Title: The Carolinian (1924)
Author: Rafael Sabatini
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Language:  English
Date first posted: February 2008
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Title: The Carolinian (1924)
Author: Rafael Sabatini




To
J. E. HAROLD TERRY


MY DEAR HAROLD,

Some few years ago you and I, labouring jointly, delved into the romantic
soil of Carolinian history for certain elements from which to construct a
play of the American War of Independence. Out of these same elements I
have now fashioned this book, and in dedicating it to you I do so not
merely as a pledge of the warm esteem in which I hold you, but as an
acknowledgment that is due,

Believe me, my dear Harold,
Your friend,
RAFAEL SABATINI.

LONDON, November, 1924.




CONTENTS

PART I

I.     TWO LETTERS
II.    CHENEY
III.   THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA
IV.    FAIRGROVE
V.     THE REBEL
VI.    THE DECEPTION
VII.   MANDEVILLE AS MACHIAVEL
VIII.  DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
IX.    TAR AND FEATHERS
X.     THE MAIL-BAG
XI.    STALEMATE
XII.   REVELATION
XIII.  DEA EX MACHINA
XIV.   THE SOLUTION
XV.    THE NUPTIALS
XVI.   THE CHAPLAIN OF THE "TAMAR"
XVII.  GROCKAT'S WHARF
XVIII. THE PISTOL-SHOT


PART II


I.     MARRIAGE
II.    FORT SULLIVAN
III.   SEVERANCE
IV.    GOVERNOR RUTLEDGE
V.     JONATHAN NEILD
VI.    PREVOST'S ADVANCE
VII.   RUTLEDGE'S NERVES
VIII.  THE SPY
IX.    THE LIE CONFIRMED
X.     CONCERNING TOBACCO
XI.    VIA CRUCIS
XII.   THE TEST
XIII.  THE STRATEGY OF RUTLEDGE
XIV.   THE ARREST
XV.    THE AWAKENING
XVI.   THE INQUIRY
XVII.  JUDGMENT
XVIII. RECONCILIATION


* * * * *




PART I



CHAPTER I - TWO LETTERS


With compressed lips and an upright line of pain between his brows, Mr.
Harry Latimer sat down to write a letter. He had taken--as he was
presently to express it--his first wound in the cause of Liberty, which
cause he had lately embraced. This wound, deep, grievous and apparently
irreparable, had been dealt him by the communication in the sheets which
hung now from his limp fingers.

It had reached him here at Savannah, where he was engaged at the time,
not only on behalf of the Carolinian Sons of Liberty--of which seditious
body he was an active secret member--but on behalf of the entire colonial
party, in stirring the Georgians out of their apathy and into
co-operation with their Northern brethren to resist the harsh measures of
King George's government.

This letter, addressed to him at his Charles Town residence, had been
forwarded thence by his factor, who was among the few whom in those days
he kept informed of his rather furtive movements. It was written by the
daughter of his sometime guardian, Sir Andrew Carey, the lady whom it had
been Mr. Latimer's most fervent hope presently to, marry. Of that hope
the letter made a definite end, and from its folds Mr. Latimer had
withdrawn the pledge of his betrothal, a ring which once had belonged to
his mother.

Myrtle Carey, those lines informed him, had become aware of the
treasonable activities which were responsible for her lover's long
absences from Charles Town. She was shocked and grieved beyond expression
by any words at her command to discover this sudden and terrible change
in his opinions. More deeply still was she shocked to learn that it was
not only in heart and mind that he was guilty of disloyalty, but that he
had already e so far as to engage in acts of open rebellion. And at, full
length with many plaints and upbraidings, she .displayed her knowledge of
one of these acts. She had learnt that the raid upon the royal armoury at
Charles. Town in April last had been undertaken at his instigation and
under his personal direction, and this at a time when, in common with all
save his fellow-traitors, she believed him to be in Boston engaged in the
transaction of personal affairs. She deplored--and this cut him perhaps
more keenly than all the rest--the deceit which he had employed; but it
no longer had power to surprise her, since deceit and dissimulation were
to be looked for as natural in one so lost to all sense of duty to his
king.

The letter concluded with the pained assertion that whatever might have
been her feelings for him in the past, and whatever tenderness for him
might still linger in her heart, she could never king herself to marry a
man guilty of the abominable disloyalty end rebellion by which Harry
Latimer had disgraced himself for ever. She would pray God that he might
yet be restored to sane and honourable views, and that thus he might
avoid the terrible fate which the royal government could not fail sooner
or later to visit upon him should he continue in his present perverse and
wicked course.

Three times Mr. Latimer had read that letter, and long had he pondered it
between readings. And if each time his pain increased, his surprise
lessened. After all, it was no more than he should have expected, just as
he had expected and been prepared for furious recriminations from his
sometime guardian when knowledge of his defection should reach Sir
Andrew. For than Sir Andrew Carey there was no more intolerant or bigoted
tory in all America. Loyalty with him amounted, to a religion; and just
as religious feeling becomes intensified in the devout under persecution
or opposition, so had the loyalty of Sir Andrew Carey burnt with a
fiercer, whiter flame than ever from the moment that he perceived the
signs of smouldering rebellion about him.

To Harry Latimer, when his generous, impulsive young heart, had first
been touched four months ego in Massachusetts by the oppression under
which he found the province labouring, this uncompromising monarcholatry
of Sir Andrew's had been the one consideration to give him pause before
ranging himself under the banner of freedom. He had been reared from
boyhood by the baronet, and he owed him a deep debt of love and other
things. That his secession from toryism would deeply wound Sir Andrew,
that sooner or later it must lead to a breach between himself and the man
who had been almost as a father to him, was the reflection ever present
in his mind to embitter the zest with which he embraced the task thrust
upon him by conscience and his sense of right.

What he does not appear to have realized, until that letter came to make
it clear, was that to Myrtle, reared in an atmosphere of passionate,
unquestioning devotion to the King, loyalty had become as much a
religion, a sacrosanctity, as it was to the father who preached it.

At the first reading the letter had made him bitterly angry. He resented
her presumption in criticizing in such terms a conduct in him that was
obviously a matter of passionate conviction. Upon reflection, however, he
took a more tolerant view. Compromise in such a matter was as impossible
to her as it was to him. He would do much to win her. There was, he
thought, no sacrifice from which he would have shrunk; for no sacrifice
could have been so great as that which he was now called upon to make in
relinquishing her. But the duty he had taken up, and the cause he had
vowed to serve, were not things that could be set in the balance against
purely personal considerations. The man who would yield up his conscience
to win her would by the very act render himself unworthy of her. Lovelace
had given e the world a phrase that should stand for all time serve such
cases as his own: "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not
honour more."

There was no choice.

He took up the quill, and wrote quickly; too quickly, perhaps, for a
little of the abiding bitterness crept despite him into his words:

"You are intolerant, and therefore it follows that your actions are cruel
and unjust. For cruelty and injustice are the only fruits ever yielded by
intolerance. You will never again be able to do anything more cruel and
unjust than you have now done, for never again will you find a heart as
fond as mine and therefore as susceptible to pain at your hands. This
pain I accept as the first wound taken in the service of the cause which
I have em braced. Accept it I must, since I cannot be false to my
conscience, my duty and my sense of right, even to be true to you."

Thus he double-bolted the door which she herself had slammed. A door
which was to stand as an impenetrable barrier between two loving, aching,
obstinate, conscience-ridden hearts.

He folded, tied and sealed the letter, then rang for Johnson, his valet,
the tall, active young negro who shared his wanderings, and bade him see
it dispatched.

Awhile thereafter he sat there, lost in thought, that line of pain deeply
furrowed between his brows. Then he stirred, and sighed and took up from
the writing-table another letter that had reached him that same morning,
a letter whose seals were still unbroken.. The superscription was in the
familiar hand of his friend Tom Izard, whose sister was married to Lord
William Campbell, the royal Governor of the Province of South Carolina.
The letter would contain news of society doings in Charles Town. But
Charles Town society at the moment was without interest for Harry
Latimer. He dropped the letter, still unopened, pushed back his chair and
wearily rose. He paced away to the window and stood there looking upon
the sunshine with vacant eyes.

He was at the time in his twenty-fifth year and still preserved in his
tall, well-knit figure something of a stripling grace. He was dressed
with quiet, patrician elegance, and he wore his own hair, which was
thick, lustrous and auburn in colour. His face was of that clear, healthy
pallor so often found with lust such hair. It was an engaging face, lean
and very square in the chin, with a thin, rather tip-tilted nose and a
firm yet humorous mouth. His eyes were full without prominence, of a.
brilliant blue that in certain lights was almost green. Habitually they
were invested with a slightly quizzical regard; but this had now given
place to the dull vacancy that accompanies acute mental suffering.

Standing there he pondered his case yet again, until at last there was a
quickening of his glance. He stretched himself, with a suggestion of
relief in the action. The thing is evil indeed out of which no good may
come, which is utterly without compensation. And the compensation here
was that at least there was end to secrecy. The thing was out. Sir Andrew
knew; and however hardly Sir Andrew might have taken it, at least the
menace of discovery was at an end. This, Mr. Latimer reflected, was
something gained. There was an end to his tormenting consciousness of
practising by secrecy a passive deceit upon Sir Andrew.

And from the consideration of that secrecy his mind leapt suddenly to ask
how came the thing discovered. That they should know vaguely and
generally of his defection was not perhaps so startling. But how came
they informed in such detail of the exact part he had played in that raid
upon the arsenal last April? His very presence in Charles Town had been
known to none except the members of the General Committee of the
Provincial Congress. Then he reflected that those members were very
numerous, and that a secret is rarely kept when shared by many. Someone
here had been grievously indiscreet. So indiscreet, indeed, that if the
royal governor knew that Harry Latimer was the author of the raid--a raid
which fell nothing short of robbery and sedition, and amounted almost to
an act of war--there was a rope round his neck and round the neck of
every one of his twenty associates in that rebellious enterprise,

Here was something to engage his thoughts.

If his activities were known in Sir Andrew's household; it followed
almost certainly that they would be known also in the Governor's. He was
sufficiently acquainted with Sir Andrew to be sure that, in spite of
everything that lay between Sir Andrew and himself, the baronet would be
the first to bear the information to Lord William.

