Salute to Adventurers by John Buchan (page 3)

But in that hour I thought little of education. The Doctor boomed away in his deep voice, and I gave him heedless answers. My eyes were ever wandering to the slim figure at my side. She wore a broad hat of straw, I remember, and her skirt and kirtle were of green, the fairies’ colour. I think she was wearied with the sun, for she spoke little; but her eyes when they met mine were kind. That day I was not ashamed of my plain clothes or my homely face, for they suited well with the road. My great boots of untanned buckskin were red with dust, I was bronzed like an Indian, and the sun had taken the colour out of my old blue coat. But I smacked of travel and enterprise, which to an honest heart are dearer than brocade. Also I had a notion that my very homeliness revived in her the memories of our common motherland. I had nothing to say, having acquired the woodland habit of silence, and perhaps it was well. My clumsy tongue would have only broken the spell which the sunlit forests had woven around us.

As we reached my house a cavalier rode up with a bow and a splendid sweep of his hat. ‘Twas my acquaintance, Mr. Grey, come to greet the travellers. Elspeth gave me her hand at parting, and I had from the cavalier the finest glance of hate and jealousy which ever comforted the heart of a backward lover.

CHAPTER XII.

A WORD AT THE HARBOUR-SIDE.

The next Sunday I was fool enough to go to church, for Doctor Blair was announced to preach the sermon. Now I knew very well what treatment I should get, and that it takes a stout fellow to front a conspiracy of scorn. But I had got new courage from my travels, so I put on my best suit of murrey-coloured cloth, my stockings of cherry silk, the gold buckles which had been my father’s, my silk-embroidered waistcoat, freshly-ironed ruffles, and a new hat which had cost forty shillings in London town. I wore my own hair, for I never saw the sense of a wig save for a bald man, but I had it deftly tied. I would have cut a great figure had there not been my bronzed and rugged face to give the lie to my finery.

It was a day of blistering heat. The river lay still as a lagoon, and the dusty red roads of the town blazed like a furnace. Before I had got to the church door I was in a great sweat, and stopped in the porch to fan myself. Inside ’twas cool enough, with a pleasant smell from the cedar pews, but there was such a press of a congregation that many were left standing. I had a good place just below the choir, where I saw the Governor’s carved chair, with the Governor’s self before it on his kneeling-cushion making pretence to pray. Round the choir rail and below the pulpit clustered many young exquisites, for this was a sovereign place from which to show off their finery. I could not get a sight of Elspeth.

Doctor Blair preached us a fine sermon from the text, “_My people shall dwell in a pleasant habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places!”_ But his hearers were much disturbed by the continual chatter of the fools about the choir rail. Before he had got to the Prayer of Chrysostom the exquisites were whispering like pigeons in a dovecot, exchanging snuff-boxes, and ogling the women. So intolerable it grew that the Doctor paused in his discourse and sternly rebuked them, speaking of the laughter of fools which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot. This silenced them for a little, but the noise broke out during the last prayer, and with the final word of the Benediction my gentlemen thrust their way through the congregation, that they might be the first at the church door. I have never seen so unseemly a sight, and for a moment I thought that Governor Nicholson would call the halberdiers and set them in the pillory. He refrained, though his face was dark with wrath, and I judged that there would be some hard words said before the matter was finished.

I must tell you that during the last week I had been coming more into favour with the prosperous families of the colony. Some one may have spoken well of me, perhaps the Doctor, or they may have seen the justice of my way of trading. Anyhow, I had a civil greeting from several of the planters, and a bow from their dames. But no sooner was I in the porch than I saw that trouble was afoot with the young bloods. They were drawn up on both sides the path, bent on quizzing me. I sternly resolved to keep my temper, but I foresaw that it would not be easy.

“Behold the shopman in his Sunday best,” said one.

“I thought that Sawney wore bare knees on his dirty hills,” said another.

One pointed to my buckles. “Pinchbeck out of the store,” he says.

“Ho, ho, such finery!” cried another. “See how he struts like a gamecock.”

“There’s much ado when beggars ride,” said a third, quoting the proverb.

It was all so pitifully childish that it failed to provoke me. I marched down the path with a smile on my face, which succeeded in angering them. One young fool, a Norton from Malreward, would have hustled me, but I saw Mr. Grey hold him back. “No brawling here, Austin,” said my rival.

They were not all so discreet. One of the Kents of Gracedieu tried to trip me by thrusting his cane between my legs. But! was ready for him, and, pulling up quick and bracing my knees, I snapped the thing short, so that he was left to dangle the ivory top.

Then he did a wild thing. He flung the remnant at my face, so that the ragged end scratched my cheek. When I turned wrathfully I found a circle of grinning faces.

It is queer how a wound, however slight, breaks a man’s temper and upsets his calm resolves, I think that then and there I would have been involved in a mellay, had not a voice spoke behind me.

“Mr. Garvald,” it said, “will you give me the favour of your arm? We dine to-day with his Excellency.”

I turned to find Elspeth, and close behind her Doctor Blair and Governor Nicholson.

All my heat left me, and I had not another thought for my tormentors. In that torrid noon she looked as cool and fragrant as a flower. Her clothes were simple compared with the planters’ dames, but of a far more dainty fashion. She wore, I remember, a gown of pale sprigged muslin, with a blue kerchief about her shoulders and blue ribbons in her wide hat. As her hand lay lightly on my arm I did not think of my triumph, being wholly taken up with the admiration of her grace. The walk was all too short, for the Governor’s lodging was but a stone’s-throw distant. When we parted at the door I hoped to find some of my mockers still lingering, for in that hour I think I could have flung any three of them into the river.

None were left, however, and as I walked homewards I reflected very seriously that the baiting of Andrew Garvald could not endure for long. Pretty soon I must read these young gentry a lesson, little though I wanted to embroil myself in quarrels. I called them “young” in scorn, but few of them, I fancy, were younger than myself.

Next day, as it happened, I had business with Mercer at the water-side, and as I returned along the harbour front I fell in with the Receiver of Customs, who was generally called the Captain of the Castle, from his station at Point Comfort. He was an elderly fellow who had once been a Puritan, and still cherished a trace of the Puritan modes of speech. I had often had dealings with him, and had found him honest, though a thought truculent in manner. He had a passion against all smugglers and buccaneers, and, in days to come, was to do good service in ridding Accomac of these scourges. He feared God, and did not greatly fear much else.

He was sitting on the low wall smoking a pipe, and had by him a very singular gentleman. Never have I set eyes on a more decorous merchant. He was habited neatly and soberly in black, with a fine white cravat and starched shirt-bands. He wore a plain bob-wig below a huge flat-brimmed hat, and big blue spectacles shaded his eyes. His mouth was as precise as a lawyer’s, and altogether he was a very whimsical, dry fellow to find at a Virginian port.

The Receiver called me to him and asked after a matter which we had spoken of before. Then he made me known to his companion, who was a Mr. Fairweather, a merchant out of Boston.

“The Lord hath given thee a pleasant dwelling, friend,” said the stranger, snuffling a little through his nose.

From his speech I knew that Mr. Fairweather was of the sect of the Quakers, a peaceable race that Virginia had long ill-treated.

“The land is none so bad,” said the Receiver, “but the people are a perverse generation. Their hearts are set on vanity, and puffed up with pride. I could wish, Mr. Fairweather, that my lines had fallen among your folk in the north, where, I am told, true religion yet flourisheth. Here we have nothing but the cold harangues of the Commissary, who seeketh after the knowledge that perisheth rather than the wisdom which is eternal life.”

“Patience, friend,” said the stranger. “Thee is not alone in thy crosses. The Lord hath many people up Boston way, but they are sore beset by the tribulations of Zion. On land there is war and rumour of war, and on the sea the ships of the godly are snatched by every manner of ocean thief. Likewise we have dissension among ourselves, and a constant strife with the froward human heart. Still is Jerusalem troubled, and there is no peace within her bulwarks.”

“Do the pirates afflict you much in the north?” asked the Receiver with keen interest. The stranger turned his large spectacles upon him, and then looked blandly at me. Suddenly I had a notion that I had seen that turn of the neck and poise of the head before.

“Woe is me,” he cried in a stricken voice. “The French have two fair vessels of mine since March, and a third is missing. Some say it ran for a Virginian port, and I am here to seek it. Heard thee ever, friend, of a strange ship in the James or the Potomac?”

“There be many strange ships,” said the Receiver, “for this dominion is the goal for all the wandering merchantmen of the earth. What was the name of yours?”

“A square-rigged schooner out of Bristol, painted green, with a white figurehead of a winged heathen god.”

“And the name?”

“The name is a strange one. It is called _The Horn of Diarmaid_, but I seek to prevail on the captain to change it to _The Horn of Mercy_.”

“No such name is known to me,” and the Receiver shook his head. “But I will remember it, and send you news.”

I hope I did not betray my surprise, but for all that it was staggering. Of all disguises and of all companies this was the most comic and the most hazardous. I stared across the river till I had mastered my countenance, and when I looked again at the two they were soberly discussing the harbour dues of Boston.

Presently the Receiver’s sloop arrived to carry him to Point Comfort. He nodded to me, and took an affectionate farewell of the Boston man. I heard some good mouth-filling texts exchanged between them.

Then, when we were alone, the Quaker turned to me. “Man, Andrew,” he said, “it was a good thing that I had a Bible upbringing. I can manage the part fine, but I flounder among the ‘thees’ and ‘thous.’ I would be the better of a drink to wash my mouth of the accursed pronouns. Will you be alone to-night about the darkening? Then I’ll call in to see you, for I’ve much to tell you.”

* * * * *

That evening about nine the Quaker slipped into my room.

“How about that tobacco-shed?” he asked. “Is it well guarded?”

“Faulkner and one of the men sleep above it, and there are a couple of fierce dogs chained at the door. Unless they know the stranger, he will be apt to lose the seat of his breeches.”

The Quaker nodded, well pleased. “That is well, for I heard word in the town that to-night you might have a visitor or two.” Then he walked to a stand of arms on the wall and took down a small sword, which he handled lovingly. “A fair weapon, Andrew,” said he. “My new sect forbids me to wear a blade, but I think I’ll keep this handy beside me in the chimney corner.”

