"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen."

"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones! I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush; don't ride into it open-eyed."

"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of them in your own hall."

Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her. "We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs upon the enemy!"

They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco had been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering copses. Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning gave glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless abysses. The road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to Mirza's side. Fields of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a wood of dripping cedars, a patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, rising ground and a vision of the river, then a swift descent to the lower creek, and the bridge across which lay the road that ran to the minister's house. Audrey spoke earnestly to the master of Fair View, and after a moment's hesitation he drew rein. "We will not cross, Colonel," he declared. "My preserver will have it that she has troubled us long enough; and indeed it is no great distance to the glebe house, and the rain has stopped. Have down with thee, then, obstinate one!"

Audrey put her hands behind her. "I want no money, sir. What I did was a gift; it has no price." She was only Darden's Audrey, but she spoke as proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; and seeing the smile, she was comforted. "For he understands," she said to herself. "He would never hurt me so." It did not wound her that he said no word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. There was to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of wit and her courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much.

The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that led to the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it brought them to the doors of Fair View.

It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend's, came down the stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, with rich lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up and down in the cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. "No sign of our men," he said, as the other entered. "Come to the fire. Faith, Colonel, my russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you the aqua vitæ?"

"You are right," said Haward, smiling. "The wife of the minister of this parish was good enough to come to my assistance."

"Ah!" said the Colonel dryly. "Did Atalanta come as well? She is his reverence's servant, is she not?"

"No," answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning across, stirred the fire.

The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his ruffles, and the toy caught the Colonel's eye. "One of Spotswood's golden horseshoes!" he exclaimed. "I had them wrought for him in London. Had they been so many stars and garters, he could have made no greater pother! 'Tis ten years since I saw one."

Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it on the other's palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and read aloud the motto engraved upon its back: "'Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes.' A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and cross these sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his reverence's servant? What is she?"

On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors and polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had ceased, but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows of the night were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had spoken and he who had listened sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel at last. "Dick Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most tragical, here"—

"Here?" said Haward, as the other paused.

The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. "And here the continued kindness of a young and handsome preserver," he said suavely, and extended the box to his host.

The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. "You will be so good as to leave my daughter's name out of the conversation."

"As you please," Haward answered, with hauteur.

Another silence, broken by the guest. "Why did you hang that kit-kat of yourself behind the door, Haward?" he asked amiably. "'Tis too fine a piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder shepherdess."

"I do not know why," said Haward restlessly. "A whim. Perhaps by nature I court shadows and dark corners."

"That is not so," Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, the better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now darkened, as the flames rose and fell. "A speaking likeness," he went on, glancing from it to the original and back again. "I ever thought it one of Kneller's best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only—you have noticed, I dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change aspect many times?—only just now it seemed to me that it lost that distinction"—

"Well?" said Haward, as he paused.

The Colonel went on slowly: "Lost that distinction, and became the portrait of"—

"Well? Of whom?" asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet.

A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: "I will not take offense, Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. In good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows fleeing."

Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and of footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here, Haward, or shall we go into the hall?"

"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think, Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and Saunderson to bring their prisoners here."

As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment, and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the result of such an union."

"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but 'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan."

There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road, should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your house as to a judgment bar?"

"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward.

Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his arms.

Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?"

"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"—

"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I, dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay a snare and hide a trail."

"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his Monacans, and sent it."

"Was it Audrey?"

Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself fallen into the pit which you digged."

From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or into a court room?"

If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the trader's twitching face in a cold and smiling regard. "Well, Monacan?" he demanded.

Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds. Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian; the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate.

Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them at once to Williamsburgh."

Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience. "There is no proof."

"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"—

The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance. "What I say," he answered quietly. "My servants find two men lurking beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they take them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before me. It is all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what they wanted there. There is no proof, no witness"—

"I see that there is no witness that you care to call," said the Colonel coldly.

Haward waved his hand. "There is no witness," he said, without change of tone. "And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case."

The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering the room, and who had not shared Saunderson's start of surprise at the master's latest orders, nodded assent. Haward stood for a moment gazing steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they have gone," he said. "Good riddance! A pretty brace of villains!"

"I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy," said the Colonel gravely.

Haward laughed. "I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go to the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or two of the woods will work a cure."