e to-morrrow we'll all be on the rack! And next week the galleys will
have us!"

"It's the Spaniard at last," I said. "Come on!"

When we reached the river bank before the fort, it was to find confusion
worse confounded. The gates of the palisade were open, and through them
streamed Councilors, Burgesses, and officers, while the bank itself was
thronged with the generality. Ancient planters, Smith's men, Dale's men,
tenants and servants, women and children, including the little eyases we
imported the year before, negroes, Paspaheghs, French vignerons, Dutch
sawmill men, Italian glassworkers,--all seethed to and fro, all talked
at once, and all looked down the river. Out of the babel of voices these
words came to us over and over: "The Spaniard!" "The Inquisition!" "The
galleys!" They were the words oftenest heard at that time, when strange
sails hove in sight.

But where was the Spaniard? On the river, hugging the shore, were many
small craft, barges, shallops, sloops, and pinnaces, and beyond them the
masts of the Truelove, the Due Return, and the Tiger, then in port; on
these three, of which the largest, the Due Return, was of but eighty
tons burthen, the mariners were running about and the masters bawling
orders. But there was no other ship, no bark, galleon, or man-of-war,
with three tiers of grinning ordnance, and the hated yellow flag
flaunting above.

I sprang from my horse, and, leaving it and Mistress Percy in Sparrow's
charge, hastened up to the fort. As I passed through the palisade I
heard my name called, and turning waited for Master Pory to come up. He
was panting and puffing, his jovial face very red.

"I was across the neck of land when I heard the news," he said. "I ran
all the way, and am somewhat scant of breath. Here's the devil to pay!"

"It looks another mare's-nest," I replied. "We have cried 'Spaniard!'
pretty often."

"But this time the wolf's here," he answered. "Davies sent a horseman at
a gallop from Algernon with the tidings. He passed the ship, and it was
a very great one. We may thank this dead calm that it did not catch us
unawares."

Within the palisade was noise enough, but more order than without. On
the half-moons commanding the river, gunners were busy about our sakers,
falcons, and three culverins. In one place, West, the commander, was
giving out brigandines, jacks, skulls, muskets, halberds, swords, and
longbows; in another, his wife, who was a very Mary Ambree, supervise