And then he realized that this was no mere indiscretion. Indiscretion
might have betrayed some general circumstance, but it could never have
betrayed all these details of which Myrtle was possessed; above all it
could never have betrayed so vital and dangerous a secret. He was
assailed by the conviction that active, deliberate treachery was at work,
and he perceived that he must communicate at once with his friends in
Charles Town, to put them on their guard. He would write to Moultrie, his
friend and one of the staunchest patriots in South Carolina. Upon that
thought he returned to the writing-table, and sat down. There Tom Izard's
letter once tore confronted him. Possibly Tom's gossip might yield some
clue. He broke the seals, unfolded and spread the sheets, to find in them
far more than he had expected.

"My Dear Harry," wrote the garrulous man of fashion,

"Wherever you may be, and whatever the activities that are now engaging
you, I advise you to suspend them, and to return and pay attention to
your own concerns, which are urgently requiring your presence. Though on
your return you should call me out for daring even to hint at the
possibility of disloyalty in Myrtle, I cannot leave you in ignorance of
what is happening at Fairgrove.

"You know, I think, that soon after the fight at Lexington last April,
Captain Mandeville was sent down here by General Gage from Boston against
the need to stiffen the lieutenant-governor into a proper performance of
his duty by the king. Captain Mandeville has remained here ever since,
and in these past to months has acquired such a grasp of provincial
affairs in South Carolina, that he continues as the guide and mentor of
any brother-in-law, Lord William, who arrived from England a fortnight
since. Mandeville, who has now been appointed equerry to his lordship, is
become the power behind the throne, the real ruler of South Carolina, in
so far, of course, as South Carolina is still ruled by the royal
government.

"In all this there; ay be nothing that is new to you. But it will be new,
I am sure, that a kinship, real or pretended, exists between this fellow
and your old guardian, Sir Andrew Carey. That stiff-necked old tory has
taken this pillar of royal authority to his broad bosom. The gallant
captain is constantly at Fairgrove, whenever his duties do not keep him
in Charles Town. Let me add on the score of. Mandeville, who is
undeniably a man of parts and finds great favour with the ladies, the
following information obtained from a sure source. He is a notorious
fortune-hunter, reduced in circumstances, and it is well-known in England
that he accepted service in the colonies with the avowed intention of
making a rich marriage. His assets are not only a fine figure and the
most agreeable manners, but the fact that he is next heir to his uncle,
the Earl of Chalfont, from whom I understand that he is at present
estranged. I do not myself imagine that a man of his aims and talents
would be so very diligent at Fairgrove unless in Carey's household he saw
a reasonable prospect of finding what he seeks. You will be very angry
with me, I know. But I should not be your friend did I not risk your
anger, and. I would sooner risk that now than your reproaches later for
not having given you timely warning."

There followed a post-script=: "If your engagements are such that it is
impossible for you to return and attend to your own concerns, shall I
pick a quarrel with the captain, and have him out? I would have done so
out of love for you before this, but that my brother-in-law would never
forgive me and Sally would be furious. Poor Lord William would be
helpless without his equerry, and he finds things devilish difficult as
it is. Besides, I understand that, as commonly happens with such rascals,
this Mandeville is a dead shot and plaguy nimble with a small-sword."

At another time the post-scriptum might have drawn a smile from Latimer.
Now his face remained grave and his lips tight. A definite conclusion
leapt at him from those pages. It was not a question of Sir Andrew's
having informed the Governor of Harry Latimer's seditious practices. What
had happened was the reverse of that. The information had been conveyed
to Sir Andrew by this fellow Mandeville, of whom he had heard once r
twice before of late. If Mandeville's intentions were at all as Tom Izard
represented them, it would clearly be in the captain's Interest to effect
an estrangement between Latimer and the Careys. And this was what had
taken place.

But how had Mandeville obtained the information? One only answer was
possible. By means of a spy placed in the very bosom of the councils of
the colonial party.

Upon that Mr. Latimer took an instant decision. He would not write. He
would go in person. He would set out at once for Charles Town, to
discover this enemy agent who was placing in jeopardy the cause of
freedom and the lives of those who served it.

His work in Georgia was of very secondary importance by comparison with
that.



CHAPTER II - CHENEY


William Moultrie, of Northampton on the Cooper River--who had just been
appointed Colonel of the Second Provincial Regiment of South Carolina,
under a certificate issued by a Provincial Congress which was not yet
sufficiently sure, of itself to grant commissions--was aroused from
slumber in the early hours of a June morning by a half-dressed negro
servant, who proffered him a folded slip of paper.

The Colonel reared a great night-capped head from his pillow, and
displayed a broad, rugged face the bone structures of which were massive
and well-defiled. From under beetling brows two small eyes, normally of a
kindly expression, peered out, to screw themselves up again when smitten
by the light of the candle which the negro carried.

"Wha...wha...what's o'clock?" quoth the Colonel confusedly

"Close. on five o'clock, massa."

"Fi...five o'clock!" Moultrie awakened on that, and sat up. "What the
devil, Tom...?"

Tom brought the slip of paper more definitely to his master's notice.
Puzzled, the Colonel took it, unfolded it, dusted his eyes with his
knuckles, and read. Then he flung back the bedclothes, thrust out a hairy
leg, his foot groping for the floor, and commanded Tom to give him a
bedgown, draw the curtains, and bring up this visitor.

And so a few minutes later Harry Latimer was ushered into the presence of
the Colonel, who stood in the pale light of early day, in bedgown,
slippers and nightcap to receive him.

"Odsbud, Harry! What's this? What's brought you back?"

They shook hands firmly, like old friends, whilst the gimlet eyes of
Moultrie observed the young man's dusty boots and travel-stained riding
clothes as well as the haggard lines in his face.

"When you've heard, you may say I've come back to be hanged. But it's a
slight risk at present, and had to be taken."

"What's that?" The Colonel's voice was very sharp.

Latimer delivered the burden of his news. "The Governor is informed of
the part I played in the raid last April."

"Oons!" said Moultrie, startled. "How d'ye know?"

"Read these letters. They'll make it plain. They reached me three days
ago at Savannah."

The Colonel took the papers Latimer proffered, and crossed to the window
to peruse them. He was a stockily built man of middle height, twenty
years older than his visitor, whom he had known from infancy. For
Moultrie had been one of the closest friends of Latimer's father and his
brother-in-arms in Grant's campaign against the Cherokees, in which
the-elder Latimer had prematurely lost his life. And there you have the
reason why. Harry sought him now in the first instance, rather than
Charles Pinckney, the President of Provincial Congress, which the royal
Government did not recognise, or. Henry Laurens, the President of the
Committee of Safety, which the royal government recognised still less.
The offices held by these two should have designated one or the other of
thorn as the first recipient of this weighty confidence. But to either,
Latimer had taken it upon himself to prefer the man who was in such
close, personal relations with himself.

Whilst still reading, Moultrie swore softly once or twice.. When he had
done, he came slowly back, hit brow rumpled in thought. Silently he
handed back the papers to the waiting Latimer, who had meanwhile taken a
chair near the table in mid-apartment. Then, still in silence, the
Colonel took up one from a bundle of pipes on that same table, and slowly
filled it with leaf from a pewter box.

"Faith," he grumbled at last, "you don't lack evidence, for your
assumption. Nobody outside of the Committee so much, as suspected that
you were here in April. God knows the, place is crawling with, spies,
There was a fellow named. Kirkland, serving in, the militia, whom we
suspect of acting as Lord William's agent with the back-country tories.
We durstn't touch him until he was so imprudent as to desert, and come
down to Charles Town with another rogue named Cheney. But before ever we
could lay hands on him, Lord. William had put him safely aboard a man o'
war oat there in the toads. Cheney was less lucky. We've got him. Though,
gadslife, I don't know what we're to do with him, for unfortunately he
isn't a deserter. But that he's a spy only a fool Could doubt."

"Yes, yes," Latimer was impatient. "But that kind of spy is of small
account compared with this one." And he tapped the papers vehemently.

Moultrie looked at him, pausing in the act of applying to his pipe the
flame of the candle which the servant had left burning. Latimer answered
the inquiry of the glance.

"This man is inside our councils. He is one of us. And unless we find him
and deal with him, God alone knows what havoc he may work. As it is there
are some twenty of us whose lives are in jeopardy. For you cannot suppose
that if he has betrayed me to the Governor he hasn't at the same time
betrayed the others who were with me, whether they actually bore a hand
or merely shared the responsibility."

Moultrie lighted his pipe, and pulled at it thoughtfully. He did not
permit himself to share the excitement that was setting, his visitor
aquiver. He came and placed a hand affectionately on Harry's shoulder.

"I'm not vastly exercised by any threat to your life, lad--at least not
at present. Neither the Governor, nor his pilot, Captain Mandeville, want
another Lexington here in South Carolina. And that's what would happen if
they tried any hangings. But as far as the rest goes, you're right. We've
to find this fellow. He's among the ninety members of the General
Committee. Faith, the job'll be singularly like looking for a needle in a
bottle of hay." He paused, shaking his head; then asked a question: "I
suppose ye've not thought of how to go about discovering him?"

"I've thought of nothing else all, the way from Savannah here. But I
haven't found the answer."

"We shall have to seek help," said Moultrie, "and after all it's your
duty to Pinckney and Laurens, and one or two others, to let them know of
this."

"The fewer we tell, the better."

"Of course, Of course. A half-dozen at most, and those men that are well
above suspicion."

Later on in the course of that day, six gentlemen of prominence in the
Colonial party repaired to Colonel Moultrie's house on Broad Street in,
response to his urgent summons. In addition to Laurens and Pinckney,
there was Christopher Gadsden, long and lean and tough in the blue
uniform of the newly-established First Provincial Regiment, to the
command of which he had just been appointed. A veteran firebrand
President of the South Carolina. Sons of Liberty, he was among the very
few who at this early date were prepared to go the length of demanding
American Independence. With him came the elegant, accomplished William
Henry Drayton, of Drayton Hall, who, like Latimer, was a recent convert
to the party of Liberty, and who brought to it all the enthusiasm and
intolerance commonly found in converts. His position as President of the
Secret Committee entitled him to be present. The others making up this
extemporaneous committee were the two delegates to Continental Congress;
the Irish lawyer John Rutledge, a man of thirty-five who had been
prominent in the Stamp-Act Congress ten years ago, and famous ever since,
and his younger brother Edward.

Assembled about the table in Moultrie's library these six, with Moultrie
himself presiding, listened attentively to the reasons/ advanced by Mr.
Latimer in support of his assertion that they were being betrayed by
someone within their ranks.

