k action at the thought of a
possible peril to his love. "Come, Dick, to the house; she may be in
danger."

"But dis libe one, Mars' Hil'ry?"

"Quick, quick! leave him; we will see about him later."

With no further attempt at caution, they sprang recklessly up the steep
path, and, gaining the brow of the hill, ran at full speed toward the
house. He noticed that there were no lights in the negro quarters, no
sounds of the merry-making usually going on there in the early evening.
Through the open windows on the side of the house, he had a hasty
glimpse of the disordered dining-room. The great doors of the hall
were open. They were on the porch now,--now at the door of the hall.
It was empty. He paused a second. "Katharine, Katharine!" he called
aloud, a note of fear in his voice, "where are you? Colonel Wilton!"
In the silence which his voice had broken he heard a weak and feeble
moan, which struck terror into his heart.

He ran hastily down the hall, and stopped at the dining-room door
aghast. The smoking candles in the sconces were throwing a somewhat
uncertain light over a scene of devastation and ruin; the furniture of
the table and the accessories of the meal lay in a broken heap at the
foot of it, the chairs were overturned, the curtains torn, the great
sideboard had been swept bare of its usual load of glittering silver.

At his feet lay the body of a man, in the now familiar red uniform,
blood from a ghastly sword-thrust clotted about his throat, the floor
about his head being covered with ominous stains. A little farther
away on the floor, near the table, there was the body of another man,
in another uniform, a naked sword lying by his side; he had a
frightful-looking wound on his forehead, and the blood was slowly
oozing out of his coat-sleeve, staining the lace at his left wrist.
Even as he looked, the man turned a little on the floor, and the same
low moan broke from his lips. Talbot stepped over the first body to
the side of the other.

"My God, it's Seymour," he said. He knelt beside him, as Katharine had
done. "Seymour," he called, "Seymour!" The man opened his eyes
slowly, and looked vacantly at him.

"Katharine," he murmured.

"What of her? is she safe?" asked Talbot, in an agony of fear.

"Raiders--prisoner," continued Seymour, brokenly, in a whisper, and
then feebly murmured, "Water, water!"

"Here, Dick, get some water quickly! First hand me that decanter of
wine," pointing