Then he gave me the news. Lawrence had been far inland with the Monacans, and had brought back disquieting tales. The whole nation of the Cherokees along the line of the mountains was unquiet. Old family feuds had been patched up, and there was a coming and going of messengers from Chickamauga to the Potomac.

“Well, we’re ready for them,” I said, and I told him the full story of our preparations.

“Ay, but that is not all. I would not give much for what the Cherokees and the Tuscaroras could do. There might be some blood shed and a good few blazing roof-trees in the back country, but no Indian raid would stand against our lads. But I have a notion–maybe it’s only a notion, though Lawrence is half inclined to it himself–that there’s more in this business than a raid from the hills. There’s something stirring in the West, away in the parts that no White man has ever travelled. From what I learn there’s a bigger brain than an Indian’s behind it.”

“The French?” I asked.

“Maybe, but maybe not. What’s to hinder a blackguard like Cosh, with ten times Cosh’s mind, from getting into the Indian councils, and turning the whole West loose on the Tidewater??

“Have you any proof?” I asked, much alarmed.

“Little at present. But one thing I know. There’s a man among the tribes that speaks English.”

“Great God, what a villain!” I cried, “But how do you know?”

“Just this way. The Monacans put an arrow through the neck of a young brave, and they found this in his belt.”

He laid before me a bit of a printed Bible leaf. About half was blank paper, for it came at the end of the Book of Revelation. On the blank part some signs had been made in rude ink which I could not understand.

“But this is no proof,” I said. “It’s only a relic from some plundered settlement. Can you read those marks?”

“I cannot, nor could the Monacans. But look at the printed part.”

I looked again, and saw that some one had very carefully underlined certain words. These made a sentence, and read, “_John, servant of the prophecy, is at hand._”

“The underlining may have been done long ago,” I hazarded.

“No, the ink is not a month old,” he said, and I could do nothing but gape.

“Well what’s your plan?” I said at last.

“None, but I would give my right hand to know what is behind the hills. That’s our weakness, Andrew. We have to wait here, and since we do not know the full peril, we cannot fully prepare. There may be mischief afoot which would rouse every sleepy planter out of bed, and turn the Tidewater into an armed camp. But we know nothing. If we had only a scout–“.

“What about Shalah?” I asked.

“Can you spare him?” he replied; and I knew I could not.

“I see nothing for it,” I said, “but to wait till we are ready, and then to make a reconnaissance, trusting to be in time. This is the first week of July. In another fortnight every man on our list will be armed, and every line of communication laid. Then is our chance to make a bid for news.”

He nodded, and at that moment came the growling of dogs from the sheds. Instantly his face lost its heavy preoccupation, and under his Quaker’s mask became the mischievous countenance of a boy. “That’s your friends,” he said. “Now for a merry meeting.”

In the sultry weather I had left open window and door, and every sound came clear from the outside. I heard the scuffling of feet, and some confused talk, and presently there stumbled into my house half a dozen wild-looking figures. They blinked in the lamplight, and one begged to know if “Mr. Garbled” were at home. All had decked themselves for this play in what they fancied was the dress of pirates–scarlet sashes, and napkins or turbans round their heads, big boots, and masks over their eyes. I did not recognize a face, but I was pretty clear that Mr. Grey was not of the number, and I was glad, for the matter between him and me was too serious for this tomfoolery. All had been drinking, and one at least was very drunk. He stumbled across the floor, and all but fell on Ringan in his chair.

“Hullo, old Square-Toes,” he hiccupped; “what the devil are you?”

“Friend, thee is shaky on thy legs,” said Ringan, in a mild voice, “It were well for thee to be in bed.”

“Bed,” cried the roysterer; “no bed for me this night! Where is that damnable Scots packman?”

I rose very quietly, and lit another lamp. Then I shut the window, and closed the shutters. “Here I am,” I said, “very much at your service, gentlemen.”

One or two of the sober ones looked a little embarrassed, but the leader, who I guessed was the youth from Gracedieu, was brave enough.

“The gentlemen of Virginia,” he said loudly, “being resolved that the man Garvald is an offence to the dominion, have summoned the Free Companions to give him a lesson. If he will sign a bond to leave the country within a month, we are instructed to be merciful. If not, we have here tar and feathers and sundry other adornments, and to-morrow’s morn will behold a pretty sight. Choose, you Scots swine.” In the excess of his zeal, he smashed with the handle of his sword a clock I had but lately got from Glasgow.

Ringan signed to me to keep my temper. He pretended to be in a great taking.

“I am a man of peace,” he cried, “but I cannot endure to see my friend outraged. Prithee, good folk, go away. See, I will give thee a guinea each to leave us alone.”

This had the desired effect of angering them. “Curse your money,” one cried. “You damned traders think that you can buy a gentleman. Take that for your insult.” And he aimed a blow with the flat of his sword, which Ringan easily parried.

“I had thought thee a pirate,” said the mild Quaker, “but thee tells me thee is a gentleman.”

“Hold your peace, Square-Toes,” cried the leader, “and let’s get to business.”

“But if ye be gentlefolk,” pleaded Ringan, “ye will grant a fair field. I am no fighter, but I will stand by my friend.”

I, who had said nothing, now broke in. “It is a warm evening for sword-play, but if it is your humour, so be it.”

This seemed to them hugely comic. “La!” cried one. “Sawney with a sword!” And he plucked forth his own blade, and bent it on the floor.

Ringan smiled gently, “Thee must grant me the first favour,” he said, “for I am the challenger, if that be the right word of the carnally minded.” And standing up, he picked up the blade from beside him, and bowed to the leader from Gracedieu.

Nothing loath he engaged, and the others stood back expecting a high fiasco. They saw it. Ringan’s sword played like lightning round the wretched youth, it twitched the blade from his grasp, and forced him back with a very white face to the door. In less than a minute, it seemed, he was there, and as he yielded so did the door, and he disappeared into the night. He did not return, so I knew that Ringan must have spoke a word to Faulkner.

“Now for the next bloody-minded pirate,” cried Ringan, and the next with a very wry face stood up. One of the others would have joined in, but, crying, “For shame, a fair field,” I beat down his sword.

The next took about the same time to reach the door, and disappeared into the darkness, and the third about half as long. Of the remaining three, one sulkily declined to draw, and the other two were over drunk for anything. They sat on the floor and sang a loose song.

“It seems, friends,” said the Quaker, “that ye be more ready with words than with deeds. I pray thee”–this to the sober one–“take off these garments of sin. We be peaceful traders, and cannot abide the thought of pirates.”

He took them off, sash, breeches, jerkin, turban, and all, and stood up in his shirt. The other two I stripped myself, and so drunk were they that they entered into the spirit of the thing, and themselves tore at the buttons. Then with Ringan’s sword behind them, the three marched out of doors.

There we found their companions stripped and sullen, with Faulkner and the men to guard them. We made up neat parcels of their clothes, and I extorted their names, all except one who was too far gone in drink.

“To-morrow, gentlemen,” I said, “I will send back your belongings, together with the tar and feathers, which you may find useful some other day. The night is mild, and a gentle trot will keep you from taking chills. I should recommend hurry, for in five minutes the dogs will be loosed. A pleasant journey to you.”

They moved off, and then halted and apparently were for returning. But they thought better of it, and presently they were all six of them racing and stumbling down the hill in their shifts.

The Quaker stretched his legs and lit a pipe. “Was it not a scurvy trick of fate,” he observed to the ceiling, “that these poor lads should come here for a night’s fooling, and find the best sword in the Five Seas?”

CHAPTER XIII.

I STUMBLE INTO A GREAT FOLLY.

I never breathed a word about the night’s doings, nor for divers reasons did Ringan; but the story got about, and the young fools were the laughing-stock of the place. But there was a good deal of wrath, too, that a trader should have presumed so far, and I felt that things were gathering to a crisis with me. Unless I was to suffer endlessly these petty vexations, I must find a bold stroke to end them. It annoyed me that when so many grave issues were in the balance I should have these troubles, as if a man should be devoured by midges when waiting on a desperate combat.

The crisis came sooner than I looked for. There was to be a great horse-racing at Middle Plantation the next Monday, which I had half a mind to attend, for, though I cared nothing for the sport, it would give me a chance of seeing some of our fellows from the York River. One morning I met Elspeth in the street of James Town, and she cried laughingly that she looked to see me at the races. After that I had no choice but go; so on the Monday morning I dressed myself with care, mounted my best horse, and rode to the gathering.

‘Twas a pretty sight to see the spacious green meadow, now a little yellowing with the summer heat, set in the girdle of dark and leafy forest. I counted over forty chariots which had brought the rank of the countryside, each with its liveried servant and its complement of outriders. The fringe of the course blazed with ladies’ finery, and a tent had been set up with a wide awning from which the fashionables could watch the sport. On the edge of the woods a multitude of horses were picketed, and there were booths that sold food and drink, merry-go-rounds and fiddlers, and an immense concourse of every condition of folk, black slaves and water-side Indians, squatters from the woods, farmers from all the valleys, and the scum and ruck of the plantations. I found some of my friends, and settled my business with them, but my eyes were always straying to the green awning where I knew that Elspeth sat.

I am no judge of racing, but I love the aspect of sleek, slim horses, and I could applaud a skill in which I had no share. I can keep my seat on most four-legged beasts, but my horsemanship is a clumsy, rough-and-ready affair, very different from the effortless grace of your true cavalier. Mr. Grey’s prowess, especially, filled me with awe. He would leap an ugly fence without moving an inch in his saddle, and both in skill and the quality of his mounts he was an easy victor. The sight of such accomplishments depressed my pride, and I do not think I would have ventured near the tent had it not been for the Governor.

He saw me on the fringe of the crowd, and called me to him. “What bashfulness has taken you to-day, sir?” he cried, “That is not like your usual. There are twenty pretty dames here who pine for a word from you.”

I saw his purpose well enough. He loved to make mischief, and knew that the sight of me among the Virginian gentry would infuriate my unfriends. But I took him at his word and elbowed my way into the enclosure.

Then I wished to Heaven I had stayed at home. I got insolent glances from the youths, and the cold shoulder from the ladies. Elspeth smiled when she saw me, but turned the next second to gossip with her little court. She was a devout lover of horses, and had eyes for nothing but the racing. Her cheeks were flushed, and it was pretty to watch her excitement; how she hung breathless on the movements of the field, and clapped her hands at a brave finish. Pretty, indeed, but exasperating to one who had no part in that pleasant company.