"Some twenty of us," he concluded, "lie already at the mercy of the royal
Government. Lord William is in possession of evidence upon which to hang
us if the occasion serves him. That, in itself, is grave enough. But
there may be worse to follow unless we take our measures to discover and
remove, by whatever means you may consider fit, this traitor from our
midst."

There followed upon that a deal of talk that was little to the point.
They discussed this thing; they pressed Latimer for details which he
would have preferred to have withheld as to the exact channel through
which this information had reached him, and they were very vehement and
angry in their vituperation of the unknown traitor, very full of threats
of what should be done to him when found. Several talked at once, and in
the alarm and excitement the meeting degenerated for a while into a
babel.

Drayton took the opportunity wrathfully to renew a demand, which had
already once been rejected by the General Committee, that the Governor
should be taken into custody. Moultrie answered him that the measure was
not practical, and Gadsden, supporting Drayton, furiously demanded to
know why the devil it should not be. Then at last John Rutledge, who
hitherto had sat as silent and inscrutable as a granite sphinx coldly
interposed.

"Practical or not, this is not the place to debate it, nor is it the
matter under consideration." Almost contemptuously he added "Shall we
keep to the point?"

It was his manner rather than his words that momentarily quieted their
vapourings. His cold detachment and his obvious command of himself gave
him command of others. And there was, too, something arresting and
prepossessing in his appearance. He was in his way a handsome man, with
good features that were softly rounded, and wide-set, slow-moving,
observant eyes. There was the least suggestion of portliness about his
figure, or, rather than actual portliness, the promise of it to come with
advancing years. His dress, was of a scrupulous and quiet elegance, and
if the grey wig he wore was clubbed to an almost excessive extent yet it
was redeemed from all suspicion of foppishness by the formal severity of
its set.

There was a moment's utter silence after he had spoken. Then Drayton,
feeling that the rebuke had been particularly aimed at himself, gave
Rutledge sneer for sneer.

"By all means, let us keep to the point. After long consideration you may
reach the conclusion that it's easier to discover the treason than the
traitor. And that will be profitable. As profitable as was the arrest of
Cheney by a committee too timid to commit anything."

That sent them off again, on another by-path.

"Yes, by God!" burst from the leathery lungs of Gadsden who had been
preaching sedition to the working-people of Charles Town for the last ten
years, ever since the Stamp-Act troubles. "There's the whole truth of the
matter. That's why we make no progress. The committee's just a useless
and impotent debating society, and it'll go on debating until the
redcoats are at our throats. We daren't even hang a rascal like Cheney,
Oons! If the wretch had known us better he might have spared himself his
terrors."

"His terrors?" The question came sharply from Latimer, so sharply that it
stilled the general murmurs as they began to arise again. At the mention
of Cheney's name, he remembered what Moultrie had said about the fellow.
An idea, vague as yet, was stirring in his mind. "Do you say that this
man Cheney is afraid of what may happen to him?"

Gadsden loosed a splutter of contemptuous laughter. "Afraid? Scared to
death, Very near. Because he doesn't realise that the only thing we can
do is talk, he already smells the tar, and feels the feathers tickling
him."

Rutledge addressed himself scrupulously to the chair. "May I venture to
inquire, sir, how this is relevant?"

Leaning forward now, a certain excitement in his face, Latimer
impatiently brushed him aside.

"By your leave, M. Rutledge. It may be more relevant than you think." He
addressed himself to Moultrie. "Tell me this, pray. What does the
Committee propose to do with Cheney?"

Moultrie referred the question to the genial elderly Laurens who was
President of the Committee concerned.

Laurens shrugged helplessly. "We have decided to let him go. There is no
charge upon which we can prosecute."

Gadsden snorted his fierce contempt. "No charge! And the man a notorious
spy!"

"A moment, Colonel." Latimer restrained him, and turned again to Laurens.
"Does Cheney know--does he suspect your intentions?"

"Not yet."

Latimer sank back in his chair again, brooding. "And he's afraid, you
say?"

"Terrified," Laurens assured him. "I believe he would betray anybody or
anything to save his dirty skin."

That brought Latimer suddenly to his feet in some excitement. "It is what
I desired to know. Sir, if your Committee's will give me this man--let me
have my way with him--it is possible that through him I may be able to
discover what we require."

They looked at him in wonder and some doubt. That doubt Laurens presently
expressed. "But, if he doesn't know? And why should you suppose that he
does?"

"Sir, I said through him, not from him. Let me have my way in this. Give
me twenty-four hours. Give me until tomorrow evening at latest, and it is
possible that I may have a fuller tale to tell you."

There was a long pause of indecision. Then very coldly, almost
contemptuously in its lack of expression, came a question from Rutledge:

"And if you fail?"

Latimer looked at him, and the lines of his mouth grew humorous.

"Then you may try your hand, sir."

And Gadsden uttered a laugh that must have annoyed any man but Rutledge.

Of course that was not yet the end of the matter. Latimer was pressed
with questions touching his intentions. But he fenced them off. He
demanded their trust and confidence. And in the end they gave it, Laurens
taking it upon himself in view of the urgency of the case to act for the
Committee over which he presided.

The immediate sequel was that some two or three hours later Mr. Harry
Latimer was ushered into the cell in the town gaol, where Cheney
languished. But it was a Mr. Latimer very unlike his usual modish,
elegant self. He went dressed in shabby brown coatee and breeches, with
coarse woollen stockings and rough shoes, and his abundant hair hung
loose about his neck.

"I am sent by the Committee of Safety," he announced to the miserable
wretch who cowered on a stool in a corner and glared at him with
frightened eyes. On that he paused. Then, seeing that Cheney made no
shift to speak, he continued: "You can hardly be such a fool as not to
know what is coming to you. You know what you've done, and you know what
usually happens to your kind when they're caught."

He saw the rascally, pear-shaped face before him turn a sickly grey. The
man moistened his lips, then cried out in a quavering voice:

"They can prove naught against me. Naught!"

"Where there is certain knowledge proof doesn't matter."

"It matters. It does matter!" Cheney rose. He snarled like a frightened
animal. "They durstn't hurt me without cause; good cause; legal cause.
And they knows it. What have they against me? What's the charge? I've
been twice before the Committee. But there never were no charge: no
charge they durst bring in a court."

"I know," said Latimer quietly. "And that's why I've been sent: to tell
you that to-morrow morning the Committee will set you at liberty."

The coarse mouth, about which a thick stubble of beard had sprouted
during the spy's detention, fell open in amazement. Breathing heavily, he
leaned on the coarse deal table for support, staring at his visitor.
Hoarsely at last came his voice.

"They...they'll set me at liberty!" And then his currish demeanour
changed. Now that he saw deliverance assured a certain truculence
invested him. He laughed, slobbering like a drunkard. "I knowed it! I
knowed they durstn't hurt me. If they did they'd be hurt theirselves.
They'd have to answer to the Governor for it. Ye can't hurt a man without
bringing a charge and proving it."

"That," Mr. Latimer agreed suavely, "is what the Committee realizes, and
that is why it is letting you go. But don't assume too much. Don't be so
rash as to suppose that you're to get off scot free."

"Wha--what!" Out went the truculence. Back came the terror.

"I'll tell you. When you are released to-morrow morning; you'll find me
waiting for you outside the gaol, and with me there'll be at least a
hundred lads of the, town, all of them Sons of Liberty, who'll have had
word of the Committee's intention and don't mean to let you go back to
your dirty spying. What the Committee dare not do, they'll never boggle
over. For the Governor can't prosecute a mob. You guess what'll happen?"

The grey face with its shifty eyes and open mouth was fixed in speechless
terror.

"Tar and feathers," said Mr. Latimer, to remove the last doubt in that
palsied mind.

"God!" shrieked the creature. His knees were loosened and he sank down
again upon his stool. "God!"

"On the other hand," Mr. Latimer resumed quite placidly, "it may happen
that there will be no mob; that I shall be alone to see you safely out of
Charles Town. But that will depend upon yourself; upon your willingness
to undo as far as you are able some of the mischief you have done."

"What d'ye mean? In God's name, what d'ye mean? Don't torture a poor
devil."

"You don't know who I am," said Mr. Latimer. "I'll tell you. My name is
Dick Williams, and I was sergeant to Kirkland--"

"That you never was," Cheney cried out.

Mr. Latimer smiled upon him with quiet significance. "It is necessary
that you should believe it, if you are to avoid the tar and feathers. I
beg you then to persuade yourself that my name is Dick Williams, and that
I was sergeant to Kirkland. And you and I are going together to pay the
Governor a visit to-morrow morning. There, you will do as I shall tell
you. If you don't, you'll find my lads waiting for you when you leave his
lordship's." He entered into further details, to which the other listened
like a creature fascinated. "It is now for you to say what you will do,"
said. Mr. Latimer amiably in conclusion. "I do not wish to coerce you, or
even to over-persuade you. I have offered you the alternatives. I leave
you a free choice."



CHAPTER III - THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINE


Mr. Selwyn Innes, who was Lord William Campbell's secretary during his
lordship's tenure of the office of Governor of the Province of South
Carolina, conducted with a lady in Oxfordshire a correspondence which on
his part was as full and detailed as it was indiscreet The letters, which
have fortunately survived, give so intimate a relation of the day-to-day
development of certain transactions under his immediate notice that they
would be worthy to rank as mémoires pour servir were it not that history
must confine itself more or less to the broad outlines of movements and
events, and can be concerned only with the main actors in its human
drama.

In one of these garrulous letters there occurs the phrase:

"We are sitting on a volcano which at any moment may belch fire and
brimstone, and my lord taking no thought for anything but the mode of
dressing his hair, the set of his coat, ogling the ladies at the St.
Cecilia concerts and attending every race-meeting that is held."

From that and abundant other similar indications throughout the
secretary's letters, we gather that his opinion of the amiable, rather
ingenuous, entirely unfortunate young nobleman whom he had the honour to
serve was not very exalted. A secretary, after all, is a sort of valet,
an intellectual valet; and to their valets, we know, few men can succeed
in being heroes. But with the broader outlook which distance lends us, we
know now that Mr. Innes did his lordship less than justice, After all, no
man may bear a burden beyond his strength, and the burden imposed upon
the young Colonial governor in that time of crisis by a headstrong,
blundering government at home was one that he could not even lift.
Therefore, like a wise man--in spite of Mr. Innes--he contemplated it
with rueful humour, and temporized as best he could, whilst awaiting
events that should either lessen that burden or increase his own
capacity.

