o
climb the other bank. And then suddenly before me I saw a light, and a
challenge rang out into the night.

The voice was a white man's, and brought me to my bearings. Weak as I
was, I had the fierce satisfaction that our errand had not been idle. I
replied with the password, and a big fellow strode out from a stockade.

"Mr. Garvald!" he said, staring. "What brings you here? Where are the
rest of you?" He looked at Shalah and then at me, and finally took my
arm and drew me inside.

There were a score in the place--Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful
breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty
cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by
the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum
and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and could
speak.

"The Cherokees are on us," I said, and I told them of the army we had
followed.

"How many?" they asked.

"Three hundred for a vanguard, but more follow."

One man laughed, as if well pleased. "I'm in the humour for Cherokees
just now. There's a score of scalps hanging outside, if you could see
them, Mr. Garvald."

"What scalps?" I asked, dumbfoundered.

"The Rapidan murderers. We got word of them in the woods yesterday, and
six of us went hunting. It was pretty shooting. Two got away with some
lead in them, the rest are in the Tewawha pools, all but their
topknots. I've very little notion of Cherokees."

Somehow the news gave me intense joy. I thought nothing of the
barbarity of it, or that white men should demean themselves to the
Indian level. I remembered only the meadow by the Rapidan, and the
little lonely water-wheel. Our vow was needless, for others had done
our work.

"Would I had been with you!" was all I said. "But now you have more
than a gang of Meebaw raiders to deal with. There's an invasion coming
down from the hills, and this is the first wave of it, I want word sent
to Governor Nicholson at James Town. I was to tell him where the
trouble was to be feared, and in a week you'll have a regiment at your
backs. Who has the best horse? Simpson? Well, let Simpson carry the
word down the valley. If my plans are working well, the news should be
at James Town by dawn to-morrow."

The man called Simpson got up, saddled his beast, and waited my
bidding. "This is the word to send," said I. "Say that the Cherokees
are attacking by the line of the Rappahannock. Say t