I stood gloomily by the rail at the edge of the ladies’ awning, acutely conscious of my loneliness. Presently Mr. Grey, whose racing was over, came to us, and had a favour pinned in his coat by Elspeth’s fingers. He was evidently high in her good graces, for he sat down by her and talked gleefully. I could not but admire his handsome eager face, and admit with a bitter grudge that you would look long to find a comelier pair.

All this did not soothe my temper, and after an hour of it I was in desperate ill-humour with the world. I had just reached the conclusion that I had had as much as I wanted, when I heard Elspeth’s voice calling me.

“Come hither, Mr. Garvald,” she said. “We have a dispute which a third must settle. I favour the cherry, and Mr. Grey fancies the blue; but I maintain that blue crowds cherry unfairly at the corners. Use your eyes, sir, at the next turning.”

I used my eyes, which are very sharp, and had no doubt of it.

“That is a matter for the Master of the Course,” said Mr. Grey. “Will you uphold your view before him, sir?”

I said that I knew too little of the sport to be of much weight as a witness. To this he said nothing, but offered to wager with me on the result of the race, which was now all but ending. “Or no,” said he, “I should not ask you that. A trader is careful of his guineas.”

Elspeth did not hear, being intent on other things, and I merely shrugged my shoulders, though my fingers itched for the gentleman’s ears.

In a little the racing ceased, and the ladies made ready to leave. Doctor Blair appeared, protesting that the place was not for his cloth, and gave Elspeth his arm to escort her to his coach. She cried a merry good-day to us, and reminded Mr. Grey that he had promised to sup with them on the morrow. When she had gone I spied a lace scarf which she had forgotten, and picked it up to restore it.

This did not please the other. He snatched it from me, and when I proposed to follow, tripped me deftly, and sent me sprawling among the stools. As I picked myself up, I saw him running to overtake the Blairs.

This time there was no discreet girl to turn the edge of my fury. All the gibes and annoyances of the past months rushed into my mind, and set my head throbbing. I was angry, but very cool with it all, for I saw that the matter had now gone too far for tolerance. Unless I were to be the butt of Virginia, I must assert my manhood.

I nicked the dust from my coat, and walked quietly to where Mr. Grey was standing amid a knot of his friends, who talked of the races and their losses and gains. He saw me coming, and said something which made them form a staring alley, down which I strolled. He kept regarding me with bright, watchful eyes.

“I have been very patient, sir,” I said, “but there is a limit to what a man may endure from a mannerless fool.” And I gave him a hearty slap on the face.

Instantly there was a dead silence, in which the sound seemed to linger intolerably. He had grown very white, and his eyes were wicked.

“I am obliged to you, sir,” he said. “You are some kind of ragged gentleman, so no doubt you will give me satisfaction.”

“When and where you please,” I said sedately.

“Will you name your friend now?” he asked. “These matters demand quick settlement.”

To whom was I to turn? I knew nobody of the better class who would act for me. For a moment I thought of Colonel Beverley, but his age and dignity were too great to bring him into this squabble of youth. Then a notion struck me.

“If you will send your friend to my man, John Faulkner, he will make all arrangements. He is to be found any day in my shop.”

With this defiance, I walked nonchalantly out of the dumbfoundered group, found my horse, and rode homewards.

My coolness did not last many minutes, and long ere I had reached James Town I was a prey to dark forebodings. Here was I, a peaceful trader, who desired nothing more than to live in amity with all men, involved in a bloody strife. I had sought it, and yet it had been none of my seeking. I had graver thoughts to occupy my mind than the punctilios of idle youth, and yet I did not see how the thing could have been shunned. It was my hard fate to come athwart an obstacle which could not be circumvented, but must be broken. No friend could help me in the business, not Ringan, nor the Governor, nor Colonel Beverley. It was my own affair, which I must go through with alone. I felt as solitary as a pelican.

Remember, I was not fighting for any whimsy about honour, nor even for the love of Elspeth. I had openly provoked Grey because the hostility of the young gentry had become an intolerable nuisance in my daily life. So, with such pedestrian reasons in my mind, I could have none of the heady enthusiasm of passion. I wanted him and his kind cleared out of my way, like a noisome insect, but I had no flaming hatred of him to give me heart.

The consequence was that I became a prey to dismal fear. That bravery which knows no ebb was never mine. Indeed, I am by nature timorous, for my fancy is quick, and I see with horrid clearness the incidents of a peril. Only a shamefaced conscience holds me true, so that, though I have often done temerarious deeds, it has always been because I feared shame more than the risk, and my knees have ever been knocking together and my lips dry with fright. I tried to think soberly over the future, but could get no conclusion save that I would not do murder. My conscience was pretty bad about the whole business. I was engaged in the kind of silly conflict which I had been bred to abhor; I had none of the common gentleman’s notions about honour; and I knew that if by any miracle I slew Grey I should be guilty in my own eyes of murder. I would not risk the guilt. If God had determined that I should perish before my time, then perish I must.

This despair brought me a miserable kind of comfort. When I reached home I went straight to Faulkner.

“I have quarrelled to-day with a gentleman, John, and have promised him satisfaction. You must act for me in the affair. Some one will come to see you this evening, and the meeting had better be at dawn to-morrow.”

He opened his eyes very wide. “Who is it, then?” he asked.

“Mr. Charles Grey of Grey’s Hundred,” I replied.

This made him whistle low, “He’s a fine swordsman,” he said. “I never heard there was any better in the dominion. You’ll be to fight with swords?”

I thought hard for a minute. I was the challenged, and so had the choice of weapons. “No,” said I, “you are to appoint pistols, for it is my right.”

At this Faulkner slowly grinned. “It’s a new weapon for these affairs. What if they’ll not accept? But it’s no business of mine, and I’ll remember your wishes.” And the strange fellow turned again to his accounts.

I spent the evening looking over my papers and making various appointments in case I did not survive the morrow. Happily the work I had undertaken for Lawrence was all but finished, and of my ordinary business Faulkner knew as much as myself. I wrote a letter to Uncle Andrew, telling him frankly the situation, that he might know how little choice I had. It was a cold-blooded job making these dispositions, and I hope never to have the like to do again. Presently I heard voices outside, and Faulkner came to the door with Mr. George Mason, the younger, of Thornby, who passed for the chief buck in Virginia. He gave me a cold bow.

“I have settled everything with this gentleman, but I would beg of you, sir, to reconsider your choice of arms. My friend will doubtless be ready enough to humour you, but you have picked a barbarous weapon for Christian use.”

“It’s my only means of defence,” I said.

“Then you stick to your decision?”

“Assuredly,” said I, and, with a shrug of the shoulders, he departed.

I did not attempt to sleep. Faulkner told me that we were to meet the next morning half an hour after sunrise at a place in the forest a mile distant. Each man was to fire one shot, but two pistols were allowed in case of a misfire. All that night by the light of a lamp I got my weapons ready. I summoned to my recollection all the knowledge I had acquired, and made sure that nothing should be lacking so far as human skill would go. I had another pistol besides the one I called “Elspeth,” also made in Glasgow, but a thought longer in the barrel. For this occasion I neglected cartouches, and loaded in the old way. I tested my bullets time and again, and weighed out the powder as if it had been gold dust. It was short range, so I made my charges small. I tried my old device of wrapping each bullet in soft wool smeared with beeswax. All this passed the midnight hours, and then I lay down for a little rest, but not for sleep.

I was glad when Faulkner summoned me half an hour before sunrise. I remember that I bathed head and shoulders in cold water, and very carefully dressed myself in my best clothes. My pistols lay in the box which Faulkner carried. I drank a glass of wine, and as we left I took a long look at the place I had created, and the river now lit with the first shafts of morning. I wondered incuriously if I should ever see it again.

My tremors had all gone by now, and I was in a mood of cold, thoughtless despair. The earth had never looked so bright as we rode through the green aisles all filled with the happy song of birds. Often on such a morning I had started on a journey, with my heart grateful for the goodness of the world. Could I but keep the road, I should come in time to the swampy bank of the York; and then would follow the chestnut forest: and the wide marshes towards the Rappahannock; and everywhere I should meet friendly human faces, and then at night I should eat a hunter’s meal below the stars. But that was all past, and I was moving towards death in a foolish strife in which I had no heart, and where I could find no honour, I think I laughed aloud at my exceeding folly.

We turned from the path into an alley which led to an open space on the edge of a derelict clearing. There, to my surprise, I found a considerable company assembled. Grey was there with his second, and a dozen or more of his companions stood back in the shadow of the trees. The young blood of Virginia had come out to see the trader punished.

During the few minutes while the seconds were busy pacing the course and arranging for the signal, I had no cognizance of the world around me. I stood with abstracted eyes watching a grey squirrel in one of the branches, and trying to recall a line I had forgotten in a song. There seemed to be two Andrew Garvalds that morning, one filled with an immense careless peace, and the other a weak creature who had lived so long ago as to be forgotten. I started when Faulkner came to place me, and followed him without a word. But as I stood up and saw Grey twenty paces off, turning up his wristbands and tossing his coat to a friend, I realized the business I had come on. A great flood of light was rolling down the forest aisles, but it was so clear and pure that it did not dazzle. I remember thinking in that moment how intolerable had become the singing of birds.

I deadened my heart to memories, took my courage in both hands, and forced myself to the ordeal. For it is an ordeal to face powder if you have not a dreg of passion in you, and are resolved to make no return. I am left-handed, and so, in fronting my opponent, I exposed my heart. If Grey were the marksman I thought him, now was his chance for revenge.

My wits were calm now, and my senses very clear. I heard a man say slowly that he would count three and then drop his kerchief, and at the dropping we should fire. Our eyes were on him as he lifted his hand and slowly began,–“One–two–“

Then I looked away, for the signal mattered nothing to me. I suddenly caught Grey’s eyes, and something whistled past my ear, cutting the lobe and shearing off a lock of hair. I did not heed it. What filled my mind was the sight of my enemy, very white and drawn in the face, holding a smoking pistol and staring at me.

I emptied my pistol among the tree-tops.

No one moved. Grey continued to stare, leaning a little forward, with his lips working.

