ad fallen in a brush
with the Monacans. They hadn't come up with the Ricahecrians, hadn't
seen hair nor hide of them, had but one report from the Indian villages
along the river, and that was that no Ricahecrians had passed that way.
So after a while they were forced to believe that they were upon a false
scent, and back they comes post haste to the Plantations to get more
men, and go up the Rappahannock. Well, they went up the Rappahannock,
and found nothing to their purpose, so back they came again to try the
James and the country above the Falls. This time they found the
Settlements, which had been before like an overturned hive, pretty
quiet, the ringleaders of your precious plot having all been strung up,
and the rest made as mild as sheep with branding and whipping and
doubling of times. So, the tobacco being in and the plantation quiet,
things were left to Haines, and I came along with the Colonel. Major
Carrington, too, who they say is in the Governor's black books, though
Lord knows he was active enough in stamping out this insurrection, asked
to be allowed to join in the search for his old friend's daughter, and
so he's down in the woods yonder. And Mr. Cary is there, and Mr. Peyton
(Mistress Betty Carrington made _him_ come) and Mr. Jaclyn Carter. Fegs!
half the young gentry in the colony pressed their services on the
Colonel. It got to be the fashion to volunteer to run their heads into
the wolf's mouth for Mistress Patricia. But Sir Charles choked most of
them off. 'Gentlemen,' he says, says he, 'despite the saying that there
cannot be too much of a good thing, I beg to remind you that the
disastrous fortunes of those who first struggled with the forest and the
Indians in this western paradise are attributed to the fact that they
were two thirds gentlemen. Wherefore let us shun the rock upon which
they split'--"

"How many of my fellow conspirators were put to death?" interrupted
Landless.

"All the principal ones--them that Trail denounced as leaders. The rest
we pardoned after giving them a lesson they won't soon forget. We let
bygones be bygones with the redemptioners and slaves--all but those
devils who got away that night at Verney Manor, and with Trail at their
head, made for Captain Laramore's ship which was going to turn pirate.
Well, they got to the boats, and one lot got off safe to the ship which
hoisted the black flag, and sailed away to the Indies, and is sailing
there, murdering and ruining,