of small planters and tenants of Colonels
Ludwell and Fitzhugh, the Surveyor-General, and Dr. Anthony Nash. He saw
the master, panting, bleeding, but exultant, seize Dr. Nash's hands in
his own. He saw Sir Charles smile and extend his box of richly scented
snuff to Colonel Ludwell, and the women leaving their corner of refuge
with hysterical laughter and tears; saw Betty Carrington in her father's
arms, and Mistress Lettice being helped across a heap of dead by Captain
Laramore. Indians, negroes, mulatto, scoundrel whites, were gone.

"They got off clear--the d--d villains," said Dick Whittington,
appearing beside him, "just before the horses came up. But Woodson has
gone after the slaves and the convicts with a party of Carrington's men.
He'll catch them, I'm thinking, and they'll come to a pirate's
end--that's all the pirating they'll get. The Indians will get clean
away; they're most to the Pamunkey by now, I reckon."

Landless staggered to his feet, and put his hand to his head, which was
bleeding. "The women are all safe?" he demanded.

"All but poor Annis," said the boy. "When I saw the poor maid fall, I
thanked the Lord that Joyce Whitbread was safe in her mother's cottage
at Banbury. But none of the others were hurt. There is Mistress Lettice
and Mistress Betty Carrington--I do not see Mistress Patricia."

The master of Verney Manor, pouring forth a rapid account of the late
affair to the gentlemen who crowded around him, was brought to a dead
stop by the appearance of a man who had burst through the throng, and
now stood before him, half naked, bleeding, with white, drawn face and
wild eyes.

"What is it? Speak!" cried the master, terror of he knew not what
growing in his eyes.

"Your daughter, Colonel Verney!" cried Landless. "She is not here. The
Ricahecrians have carried her off."

With a sound between a groan and a scream the Colonel staggered, and
would have fallen had not Carrington caught him. "Gone! Impossible!"
cried Sir Charles vehemently, all his studied insouciance thrown to the
winds. "She was with the women behind the barrier that we made. She is
here."

He began to call her by name, loudly, appealingly, but there came no
answering voice.

"She will not answer," said Landless hoarsely. "She is not here. She was
with the women until just before the last. She saw her father fall, and
thought him dead, and you dead, too, Sir Charles Carew, and she came to
me, and prayed me to kill her. Th