Fairfax
Cary's handsome face, not pale as it had been between nine and ten
o'clock, but alert, flushed, and--or so Rand interpreted its light and
energy--triumphant. He went on into the house, ordered and drank a small
quantity of brandy, and when he came back upon the porch was met by
those near him with a cry of "Speech! Speech!" The Governor's periods
were at an end, and John Randolph of Roanoke held the impromptu tribune.
Rand's eloquence, if not as impassioned and mordant, was as
overwhelming, and his reasoning of a closer texture. Those around him
loudly claimed him for the next to address the crowd, which now numbered
a great part of the free men of Richmond. He shook off the detaining
hands and, with a gesture of refusal to one and all, made his escape by
a side step into the miscellany of the street, and finally out of the
throng, and, by a detour, back to the deserted square where stood his
office. He had lost sight of Mocket, but as he put his key into the
door, the other came panting up, and the two entered the bare,
sunshine-flooded room together. Rand locked the door and, without a look
at his trembling subaltern, proceeded to take from his desk paper after
paper, some in neatly tied packets, some in single sheets, until a crisp
white heap lay on the wood beneath his hand. "Light a fire," he said
over his shoulder. "There's absolutely nothing, is there, in that desk
of yours?"

"Nothing. For the Lord's sake, Lewis, is this the end of everything?"

"Everything is a large word. It is the end of this." He pushed a table
closer to the fireplace and transferred to it his armful of papers.
"Strike a light, will you? Here goes every line that can incriminate. If
Burr did as he was told, and burned two letters of mine, there'll not be
a word when I finish here." He tore a paper across and tossed it into
the flame. "Tom, Tom, don't look so woe-begone! Life is long, and now
and then a battle will be lost. A battle--a campaign, a war! But given
the fighter, all wars will not be lost. Somewhere, there awaits Victory,
hard-won, but laurel-crowned!" He tore and burned another paper. "This
fat's in the fire, this chance has gone by, this road's barricaded, and
we must across country to another! Well, I shall make it serve, the
smooth, green, country road that jog-trots to market! What is man but a
Mercenary, a Swiss, to die before whatever door will give him moderate
pay? I would have had a kingdom an I could. I would