lders, he departed.

I did not attempt to sleep. Faulkner told me that we were to meet the
next morning half an hour after sunrise at a place in the forest a mile
distant. Each man was to fire one shot, but two pistols were allowed in
case of a misfire. All that night by the light of a lamp I got my
weapons ready. I summoned to my recollection all the knowledge I had
acquired, and made sure that nothing should be lacking so far as human
skill would go. I had another pistol besides the one I called
"Elspeth," also made in Glasgow, but a thought longer in the barrel.
For this occasion I neglected cartouches, and loaded in the old way. I
tested my bullets time and again, and weighed out the powder as if it
had been gold dust. It was short range, so I made my charges small. I
tried my old device of wrapping each bullet in soft wool smeared with
beeswax. All this passed the midnight hours, and then I lay down for a
little rest, but not for sleep.

I was glad when Faulkner summoned me half an hour before sunrise. I
remember that I bathed head and shoulders in cold water, and very
carefully dressed myself in my best clothes. My pistols lay in the box
which Faulkner carried. I drank a glass of wine, and as we left I took
a long look at the place I had created, and the river now lit with the
first shafts of morning. I wondered incuriously if I should ever see it
again.

My tremors had all gone by now, and I was in a mood of cold,
thoughtless despair. The earth had never looked so bright as we rode
through the green aisles all filled with the happy song of birds. Often
on such a morning I had started on a journey, with my heart grateful
for the goodness of the world. Could I but keep the road, I should come
in time to the swampy bank of the York; and then would follow the
chestnut forest: and the wide marshes towards the Rappahannock; and
everywhere I should meet friendly human faces, and then at night I
should eat a hunter's meal below the stars. But that was all past, and
I was moving towards death in a foolish strife in which I had no heart,
and where I could find no honour, I think I laughed aloud at my
exceeding folly.

We turned from the path into an alley which led to an open space on the
edge of a derelict clearing. There, to my surprise, I found a
considerable company assembled. Grey was there with his second, and a
dozen or more of his companions stood back in the shadow of the trees.
The young blood of Virginia ha