seen 'bout here dey may 'cuse me of murder. I can't go an' tell nuffin. Ole Peter's 'fraid. I must git away;" and gathering up his papers and the blanket again, he left the scene of the tragedy as rapidly as his disabled limbs would allow, feeling as if some fearful ghost were in close pursuit. Unconsciously, he carried the pistol with him, and was many squares away before he sufficiently collected his bewildered and terrified faculties, to observe the deadly weapon in his grasp. "What should he do with it?" at once flashed through his brain, and as the brightening daylight prevented his returning it to its place beside the victim, he resolved to keep it. He dared not cast it from him. As old Peter was too much frightened to reveal the truth concerning the tragedy, he resolved at once to keep the secret forever within his own breast, and as he was guilty of no crime, he had no fears of the mystery being revealed. So he went on in the advancing morning, on his long, tedious round of duty, and no single reader that day missed the "Courier" or suspected the secret that lay hidden in the carrier's breast. A few hours after the columns of the "Courier" had been carefully scanned, on this January morning, an "Extra" flashed from the press, and flooded the Queen City with consternation and many hearts with woe and lamentation. It ran thus: "Fearful tragedy! Mysterious assassination! Bridal day turned into a day of mourning and bitter disappointment! "This morning at an early hour the body of young Mark Abrams was discovered, dead, and lying in a pool of blood near the centre of the Citadel Square. How he came to his death is still a mystery, but it was undoubtedly by the hand of an assassin. The most terrible fact connected with this sad calamity, is, that the day of the unfortunate man's death was to have been his wedding day. He was to have married the second daughter of Benjamin Mordecai, Esq., banker. His body has been removed to the house of his father, the worthy rabbi of Maple Street Synagogue. The burial will take place this afternoon, at the hour appointed for the wedding ceremony. Seldom has the Queen City been so shocked; and many heavy hearts will to-day join in the wail of woe that goes up from the stricken family." Thus the bulletin ran, and surmise, consternation, and sorrow, were upon the lips of many men, women, and children in the Queen City. CHAPTER XVII.