Then I took from Faulkner my second pistol. My voice came out of my throat, funnily cracked as if from long disuse.

“Mr. Grey,” I cried, “I would not have you think that I cannot shoot.”

Forty yards from me on the edge of the covert a turkey stood, with its foolish, inquisitive head. The sound of the shots had brought the bird out to see what was going on. It stood motionless, blinking its eyes, the very mark I desired.

I pointed to it with my right hand, flung forward my pistol, and fired. It rolled over as dead as stone, and Faulkner walked to pick it up. He put back my pistols in the box, and we turned to seek the horses….

Then Grey came up to me. His mouth was hard-set, but the lines were not of pride. I saw that he too had been desperately afraid, and I rejoiced that others beside me had been at breaking-point.

“Our quarrel is at an end, sir?” he said, and his voice was hesitating.

“Why, yes,” I said. “It was never my seeking, though I gave the offence.”

“I have behaved like a cub, sir,” and he spoke loud, so that all could hear. “You have taught me a lesson in gentility. Will you give me your hand?”

I could find no words, and dumbly held out my right hand.

“Nay, sir,” he said, “the other, the one that held the trigger. I count it a privilege to hold the hand of a brave man.”

I had been tried too hard, and was all but proving my bravery by weeping like a bairn.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WILD WAGER.

That July morning in the forest gave me, if not popularity, at any rate peace. I had made good my position. Henceforth the word went out that I was to be let alone. Some of the young men, indeed, showed signs of affecting my society, including that Mr. Kent of Gracedieu who had been stripped by Ringan. The others treated me with courtesy, and I replied with my best manners. Most of them were of a different world to mine, and we could not mix, so ’twas right that our deportment should be that of two dissimilar but amiable nations bowing to each other across a frontier.

All this was a great ease, but it brought one rueful consequence. Elspeth grew cold to me. Women, I suppose, have to condescend, and protect, and pity. When I was an outcast she was ready to shelter me; but now that I was in some degree of favour with others the need for this was gone, and she saw me without illusion in all my angularity and roughness. She must have heard of the duel, and jumped to the conclusion that the quarrel had been about herself, which was not the truth. The notion irked her pride, that her name should ever be brought into the brawls of men. When I passed her in the streets she greeted me coldly, and all friendliness had gone out of her eyes.

* * * * *

My days were so busy that I had little leisure for brooding, but at odd moments I would fall into a deep melancholy. She had lived so constantly in my thoughts that without her no project charmed me. What mattered wealth or fame, I thought, if she did not approve? What availed my striving, if she were not to share in the reward? I was in this mood when I was bidden by Doctor Blair to sup at his house.

I went thither in much trepidation, for I feared a great company, in which I might have no chance of a word from her. But I found only the Governor, who was in a black humour, and disputed every word that fell from the Doctor’s mouth. This turned the meal into one long wrangle, in which the high fundamentals of government in Church and State were debated by two choleric gentlemen. The girl and I had no share in the conversation; indeed, we were clearly out of place: so she could not refuse when I proposed a walk in the garden. The place was all cool and dewy after the scorching day, and the bells of the flowers made the air heavy with fragrance. Somewhere near a man was playing on the flageolet, a light, pretty tune which set her feet tripping.

I asked her bluntly wherein I had offended.

“Offended!” she cried, “Why should I take offence? I see you once in a blue moon. You flatter yourself strangely, Mr. Garvald, if you think you are ever in my thoughts.”

“You are never out of mine,” I said dismally.

At this she laughed, something of the old elfin laughter which I had heard on the wet moors.

“A compliment!” she cried, “To be mixed up eternally with the weights of tobacco and the prices of Flemish lace. You are growing a very pretty courtier, sir.”

“I am no courtier,” I said. “I think brave things of you, though I have not the words to fit them. But one thing I will say to you. Since ever you sang to the boy that once was me your spell has been on my soul. And when I saw you again three months back that spell was changed from the whim of youth to what men call love. Oh, I know well there is no hope for me. I am not fit to tie your shoe-latch. But you have made a fire in my cold life, and you will pardon me if I dare warm my hands. The sun is brighter because of you, and the flowers fairer, and the birds’ song sweeter. Grant me this little boon, that I may think of you. Have no fears that I will pester you with attentions. No priest ever served his goddess with a remoter reverence than mine for you.”

She stopped in an alley of roses and looked me in the face. In the dusk I could not see her eyes.

“Fine words,” she said. “Yet I hear that you have been wrangling over me with Mr. Charles Grey, and exchanging pistol shots. Is that your reverence?”

In a sentence I told her the truth. “They forced my back to the wall,” I said, “and there was no other way. I have never uttered your name to a living soul.”

Was it my fancy that when she spoke again there was a faint accent of disappointment?

“You are an uncomfortable being, Mr. Garvald. It seems you are predestined to keep Virginia from sloth. For myself I am for the roses and the old quiet ways.”

She plucked two flowers, one white and one of deepest crimson.

“I pardon you,” she said, “and for token I will give you a rose. It is red, for that is your turbulent colour. The white flower of peace shall be mine.”

I took the gift, and laid it in my bosom.

* * * * *

Two days later, it being a Monday, I dined with his Excellency at the Governor’s house at Middle Plantation. The place had been built new for my lord Culpepper, since the old mansion at James Town had been burned in Bacon’s rising. The company was mainly of young men, but three ladies–the mistresses of Arlington and Cobwell Manors, and Elspeth in a new saffron gown–varied with their laces the rich coats of the men. I was pleasantly welcomed by everybody. Grey came forward and greeted me, very quiet and civil, and I sat by him throughout the meal. The Governor was in high good humour, and presently had the whole company in the same mood. Of them all, Elspeth was the merriest. She had the quickest wit and the deftest skill in mimicry, and there was that in her laughter which would infect the glummest.

That very day I had finished my preparations. The train was now laid, and the men were ready, and a word from Lawrence would line the West with muskets. But I had none of the satisfaction of a completed work. It was borne in upon me that our task was scarcely begun, and that the peril that threatened us was far darker than we had dreamed. Ringan’s tale of a white leader among the tribes was always in my head. The hall where we sat was lined with portraits of men who had borne rule in Virginia. There was Captain John Smith, trim-bearded and bronzed; and Argall and Dale, grave and soldierly; there was Francis Wyat, with the scar got in Indian wars; there hung the mean and sallow countenance of Sir John Harvey. There, too, was Berkeley, with his high complexion and his love-locks, the great gentleman of a vanished age; and the gross rotundity of Culpepper; and the furtive eye of my lord Howard, who was even now the reigning Governor. There was a noble picture of King Charles the Second, who alone of monarchs was represented. Soft-footed lackeys carried viands and wines, and the table was a mingling of silver and roses. The afternoon light came soft through the trellis, and you could not have looked for a fairer picture of settled ease. Yet I had that in my mind which shattered the picture. We were feasting like the old citizens of buried Pompeii, with the lava even now, perhaps, flowing hot from the mountains. I looked at the painted faces on the walls, and wondered which I would summon to our aid if I could call men from the dead. Smith, I thought, would be best; but I reflected uneasily that Smith would never have let things come to such a pass. At the first hint of danger he would have been off to the West to scotch it in the egg.

I was so filled with sober reflections that I talked little; but there was no need of me. Youth and beauty reigned, and the Governor was as gay as the youngest. Many asked me to take wine with them, and the compliment pleased me. There was singing, likewise–Sir William Davenant’s song to his mistress, and a Cavalier rant or two, and a throat ditty of the seas; and Elspeth sang very sweetly the old air of “Greensleeves.” We drank all the toasts of fashion–His Majesty of England, confusion to the French, the health of Virginia, rich harvests, full cellars, and pretty dames. Presently when we had waxed very cheerful, and wine had risen to several young heads, the Governor called on us to brim our glasses.

“Be it known, gentlemen, and you, fair ladies,” he cried, “that to-day is a more auspicious occasion than any Royal festival or Christian holy day. To-day is Dulcinea’s birthday. I summon you to drink to the flower of the West, the brightest gem in Virginia’s coronal.”

At that we were all on our feet. The gentlemen snapped the stems of their glasses to honour the sacredness of the toast, and there was such a shouting and pledging as might well have turned a girl’s head. Elspeth sat still and smiling. The mockery had gone out of her eyes, and I thought they were wet. No Queen had ever a nobler salutation, and my heart warmed to the generous company. Whatever its faults, it did due homage to beauty and youth.

Governor Francis was again on his feet.

“I have a birthday gift for the fair one. You must know that once at Whitehall I played at cartes with my lord Culpepper, and the stake on his part was one-sixth portion of that Virginian territory which is his freehold. I won, and my lord conveyed the grant to me in a deed properly attested by the attorneys. We call the place the Northern Neck, and ’tis all the land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac as far west as the sunset. It is undivided, but my lord stipulated that my portion should lie from the mountains westward. What good is such an estate to an aging bachelor like me, who can never visit it? But ’tis a fine inheritance for youth, and I propose to convey it to Dulcinea as a birthday gift. Some day, I doubt not, ’twill be the Eden of America.”

At this there was a great crying out and some laughter, which died away when it appeared that the Governor spoke in all seriousness.

“I make one condition,” he went on. “Twenty years back there was an old hunter, called Studd, who penetrated the mountains. He travelled to the head-waters of the Rapidan, and pierced the hills by a pass which he christened Clearwater Gap. He climbed the highest mountain in those parts, and built a cairn on the summit, in which he hid a powder-horn with a writing within. He was the first to make the journey, and none have followed him. The man is dead now, but he told me the tale, and I will pledge my honour that it is true. It is for Dulcinea to choose a champion to follow Studd’s path and bring back his powder-horn. On the day I receive it she takes sasine of her heritage. Which of you gallants offers for the venture?”

To this day I do not know what were Francis Nicholson’s motives. He wished the mountains crossed, but he cannot have expected to meet a pathfinder among the youth of the Tidewater. I think it was the whim of the moment. He would endow Elspeth, and at the same time test her cavaliers. To the ordinary man it seemed the craziest folly. Studd had been a wild fellow, half Indian in blood and wholly Indian in habits, and for another to travel fifty miles into the heart of the desert was to embrace destruction. The company sat very silent. Elspeth, with a blushing cheek, turned troubled eyes on the speaker.

