ered, dispersed through the colony!"

"Ay, but they can be brought together! And to that end, seeing how few
there are upon any one plantation, upon the day when they rise, they
must raise with them servants and slaves. Then will they overpower
masters and overseers, and gathering to one point, form there a force
which will beat down all opposition. It is simple enough. We will but do
that which it was proposed to do ten years ago. You know the
instructions given by the Parliament to the four commissioners?"

"They were to summon the colony to surrender to the Commonwealth. If it
did so, well and good; if not, war was to be declared, and the servants
invited to rise against their masters and so purchase their freedom."

"Precisely. Berkeley submitted, and there was no rising. This time there
will be no summons, but a rising, and a very great one. It will be,
primarily, a rising of four hundred Oliverians, strong to avenge many
and grievous wrongs; but with them will rise servants and slaves, and to
the banner of the Commonwealth, beneath which they will march, will
flock every Nonconformist in the land, and, when success is assured,
then will come in and give us weight and respectability those (and they
are not a few) of the better classes who long in their hearts for the
good days of the Commonwealth, and yet dare not lift a finger to bring
them back."

"And the royalists?"

"If they resist, their blood be upon them! But there shall be no
carnage, no butchery. And if they submit they shall be unmolested, even
as they were ten years ago. There is land enough for all."

"The servants and slaves?"

"They that join with us, of whatever class, shall be freed."

"This insurrection is actually in train?"

"Let us call it a revolution. Yes, it is in train as far as regards the
Oliverians. We have but begun to sound servants and slaves."

"And you?"

"I am, for lack of a better, General to the Oliverians."

"And you believe yourself able to control these motley forces,--men
wronged and revengeful, fanatics, peasants, brutal negroes, mulattoes
(whom they say are devils), convicts,--to say to them, 'Thus far must
you go, and no farther.' You invoke a fiend that may turn and rend you!"

Godwyn shaded his eyes with his hand. "Yes," he said at last, speaking
with energy. "I do believe it! I know it is a desperate game; but the
stake! I believe in myself. And I have four hundred able adjutants, men
who are to me what h