cried the Colonel.

The Governor, shaking with laughter, got to his feet. At a signal his
groom brought up his horse and held the stirrup for him to mount. His
Excellency swung himself into the saddle and gathered the reins into his
gauntleted hands; the remainder of the company, too, got to horse. The
Governor's steed, a fiery, coal black Arabian, danced with impatience.

"Selim scents a fray!" cried his Excellency. "Come on, gentlemen! 'T
will be sunset before we reach that sweet piece of earth behind Verney's
orchard."

The half king rose from his seat, took three measured strides, and stood
side by side with the Ricahecrian chief.

"My white father will give to the Ricahecrian the gift he asks?"

A gust of passion took the Governor. "No!" he thundered, turning in his
saddle. "The Ricahecrian may go to the devil and the Blue Mountains
alone!" He struck spurs into his horse's sides. "Gentlemen, we waste
time!"

The Arabian dashed down one of the winding glades of the forest; the
remainder of the party spurred their horses into the mad gallop known as
the "planter's pace," and in an instant the whole cavalcade had whirled
out of sight. A burst of laughter, made elfin by distance, came back to
the village on the banks of the Pamunkey, then all was quiet again. The
gold-laced, audacious company had vanished like a troop of powerful
enchanters, leaving behind them a sullen throng of native genii, kept
down by a Solomon's Seal which is _not_ always unbreakable.

Something stirred in the midst of the great mulberry tree, a tree so
vast and leafy that it might have hidden many things. A man swung
himself down with a lithe grace from limb to limb, and finally dropped
into the circle of Indians who stood or sat in a sombre stillness which
might mean much or little. Only on the outskirts the crowd of women,
children and youths, had commenced a low, monotonous, undefined noise
which had in it something sinister, ominous. It was like the sound, dull
and heavy, of the ground swell that precedes the storm. The man who
dropped from the tree was Luiz Sebastian, and his appearance seemed in
no degree to surprise the Indians. There followed a short and
sententious conversation between the mulatto, the half king and the
Ricahecrian chief. Beside the half king lay the still smoking peace
pipe. When the colloquy was ended, he raised it. At a signal an Indian
brought water in a gourd, and into it the half king plunged the glowing
b