an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the
darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps came back to us
until the guest house had swallowed him and his guilty terrors.

"Can the preacher play the devil too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up to
us from the other side of the fire. "I could have sworn that that voice
came from the bowels of the earth. 'T is the strangest gift!"

"A mere trick," he said, with his great laugh, "but it has served me
well on more occasions than one. It is not known in Virginia, sir, but
before ever the word of the Lord came to me to save poor silly souls
I was a player. Once I played the King's ghost in Will Shakespeare's
'Hamlet,' and then, I warrant you, I spoke from the cellarage indeed. I
so frighted players and playgoers that they swore it was witchcraft, and
Burbage's knees did knock together in dead earnest. But to the matter
in hand. When I had thrown yonder stone, I walked quietly down to the
Governor's house and looked through the window. The Governor hath
the Company's letters, and he and the Council--all save the reprobate
Pory--sit there staring at them and drumming with their fingers on the
table."

"Is Rolfe of the Council?" I asked.

"Ay; he was speaking,--for you, I suppose, though I heard not the words.
They all listened, but they all shook their heads."

"We shall know in the morning," I said. "The night grows wilder, and
honest folks should be abed. Nantauquas, good-night. When will you have
tamed your panther?"

"It is now the moon of cohonks," answered the Indian. "When the moon of
blossoms is here, the panther shall roll at the beautiful lady's feet."

"The moon of blossoms!" I said. "The moon of blossoms is a long way off.
I have panthers myself to tame before it comes. This wild night gives
one wild thoughts, Master Sparrow. The loud wind, and the sound of the
water, and the hurrying clouds--who knows if we shall ever see the moon
of blossoms?" I broke off with a laugh for my own weakness. "It's not
often that a soldier thinks of death," I said. "Come to bed, reverend
sir. Nantauquas, again, good-night, and may you tame your panther!"

In the great room of the minister's house I paced up and down; now
pausing at the window, to look out upon the fast darkening houses of the
town, the ever thickening clouds, and the bending trees; now speaking to
my wife, who sat in the chair I had drawn for her before the fire, her
hands idle in her lap