There is also the fact that whilst, like a dutiful servant of the crown,
he was quite ready where possible to afford an obedience that should be
unquestioning, it was beyond nature that this obedience should be
enthusiastic. He had examined for himself the lamentable question that
was agitating the empire; and the fact that he was married to a Colonial
lady may have served to counteract the bias of his official position,
leading him to adopt in secret the view of the majority--not merely in
the Colonies, but also at home--that disaster must attend the policy of
the ministry, driven by a wilful, despotic monarch who understood the
cultivation of turnips better than the husbandry of an empire. He cannot
have avoided the reflection that the government he served was determined
to reap the crop that Grenville had sown with the Stamp Act, determined
to pursue the obstinate policy which--the phrase is Pitt's, I think--must
trail the ermine of the British King in the blood of British subjects.
Lord William perceived--indeed, it required no very acute perception--how
oppression was provoking resistance, and how resistance was accepted as
provocation for further oppression. Therefore, he remained as far as
possible supine, thankful perhaps in his secret heart that he was without
the means to execute the harsh orders reaching him from home, and
obstinately hoping that conciliatory measures might yet be adopted to
restore harmony between the parent country and the children overseas whom
she had irritated into insubordination.

Towards this he may have thought that he could best contribute by bearing
himself with careless affability, as an appreciative guest of the colony
he was sent to govern. He showed himself freely with his Colonial wife at
race meetings, balls and other diversions, as Mr. Innes records, and he
affected an amiable blindness to anything that bore the semblance of
sedition.

In the end, as we can trace, Mr. Innes came to perceive something of
this, and I suspect that he began to make the discovery on a certain
Tuesday morning in June of that fateful year 1773, when Captain
Mandeville, his excellency's equerry, waited upon Lord William at the
early hour of eight.

Captain Mandeville, who was himself lodged in the Governor's residence in
Meeting Street, came unannounced into the pleasant spacious room
above-stairs that was Lord William's study. The equerry found his
excellency, in a quilted bedgown of mulberry satin, reclining on a long
chair, whilst his aproned alet Dumergue, was performing with comb and
tongs and pomade his morning duties upon the luxuriant chestnut hair that
adorned the young governor's handsome head. In mid-apartment, at a
writing-table that was a superb specimen of the French art of
cabinet-making, with nobly arching legs and choicely-carved ormolu
incrustations, Mr. Innes was at work.

Lord William looked up languidly to greet his equerry. His lordship had
been dancing at his father-in-law's--old Ralph Izard--until a late hour
last night, so that the air of fatigue he wore was natural enough.

"Ah, Mandeville! Good morning. Ye're devilish early astir."

"Not without occasion." The captain's manner was grim, almost curt. It
was obviously as an afterthought that he bowed and added a shade less
curtly: "Good morning."

Lord William observed, him with quickened interest. He knew no man who
commanded himself more completely than Robert Mandeville, who more fully
conformed with that first canon of good-breeding which demanded that a
gentleman should at all times, in all places and circumstances, control
his person and subdue his feelings. Yet here was Mandeville, this paragon
of deportment, not only excited, but actually permitting himself to
betray the fact. And it was not only his voice that betrayed it. There
was a touch of heightened colour in the captain's clear-cut,
clear-skinned, rather arrogant countenance, whilst in his clubbed blond
hair there was more than a vestige of last night's powder to advertise
the fact that the captain, usually so irreproachable in these matters,
had made a hurried toilet.

"Why--what is it?" quoth his lordship.

Captain Mandeville looked at Innes, disregarding the secretary's nod of
greeting; then at the valet, busy with his lordship's hair.

"It will keep until Dumergue has finished." His tone was now more normal.
He sauntered across to the broad window standing open to a balcony wide
and deep and pillared like a loggia. It overlooked the luxuriant garden
and the broad creek at the end of it, whose waters sparkling in the
morning sunshine showed here and there through the great magnolias that
spread a canopy above them.

His lordship's glance followed the officer's tall graceful figure in its
coat of vivid scarlet With golden shoulder-knots and the sword thrust
through the pocket, in compliance rather with the latest decree of
fashion than with military regulations. His curiosity was aroused and
with it the uneasiness that invariably pervaded him where colonial
matters were concerned.

"Innes," he said, "let Captain Mandeville read Lord Hillsbrough's letter
while he waits." And he added the information that it had just arrived by
the war sloop Cherokee and had been brought ashore an hour ago by her
captain.

Dumergue interrupted him at that point by thrusting a mirror into his
lordship's hand, whilst holding up a second one behind his lordship's
head.

"'Voyez, milor'," he invited. "Les boucles un peu plus series qu' à
l'ordinaire..."

He waited, eyebrows raised, head on one side, his glance intensely
anxious.

In the hand-glass his lordship calmly surveyed the back of his head, as
reflected from the second mirror. He nodded.

"Yes. I like that better. Very good, Dumergue."

Audibly Dumergue resumed his suspended breathing. He set down his mirror
and became busy with a broad ribbon of black silk.

Lord William lowered his own glass to meet the eyes of Captain Mandeville
observing him across the document which the equerry had now read.

"Well, Mandeville? What do you think of it?"

"I think it is very opportune."

"Opportune! Good God, Innes He thinks it's opportune!"

Mr. Innes, a sleek young gentleman, smiled and ventured even a slight
shrug. "That was to be looked for in Captain Mandeville." His voice was
gentle, almost timid. "He is a consistent advocate of...of...strong
measures."

His lordship sniffed.

"Strong measures are for the strong, and to do as Lord Hillsborough
commands us--"

He broke off. Captain Mandeville was holding up the hand that held the
letter.

"When your excellency's toilet is finished."

"Oh, very well," his lordship agreed. "Make haste, Dumergue."

Scandalized by the command, Dumergue began a protest. "Oh, milor'! Une
chevelure pareille...une coiffure si belle..."

"Make haste!" His lordship was unusually peremptory.

Dumergue sighed, and cut short his ministrations. With a final touch he
perfected the set of the ribbon in which the queue was confined; then he
gathered towel, scissors, comb, curling-tongs and pomade into a capacious
basin, made his bow, and retired with wounded dignity.

"Now, Mandeville."

His lordship sat up, swinging his legs round. They were shapely legs in
pearl-grey silk. He considered them complacently. They were among the few
things whose contemplation afforded his lordship unalloyed satisfaction.

But Captain Mandeville required his lordship to pay attention to very
different matters.

"Lord Hillsborough is quite definite in his instructions."
"It's so devilish easy for a politician to be definite in London,"
grumbled his lordship.

Captain Mandeville paid no heed to the comment. He lowered his eyes to
the sheet he held, and read: "The Government is resolved to make an end,
a speedy end, of the ungrateful and unfeeling insubordination of the
American colonies, which is occasioning so much pain to his majesty's
ministers."

"Oh, damn their pain!" said their South-Carolina representative.

The equerry read on. "The excessive leniency hitherto observed must now
be definitely abandoned, and coercion must at once be employed to subdue
these mutinous spirits.

"Therefore I desire your excellency to act without delay, seizing all
arms and munitions belonging to the province, raising provincial troops
if possible and making ready to receive the British regulars that will be
embarked with the least possible delay."

His lordship laughed. "Not without humour, Mandeville--of the unconscious
kind, that so often has a tragic flavour. I am to raise provincial
troops. Gadsmylife! As if the provincial troops were not raising
themselves, whilst I look on, acquiescing in the damned comedy;
pretending not to know the purpose for which they are being raised;
regarding them as the ordinary militia which they scarcely trouble to
pretend to be. They swarm in the streets until the place looks like a
garrison town. They parade, and march and drill under my very nose.
Indeed, I marvel that I am not asked to sign their officers' commissions.
If I were I suppose I should have to do it. And Lord Hillsborough, snugly
at home in England, writes ordering me to raise provincial troops! My
God!"

He rose at the end of his bitterly humorous tirade, a tall, handsome,
almost boyish figure. "And you, Mandeville, think this letter opportune?"

"It is opportune with the business that brings me," said the equerry. You
are forgetting the back country. Charles Town itself may be a hotbed of
rebellion. But up there, beyond the Broad River, they are loyal and tory.
And they'll fight."

"But who wants to fight?" Lord William was almost impatient. "I am sent
out from home with orders to play a conciliatory part--which is the only
part I have the means to play, the only part that I believe it is sane to
play. Other orders follow. I am to coerce; I am to arm. I am to prepare
to receive British troops. The latter I can do. But the rest--"

"That, too, if you have the will," said Mandeville.

"How can I have the will? Who could have the will whilst there is the
faintest chance of conciliation. And why should there not be?"

"Because these people have determined otherwise. Lexington showed us that
clearly enough. Up there in Massachusetts--"

"Yes, yes. But this isn't Massachusetts. The enactments which have
weighed heavily on the Northern provinces haven't touched the people in
South Carolina."

"They have touched their sympathies," Captain Mandeville reminded him.
"And there are enough dangerous spirits here to keep those sympathies at
fever-point."

"And more who are urged by self-interest to remain quiet. It's not for us
to stir them up."

"Yet their Provincial Congress and its very active committees exist, the
Society of the Carolinian Sons of Liberty exists. And between them, these
illegal bodies rule the province. They ru'e you."

"Rule me?" Lord William stiffened. "I don't recognise their existence,"
he declared.

"That is not to abolish them. They exist in spite of you. They come to
you with their seditious demands wrapped in constitutional language, and
force their measures down your throat, making a mock of your authority."

"But they are as unwilling to come to blows as I am; and since they have
the force, and I have not, it says much for their fundamental loyalty
that they are as anxious for conciliation as I am. I believe that in my
heart--nay, I know it. Haven't I close relatives among those you would
call rebels?"

"What does your lordship call them?"

Lord William looked at him, and flushed. He was annoyed, and yet he
curbed the expression of it. He recognized that Mandeville, who had
already spent two months in Charles Town, was infinitely better
acquainted with Carolinian affairs than himself, who had arrived there
only a fortnight ago. And he was completely dependent upon Mandeville in
his struggle with the constitutional Commons House of Assembly
unconstitutionally transforming itself into Provincial Congress and
operating through equally unlawful subordinate committees. Therefore lie
suffered in the equerry certain liberties which in another would never
have been tolerated.

"What else, indeed, can you call them?" Mandeville insisted after a
moment, on another tone. Then his manner became more brisk. "But I've
something else for your excellency this morning. Cheney is here."

The Governor looked up in sharp surprise. "Cheney?"

