g out of the
common in the kind of attention the inmates were paying, but Van Dorn's
eyes were absorbed in the sight of several drooping and yet almost
startled dove-eyed quadroon maids, and he only noticed that the spy,
Ransom, could not be seen.

"Sorden," Van Dorn said, slipping down, "can Ransom have betrayed us?
_Chis!_ they all look as if a death-warrant was being read."

"My skin! No, Captain. Air they all there?"

"All," said Van Dorn; "I see thirty thousand dollars of flesh in sight."

"And niggers won't scrimmage nohow," spoke Whitecar. "Let's beat 'em
mos' to death."

"Come on then," said Van Dorn, softly; "if the windows are not lifted,
break them in."

He twisted, by main strength, a panel out of the palings near the house,
and led the way to the great front door. A dozen desperate hands seized
the heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that moment
every light in Cowgill House went out.

"Dar's ghosts in dar," the hoarse voice of Derrick Molleston was heard
to say, and the negro element stopped and shrank.

"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment's
delay--the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, and
sounds of thunder rolling in the sky--a blazing pine-knot, all prepared,
was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and with
nothing but his rude whip in his right, bounded in the door, shouting:

"Patty Cannon has come!"

At that dreaded name there were a few suppressed shrieks, and the great
windows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnappers
came pouring over.

Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and it
lighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left and
the great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the attitude
of defence.

"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!"

An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and the
lightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him to
his followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silken
mustache like golden flame.

A mighty yell rose from the emboldened gang as they formed behind him,
with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever would
disable but fail to kill.

Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across the
human objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbed
it and darted on.