to speak. "I am sorry to see that you are
wounded," he said gravely.

"I thank you, sir,--it is nothing."

The Colonel walked the length of the plateau twice, then came back to
his prisoner's side. "My daughter has told me all," he said somewhat
huskily. "That you and the Susquehannock sought for her and found her;
that you fought for her bravely more than once; that after the Indian
was slain you guided and protected her through the forest; that you have
in all things borne yourself towards her faithfully and reverently, not
injuring her by word, thought or deed. My daughter is very dear to
me--dearer than life, I am not ungrateful. I thank you very heartily."

"Mistress Patricia Verney is dear to me also," said Sir Charles, coming
forward to stand beside his kinsman. "I too thank the man who restores
her to her friends--to her lover."

"And I would to God," said the third figure, advancing, "that we could
save the brave man to whom so much is owed. If I were Governor of
Virginia--"

"You could do naught, Carrington," broke in the Colonel impatiently.
"The man is convict--outside the pale! A convict, and the head of an
Oliverian plot! Scarce the King himself could pardon him! And if he did,
how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him
from the rabble--and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but
his duty. And yet--and yet--"

He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the
curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping
before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I
could save you. I would gladly overlook all that is over and done with,
would gladly free you, aid you, help you, so far as might be, to
retrieve your past--but I cannot. My hands are tied; it is
impossible--you must see for yourself that it is impossible."

"None can see that so clearly as myself, Colonel Verney," Landless said
steadily. "I thank you for the will none the less."

"To take you back with me," the other continued, beginning to stride up
and down again, "is to take you back, bound, to certain death. And there
is but one alternative--to leave you here in the wilderness. Your
presence here is known only to those upon whose discretion I can depend.
They would hold their tongues, and none need ever be the wiser. But the
Settlements will be barred to you forever, and hundreds of leagues
stretch between this spot and the Dutch or the Ne