and negroes! And no help could come for hours and it is now nearly ten!
Moreover, the messenger would have to pass through the savages lying in
the woods,--he would never reach Rosemead with his scalp on!"

"I will be your messenger," said Nash rising, "and as every moment is
more precious than rubies, I had best start at once."

"You, Anthony! God forbid!" cried the Colonel "You would go to certain
death."

"I would stay to certain death, would I not?" retorted the other. "But
my mare, Pixie, and I can shew clean heels to the red villains, were
they as thick as chinquepins. Give me the stable-key, Verney. I know the
way to the jade's stall, and she will follow her master through fire and
water without a whinny. I don't want a light. Not a soul on the place
must know that I have left Verney Manor."

"Anthony, Anthony, I am loth to see you go, old friend!" cried the
Colonel.

"Tut, tut, as well leave my scalp in the woods as in Dick Verney's
parlor! but I shall do neither. Hold the house as long as you can, and
look for Carrington, and Fitzhugh, and Ludwell, and myself with a
hundred men at our heels before the dawn. Until then _vale_."

He was gone. "And now the doors and windows," said Sir Charles.

"The windows, save those in this room, are secured as they always are at
night. The shutters are heavy and strongly barred, and we have but to
draw the chains across the doors. They will find it hard work to fire
the house, for the logs are wet from this morning's shower. There is
ammunition enough, and the shutters are loopholed. If we were in force,
we might hold out, but, my God! what can we do? Even with the overseers
whom we must manage to call to us, if we can do so without arousing
suspicion, we are not enough to defend one face of the house."

"Are there no honest servants?"

"How can I tell the true men from the knaves? To rouse the quarters
would be to show that we know, and to ourselves spring the mine which is
to destroy us. And if we brought men into the house, who are leagued
with the fiends outside, then would their work be done for them. There
are a very few whom I know to be faithful, but how to secure them
without giving the alarm--my God! how helpless we are!"

"Perhaps I can help you, Colonel Verney," said Landless.

In the midst of a dead silence the eyes of each occupant of the
room,--the master, the courtier, the wounded captain, the women,
trembling in each other's arms,--were turned upon