"He has been set at liberty."

The young face lighted suddenly. "There! You see That's a proof of their
disposition."

"But no explanation is offered of his arrest. Much less regret, as he
will tell you if you'll see him."

"Of course I'll see him."

"He has a friend with him, another back-country settler, an
intelligent-looking fellow who was sergeant to Kirkland."

"Bring them in. Both of them."

Mandeville handed Lord Hillsborough's letter back to Innes, and left the
room. The Governor paced across to the window, and stood there looking
out, pensive, his chin in his hand.

The news of Cheney's release brought relief to Lord William, who had seen
his authority in peril of being openly defied. It was perhaps as a result
of this that his reception of the man was more than ordinarily cordial
when presently Captain Mandeville ushered him in, together with his
companion, Dick Williams.

"He was sergeant to Kirkland," Mandeville repeated as he presented the
latter.

"And before that?" his lordship inquired, simply out of the interest
inspired in him by this young man, so personable and attractive despite
his shabbiness.

"A tobacco planter in a small way," said Williams. "I have some land,
held by the King's bounty, between the Saluda and the Broad. Haven't I,
Cheney?"

"Ay, that's a fact," said Cheney, who wore a hang-dog look.

His lordship thought that he understood the fellow's loyalty.

"And therefore you are properly grateful, sir? That is very well. I would
all were as dutiful in the back country settlements. But what of you,
Cheney? What grounds did the Committee give for your arrest?"

"Just that I came down with Kirkland, as did Dick here. Lucky for him
though, he weren't seen in Kirkland's company."

"But they couldn't hurt you for being with Kirkland."

"They might ha' done, if I hadn't denied it. I swore their spy was
mistook when he said I came as a lifeguard to Kirkland. I said Kirkland
and me had met on the Indian trail beyond the town; that we did happen to
come in together, but that I knew naught of him being a deserter from the
provincial army. I held to that tale, though they tried plaguy hard to
shake me out of it. And when they found they couldn't, why they just let
me go. But I ain't safe in Charles Town, my lord."

"Why not, since they've let you go...?"

"Ay, ay, but they may find out something about me yet, and if they take
me up again..." He broke off, distress on his dull face.

"What then?"

Williams answered for him. "They may tar-and-feather ," he said casually.

His lordship made a sharp gesture of abhorrence.

"Why? Because he's a king's man! That's a bugbear. Why don't they
tar-and-feather me?"

There was a half-smile on the lean face of the false Dick Williams.

"Your lordship is a great man, protected by your station. We are small
fry, whom no one would miss. We play this game with our lives on the
board and if we're put to death," he shrugged and laughed, "no more
notice will be taken of it."

Nay, there you are wrong. I should see them punished."

"That would vindicate your authority, but hardly profit us."

"They daren't do it. They daren't!" Lord William was emphatic.

They'll do it to Kirkland, if they get him. And they want him, eh,
Cheney?"

"Ay, it's a fact," said Cheney. "The Committee made no secret of it.
They'll put Kirkland to death if they lay hands on him, and any other
spy."

"So they hold that against him, do they--that he's a spy?"

"Ay, and if they'd, had grounds enough to hold it against me I shouldn't
be standing here now. If your lordship don't protect me, I'll go in
fear of my life."

Lord William turned to his silent, observant equerry. "What's to be done,
Mandeville?"

"Send them both to join Kirkland," said Mandeville shortly. "Ay, ay; but
where's Kirkland going?" quoth Williams boldly.

"There's nothing yet decided," Lord William answered him. "Meanwhile he's
safe aboard the Tamar."

From Kirkland's pretended sergeant came a frank, pleasant laugh that held
a note of recklessness.

"Your lordship may send Cheney there if he's a mind to go. But I don't
strike my colours yet. I've come to serve the king, and myself, too, at
the same time. There's a fellow named Harry Fitzroy Latimer with whom
I've an old account to settle."

At the mention of that name Captain Mandeville very obviously awoke to
keener interest in Dick Williams. His eyes--dark eyes that seemed
invested with a singular penetration from being set in so fair a
face--levelled a very searching glance upon him.

"Latimer!" he cried sharply, and added after a breathless pause: "What is
there between you and Latimer?"

Williams hesitated, as if the sharp tone had intimidated him. "Does your
honour know him?

"I asked you a question," said the captain stiffly.

Williams smiled, with a touch of deprecation. "My answer might offend
you, captain. Maybe he's a friend of yours."

"A friend of mine!" It was the captain's turn to laugh, and his laugh was
not pleasant. "D'ye think I have friends among the rebels?"

"Oh, but this one." Williams turned to his lordship. "Mr. Latimer is one
of the richest planters in the province, in all the thirteen colonies
maybe, and he has a mort of friends among the tories. Why, there's Sir
Andrew Carey of Fairgrove Barony as red-hot a tory as any man in America,
and Latimer to marry his daughter."

Mandeville looked at him contemptuously. The fellow was not so
well-informed after all.

That may have been the case. It is so no longer. Sir Andrew is my friend,
my kinsman; and I have it from himself that this scoundrel Latimer shall
never darken his doorway again. I'll add that I do not know him, that I
have never seen him, though his deeds are well enough known to me as they
are to Lord William."

"Ay," grumbled his excellency. "The fellow's a nasty thorn in our flesh.
If the province were rid of him and that firebrand Gadsden, there'd be
more hope of a settlement."

"So speak your mind freely about him," the equerry invited. "What is
there between you?"

"Just a matter of some fifty acres the grasping scoundrel has filched
from my bounty lands, by artful shifting of boundaries."

William's voice quivered with scorn. "There's a noble gentleman for you!
A man as rich as Dives, and not above thieving land from a Lazarus like
myself. But that's the spirit of these rebels. They're all alike. Where
there's no loyalty to the king, there's no fear of God, nor virtue of any
kind."

"But there's a law to which you can appeal," Lord William reminded him,
shocked by this revelation of turpitude.

"A law!" Dick Williams laughed outright. "The law's dispensed by such men
as Mr. Latimer in South Carolina. The province is ruled by these wealthy
planters. And they'll never legislate against one another."

"We shall alter all that, Williams, when these troubles are settled."

"That's my hope, my lord, That's my faith." Enthusiasm kindled in the
blue eyes, a flush crept into that lean, pale face. "And that's why I'm
ready to spend my life in the king's service. So that in the end we may
have justice of such nabobs as this Mr. Latimer. He keeps the state of a
prince out of his plunderings. A kite-hearted scoundrel."

"You'll have justice, don't doubt it," said Captain Mandeville slowly.
"The fellow is weaving a rope for his neck. Egad He's woven it already."

"Ye don't say, captain!" Williams was suddenly very eager. "Oh, but I
do," Mandeville answered him, and snapped his lips together on that
subject.

Williams showed a desire to pursue it. At least he hesitated now,
twirling his shabby hat in hands that were none too clean. Then Lord
William diverted the channel of their talk, or, rather, brought it back
from that digression.

"What have you in mind to do, Williams? Where do you propose to go?"

"I? Why, back whence I came. Back beyond the Broad. So if your lordship
has any messages or letters for Fletchall or the Cunninghams or the
Browns, or any other of the loyal folk up yonder, I'm the man to carry
them."

"Letters?" said Lord William, and he smiled. "Yet if it were known you
came with Kirkland...

"No, no. Besides, I have no letters for them."

"If you had you'd find me as safe as the others that have carried for
your lordship."

"For me?" His lordship looked surprised. "Nay, I have sent no letters,
Who says I have?"

"It's what I'm supposing, your lordship. For how else should you
correspond?

"Certainly not by letters," said his lordship, with the air of a man who
knows his business.

"By word of mouth, then. There I'm your man. You'll have some message for
them?"

"Why, nothing but to bid them keep the men in good order."

"But you do not yet sanction them to take up arms?"

"Not yet. Not without they have ammunition in plenty, and think they're
strong enough."

The comely young face of Williams lengthened. "They're not strong enough,
nor have they ammunition in plenty. That I know. Besides, Drayton has
been up there preaching sedition to them, and that has thinned their
ranks."

"Stale news," put in Captain Mandeville.

"Ay, I suppose it is," Williams agreed, and sighed. "If they could depend
upon His Majesty's government for arms."

"Bid them be patient," Lord William answered him, "and should it become
necessary--which God send it may not the arms shall presently be
forthcoming."

Again the face lighted eagerly. "How, your lordship?" he asked
breathlessly.

The young Governor sauntered over to the writing-table. "I could not have
told you yesterday. But to-day I have a letter here from the Secretary of
State." He held it up a moment, and Williams observed that his face was
gloomy, his eyes sad. "His Majesty is resolved to enforce submission from
one end of the continent to the other. Tell them that in the back
country."

"It will rejoice their hearts, as it rejoices mine, my lord. Does your
lordship mean that soldiers will be sent from England?"

"That is what I mean--here to Charles Town." There was no exultation in
his voice. "Unless the rebels bend their stubborn necks, this place will
shortly be a seat of war."

"Now that's good hearing, on my life!" The young man glowed with
satisfaction, until. Captain Mandeville and even the silent secretary,
Innes, smiled to see so much enthusiasm. Lord William alone remained
grave.

"There's only one piece of news would gladden me more than that,"
Williams added after a moment. And that would be really to know, to be
sure, that Latimer was as safe to be hanged as your honour seemed to
promise. If you've those journeys of his in mind, to Boston and
elsewhere, I doubt if there's much in that you can act on. He's not done
as much as Drayton's been doing, and others that you know of. And if you
can't proceed against those, what can you do against Latimer?"

"We've something more than that against him," said Lord William.

"If it's anything about which ye're still lacking evidence, it would be a
joy for me to get it for your lordship."

"Nay," said his lordship affably. "I think the evidence is complete. Ye're
a good fellow, Williams. show you something that'll make you certain of
the recovery of your land, with perhaps a few of Mr. Latimer's acres
added to them by way of interest; something that'll encourage you to
continue to serve your king as stoutly as you have been serving him." He
turned to his secretary. "Innes, give me that April list."

Mandeville moved across to his lordship's side. "Is it quite prudent?"
he asked.

Lord William frowned. It seemed to him that Captain Mandeville was
permitting himself a liberty greater than usual.

"Prudent? And where is the imprudence? What do I betray that may not be
published in Charles Town?"

Mandeville pursed his lips. "Provided that the source of the information
is not divulged. That is too precious to be risked in any way."

