s are arming, the blacks in the Carolinas watch
us, and the British regiments at Augustine are all itching to ravage and
plunder and drive us into the sea if we declare not for the King who
pays them."

Sir Lupus nodded, winked, and fell to slicing tobacco with a small, gold
knife.

"We're all Quakers in these days--eh, George? We can't fight--no, we
really can't! It's wrong, George,--oh, very wrong." And he fell
a-chuckling, so that his paunch shook like a jelly.

"I think you do not understand me," I said.

He looked up quickly.

"We Ormonds are only waiting to draw sword."

"Draw sword!" he cried. "What d'ye mean?"

"I mean that, once convinced our honor demands it, we cannot choose but
draw."

"Don't be an ass!" he shouted. "Have I not told you that there's no
honor in this bloody squabble? Lord save the lad, he's mad as
Walter Butler!"

"Sir Lupus," I said, angrily, "is a man an ass to defend his own land?"

"He is when it's not necessary! Lie snug; nobody is going to harm you.
Lie snug, with both arms around your own land."

"I meant my own native land, not the miserable acres my slaves plant to
feed and clothe me."

He glared, twisting his long pipe till the stem broke short.

"Well, which land do you mean to defend, England or these colonies?" he
asked, staring.

"That is what I desire to learn, sir," I said, respectfully. "That is
why I came North. With us in Florida, all is, so far, faction and
jealousy, selfish intrigue and prejudiced dispute. The truth, the vital
truth, is obscured; the right is hidden in a petty storm where local
tyrants fill the air with dust, striving each to blind the other."

I leaned forward earnestly. "There must be right and wrong in this
dispute; Truth stands naked somewhere in the world. It is for us to find
her. Why, mark me, Sir Lupus, men cannot sit and blink at villany, nor
look with indifference on a struggle to the death. One side is right,
t'other wrong. And we must learn how matters stand."

"And what will it advance us to learn how matters stand?" he said, still
staring, as though I were some persistent fool vexing him with
unleavened babble. "Suppose these rebels are right--and, dammy, but I
think they are--and suppose our King's troops are roundly trouncing
them--and I think they are, too--do you mean to say you'd draw sword and
go a-prowling, seeking for some obliging enemy to knock you in the head
or hang you for a rebel to your neighbor's apple-tr