My heart ached for her, and I knew not how to comfort her. At last she
turned. A pasty and stoup of wine were upon the table.

"You are tired and shaken," I said, "and you may need all your strength.
Come, eat and drink."

"For to-morrow we die," she added, and broke into tremulous laughter.
Her lashes were still wet, but her pride and daring had returned. She
drank the wine I poured for her, and we spoke of indifferent things,--of
the game that afternoon, of the Indian Nantauquas, of the wild night
that clouds and wind portended. Supper over, I called Angela to bear
her company, and I myself went out into the night, and down the street
toward the guest house.

CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH WE GO OUT INTO THE NIGHT

THE guest house was aflame with lights. As I neared it, there was
borne to my ears a burst of drunken shouts accompanied by a volley of
musketry. My lord was pursuing with a vengeance our senseless fashion
of wasting in drinking bouts powder that would have been better spent
against the Indians. The noise increased. The door was flung open, and
there issued a tide of drawers and servants headed by mine host himself,
and followed by a hail of such minor breakables as the house contained
and by Olympian laughter.

I made my way past the indignant host and his staff, and standing upon
the threshold looked at the riot within. The long room was thick with
the smoke of tobacco and the smoke of powder, through which the many
torches burned yellow. Upon the great table wine had been spilt, and
dripped to swell a red pool upon the floor. Underneath the table, still
grasping his empty tankard, lay the first of my lord's guests to fall,
an up-river Burgess with white hair. The rest of the company were fast
reeling to a like fate. Young Hamor had a fiddle, and, one foot upon a
settle, the other upon the table, drew across it a fast and furious bow.
Master Pory, arrived at the maudlin stage, alternately sang a slow and
melancholy ditty and wiped the tears from his eyes with elaborate
care. Master Edward Sharpless, now in a high voice, now in an
undistinguishable murmur, argued some imaginary case. Peaceable Sherwood
was drunk, and Giles Allen, and Pettiplace Clause. Captain John Martin,
sitting with outstretched legs, called now for a fresh tankard, which
he emptied at a gulp; now for his pistols, which, as fast as my lord's
servants brought them to him new primed, he discharged at the ceiling.
The loud wind rattled