As for me, I had found the chance I wanted. I was on my feet in a second. “I will go,” I said; and I had hardly spoken when Grey was beside me, crying, “And I.”

Still the company sat silent. ‘Twas as if the shadow of a sterner life had come over their young gaiety. Elspeth did not look at me, but sat with cast-down eyes, plucking feverishly at a rose. The Governor laughed out loud.

“Brave hearts!” he cried. “Will you travel together?”

I looked at Grey. “That can hardly be,” he said.

“Well, we must spin for it,” said Nicholson, taking a guinea from his pocket. “Royals for Mr. Garvald, quarters for Mr. Grey,” he cried as he spun it.

It fell Royals. We had both been standing, and Grey now bowed to me and sat down. His face was very pale and his lips tightly shut.

The Governor gave a last toast “Let us drink,” he called, “to Dulcinea’s champion and the fortunes of his journey.” At that there was such applause you might have thought me the best-liked man in the dominion. I looked at Elspeth, but she averted her eyes.

As we left the table I stepped beside Grey. “You must come with me,” I whispered. “Nay, do not refuse. When you know all you will come gladly.” And I appointed a meeting on the next day at the Half-way Tavern.

I got to my house at the darkening, and found Ringan waiting for me.

This time he had not sought a disguise, but he kept his fiery head covered with a broad hat, and the collar of his seaman’s coat enveloped his lower face. To a passer-by in the dusk he must have seemed an ordinary ship’s captain stretching his legs on land.

He asked for food and drink, and I observed that his manner was very grave.

“Are things in train, Andrew?” he asked.

I told him “to the last stirrup buckle.”

“It’s as well,” said he, “for the trouble has begun.”

Then he told me a horrid tale. The Rapidan is a stream in the north of the dominion, flowing into the Rappahannock on its south bank. Two years past a family of French folk–D’Aubigny was their name–had made a home in a meadow by that stream and built a house and a strong stockade, for they were in dangerous nearness to the hills, and had no neighbours within forty miles. They were gentlefolk of some substance, and had carved out of the wilderness a very pretty manor with orchards and flower gardens. I had never been to the place, but I had heard the praise of it from dwellers on the Rappahannock. No Indians came near them, and there they abode, happy in their solitude–a husband and wife, three little children, two French servants, and a dozen negroes.

A week ago tragedy had come like a thunderbolt. At night the stockade was broke, and the family woke from sleep to hear the war-whoop and see by the light of their blazing byres a band of painted savages. It seems that no resistance was possible, and they were butchered like sheep. The babes were pierced with stakes, the grown folk were scalped and tortured, and by sunrise in that peaceful clearing there was nothing but blood-stained ashes.

Word had come down the Rappahannock. Ringan said he had heard it in Accomac, and had sailed to Sabine to make sure. Men had ridden out from Stafford county, and found no more than a child’s toy and some bloody garments.

“Who did it?” I asked, with fury rising in my heart.

“It’s Cherokee work. There’s nothing strange in it, except that such a deed should have been dared. But it means the beginning of our business. D’you think the Stafford folk will sleep in their beds after that? And that’s precisely what perplexes me. The Governor will be bound to send an expedition against the murderers, and they’ll not be easy found. But while the militia are routing about on the Rapidan, what hinders the big invasion to come down the James or the Chickahominy or the Pamunkey or the Mattaponey and find a defenceless Tidewater? As I see it, there’s deep guile in this business. A Cherokee murder is nothing out of the way, but these blackguards were not killing for mere pleasure. As I’ve said before, I would give my right hand to have better information. It’s this land business that fickles one. If it were a matter of islands and ocean bays, I would have long ago riddled out the heart of it.”

“We’re on the way to get news,” I said, and I told him of my wager that evening.

“Man, Andrew!” he cried, “it’s providential. There’s nothing to hinder you and me and a few others to ride clear into the hills, with the Tidewater thinking it no more than a play of daft young men. You must see Nicholson, and get him to hold his hand till we send him word. In two days Lawrence will be here, and we can post our lads on each of the rivers, for it’s likely any Indian raid will take one of the valleys. You must see that Governor of yours first thing in the morning, and get him to promise to wait on your news. Then he can get out his militia, and stir up the Tidewater. Will he do it, think you?”

I said I thought he would.

“And there’s one other thing. Would he agree to turning a blind eye to Lawrence, if he comes back? He’ll not trouble them in James Town, but he’s the only man alive to direct our own lads.”

I said I would try, but I was far from certain. It was hard to forecast the mind of Governor Francis.

“Well, Lawrence will come whether or no. You can sound the man, and if he’s dour let the matter be. Lawrence is now on the Roanoke, and his plan is to send out the word to-morrow and gather in the posts. He’ll come to Frew’s place on the South Fork River, which is about the middle of the frontier line. To-day is Monday, to-morrow the word will go out, by Friday the men will be ready, and Lawrence will be in Virginia. The sooner you’re off the better, Andrew. What do you say to Wednesday?”

“That day will suit me fine,” I said; “but what about my company?”

“The fewer the better. Who were you thinking of?”

“You for one,” I said, “and Shalah for a second.”

He nodded.

“I want two men from the Rappahannock–a hunter of the name of Donaldson and the Frenchman Bertrand.”

“That makes five. Would you like to even the number?”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s a gentleman of the Tidewater, Mr. Charles Grey, that I’ve bidden to the venture.”

Ringan whistled. “Are you sure that’s wise? There’ll be little use for braw clothes and fine manners in the hills.”

“All the same there’ll be a use for Mr. Grey. When will you join us?”

“I’ve a bit of business to do hereaways, but I’ll catch you up. Look for me at Aird’s store on Thursday morning.”

CHAPTER XV.

I GATHER THE CLANS.

I was at the Governor’s house next day before he had breakfasted. He greeted me laughingly.

“Has the champion come to cry forfeit?” he asked. “It is a long, sore road to the hills, Mr. Garvald.”

“I’ve come to make confession,” I said, and I plunged into my story of the work of the last months.

He heard me with lowering brows, “Who the devil made you Governor of this dominion, sir? You have been levying troops without His Majesty’s permission. Your offence is no less than high treason. I’ve a pretty mind to send you to the guard-house.”

“I implore you to hear me patiently,” I cried. Then I told him what I had learned in the Carolinas and at the outland farms. “You yourself told me it was hopeless to look for a guinea from the Council. I was but carrying out your desires. Can you blame me if I’ve toiled for the public weal and neglected my own fortunes?”

He was scarcely appeased. “You’re a damnable kind of busybody, sir, the breed of fellow that plunges states into revolutions. Why, in Heaven’s name, did you not consult me?”

“Because it was wiser not to,” I said stoutly. “Half my recruits are old soldiers of Bacon. If the trouble blows past, they go back to their steadings and nothing more is heard of it. If trouble comes, who are such natural defenders of the dominion as the frontier dwellers? All I have done is to give them the sinews of war. But if Governor Nicholson had taken up the business, and it were known that he had leaned on old rebels, what would the Council say? What would have been the view of my lord Howard and the wiseacres in London?”

He said nothing, but knit his brows. My words were too much in tune with his declared opinions for him to gainsay them.

“It comes to this, then,” he said at length. “You have raised a body of men who are waiting marching orders. What next, Mr. Garvald?”

“The next thing is to march. After what befell on the Rapidan, we cannot sit still.”

He started. “I have heard nothing of it.”

Then I told him the horrid tale. He got to his feet and strode up and down the room, with his dark face working.

“God’s mercy, what a calamity! I knew the folk. They came here with letters from his Grace of Shrewsbury. Are you certain your news is true?”

“Alas! there is no doubt. Stafford county is in a ferment, and the next post from the York will bring you word.”

“Then, by God, it is for me to move. No Council or Assembly will dare gainsay me. I can order a levy by virtue of His Majesty’s commission.”

“I have come to pray you to hold your hand till I send you better intelligence,” I said.

His brows knit again. “But this is too much. Am I to refrain from doing my duty till I get your gracious consent, sir?”

“Nay, nay,” I cried. “Do not misunderstand me. This thing is far graver than you think, sir. If you send your levies to the Rapidan, you leave the Tidewater defenceless, and while you are hunting a Cherokee party in the north, the enemy will be hammering at your gates.”

“What enemy?” he asked.

“I do not know, and that is what I go to find out.” Then I told him all I had gathered about the unknown force in the hills, and the apparent strategy of a campaign which was beyond an Indian’s wits. “There is a white man at the back of it,” I said, “a white man who talks in Bible words and is mad for devastation.”

His face had grown very solemn. He went to a bureau, unlocked it, and took from a drawer a bit of paper, which he tossed to me.

“I had that a week past to-morrow. My servant got it from an Indian in the woods.”

It was a dirty scrap, folded like a letter, and bearing the superscription, “_To the man Francis Nicholson, presently Governor in Virginia_.” I opened it and read:–

“_Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied_.”

“There,” I cried, “there is proof of my fears. What kind of Indian sends a message like that? Trust me, sir, there is a far more hellish mischief brewing than any man wots of.”

“It looks not unlike it,” he said grimly. “Now let’s hear what you propose.”

“I can have my men at their posts by the week end. We will string them out along the frontier, and hold especially the river valleys. If invasion comes, then at any rate the Tidewater will get early news of it. Meantime I and my friends, looking for Studd’s powder-horn, with a mind to confirm your birthday gift to Miss Elspeth Blair, will push on to the hills and learn what is to be learned there.”

“You will never come back,” he said tartly. “An Indian stake and a bloody head will be the end of all of you.”

“Maybe,” I said, “though I have men with me that can play the Indian game. But if in ten days’ time from now you get no word, then you can fear the worst, and set your militia going. I have a service of posts which will carry news to you as quick as a carrier pigeon. Whatever we learn you shall hear of without delay, and you can make your dispositions accordingly. If the devils find us first, then get in touch with my men at Frew’s homestead on the South Fork River, for that will be the headquarters of the frontier army.”

“Who will be in command there when you are gallivanting in the hills?” he asked.

“One whose name had better not be spoken. He lies under sentence of death by Virginian law; but, believe me, he is an honest soul and a good patriot, and he is the one man born to lead these outland troops.”

He smiled, “His Christian name is Richard, maybe? I think I know your outlaw. But let it pass. I ask no names. In these bad times we cannot afford to despise any man’s aid.”

