smash your beauty! I'll draw more
blood from you than ever the whip of the overseer did! I'll use you
worse than I used that old man last night, who writhed and struggled,
and tried to pray! I'll--"

With white lips and blazing eyes Landless sprang forward, and clapped
the mouth of the pistol to the ruffian's temple. Roach recoiled, then
sunk upon his knees with an abject whine for mercy.

Landless let his hand drop, and moved slowly back to the door. "You had
need to cry for mercy," he said in a low, distinct voice, "for you were
never so near to death before. I let you go now, but one day I shall
kill you. Until which day--take care of yourself!" Still with his face
upon them he passed out of the door, then turned and walked away with a
steady step, but with a heart bleeding for the loss of his friend, and
heavy with forebodings for the future.

In the tobacco house the murderer, the forger, and the mulatto sat
stricken into silence until the last crisp footfall had died away. Then
amidst a torrent of curses Roach made for the door. Trail plucked him
back. "Where are you going?" he cried.

"I don't know! To the devil!"

"The bloodhounds will be upon your trail before noon."

The wretch cried out and struck his hand against the wall with a force
that laid the knuckles bare and bleeding.

"There is a way," said Luiz Sebastian slowly, "a way that only I know.
You must take to the inlet here, and swim up it until you come to the
mouth of the brook yonder in the forest. You must wade up that brook
until you come to a second, and up that until you come to a third. When
you have gone a mile up that one, leave it, and strike through the
woods, going towards the north. Another mile will bring you to a village
of the Chickahominies upon the Pamunkey.[1] They are at odds with
Governor and Council, and they will hide you. Moreover, I once did their
sachem a service, and they are my friends."

"I'm off," said Roach, breaking from the detaining grasp.

"Wait," said Luiz Sebastian. "There is time enough. Woodson will not
come for a long while. When he does, he shall find Senor Trail and
myself busily at work there outside, and we will say that you left us,
and went down the inlet a long time before. But now we want to talk to
you."

"Be quick then," growled the other, "I've no mind to swing for this
job."

Luiz Sebastian brought his handsomely malevolent face close to the
other's hideous countenance.

"Would you not