past, they go back to their
steadings and nothing more is heard of it. If trouble comes, who are
such natural defenders of the dominion as the frontier dwellers? All I
have done is to give them the sinews of war. But if Governor Nicholson
had taken up the business, and it were known that he had leaned on old
rebels, what would the Council say? What would have been the view of my
lord Howard and the wiseacres in London?"

He said nothing, but knit his brows. My words were too much in tune
with his declared opinions for him to gainsay them.

"It comes to this, then," he said at length. "You have raised a body of
men who are waiting marching orders. What next, Mr. Garvald?"

"The next thing is to march. After what befell on the Rapidan, we
cannot sit still."

He started. "I have heard nothing of it."

Then I told him the horrid tale. He got to his feet and strode up and
down the room, with his dark face working.

"God's mercy, what a calamity! I knew the folk. They came here with
letters from his Grace of Shrewsbury. Are you certain your news is
true?"

"Alas! there is no doubt. Stafford county is in a ferment, and the next
post from the York will bring you word."

"Then, by God, it is for me to move. No Council or Assembly will dare
gainsay me. I can order a levy by virtue of His Majesty's commission."

"I have come to pray you to hold your hand till I send you better
intelligence," I said.

His brows knit again. "But this is too much. Am I to refrain from doing
my duty till I get your gracious consent, sir?"

"Nay, nay," I cried. "Do not misunderstand me. This thing is far graver
than you think, sir. If you send your levies to the Rapidan, you leave
the Tidewater defenceless, and while you are hunting a Cherokee party
in the north, the enemy will be hammering at your gates."

"What enemy?" he asked.

"I do not know, and that is what I go to find out." Then I told him all
I had gathered about the unknown force in the hills, and the apparent
strategy of a campaign which was beyond an Indian's wits. "There is a
white man at the back of it," I said, "a white man who talks in Bible
words and is mad for devastation."

His face had grown very solemn. He went to a bureau, unlocked it, and
took from a drawer a bit of paper, which he tossed to me.

"I had that a week past to-morrow. My servant got it from an Indian in
the woods."

It was a dirty scrap, folded like a letter, and bearing the
superscription, "_T