, when all was ready and one had run to fetch the
fire, that I heard a smothered oath from Dick and saw the Indian who was
coming up to fire the wood heaps drop his brand and tread upon it.

"Ecod!" said a voice, courtier-like and smoothly modulated. "'Tis most
devilish lucky I came, Captain Ireton. Another moment and they would
have grilled you in the king's uniform--a rank treason, to say naught of
poor Jack Warden left without a clout to cover him."

It needed not the glance aside to name mine enemy. But I would not
pleasure him with an answer. Neither would Richard Jennifer. He stood
silent for a little space, smiling and nursing his chin in one hand, as
his habit was. Then he spoke again.

"I came to bid you God-speed, gentlemen. You tumbled bravely into my
little trap. I made no doubt you'd follow where the lady led, and so you
did. But you'll turn back from this, I do assure you, if there be any
virtue in an Indian barbecue."

At this Richard could hold in no longer.

"Curse you!" he gritted. "Do you mean that you kidnapped Mistress Stair
to draw us out of hiding?"

"Truly," said this arch-fiend, smiling again. "Most unluckily for you,
you both stood in my way,--you see I am speaking of it now as a thing
past,--and I chanced upon this thought of killing two birds with the one
stone; nay, three, I should say, if you count the lady in."

"Have done!" choked Richard, in a voice thick with impotent rage. "Give
place, you hound, and let your savages to their work!"

"At your pleasure, Mr. Jennifer. I have no fancy for funeral baked
meats, hot or cold, though they be made, as now, to furnish forth a
marriage supper. I bid you good night, gentlemen. I'll go and make that
call upon the lady which you were so rude as to interrupt a little while
ago." And with that he turned his back upon us and strode away,
forgetting to tell his redskinned myrmidons to strip me of that king's
uniform he was so loath to have me burned in.

The Cherokees waited till the master-executioner was out of sight among
the trees. Then they set up their infernal howling again, and the
fire-lighter ran to fetch a fresh brand.

"Courage, lad! 'twill soon be over now," said I, hearing a groan from
my poor Dick.

His reply was a chattering curse, not upon Falconnet or the Indians, but
upon his malady, the tertian fever.

"Now, by all the fiends! I'm chilling again, Jack!" he gasped. "If these
cursed wood-wolves mark it, they'll set it dow