consciousness that for a while there had been no stillness. The air was
full of sound, shouts, savage cries, the beating of a drum, the noise
of musketry. I sprang to my feet, and went to the door to meet Rolfe
crossing the threshold.

He put his arm within mine and drew me out into the sunshine upon the
doorstep. "I thought I should find you here," he said; "but it is only
a room with its memories, Ralph. Out here is more breadth, more height.
There is country yet, Ralph, and after a while, friends. The Indians
are beginning to attack in force. Humphry Boyse is killed, and Morris
Chaloner. There is smoke over the plantations up and down the river, as
far as we can see, and awhile ago the body of a child drifted down to
us."

"I am unarmed," I said. "I will but run to the fort for sword and
musket"--

"No need," he answered. "There are the dead whom you may rob." The noise
increasing as he spoke, we made no further tarrying, but, leaving behind
us house and garden, hurried to the palisade.

CHAPTER XXXVIII IN WHICH I GO UPON A QUEST

THROUGH a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked, and saw the
sandy neck joining the town to the main, and the deep and dark woods
beyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to a host. Between us and
that refuge dead men lay here and there, stiff and stark, with the black
paint upon them, and the colored feathers of their headdresses red or
blue against the sand. One warrior, shot through the back, crawled like
a wounded beetle to the forest. We let him go, for we cared not to waste
ammunition upon him.

I drew back from my loophole, and held out my hand to the women for a
freshly loaded musket. A quick murmur like the drawing of a breath came
from our line. The Governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glance
along the stretch of wooden stakes that were neither so high nor so
thick as they should have been. "I am new to this warfare, Captain
Percy," he said. "Do they think to use those logs that they carry as
battering rams?"

"As scaling ladders, your Honor," I replied. "It is on the cards that we
may have some sword play, after all."

"We'll take your advice, the next time we build a palisade, Ralph
Percy," muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that
we had thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he
coolly looked over the pales at the oncoming savages. "Wait until they
pass the blasted pine, men!" he cried. "Then give them