k."

CHAPTER XXVI

NIGHT

That terrible cadence preluded pandemonium, the hush of horror that
followed it being broken by one deep and awful roar of voices as the
insurgents, red, white, and black, joined forces and swept down upon the
devoted house.

"They will try the front first," quoth the master from his loophole.
"Steady, men, until I give the word! Now, let them have it with a
wannion!"

The muskets cracked and a louder yell arose from without.

"Two," said the master composedly, receiving a fresh musket from his
daughter's hand.

"They will try to dash in the door, your Honor!" cried the overseer from
his post of observation. "They have the trunk of a pine with them."

"Let them come," said his master grimly. "They will find a warm
welcome."

A double line of savages raised the great trunk from the ground and
advanced with it at a run, yelling as they came. They had reached the
steps leading up into the porch when from the loopholed door and window
within there poured a deadly fire. Three fell, but the battering-ram
came on and struck against the door with tremendous force. The door
held, and but twelve of the twenty who had entered the porch returned to
their fellows.

"They won't try that again," said the master with a short laugh.

"They are dividing," cried the overseer. "They will surround the house.
Every man to his post!"

Around the corner of the house to the moonlit sward beneath the great
room windows swept a tide of Indians and negroes with Luiz Sebastian and
the two Ricahecrian brothers at their head. A few of the Indians had
guns; the slaves were armed with axes, scythes, knives--the plunder of
the tool house--or with jagged pieces of old iron, or with oars taken
from the boats and broken into dreadful clubs. They came on with a din
that was terrific, the savages from the eastern hemisphere howling like
the beasts within their native forests, those from the western uttering
at intervals their sterner, more appalling cry.

Within the great room Sir Charles, languidly graceful as ever, stood
beside the small square opening in the door that led down into the
garden, and fired again and again into the mob without. He fought with
an air as became the fine gentleman of the period, but underneath the
elaborate carelessness of demeanor was a cool precision of action. The
hand that so nonchalantly brushed away the grains of powder from his
white ruffles, was steady enough at the tri