king feverishly at a rose. The Governor
laughed out loud.

"Brave hearts!" he cried. "Will you travel together?"

I looked at Grey. "That can hardly be," he said.

"Well, we must spin for it," said Nicholson, taking a guinea from his
pocket. "Royals for Mr. Garvald, quarters for Mr. Grey," he cried as he
spun it.

It fell Royals. We had both been standing, and Grey now bowed to me and
sat down. His face was very pale and his lips tightly shut.

The Governor gave a last toast "Let us drink," he called, "to
Dulcinea's champion and the fortunes of his journey." At that there was
such applause you might have thought me the best-liked man in the
dominion. I looked at Elspeth, but she averted her eyes.

As we left the table I stepped beside Grey. "You must come with me," I
whispered. "Nay, do not refuse. When you know all you will come
gladly." And I appointed a meeting on the next day at the Half-way
Tavern.

I got to my house at the darkening, and found Ringan waiting for me.

This time he had not sought a disguise, but he kept his fiery head
covered with a broad hat, and the collar of his seaman's coat enveloped
his lower face. To a passer-by in the dusk he must have seemed an
ordinary ship's captain stretching his legs on land.

He asked for food and drink, and I observed that his manner was very
grave.

"Are things in train, Andrew?" he asked.

I told him "to the last stirrup buckle."

"It's as well," said he, "for the trouble has begun."

Then he told me a horrid tale. The Rapidan is a stream in the north of
the dominion, flowing into the Rappahannock on its south bank. Two
years past a family of French folk--D'Aubigny was their name--had made
a home in a meadow by that stream and built a house and a strong
stockade, for they were in dangerous nearness to the hills, and had no
neighbours within forty miles. They were gentlefolk of some substance,
and had carved out of the wilderness a very pretty manor with orchards
and flower gardens. I had never been to the place, but I had heard the
praise of it from dwellers on the Rappahannock. No Indians came near
them, and there they abode, happy in their solitude--a husband and
wife, three little children, two French servants, and a dozen negroes.

A week ago tragedy had come like a thunderbolt. At night the stockade
was broke, and the family woke from sleep to hear the war-whoop and see
by the light of their blazing byres a band of painted savages. It seems
th