"Your talent, Mandeville, is for pointing out the obvious."

"That is because the obvious sometimes eludes your lordship," Mandeville
answered him with that quiet smiling insolence that he was rather prone
to use.

"Be damned to you for your good opinion of me! Let it quiet your timid
heart that the obvious does not escape me now." He took the document that
Innes proffered and unfolded it. He held it out so that Williams could
read it. "What name do you find there at the very top?"

Dick Williams was studying the document as if with effort. "I...I do not
read easily," he said.

Mandeville's dark eyes flashed upon him with a sudden look of suspicion.
"Yet your speech, sir," he said, "is hardly of one who does not read."

"Oh, I read," said Williams, no whit perturbed. "I read printed books.
Indeed, I am a great reader of printed books. But I have no great
experience of handwriting." All the while his eyes were on that written
sheet. "And this is a cursedly crabbed hand. Whatever rogue writ that
should be sent back to school to learn his pothooks. Ah, I have it at
last! Egad, I should have guessed it. Why, the name is Harry Latimer."

"Harry Latimer it is," said his lordship, refolding the document and
restoring it to his secretary. "It's at the head of the list; and the
list is that of the men who were concerned in the raid on the King's
armoury here two months ago, in Lieutenant-Governor Bull's time. Latimer
was the ring-leader. Robbery and high-treason both in one. That will be
the indictment he will have to answer one of these fine days."

Dick Williams was staring at his lordship, a bewildered look in his eyes.

"But I thought he was away in Boston then?"

"So did a good many others. But he wasn't. He was here in Charles Town
for three days. And that was one of the things he did."

Dick Williams looked gravely at his lordship.

"The man who wrote that list will testify, of course?"

"When the time comes."

"Then why don't you arrest Latimer?"

"Arrest him?"

"He's here in Charles Town," said Williams, whereupon Captain Mandeville
interjected with unusual violence the question:

"How do you know?"

"We saw him this morning in Broad Street as we were on our way here,
didn't we, Cheney?"

Cheney woke with a start from the uneasy dejection in which he had been
standing.

"It's a fact," he stolidly attested.

Mandeville mused aloud as it seemed: "So he's come back, has he?"

"He has. This is your chance since you can bring forward your witness."

Lord William laughed, a little bitterly. "My good fellow, even if the
sheriff's officers would execute my warrant, which I doubt, to bring
forward my witness is not yet desirable. The matter must wait. But it
will lose nothing by waiting. Be sure of that."

"I see," said Williams. "To disclose the witness would be to lose the
services of your spy in the enemy's camp. I understand." He fetched a
sigh. "Ah, well, I'll be patient, my lord and meanwhile we may pile up the
score against our gentleman." His Manner became brisk. "I'll bear your
messages to the back-country. I shall be setting out at once. There's
nothing to be gained by stopping in Charles Town. If your lordship has
any further word--"

"No. I think not. If you'll bear those I have given you, and report to
me when you are next here, I shall be obliged. And now there's still to
settle about you, Cheney."

"May it please your lordship," said Cheney.

But the mercurial Dick Williams settled it for him breezily.

"You come back with me, Cheney. You'll be safe enough beyond the Broad.
And it's as easy to get out of Charles Town that way as by way of the
wharves. Beside, up there with a musket in your hands you'll be more use
to your king than stowed away aboard a man-of-war."

"Faith, I don't much care where I goes, so long as I doesn't stay in
Charles Town."

"You ride with me, my lad."

"Ay, ay! We'd best be going," said Cheney, who seemed to have no mind of
his own.

"Indeed, I think that's best," agreed his lordship. He turned to his
secretary. "Innes, let them have ten guineas apiece."

But Williams recoiled. "My lord!" There was deep injury in his tone.

"Why, what the devil!" His lordship stared at him.

"I'm a spy, my lord. I don't mince words. I'm a spy; and I glory in it.
But I don't take money for it. I do it as a duty and for the sake of the
entertainment it affords me."

Looking into those humorous, dare-devil blue eyes of his, Lord William
found no difficulty in believing the preposterous statement.

"Egad, Mr. Williams," said Captain Mandeville, "ye've an odd sense of
humour."

"I have. Haven't I, Cheney?"

"It's a fact," said Cheney, who was opening a receptive palm to the gold
Mr. Inns poured into it.

Thereupon they took their leave, and Lord William wearily resumed his
place on the couch. "An interesting, attractive fellow that," he said,
feeling for his snuff-box. "It's the first time I've found it possible to
talk to a spy without feeling nauseated. But then he's not really a spy.
He had very little to tell us, after all."

"He was very interesting on the subject of Harry Latimer,". said
Mandeville, who was brooding by the window.

"Interesting, perhaps. But hardly useful. If he had been before the
Committee instead of that oaf Cheney we might have WA something from
him."

"Perhaps you might have had something out of Cheney if you'd questioned
him."

His lordship yawned. "I forgot," he said. "And that fellow Williams
talked so much. No matter. What use is information when you can't act
upon it? And I thank God I can't. That way lies hope." He took snuff
gloomily.



CHAPTER IV - FAIRGROVE


In an upper room of his handsome house on the Bay, Mr. Harry Latimer was
at his toilet with the assistance of Johnson. He was exchanging the
clothes and the grime proper to Dick Williams for garments more suited to
his real station. But when Johnson respectfully asked his honour what he
would wear, his honour bade him lay out a riding-suit, and meanwhile give
him a bed-gown. Wrapped in this, he sat there listless and dejected
before his toilet table what time his valet busied himself with the
clothes Mr. Latimer was presently to don.

When all was ready, instead of proceeding to dress, he dismissed the
valet, and continued sunk in thought. Thus Julius, the butler, found him
when he came a quarter of an hour later with a silver chocolate service
which he set down at his master's elbow. Julius, a short, slight, elderly
negro, in a sky-blue livery, and with a head of crisply-curling white
hair that looked like a wig, poured a cup of the steaming brew, and then,
in obedience to a curt dismissal, withdrew again.

Mr. Latimer sat on, alone with his thoughts. He had succeeded in his aims
that morning beyond anything that you may yet suspect. Once he had seen
that list which Lord William had shown him, there had been no need for
any further questions. He had learnt all that he sought to know. And yet
his success, far from bringing him elation, had plunged him into a
dejection deeper than any he had yet experienced. For that list was in a
hand that he knew as well as he knew his own. It was the hand of a man of
his own age, a man named Gabriel Featherstone, who was the son of Sir
Andrew Carey's factor at Fairgrove. This factor had been in Sir Andrew's
service for thirty years, and not only himself but also his son were held
by Sir Andrew in warm affection. So much had this been the case, that at
one time when, as a boy, Latimer had been given a tutor, Gabriel
Featherstone had been sent to share his lessons. For two years--until
Latimer had gone to England to complete his studies--Gabriel and he had
worked side by side at their school-books, and for some time afterwards
they had corresponded. It was, no wonder, then, that he knew the hand so
well.

The discovery that it was Gabriel Featherstone who had supplied that list
to Lord William and who was, therefore, the traitor in their ranks, had
led Latimer straight to certain very definite and irresistible
conclusions. And he was left wondering now at his own dullness in never
having suspected these things which were suddenly rendered so appallingly
clear.

From the moment that Gabriel Featherstone joined the Carolinian Sons of
Liberty and procured his election to the General Committee of Provincial
Congress, Latimer should have considered the possibility of some such
purpose as he now perceived. Perhaps his own sudden conversion to the
Cause had made him take the conversion of Featherstone too much for
granted. Yet he should have known that self-interest must have restrained
a man who, through his own father, was largely dependent upon Sir Andrew.
He should have known that Sir Andrew's bigotry would have dictated the
instant dismissal of a man who was the father of a rebel. Since this had
not happened, it followed that he was a party to what had taken place.
Possibly--indeed probably--it was at Sir Andrew's own instigation that
Gabriel had been sent to act as a spy upon the doings of Provincial
Congress.

And now Latimer found himself face to face with the clear duty to
announce his discovery. The extemporaneous secret committee by which he
had been empowered to make his investigation was to assemble again that
evening at six o'clock at the house of Henry Laurens to receive his
report. Make it he must, at whatever cost. Of that there was no doubt in
his mind. But the cost was heavy indeed.

It was not that he pitied or sympathized with Featherstone. Whatever
tenderness he might have had for him was eclipsed by the fact that in
spite of the past Featherstone had never hesitated to place a rope round
Latimer's neck. The fellow was revealed to him for a venal scoundrel upon
whom only a fool would waste his pity. But there was Sir Andrew, There
was the breach already existing between himself and the man who had been
his guardian and dearest friend, and who was Myrtle's lather. That
breach, the hope of healing which had been strong until this moment, must
now be rendered utterly irreparable. For if he denounced Featherstone,
there could be no doubt of what must follow. Whatever the feelings and
hesitations of the others, Gadsden would see to it that the man be dealt
with by mob-law. And if through Latimer's denunciation Featherstone
should lose his life as a punishment for activities in which Sir Andrew
himself had engaged him, it would be idle for Harry Latimer to hope that
his adoptive father would ever forgive him. Myrtle would then, indeed, be
lost to him irrevocably.

Yet denounce Featherstone he must.

There you have the two horns of the terrible dilemma upon which, as a
result of his success, Mr. Latimer now found himself. And it was a long
time before there dawned upon him the possibility of a middle course,
which, by removing Featherstone and thus putting a term to his espionage,
might yet spare his life.

A man of quick decisions and of rather sanguine temperament, he decided
to act at once upon the idea. Indeed, if it was to be acted upon at all
there was no time to lose. He rose at last, and rang for his valet. When
the man came, he bade him send a messenger to ask Mr. Izard to step round
to see him, and then return to assist him to dress.

Now at just about the time that Mr. Latimer was beginning to make his
toilet--which would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of noon--Captain
Mandeville was setting out from Meeting Street, with intent to ride to
Fairgrove, the imposing seat of Sir Andrew Carey on the Back River.

Seen on his tall black horse, in his scarlet gold-laced coat, white
buckskins and lacquered riding-boots, the captain was a figure calculated
to gladden the eyes of any maid that might happen to peep through one or
another of the green jalousies veiling the windows under which he passed.