He pulled out a chart of Virginia, and I marked for him our posts, and indicated the line of my own journey.

“Have you ever been in the wars, Mr. Garvald?” he asked.

I told him no.

“Well, you have a very pretty natural gift for the military art. Your men will screen the frontier line, and behind that screen I will get our militia force in order, while meantime you are reconnoitring the enemy. It’s a very fair piece of strategy. But I am mortally certain you yourself will never come back.”

The odd thing was that at that moment I did not fear for myself. I had lived so long with my scheme that I had come to look upon it almost like a trading venture, in which one calculates risks and gains on paper, and thinks no more of it. I had none of the black fright which I had suffered before my meeting with Grey. Happily, though a young man’s thoughts may be long, his fancy takes short views. I was far more concerned with what might happen in my absence in the Tidewater than with our fate in the hills.

“It is a gamble,” I said, “but the stakes are noble, and I have a private pride in its success.”

“Also the goad of certain bright eyes,” he said, smiling. “Little I thought, when I made that offer last night, I was setting so desperate a business in train. There was a good Providence in that. For now we can give out that you are gone on a madcap ploy, and there will be no sleepless nights in the Tidewater. I must keep their souls easy, for once they are scared there will be such a spate of letters to New York as will weaken the courage of our Northern brethren. For the militia I will give the excuse of the French menace. The good folk will laugh at me for it, but they will not take fright. God’s truth, but it is a devilish tangle. I could wish I had your part, sir, and be free to ride out on a gallant venture. Here I have none of the zest of war, but only a thousand cares and the carking task of soothing fools.”

We spoke of many things, and I gave him a full account of the composition and strength of our levies. When I left he paid me a compliment, which, coming from so sardonic a soul, gave me peculiar comfort.

“I have seen something of men and cities, sir,” he said, “and I know well the foibles and the strength of my countrymen; but I have never met your equal for cold persistence. You are a trader, and have turned war into a trading venture. I do believe that when you are at your last gasp you will be found calmly casting up your accounts with life. And I think you will find a balance on the right side. God speed you, Mr. Garvald. I love your sober folly.”

* * * * *

I had scarcely left him when I met a servant of the Blairs, who handed me a letter. ‘Twas from Elspeth–the first she had ever written me. I tore it open, and found a very disquieting epistle. Clearly she had written it in a white heat of feeling. “_You spoke finely of reverence_,” she wrote, “_and how you had never named my name to a mortal soul. But to-night you have put me to open shame. You have offered yourself for a service which I did not seek. What care I for his Excellency’s gifts? Shall it be said that I was the means of sending a man into deadly danger to secure me a foolish estate? You have offended me grossly, and I pray you spare me further offence, I command you to give up this journey. I will not have my name bandied about in this land as a wanton who sets silly youth by the ears to gratify her pride. If you desire to retain a shred of my friendship, go to his Excellency and tell him that by my orders you withdraw from the wager.”_

This letter did not cloud my spirits as it should. For one thing, she signed it “Elspeth,” and for another, I had the conceited notion that what moved her most was the thought that I was running into danger. I longed to have speech with her, but I found from the servant that Doctor Blair had left that morning on a journey of pastoral visitation, and had taken her with him. The man did not know their destination, but believed it to be somewhere in the north. The thought vaguely disquieted me. In these perilous times I wished to think of her as safe in the coastlands, where a ship would give a sure refuge.

I met Grey that afternoon at the Half-way Tavern. In the last week he seemed to have aged and grown graver. There was now no hint of the light arrogance of old. He regarded me curiously, but without hostility.

“We have been enemies,” I said, “and now, though there may be no friendship, at any rate there is a truce to strife. Last night I begged of you to come with me on this matter of the Governor’s wager, but ’twas not the wager I thought of.”

Then I told him the whole tale. “The stake is the safety of this land, of which you are a notable citizen. I ask you, because I know you are a brave man. Will you leave your comfort and your games for a season, and play for higher stakes at a more desperate hazard?”

I told him everything, even down to my talk with the Governor. I did not lessen the risks and hardships, and I gave him to know that his companions would be rough folk, whom he may well have despised. He heard me out with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he raised a shining face.

“You are a generous enemy, Mr. Garvald. I behaved to you like a peevish child, and you retaliate by offering me the bravest venture that man ever conceived. I am with you with all my heart. By God, sir, I am sick of my cushioned life. This is what I have been longing for in my soul since I was born….”

That night I spent making ready. I took no servant, and in my saddle-bags was stored the little I needed. Of powder and shot I had plenty, and my two pistols and my hunting musket. I gave Faulkner instructions, and wrote a letter to my uncle to be sent if I did not return. Next morning at daybreak we took the road.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FORD OF THE RAPIDAN.

‘Twas the same high summer weather through which I had ridden a fortnight ago with a dull heart on my way to the duel. Now Grey rode by my side, and my spirits were as light as a bird’s. I had forgotten the grim part of the enterprise, the fate that might await me, the horrors we should certainly witness. I thought only of the joys of movement into new lands with tried companions. These last months I had borne a pretty heavy weight of cares. Now that was past. My dispositions completed, the thing was in the hands of God, and I was free to go my own road. Mocking-birds and thrushes cried in the thickets, squirrels flirted across the path, and now and then a shy deer fled before us. There come moments to every man when he is thankful to be alive, and every breath drawn is a delight; so at that hour I praised my Maker for His good earth, and for sparing me to rejoice in it.

Grey had met me with a certain shyness; but as the sun rose and the land grew bright he, too, lost his constraint, and fell into the same happy mood. Soon we were smiling at each other in the frankest comradeship, we two who but the other day had carried ourselves like game-cocks. He had forgotten his fine manners and his mincing London voice, and we spoke of the outland country of which he knew nothing, and of the hunting of game of which he knew much, exchanging our different knowledges, and willing to learn from each other. Long ere we had reached York Ferry I had found that there was much in common between the Scots trader and the Virginian cavalier, and the chief thing we shared was youth.

Mine, to be sure, was more in the heart, while Grey wore his open and fearless. He plucked the summer flowers and set them in his hat. He was full of catches and glees, so that he waked the echoes in the forest glades. Soon I, too, fell to singing in my tuneless voice, and I answered his “My lodging is on the cold ground” with some Scots ballad or a song of Davie Lindsay. I remember how sweetly he sang Colonel Lovelace’s ode to Lucasta, writ when going to the wars:–

“True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield.”

“Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou too shalt adore:
I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more.”

I wondered if that were my case–if I rode out for honour, and not for the pure pleasure of the riding. And I marvelled more to see the two of us, both lovers of one lady and eager rivals, burying for the nonce our feuds, and with the same hope serving the same cause.

We slept the night at Aird’s store, and early the next morning found Ringan. A new Ringan indeed, as unlike the buccaneer I knew as he was unlike the Quaker. He was now the gentleman of Breadalbane, dressed for the part with all the care of an exquisite. He rode a noble roan, in his Spanish belt were stuck silver-hafted pistols, and a long sword swung at his side. When I presented Grey to him, he became at once the cavalier, as precise in his speech and polite in his deportment as any Whitehall courtier. They talked high and disposedly of genteel matters, and you would have thought that that red-haired pirate had lived his life among proud lords and high-heeled ladies. That is ever the way of the Highlander. He alters like a clear pool to every mood of the sky, so that the shallow observer might forget how deep the waters are.

Presently, when we had ridden into the chestnut forests of the Mattaponey, he began to forget his part. Grey, it appeared, was a student of campaigns, and he and Ringan were deep in a discussion of Conde’s battles, in which both showed surprising knowledge. But the glory of the weather and of the woodlands, new as they were to a seafarer, set his thoughts wandering, and he fell to tales of his past which consorted ill with his former decorum. There was a madcap zest in his speech, something so merry and wild, that Grey, who had fallen back into his Tidewater manners, became once more the careless boy. We stopped to eat in a glade by a slow stream, and from his saddle-bags Ringan brought out strange delicacies. There were sugared fruits from the Main, and orange sirop from Jamaica, and a kind of sweet punch made by the Hispaniola Indians. As we ate and drank he would gossip about the ways of the world; and though he never mentioned his own doings, there was such an air of mastery about him as made him seem the centre figure of his tales, I could see that Grey was mightily captivated, and all afternoon he plied him with questions, and laughed joyously at his answers. As we camped that night, while Grey was minding his horse Ringan spoke of him to me.

“I like the lad, Andrew. He has the makings of a very proper gentleman, and he has the sense to be young. What I complain of in you is that you’re desperate old. I wonder whiles if you ever were a laddie. For me, though I’m ten years the elder of the pair of you, I’ve no more years than your friend, and I’m a century younger than you. That’s the Highland way. There’s that in our blood that keeps our eyes young though we may be bent double. With us the heart is aye leaping till Death grips us. To my mind it’s a lovable character that I fain would cherish. If I couldn’t sing on a spring morning or say a hearty grace over a good dinner I’d be content to be put away in a graveyard.”

And that, I think, is the truth. But at the time I was feeling pretty youthful, too, though my dour face and hard voice were a bad clue to my sentiments.

Next day on the Rappahannock we found Shalah, who had gone on to warn the two men I proposed to enlist. One of them, Donaldson, was a big, slow-spoken, middle-aged farmer, the same who had been with Bacon in the fight at Occaneechee Island. He just cried to his wife to expect him back when she saw him, slung on his back an old musket, cast a long leg over his little horse, and was ready to follow. The other, the Frenchman Bertrand, was a quiet, slim gentleman, who was some kin to the murdered D’Aubignys. I had long had my eye on him, for he was very wise in woodcraft, and had learned campaigning under old Turenne. He kissed his two children again and again, and his wife clung to his arms. There were tears in the honest fellow’s eyes as he left, and I thought all the more of him, for he is the bravest man who has most to risk. I mind that Ringan consoled the lady in the French tongue, which I did not comprehend, and would not be hindered from getting out his saddle-bags and comforting the children with candied plums. He had near as grave a face as Bertrand when we rode off, and was always looking back to the homestead. He spoke long to the Frenchman in his own speech, and the sad face of the latter began to lighten.

I asked him what he said.

