n
of this sacrilege, their attention was suddenly aroused by the near
report of a pistol, the ball of which, it was discovered, had struck
into the trunk of the willow.

"I will kill some of the scoundrels, if I die for it!" was the
exclamation heard immediately after the shot, and Alfred Markham was
seen struggling with an officer who had seized him. The young man had
been observed and followed, as he madly rushed from a wing of the
mansion towards the burial-place, and arrested at the moment that he
was levelling a second pistol.

"Henry, shoot him down!" he screamed to his companion, who was now
approaching armed with his carbine.

"Let me go, sir! I will not see my father's tomb disturbed by ruffians."

"Loose your hands!" cried Henry, directing his passionate defiance to
the individual who wrestled with Alfred, "loose your hands, I say, or I
will fire upon you!"

"Fire at the drunken villains around my father's grave!" shouted Alfred.

"They shall have it," returned Henry, eagerly, "if it is the last shot I
ever make." And with these words the youth levelled his piece at the
same group which had before escaped Alfred's aim, but, luckily, the
carbine snapped and missed fire. In the next instant Horse Shoe's broad
hand was laid upon Henry's shoulder, as he exclaimed, "Why, Master
Henry, have you lost your wits? Do you want to bring perdition and
combustion both, down upon the heads of the whole house?"

"Galbraith Robinson, stand back!" ejaculated Henry. "I am not in the
humor to be baulked."

"Hush--for God's sake, hush!--foolish boy," returned Robinson with real
anger. "You are as fierce as a young panther--I am ashamed of you!"

By this time the whole company were assembled around the two young men,
and the violent outbreak of wrath from those at whom the shot was aimed,
as well as from others present, rose to a pitch which the authority of
Tarleton in vain sought to control. Already, in this paroxysm of rage,
one of the party, whose motions had escaped notice in the confusion of
the scene, had hurried to the kitchen fire, where he had snatched up a
burning brand, and hurled it into the midst of some combustibles in a
narrow apartment on the ground floor.

The clamor had drawn Mrs. Markham and Mildred to the chamber window, and
whilst they looked down with a frightened gaze upon the confused scene
below, it was some moments before they became aware of the participation
of Henry and Alfred in this sudde