Charles Town had been planned by Culpepper a hundred years ago, at a time
and in a place that admitted of generous spaces and regular lines such as
were not to be found in the old world. Meeting Street in the European
eyes of the governor's equerry was a pleasant avenue, fringed with elms,
and deriving a sense of width front the garden spaces between the houses
on either side. Some of these, and mainly the more recent ones, of
mellowing red brick, clothed in vine and honeysuckle, jasmine and glossy
cherokee, were half concealed amid the luxuriance of their gardens;
others, of wood, but very solidly built, mainly of the timber of the
black cypress, stood sideways to the thoroughfare, presenting to it no
more than a gabled end, whilst the long fronts with their wide deep
piazzas faced inwards upon the gardens, which were enclosed behind high
brick walls. The scent of late flowering bulbs, which early Dutch
settlers had procured from Holland, mingled with the heavier perfume of
jasmine and honeysuckle and the pungent fragrance which the sun was
drawing from the pines.

The captain turned off into Broad Street, and rode past the Church of St.
Michael with its lofty steeple, so reminiscent of the work of Wren and so
greatly resembling St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. lie crossed the open space
at the Corner presided over by the statue of Pitt, which had been
enthusiastically erected there five years ago to mark the province's
appreciation of the Great Commoner who had championed the cause of the
Colonies in the Stamp Act troubles.

And here the bustle of life and traffic was such that the captain found
it in the main impossible to proceed at more than a walking pace. There
were groups of seafaring men of all degrees from the ships in the
harbour, standing to gape upon the sights of the town. Now it was a party
of negro field servants in brightly-coloured cottons, shepherded by a
swarthy overseer, that claimed their attention; now it was a file of
three Catawba Indians, leather-crowned and mantled in gaudy blankets,
each leading a pack-horse laden with the merchandise against which they
had traded the pelts from their distant settlements beyond Camden. More
than once Captain Mandeville was compelled to draw rein altogether to
give passage to the lumbering mahogany coach of some wealthy planter, the
tall phaeton driven by a young colonial macaroni, with his liveried negro
groom sitting like a statue of I bronze behind; or the sedan chair slung
between its black porters bearing a lady of fashion on her shopping
excursions.

For of all the towns in North America, this was the one in which the
luxury and refinements of the Old World were combined in the highest
degree with the wealth and abundance of he New. And, as was natural,
their sybaritism governed their politics. There were, of course,
firebrands, republican extremists such as Christopher Gadsden and this
new convert to republicanism Mr. Harry Latimer, and there was an unruly
mob of mechanics and artisans and the like, who with little to stake were
ready enough for adventure; but in the main the wealthy oligarchy of
planters and merchants which had so long held undisputed sway in South
Carolina, whilst sympathizing with the grievances of the North and the
opposers of the oppressive royal rule, was restrained from overt action
by self-interest. The security of person and property which they now
enjoyed might be lost to them in an upheaval. And the same incubus of
passivity sat upon the spirit of the avowed tones. In their ranks, too,
there were extremists, like Sir Andrew Carey and the Fletchalls, who left
everything but a fanatical duty to the king out of their calculations.
But in the main they were as anxious as those on the other side to avoid
an open rupture.

Thus it was the destiny of the Carolinians to follow, since follow they
must, but never to lead, in this conflict with authority.

News of the skirmish at Lexington last April had rudely shaken them. But
things had settled down again. Congress had met to frame a petition to
the King, and the hope that all would yet be adjusted and that a
reconciliation would be effected was held as stoutly as men hold the
hopes of things they desperately desire.

Captain Mandeville's views on colonial matters were pessimistic, and it
also happened that he loved antitheses as well as any man with a sense of
irony. Therefore it was with mildly amused detachment that he returned
the salutes of some of these ubiquitous blue-coated officers of the
provincial militia--a body more or less constitutionally brought together
against the need for unconstitutional emergencies--who doffed their
black-cockaded hats to him as he rode by. He reflected that despite their
superficial friendliness, they regarded his scarlet coat much as a bull
might regard it, and that notwithstanding their friendly smiles of
greeting--for many of them were men with whom he gamed and hunted and
laid wagers on a main of cocks or a horse race--they might very possibly
be cutting his throat before the week was out.

To Mandeville, it was all in the day's work. He had come out to the
colonies in the service of his king, like the "poor devil of a younger
son" as he was wont, more affectedly than accurately, to describe
himself. He was, in reality, the younger son of a younger son. He had run
through the considerable fortune inherited from his mother--his father
having married a wealthy heiress, in accordance with the best traditions
of the younger sons of noble houses--and he was now in the position of
dependency upon the State peculiar to British cadets, with the possible
expectations that commonly delude them.

His uncle, the present Earl of Chalfont, had no issue, and Captain
Mandeville was next in the succession. But as his uncle, now in his
fifty-fifth year, was of a rudely vigorous constitution, and the
Mandevilles were a long-lived race, the captain was not disposed to build
upon expectations which might not be realized until his own youth was
spent. Therefore, in coming out to the colonies to, serve his king,
Captain Mandeville had it also in mind to serve himself in the manner not
unusual among his kind, the manner of which his own father had set him
the example, and the manner in which Lord William Campbell--also a
younger son--had served himself when he married Sally Izard and a dowry
of fifty thousand pounds. The colonies offered a fruitful hunting-ground,
and colonial heiresses afforded covetable prizes for younger sons who
knew how to make the best of family glamour.

Apart from this, however, Captain Mandeville came out persuaded that in
his own case the hunt need not be carried very far afield. Sir Andrew
Carey, that wealthy and influential South Carolina tory, descended on the
distaff side from that Mandeville who had been one of the original Lords
Proprietors, was a remote kinsman of the captain's, and so passionately
proud of his descent from so ancient and distinguished a stock as to be
disposed to regard the kinship as much closer than it actually was. And
Sir Andrew had a daughter, an only child. What, then, more natural than
that this widower, with no son of his own to succeed him, should perceive
in Mandeville the son-in-law of his dreams?

The only thing omitted from the captain's shrewd calculations was the
existence of Mr. Henry Fitzroy Latimer of Santee Broads and of the
Latimer Barony on the Saluda. And this omission might entirely have
wrecked those same calculations but for the dispensation of Providence by
which Latimer was guided into the paths of rebellion.

The outraged Sir Andrew let it be understood that he saw repeated between
himself and Latimer the fable of the woodman and the snake, and he swore
that he would play out the woodman's part.

When Captain Mandeville's eyes, which missed few things, observed
thereafter the disappearance from Myrtle's finger of a certain
brilliant-studded hoop of gold, he accounted the battle almost over. Nor
did he permit himself to be unduly concerned by the pallid listlessness
that descended upon Myrtle in those spring days.

If he curbed himself, using a masterly restraint at present, while her
grief endured, yet he envisaged the future confidently. He. knew his
world, and he knew humanity. He knew that there is no wound of the heart
which time cannot heal. It was for him to contain himself until he was
sure that the healing process should be well-advanced. The rest should
follow naturally and easily.

There was no coxcombry in his persuasion. That he was agreeable to Myrtle
she rendered evident. And in the quest for sympathy and affection which
is natural to those who have been hurt as she had been, it was inevitable
that her relations with her kinsman Mandeville should be strengthened in
their intimacy. Add to, this that he had now the assurance of Sir
Andrew's entire favour and support. Sir Andrew had done more than hint it
to him. There was an end to any thought of marriage between his child and
the renegade Latimer, this ungrateful scoundrel to whom his house was
closed, which the captain assumed--and not without justification--to mean
that the way to his own suit lay open. That suit he now cautiously
pursued, and it was in the pursuit of it that he was riding to
Fair-grove, bearing a choice item of news which the interview that
morning with Dick Williams had supplied him.

He turned up King Street, where the traffic was less brisk, and pushed on
at a better pace towards the Town Gate. On a sandy waste beyond the
unfinished fortification works, undertaken some twenty years before, but
subsequently abandoned, he saw a considerable party of militia at drill.
It was composed largely of young men of the working classes, the least
responsible, and therefore the most inflammable material in the province.
The sight of Mandeville's red coat provoked certain ribaldries, which
they shouted after him, but more or less in a spirit of good-humour.

Paying little heed to them, he rode amain along the old Indian trail
across the pine barrens, a desolate landscape of shallow dunes unrelieved
by any vegetation beyond the clumps of pine trees that reared themselves
black and fragrant in the sunshine. Anon as he drew nearer to the Back
River, that branch of the Cooper on which Fairgrove had been built by the
present Carey's grandfather, the road led across a swamp, at the end of
which at last the country assumed a more fertile aspect.

It would be something after two o'clock in the afternoon when Mandeville
brought his now foam-flecked horse to the tall, wrought-iron gates of
Fairgrove, and the broad avenue bordered with live oaks, nearly a mile
long, which clove the parklands about the stately home of Andrew Carey.

This house of Fairgrove was a noble four-square mansion of Queen-Anne
design, with very tall, white-sashed windows equipped with white-slatted
jalousies. It had been built fifty years or so ago, of brick, now
mellowed by age and weather, brought out as ballast by the ships from
England. Emerging from the avenue on to a wide semi-circular sweep of
gravel, you might have conceived yourself confronting an English country
house of Kent or Surrey. Wide lawns were spread on either hand, under the
shade of massive cedars, whilst a flight of terraces on the northern side
broke the harsh slope by which the land fell away sharply to the river.

A negro groom led away the captain's horse. Remus, the negro butler,
ushered him into the house, and into the long, cool dining-room, where
Sir Andrew, who had just come in from the plantation, was refreshing
himself with a morning punch. He was in riding-boots, and his gloves and
long silver-mounted switch lay on the table where he had flung them a
moment since. His daughter was ministering to him, but mechanically and
listlessly. She had that morning received Harry's letter from Savannah,
and so different was it from what she had hoped and expected that it left
her with a feeling that life was at an end.

Sir Andrew, a big bluff man, looking in his grey riding-frock and
buckskins like a typical English squire, heaved himself up to greet his
visitor.

"Robert, my boy, we're favoured. Remus, a punch for Captain Mandeville."

The words were naught. The cordiality of the welcome lay in the ringing
voice, the beaming countenance, the outstretched hand.

And Myrtle, slim, tall and ethereal in a hooped gown of lilac, a dark
curl coiling on her milk-white neck, gave him as he bowed to kiss her
finger-tips a greeting that was as frank and friendly as her listlessness
permitted, whereafter she sought to busy herself with Remus at the great
mahogany sideboard in the preparation of the captain's punch.

"Time hangs on your hands," Sir Andrew rallied him, "and it's plain the
governor and his council don't overwork you."