“Just that he was the happy man to have kind hearts to weep for him. A fine thing for a landless, childless fellow like me to say! But it’s gospel truth, Andrew. I told him that his bairns would be great folks some day, and that their proudest boast would be that their father had ridden on this errand. Oh, and all the rest of the easy consolations. If it had been me, I would not have been muckle cheered. It’s well I never married, for I would not have had the courage to leave my fireside.”

We were now getting into a new and far lovelier country. The heavy forests and swamps which line the James and the York had gone, and instead we had rolling spaces of green meadowland, and little hills which stood out like sentinels of the great blue chain of mountains that hung in the west. Instead of the rich summer scents of the Tidewater, we had the clean, sharp smell of uplands, and cool winds relieved the noontide heat. By and by we struck the Rapidan, a water more like our Scots rivers, flowing in pools and currents, very different from the stagnant reaches of the Pamunkey. We were joined for a little bit by two men from Stafford county, who showed us the paths that horses could travel.

It was late in the afternoon that we reached a broad meadow hemmed in by noble cedars. I knew without telling that we were come to the scene of the tragedy, and with one accord we fell silent. The place had been well looked after, for a road had been made through the woods, and had been carried over marshy places on a platform of cedar piles. Presently we came to a log fence with a gate, which hung idly open. Within was a paddock, and beyond another fence, and beyond that a great pile of blackened timber. The place was so smiling and homelike under the westering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke of hearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour and of children’s voices. Instead there was this grim, charred heap, with the light winds swirling the ashes.

Every man of us uncovered his head as he rode towards the melancholy place. I noticed a little rosary, which had been carefully tended, but horses had ridden through it, and the blossoms were trailing crushed on the ground. There was a flower garden too, much trampled, and in one corner a little stream of water had been led into a pool fringed with forget-me-nots. A tiny water-wheel was turning in the fall, a children’s toy, and the wheel still turned, though its owners had gone. The sight of that simple thing fairly brought my heart to my mouth.

That inspection was a gruesome business. One of the doorposts of the house still stood, and it was splashed with blood. On the edge of the ashes were some charred human bones. No one could tell whose they were, perhaps a negro’s, perhaps the little mistress of the water-wheel. I looked at Ringan, and he was smiling, but his eyes were terrible. The Frenchman Bertrand was sobbing like a child.

We took the bones, and made a shallow grave for them in the rosary. We had no spades, but a stake did well enough to dig a resting-place for those few poor remains. I said over them the Twenty-third Psalm: “_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff shall comfort me_.”

Then suddenly our mood changed. Nothing that we could do could help the poor souls whose bones lay among the ashes. But we could bring their murderers to book, and save others from a like fate.

We moved away from the shattered place to the ford in the river where the road ran north. There we looked back. A kind of fury seized me as I saw that cruel defacement. In a few hours we ourselves should be beyond the pale, among those human wolves who were so much more relentless than any beasts of the field. As I looked round our little company, I noted how deep the thing had bitten into our souls. Ringan’s eyes still danced with that unholy blue light. Grey was very pale, and his jaw was set grimly. Bertrand had ceased from sobbing, and his face had the far-away wildness of the fanatic, such a look as his forbears may have worn at the news of St. Bartholomew. The big man Donaldson looked puzzled and sombre. Only Shalah stood impassive and aloof, with no trace of feeling on the bronze of his countenance.

“This is the place for an oath,” I said. “We are six men against an army, but we fight for a holy cause. Let us swear to wipe out this deed of blood in the blood of its perpetrators. God has made us the executors of His judgments against horrid cruelty.”

We swore, holding our hands high, that, when our duty to the dominion was done, we should hunt down the Cherokees who had done this deed till no one of them was left breathing. At that moment of tense nerves, no other purpose would have contented us.

“How will we find them?” quoth Ringan. “To sift a score of murderers out of a murderous nation will be like searching the ocean for a wave.”

Then Shalah spoke.

“The trail is ten suns old, but I can follow it. The men were of the Meebaw tribe by this token.” And he held up a goshawk’s feather. “The bird that dropped that lives beyond the peaks of Shubash. The Meebaw are quick hunters and gross eaters, and travel slow. We will find them by the Tewawha.”

“All in good time,” I said. “Retribution must wait till we have finished our task. Can you find the Meebaw men again?”

“Yea,” said Shalah, “though they took wings and flew over the seas I should find them.”

Then we hastened away from that glade, none speaking to the other. We camped an hour’s ride up the river, in a place secure against surprises in a crook of the stream with a great rock at our back. We were outside the pale now, and must needs adopt the precautions of a campaign; so we split the night into watches, I did my two hours sentry duty at that dead moment of the dark just before the little breeze which is the precursor of dawn, and I reflected very soberly on the slender chances of our returning from this strange wild world and its cruel mysteries.

CHAPTER XVII.

I RETRACE MY STEPS.

Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow country. As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains near at hand. There they lay, not more than ten miles distant, woody almost to the summit, but with here and there a bold finger of rock pointing skywards. They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable would to these have been no more than a footstool. I made out a clear breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd’s Clearwater Gap. The whole sight intoxicated me. I might dream of horrors in the low coast forests among their swampy creeks, but in that clear high world of the hills I believed lay safety. I could have gazed at them for hours, but Shalah would permit of no delay. He hurried us across the open meadows, and would not relax his pace till we were on a low wooded ridge with the young waters of the Rapidan running in a shallow vale beneath.

Here we halted in a thick clump of cedars, while he and Ringan went forward to spy out the land. In that green darkness, save by folk travelling along the ridge, we could not be detected, and I knew enough of Indian ways to believe that any large party would keep the stream sides. We lit a fire without fear, for the smoke was hid in the cedar branches, and some of us roasted corn-cakes. Our food in the saddle-bags would not last long, and I foresaw a ticklish business when it came to hunting for the pot. A gunshot in these narrow glens would reverberate like a cannon.

We dozed peacefully in the green shade, and smoked our pipes, waiting for the return of our envoys. They came towards sundown, slipping among us like ghosts.

Ringan signalled to me, and we put our coats over the horses’ heads to prevent their whinnying. He stamped out the last few ashes of the fire, and Shalah motioned us all flat on our faces. Then I crawled to the edge of the ridge, and looked down through a tangle of vines on the little valley.

Our precautions had been none too soon, for a host was passing below, as stealthily as if it had been an army of the sheeted dead. Most were mounted, and it was marvellous to see the way in which they managed their horses, so that the beasts seemed part of the riders, and partook of their vigilance. Some were on foot, and moved with the long, loping, in-toed Indian stride. I guessed their number at three hundred, but what awed me was their array. This was no ordinary raid, but an invading army. My sight, as I think I have said, is as keen as a hawk’s, and I could see that most of them carried muskets as well as knives and tomahawks. The war-paint glistened on each breast and forehead, and in the oiled hair stood the crested feathers, dyed scarlet for battle. My spirits sank as I reflected that now we were cut off from the Tidewater.

When the last man had gone we crawled back to the clump, now gloomy with the dusk of evening. I saw that Ringan was very weary, but Shalah, after stretching his long limbs, seemed fresh as ever.

“Will you come with me, brother?” he said. “We must warn the Rappahannock.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Cherokees. More follow them. The assault is dearly by the line of the Rappahannock. If we hasten we may yet be in time.”

I knew what Shalah’s hastening meant. I suppose I was the one of us best fitted for a hot-foot march, and that that was the reason why the Indian chose me. All the same my heart misgave me. He ate a little food, while I stripped off the garments I did not need, carrying only the one pistol. I bade the others travel slowly towards the mountains, scouting carefully ahead, and promised that we should join them before the next sundown. Then Shalah beckoned me, and I plunged after him into the forest.

On our first visit to Ringan at the land-locked Carolina harbour I had thought Shalah’s pace killing, but that was but a saunter to what he now showed me. We seemed to be moving at right angles to the Indian march. Once out of the woods of the ridge, we crossed the meadows, mostly on our bellies, taking advantage of every howe and crinkle. I followed him as obediently as a child. When he ran so did I; when he crawled my forehead was next his heel. After the grass-lands came broken hillocks with little streams in the bottoms. Through these we twisted, moving with less care, and presently we had left the hills and were looking over a wide, shadowy plain.

The moon was three-quarters full, and was just beginning to climb the sky. Shalah sniffed the wind, which blew from the south-west, and set off at a sharp angle towards the north. We were now among the woods again, and the tangled undergrowth tried me sore. We had been going for about three hours, and, though I was hard and spare from much travel in the sun, my legs were not used to this furious foot marching. My feet grew leaden, and, to make matters worse, we dipped presently into a big swamp, where we mired to the knees and often to the middle. It would have been no light labour at any time to cross such a place, pulling oneself by the tangled shrubs on to the rare patches of solid ground. But now, when I was pretty weary, the toil was about the limit of my strength. When we emerged on hard land I was sobbing like a stricken deer. But Shalah had no mercy. He took me through the dark cedars at the same tireless pace, and in the gloom I could see him flitting ahead of me, his shoulders squared, and his limbs as supple as a race-horse’s. I remember I said over in my head all the songs and verses I knew, to keep my mind from my condition. I had long ago got and lost my second wind and whatever other winds there be, and was moving less by bodily strength than by sheer doggedness of spirit. Weak tears were running down my cheeks, my breath rasped in my throat, but I was in the frame of mind that if death had found me next moment my legs would still have twitched in an effort to run.

At an open bit of the forest Shalah stopped and looked at the sky. I blundered into him, and then from sheer weakness rolled on the ground. He grunted and turned to me. I felt his cool hand passing over my brow and cheek, and his fingers kneading the muscles of my forlorn legs. ‘Twas some Indian device, doubtless, but its power was miraculous. Under his hands my body seemed to be rested and revived. New strength stole into my sinews, new vigour into my blood. The thing took maybe five minutes–not more; but I scrambled to my feet a man again. Indeed I was a better man than when I started, for this Indian wizardry had given me an odd lightness of head and heart. When we took up the running, my body, instead of a leaden clog, seemed to be a thing of air and feathers.

It was now hard on midnight, and the moon was high in the heavens. We bore somewhat to the right, and I judged that our circuit was completed, and that the time had come to steal in front of the Indian route. The forest thinned, and we traversed a marshy piece, of country with many single great trees. Often Shalah would halt for a second, strain his ears, and sniff the light wind like a dog. He seemed to find guidance, but I got none, only the hoot of an owl or the rooty smell of the woodland.

