other period since
its commencement.
Ben. demonstrated with me in vain.
At last, he also began to huddle on
his clothes.
''If you have gone mad, L must go
with you and take care of you," he
said.
"But fancy another man, going
out in storm like this to the cross
roads, because q nightmare caused
him to do so, and what would you
think of him?"
I said nothing. All I could have
answered would have been:
"I am compelled to go; I must go.
dare not refuse, whatever may be
thought of me?"
| In ten minutes we were splashing
through the mud and rain along the
road. It was perfectly dark; now
and then O blazed red star in the dis
tance told us that lamp was beam
ing through the rain in some cottage
window, but otherwise we would not
have been conscious of our proximi-
ty to any habitation whatever. At
last, nearing the spot where the road
from s. crosses the road to P
we were indeed in as solitary place
as can be imagined.
The house, which abutted on the
very angle of the roads, called in
familiar parlance the Cross Roads,
was the only one for some distance
in either direction, and certainly on
such q night we were not likely to
meet many travellers.
All was quiet us the grave. We
stood quite still. In moment, Ben.
broke out in one of his widest
laughs.
"Well," he said, chow now?"
Will you go home now, and have
another nightmare?"
But hardly had the words escaped
his lips, when q shrek broke on the
air, and woman's voice, plainly COM
ing from the interior of the cottage,
cried:
"Help! help! help!"
"Ben.," said I, 1--WE are wanted at
the cross roads," and then under
standing each other, without more
words we made our way to the win
dow, through which a light shone.
A muslin curtain draped the panes,
but through it we saw IN awful
sight.
An old man lay on the floor, and
over him bent a ruffian, clutching
his throat, and holding pistol to
his ear, while another man grasped
the shrieking girl by the arm-a girl
in floating night dress-with such
long golden hair as belonged to the
girl of my vision. Not moment
was to be wasted. Ben. flung his
weight against the slender lattice and
crushed it in, and we had grappled
the ruffians before they knew whence
tho attack came, or how may foes
were upon them.
I do not intend to describe the
struggle; indeed, I could not, if I
would. But we were strong men
and inspired by the cries of the help
less old man and the terrified girl,
We soon had one of the villains bound
and the other lying PROSTATE on the
floor.
Then Ben. started for assistance,
and, before morning, both were in
Jail. Ben. admitted, us we shook
each other by the hand, that "we
were wanted ut the cross roads"
The old man was not miser, but
he had saved some few thousand
dollars for his old age, and living
more plainly than he need have done,
had given rise to the rumor, and so
brought the burglars to the cross
roads in the hope of booty.
The girl, beautiful creature of
seventeen, was his granddaughter,
and as no story is acceptable to the