--shameful to betray the one for the other."

She gazed at him, fascinated; his voice swayed her, his handsome, grave
face held her. Whether it was reason or emotion, mind or heart, I know
not, but her whole sensitive being seemed to respond to his voice; and
as he played upon this lovely human instrument, varying his deep theme,
she responded in every nerve, every breath. Reason, hope, sorrow,
tenderness, passion--all these I read in her deep, velvet eyes, and in
the mute language of her lips, and in the timing pulse-beat under the
lace on her breast.

I rose and walked to the door. She did not heed my going, nor did Sir
George.

Under the oak-tree I found Murphy and Mount, smoking their pipes and
watching Beacraft, who lay with his rough head pillowed on his arms,
feigning slumber.

"Why did you mark so many houses with the red hatchet?" I asked,
pleasantly.

He did not move a muscle, but over his face a deep color spread to the
neck and hair.

"Murphy," I said, "take that prisoner to General Schuyler!"

Beacraft sprang up, glaring at me out of bloodshot eyes.

"Shoot him if he breaks away," I added.

From his convulsed and distorted lips a torrent of profanity burst as
Murphy laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and faced him eastward. I drew
the blue paper from my wallet, whispered to Murphy, and handed it to
him. He shoved it inside the breast of his hunting-shirt, cocked his
rifle, and tapped Beacraft on the arm.

So they marched away across the sunlit pasture, where blackbirds walked
among the cattle, and the dew sparkled in tinted drops of fire.

In all my horror of the man I pitied him, for I knew he was going to his
death, there through the fresh, sweet morning, under the blue heavens.
Once I saw him look up, as though to take a last long look at a free
sky, and my heart ached heavily. Yet he had plotted death in its most
dreadful shapes for others who loved life as well as he--death to
neighbors, death to strangers--whole families, whom he had perhaps never
even seen--to mothers, to fathers, old, young, babes in the cradle,
babes at the breast; and he had set down the total of one hundred and
twenty-nine scalps at twenty dollars each, over his own signature.

Schuyler had said to me that it was not the black-eyed Indians the
people of Tryon County dreaded, but the blue-eyed savages. And I had
scarcely understood at that time how the ferocity of demons could lie
dormant in white breasts.

Standin