At last we struck a little stream, and followed its course between high banks of pine. Suddenly Shalah’s movements became stealthy. Crouching in every patch of shade, and crossing open spaces on our bellies, we turned from the stream, surmounted a knoll, and came down on a wooded valley. Shalah looked westwards, held up his hand, and stood poised for a minute like a graven image. Then he grunted and spoke. “We are safe,” he said. “They are behind us, and are camped for the night,” How he knew that I cannot tell; but I seemed to catch on the breeze a whiff of the rancid odour of Indian war-paint.

For another mile we continued our precautions, and then moved more freely in the open. Now that the chief peril was past, my fatigue came back to me worse than ever. I think I was growing leg-weary, as I had seen happen to horses, and from that ailment there is no relief. My head buzzed like a beehive, and when the moon set I had no power to pick my steps, and stumbled and sprawled in the darkness. I had to ask Shalah for help, though it was a sore hurt to my pride, and, leaning on his arm, I made the rest of the journey.

I found myself splashing in a strong river. We crossed by a ford, so we had no need to swim, which was well for me, for I must have drowned. The chill of the water revived me somewhat, and I had the strength to climb the other bank. And then suddenly before me I saw a light, and a challenge rang out into the night.

The voice was a white man’s, and brought me to my bearings. Weak as I was, I had the fierce satisfaction that our errand had not been idle. I replied with the password, and a big fellow strode out from a stockade.

“Mr. Garvald!” he said, staring. “What brings you here? Where are the rest of you?” He looked at Shalah and then at me, and finally took my arm and drew me inside.

There were a score in the place–Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and could speak.

“The Cherokees are on us,” I said, and I told them of the army we had followed.

“How many?” they asked.

“Three hundred for a vanguard, but more follow.”

One man laughed, as if well pleased. “I’m in the humour for Cherokees just now. There’s a score of scalps hanging outside, if you could see them, Mr. Garvald.”

“What scalps?” I asked, dumbfoundered.

“The Rapidan murderers. We got word of them in the woods yesterday, and six of us went hunting. It was pretty shooting. Two got away with some lead in them, the rest are in the Tewawha pools, all but their topknots. I’ve very little notion of Cherokees.”

Somehow the news gave me intense joy. I thought nothing of the barbarity of it, or that white men should demean themselves to the Indian level. I remembered only the meadow by the Rapidan, and the little lonely water-wheel. Our vow was needless, for others had done our work.

“Would I had been with you!” was all I said. “But now you have more than a gang of Meebaw raiders to deal with. There’s an invasion coming down from the hills, and this is the first wave of it, I want word sent to Governor Nicholson at James Town. I was to tell him where the trouble was to be feared, and in a week you’ll have a regiment at your backs. Who has the best horse? Simpson? Well, let Simpson carry the word down the valley. If my plans are working well, the news should be at James Town by dawn to-morrow.”

The man called Simpson got up, saddled his beast, and waited my bidding. “This is the word to send,” said I. “Say that the Cherokees are attacking by the line of the Rappahannock. Say that I am going into the hills to find if my fears are justified. Never mind what that means. Just pass on the words. They will understand them at James Town. So much for the Governor. Now I want word sent to Frew’s homestead on the South Fork. Who is to carry it?”

One old fellow, who chewed tobacco without intermission, spat out the leaf, and asked me what news I wanted to send.

“Just that we are attacked,” I said.

“That’s a simple job,” he said cheerfully. “All down the Border posts we have a signal. Only yesterday we got word of it from the place you speak of. A mile from here is a hillock within hearing of the stockade at Robertson’s Ford. One shot fired there will tell them what you want them to know. Robertson’s will fire twice for Appleby’s to hear, and Appleby’s will send on the message to Dopple’s. There are six posts between here and the South Fork, so when the folk at Frew’s hear seven shots they will know that the war is on the Rappahannock.”

I recognized old Lawrence’s hand in this. It was just the kind of device that he would contrive. I hoped it would not miscarry, for I would have preferred a messenger; but after all the Border line was his concern.

Then I spoke aside to Shalah. In his view the Cherokees would not attack at dawn. They were more likely to wait till their supports overtook them, and then, to make a dash for the Rappahannock farms. Plunder was more in the line of these gentry than honest fighting. I spoke to the leader of the post, and he was for falling upon them in the narrows of the Rapidan. Their victory over the Meebaws had fired the blood of the Borderers, and made them contemptuous of the enemy. Still, in such a predicament, when we had to hold a frontier with a handful, the boldest course was likely to be the safest. I could only pray that Nicholson’s levies would turn up in time to protect the valley.

“Time passes, brother,” said Shalah. “We came by swiftness, but we return by guile. In three hours it will be dawn. Sleep till then, for there is much toil before thee.”

I saw the wisdom of his words, and went promptly to bed in a corner of the stockade. As I was lying down a man spoke to me, one Rycroft, at whose cabin I had once sojourned for a day.

“What brings the parson hereaways in these times?” he asked.

“What parson?” I asked.

“The man they call Doctor Blair.”

“Great God!” I cried, “what about him?”

“He was in Stafford county when I left, hunting for schoolmasters. Ay, and he had a girl with him.”

I sat upright with a start. “Where is he now?” I asked.

“I saw him last at Middleton’s Ford. I think he was going down the river. I warned him this was no place for parsons and women, but he just laughed at me. It’s time he was back in the Tidewater.”

So long as they were homeward-bound I did not care; but it gave me a queer fluttering of the heart to think that Elspeth but yesterday should have been near this perilous Border. I soon fell asleep, for I was mighty tired, but I dreamed evilly. I seemed to see Doctor Blair hunted by Cherokees, with his coat-tails flying and his wig blown away, and what vexed me was that I could not find Elspeth anywhere in the landscape.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OUR ADVENTURE RECEIVES A RECRUIT.

At earliest light, with the dew heavy on the willows and the river line a coil of mist, Shalah woke me for the road. We breakfasted off fried bacon, some of which I saved for the journey, for the Indian was content with one meal a day. As we left the stockade I noted the row of Meebaw scalps hanging, grim and bloody, from the poles. The Borderers were up and stirring, for they looked to take the Indians in the river narrows before the morning was old.

No two Indian war parties ever take the same path, so it was Shalah’s plan to work back to the route we had just travelled, by which the Cherokees had come yesterday. This sounds simple enough, but the danger lay in the second party. By striking to right or left we might walk into it, and then good-bye to our hopes of the hills. But the whole thing was easier to me than the cruel toil of yesterday. There was need of stealth and woodcraft, but not of yon killing speed.

For the first hour we went up a northern fork of the Rappahannock, then crossed the water at a ford, and struck into a thick pine forest. I was feeling wonderfully rested, and found no discomfort in Shalah’s long strides. My mind was very busy on the defence of the Borders, and I kept wondering how long the Governor’s militia would take to reach the Rappahannock, and whether Lawrence could reinforce the northern posts in time to prevent mischief in Stafford county. I cast back to my memory of the tales of Indian war, and could not believe but that the white man, if warned and armed, would roll back the Cherokees. ‘Twas not them I feared, but that other force now screened behind the mountains, who had for their leader some white madman with a fire in his head and Bible words on his lips. Were we of Virginia destined to fight with such fanatics as had distracted Scotland–fanatics naming the name of God, but leading in our case the armies of hell?

It was about eleven in the forenoon, I think, that Shalah dropped his easy swing and grew circumspect. The sun was very hot, and the noon silence lay dead on the woodlands. Scarcely a leaf stirred, and the only sounds were the twittering grasshoppers and the drone of flies. But Shalah found food for thought. Again and again he became rigid, and then laid an ear to the ground. His nostrils dilated like a horse’s, and his eyes were restless. We were now in a shallow vale, through which a little stream flowed among broad reed-beds. At one point he kneeled on the ground and searched diligently.

“See,” he said, “a horse’s prints not two hours old–a horse going west.”

Presently I myself found a clue. I picked up from a clump of wild onions a thread of coloured wool. This was my own trade, where I knew more than Shalah. I tested the thing in my mouth and between my fingers.

“This is London stuff,” I said. “The man who had this on his person bought his clothes from the Bristol merchants, and paid sweetly for them. He was no Rappahannock farmer.”

Shalah trailed like a bloodhound, following the hoof-marks out of the valley meadow to a ridge of sparse cedars where they showed clear on the bare earth, and then to a thicker covert where they were hidden among strong grasses. Suddenly he caught my shoulder, and pulled me to the ground. We crawled through a briery place to where a gap opened to the vale on our left.

A party of Indians were passing. They were young men with the fantastic markings of young braves. All were mounted on the little Indian horses. They moved at leisure, scanning the distance with hands shading eyes.

We wormed our way back to the darkness of the covert. “The advance guard of the second party,” Shalah whispered. “With good fortune, we shall soon see the rest pass, and then have a clear road for the hills.”

“I saw no fresh scalps,” I said, “so they seem to have missed our man on the horse.” I was proud of my simple logic.

All that Shalah replied was, “The rider was a woman.’

“How, in Heaven’s name, can you tell?” I asked.

He held out a long hair. “I found it among the vines at the level of a rider’s head.”

This was bad news indeed. What folly had induced a woman to ride so far across the Borders? It could be no settler’s wife, but some dame from the coast country who had not the sense to be timid. ‘Twas a grievous affliction for two men on an arduous quest to have to protect a foolish female with the Cherokees all about them.

There was no help for it, and as swiftly as possible and with all circumspection Shalah trailed the horse’s prints. They kept the high ground, in very broken country, which was the reason why the rider had escaped the Indians’ notice. Clearly they were moving slowly, and from the frequent halts and turnings I gathered that the rider had not much purpose about the road.

Then we came on a glade where the rider had dismounted and let the beast go. The horse had wandered down the ridge to the right in search of grazing, and the prints of a woman’s foot led to the summit of a knoll which raised itself above the trees.

There, knee-deep in a patch of fern, I saw what I had never dreamed of, what sent the blood from my heart in a cold shudder of fear: a girl, pale and dishevelled, was trying to part some vines. A twig crackled and she looked round, showing a face drawn with weariness and eyes large with terror.

It was Elspeth!

At the sight of Shalah she made to scream, but checked herself. It was