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| ARRIVAL Of FIFTEEN FROM NORFOLK, VA. 561 atructed for the Underground Rail Road business, at the expense of the captain, and in accordance with his own plan. The entrance was dot sufficiently large to admit Mrs. Walker, so she with another female who *ag thought " too fet" to endure the cloee confinement, was secreted behind Setae corn back of the cabin, a plawso secluded that none save well-experienced searchers would be likely to find it In this way the Captain put out to sea. After some fifteen hqurs he deemed it safe to bring his passengers up on deck where they could inhale pare air which was greatly needed, as they had been next-door to suffocation and death. The change of air had such an effect on one of the passengers (Scott) that, in his excitement, he refused to conform, to the orders required; for prudential reasons the Captain, threatened to throw him over-board. Whereupon Soott lowered his tone. Before reaching the lock the Captain supposing that they might bo in danger from contact with boats, men, etc., again called upon them " to go into their hole" under the deck. Not even the big woman was excused now. She pleaded that she could not get through, her fellow-sufferers said that she roust be got through urging the matter on the ground that they would have great danger to face. The big woman again tried to effect an entrance, but in vain. £aid one of the more resolute sisters "she must take off her clothes then, it will never do to have her staying up on deck to betray all the rest;" thus this resolute stand being unanimous, the poor woman had to comply, and except a single garment she was as destitute of raiment as was Mother Eve before she induced Adam to oat of the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. With the help of passengers below, she was squeezed through, but not without bruising and breaking the skin considerably where the rub was severest. All were now beneath the deck, the well-fitting oil-cloth was put over the hole covering the cabin-floor snugly, and a heavy table was set over the hole. They are within sight of the lock, but no human beings are visible about the schooner save the Captain, the mate and a small boy, the eon of the Captain. At the lock not unexpectedly three officers came on board of the boat and stopped her. The Captai» was told that they had received a telegraphic dispatch from Norfolk to the effect that his boat was suspected of having slaves secreted thereon. They talked with the Captain aud mate separately for a considerable -while, and more closely did they examine the boy, but gained no information exeept that "the yellow-fever had been raging very bad in Norfolk." At this fever-news the officers were not a little alarmed, and they now lost no time in attending to their official errand. They searched the cabin where the two fat women were first secreted, and other parts of the boat pretty thoroughly. They then commenced taking up the hatchways, but the place seemed »o shockingly perfumed with foal air that the men started back and declared that nobody could live in each a place, and swore that it smelt like the yellow-fever; 36 |