een them.
Another instant and he would have been upon them, and close after him a
yelling pack of hell hounds--the overseer's pistol cracked, and the
black giant fell dead. A yell arose from the crowd, but they stood
irresolute. For firearms, so strictly kept from servants and slaves, so
preeminently pertaining to the dominant class, they had a superstitious
dread. Four pistols meant four lives picked from the foremost to
advance.

"Let them go," cried the mulatto, with a taunting laugh. "Let them go!
Let them go cage themselves in wooden walls where we will take them all
together--rats in a trap. We will wait for the Chickahominies who have
guns, senors, and for the Ricahecrians whose scalping knives are very
bright. Until moonrise, senors from the great house, and you others who
go with them! Mother of God! look well upon it, for it is the last you
will ever see!"

Fifteen minutes later saw the house of Verney Manor garrisoned by some
thirty desperate men. They had entered to find a scene of confusion--the
hall and lower rooms filled with frightened women and crying children.
Patricia with white cheeks and brilliant eyes had come forward to meet
her father, carrying a three days' child in her arms. Beyond her was
Betty, bending her sweet, pale face over the mother, caught up from her
pallet and carried to the house in the arms of the under overseer.
Mistress Lettice was alternately wailing that they were all undone and
murdered, and wringing her hands over the obstinacy of Captain Laramore
who, rapier in left hand, would stand guard at the door, instead of
keeping quiet as the Doctor had said he must. The master's stern command
for silence reduced the clamor of women and children to an undertone of
lamentation. "We must to work at once," he said, "and apportion our
forces. There are about thirty men, are there not, Woodson? I shall take
the front with ten; Charles, thou shalt have one side, Woodson the
other, and Haines the back. Laramore, thou must let us fight for thee,
man, though I know thou findest it a bitter pill. Do you marshal the
men, Woodson, and divide them into four parties, one for each face, and
tell the women to leave off their whimpering and prepare to load the
muskets. Haines, have the arms taken down from the racks and distribute
them. Men and women, one and all, you are to remember that you are
fighting for your lives and for more than your lives. You know what you
have to expect if you are taken