eardsley's gate, he thought it would be a neighborly
act for him to ride in and ask if there was anything he could do for the
captain's daughter; but she was not to be seen. Marcy afterward learned
that she had taken up her abode with Mrs. Brown, with whom she intended
to remain until her father could come home and make other arrangements
for her comfort. There were a few negroes sauntering around in the
neighborhood of the smoking ruins, and among them was the girl Nancy,
who looked at him now and then with an expression on her face that would
have endangered her life if her master could have seen and understood
it. The boy was glad to turn about and ride away from the scene, for it
was one that had a depressing effect upon him.

"Beardsley brought it upon his own head," was what he told himself over
and over again, but without finding any consolation in the thought. "It
is bound to make him worse than he was before--it would make me worse if
I were in his place--and nobody knows what he will spring on us next."

As Marcy had expected, his arrival at the hitching-rack in front of the
post-office was the signal for which Tom Allison, Mark Goodwin, and a
few others like them had been waiting. They opened the door and ran
across the street in a body, highly excited of course, and all talking
at once.

"What happened out your way last night?" was the first question he could
understand.

"Fire," was the reply. "Didn't you see it?"

"You're right, I did," said Tom.

"Then why didn't you come out?" inquired Marcy. "I didn't see you or any
other white man about there."

"I'll bet you didn't," exclaimed Goodwin. "When two houses owned by
prominent men, and standing a mile and a half apart, get on fire almost
at the same moment in the dead hour of night----"

"And while their owners are absent from home," chimed in Tom.

"And while their owners are away from home on business," added Mark, "it
means something, doesn't it? We stayed pretty close about our
hearth-stones, I bet you, for we didn't know how soon our own buildings
might get a-going. Where were you when it happened?"

"I was at home, where you were," replied Marcy.

"And wasn't your house set too?"

Marcy said it was not; or if it was he hadn't found it out.

"That's mighty strange," remarked one of the group who had not spoken
before.

"What is strange?" demanded Marcy. "Explain yourself."

"Why, if there was a band of marauders about, as every one se