"They may be doing so before long, Sir Andrew. And, faith, the sooner the
better." He paused to receive the punch, which old Remus proffered on a
salver, and gracefully to thank Miss Carey for her part in its
preparation.

"Confusion to all rebels," he said lightly, as he raised the glass to his
lips.

"Amen to that! Amen!" boomed solemnly the voice of Sir Andrew, whilst
Myrtle looked on with a face that was white and drawn.

They sat down, the captain and his host facing each other across the
dark, glossy board on which glass and silver seemed to float, reflected
as in a pool, Myrtle on a window'-seat, perhaps instinctively placing her
back to the light that her troubled countenance might escape notice.

Sir Andrew filled himself a long pipe from a silver box, and Remus
attended him with a lighted taper.

"No use to offer you a pipe, I know," the baronet mumbled, the stem
between his teeth. And the fastidious Mandeville, who loathed the stench
of tobacco-smoke, smilingly agreed.

"You miss a deal, Bob. You do so. And this is fine leaf, of that
scoundrel Latimer's own growing." His face was momentarily darkened. He
fetched a sigh. The fellow learnt the trick of curing it in Virginia. But
he kept the secret to himself. A secretive dog in that ass in other
things. "You should try a pipe, man. It's a great soother." But the captain
merely smiled again, and shook his head. "And what's the news in Charles
Town? We're out of the world up here. You'd be at old Izard's ball last
night. I'd ha' been there myself, but Myrtle wouldn't go. Moping over the
black ingratitude of a damned scoundrel who isn't worth a thought."

"You must bring her to Mrs. Brewton's ball on thought Thursday."

"Ay, to be sure."

"I don't think--" Myrtle was beginning in hesitation, when the captain,
gently interrupted her.

"Nay, now, my dear Myrtle. It is a duty, no less. The ball is being given
in the governor's honour. It becomes an official function. In these sad
times Lord William requires the support of every loyal man and woman.
Indeed, Sir Andrew, he desires me to say that he deplores your absence
from Charles Town just now and that he would be the better for your
presence."

Sir Andrew swore roundly and emphatically that in that case he would
return to town at once, however much the stench of treason in it might
turn his stomach.

It was not, indeed, usual for him to be on his plantation at this time of
year, and he would certainly not have remained there since Lord William's
coming but for the circumstances of his last departure from Charles Town
and the oath he had then sworn that he would not return until the vile
place was purged of its rebellious spirit.

He had fled from it in a rage in the middle of last February, on the day
following that 17th, appointed by Provincial Congress to be a day of
fasting, humiliation and prayer before Almighty God, devoutly to petition
him to inspire the King with true wisdom to defend the people of North
America in their just title to freedom, and avert the calamities of civil
war.

To Sir Andrew it seemed impossible that anything more blasphemous than
this lay within the possibility of human utterance. But when he heard
tell that every place of in Charles Town was crowded with wicked fools
who went to offer up that seditious prayer, when with his own eyes be
beheld the members of the Provincial Congress going in solemn procession
to St. Philip's, with Lowndes the Speaker of the Commons House at their
head in his purple robes and full-bottomed wig, the silver mace borne in
state before him, Sir Andrew's indignation forbade him to remain in a
place upon which he hourly expected some such visitation as that which
overtook Sodom and Gomorrah.

He raged in impotent loyalty, and raged the more because there was little
else that he could do to signify his execration of the event. That
little, however, he performed. He made his protest, and it took the shape
of closing his residence in Tradd Street, and shaking the rebellious dust
of that place of treason from his loyal feet.

On his plantation he had since remained, and there he would have
continued but for this viceregal summons, which he pronounced it his
sacred duty unquestionably to obey.

"We'll be there by to-morrow, Bob, dead or alive, to swell the muster of
the king's friends." Dismissing the matter upon that, he craved for news.

He received from Mandeville, whose face was grave to the point of
sadness, an account of the morning's interview with Cheney and Dick
Williams, and the latter's accusation against Latimer of turpitude in his
dealings with less powerful neighbours.

Sir Andrew's brows were scowling. But he thrust out a doubting nether
lip. "That is not like Harry Latimer," he said slowly. And Myrtle rose
abruptly from her window-seat.

"It isn't true," she said with heat.

"I scarcely could believe it myself," Mandeville agreed smoothly. "Men
are not often dishonest without motive, and what motive could there be
for such petty pilferings on the part of the wealthy Mr. Latimer? And
yet..." He paused a moment, a man hesitating between thoughts. "And yet,
when a man practises the dishonesty of being false to his duty to his
king..." He left it there.

"Ay, ay," assented Sir Andrew on a deep growl.

"Oh, you are wrong. Wrong!" his daughter insisted. "There is all the
world between the two deeds. Whatever Harry may be, he is not a thief,
and no one will make me believe it."

Captain Mandeville deplored to observe that time had not yet begun to do
the work which he had been content to leave to it.

"No one could have made you believe him a traitor," her father answered
her. "No one could have made you believe him secretive and furtive--a
fellow that comes and goes by stealth like a thief in the night."

"Which reminds me," said Captain Mandeville, "that he is in Charles Town
at present."

Their startled glances questioned him.

"I had it from this same fellow Williams. He told me he had seen him this
morning."

"Then why in God's name don't you arrest him?"

"Don't, father!" Myrtle laid a restraining hand upon his shoulder.

"Pshaw, my girl The fellow's no longer anything to you." Captain
Mandeville wished he could share the opinion. Meanwhile he answered Sir
Andrew's fierce question.

"Lord William would have signed the warrant already, but that--" He
checked.

"Well But that what?"

"I persuaded him not to do so."

"You persuaded him?" Sir Andrew showed Ms amazement. "'Why?"

"For one thing, it would not be politic. We want to avoid strife and any
act that may lead to strife. Mr. Latimer is something of a hero with the
mob; and we do not wish to provoke the mob into acts that might call for
reprisals."

"It's what they need, by God!"

"Maybe. And yet it has its dangers. Lord William saw that. Also, Sir
Andrew, I had other reasons. This Mr. Latimer, after all, in spite of
what he has done, has thrust certain roots into your heart."

"I've torn them out," Sir Andrew protested vehemently.

"And then, there is Myrtle," the captain sighed.

"How good you are!" Myrtle rewarded him, her eyes shining moistily.

"Good!" growled the baronet. "Good, to neglect his clear duty!"

"I doubt if I should ever do my duty at the cost of hurting either of you,
however slightly. You have become so very dear to me in the months I have
been in this exile that I could never leave your feelings out of
consideration in anything I did."

And then, before either of them could find the right words in which to
answer that pledge of affection, Remus opened the door to make the
dramatic announcement:

"Massa Harry, Sir Andrew."

It had never occurred to the old butler that there could be any doubt of
admitting Master Harry, and so he had conducted him straight to the
dining-room where Sir Andrew sat.



CHAPTER V - THE REBEL


Mr. Harry Latimer, stepping briskly, his three-cornered hat and a heavy
riding crop tucked under his arm, and drawing off his gloves as he came,
advanced with a composure which Sir Andrew afterwards described as
impudent.

Remus closed the heavy mahogany door, and silence reigned thereafter for
some moments in that room.

Sir Andrew, Captain Mandeville and Miss Carey remained at gaze, three
petrified figures, the two men seated, the girl, her breathing quickened,
standing just behind her father's chair, her right hand resting upon the
summit of its tall back.

You conceive perhaps the various emotions conflicting in the mind of
each, and you certainly conceive that for the moment these emotions were
dominated by sheer amazement. Deep as it was in all three, it was deepest
in Captain Mandeville. He was not merely amazed. He was bewildered. For
the tall, slim young gentleman who had entered, and who was standing now
by the head of the table, was no stranger to him. He had seen and talked
with him somewhere before, and the captain raked his wits to discover
when and where that might have been. But only for a moment. Gradually the
eyes of his mind metamorphosed the figure which the eyes of his body were
devouring. The well-fitting, modish, long riding-coat of bottle-green
gave place to a shabby brown coatee; the fine delicate hand, that was
being withdrawn from its glove, became soiled and grimy; the rippling
bronze hair, so neatly queued in its moire ribbon, hung loose and unkempt
about that lean, pale face with its keen blue eyes and humorous mouth.

The captain's fist crashed down upon the mahogany, so that glass and
silver rattled; he half rose from his chair, momentarily moved out of his
self-control in a manner foreign to him even at t lines of greatest
provocation.

"Dick Williams!" he cried, and added: "By God!"

Mr. Latimer bowed to him, his smile ironical.

"Captain Mandeville, your humble obedient. I can understand your
feelings."

Mandeville made him no answer. His thoughts were racing over the ground
covered that morning by the interview between Dick Williams and the
governor. He sought to recall how much had been disclosed to this
audacious spy, who, thanks to the assistance of Cheney--whose
unaccountable treachery was now also made clear--had so completely
bubbled them.

Meanwhile Sir Andrew, too obsessed by his own feelings to give heed to
the unintelligible exchange of words between Mandeville and this
unwelcome visitor, was raging furiously.

"My God! Have you the, impudence to show your face here, now that the
mask is off it? Now that we know you for what you are?"

"You do not know me, sir, for anything of which I am ashamed."

"Because you're shameless," Sir Andrew choked, impatiently shaking off
the trembling hand that Myrtle set on his shoulder to restrain him.

Mr. Latimer looked at him wistfully. "Sir Andrew," he said very gently,
"must there be war between us because we do not see eye to eye on matters
of policy and justice? There is no man in all this world whom I love more
deeply than yourself--"

"You may spare me that," the baronet broke in. "When I find a more
ungrateful, treacherous scoundrel than you are, I may hate him more. But
I don't believe that such a man lives."

Latimer's pallor deepened. Shadows formed themselves under his brilliant
eyes.

"In what am I ungrateful?" he quietly asked.

"Must you be told? Could any father have done more for you than I have
done? For years, whilst you were a boy, whilst you were away in England
on your education, I husbanded your estates, watched over them to the
neglect of my own. Your father left you wealthy. But under my care your
wealth has been trebled until to-day you are the richest man in Carolina,
perhaps the richest man in America. And you squander the wealth I raised
for you in attempting to pull down everything that I hold good and
sacred, the very altars at which I worship."

"And if I could prove to you that those altars enshrine false gods?"

"False gods You abominable--"

"Sir Andrew!" Latimer held out a hand in appeal. "Give me leave at least
to justify myself."

"Justify yourself? What justification can there be for what you have
done, for what you are doing?"

He would have added more. But Myrtle came to Latimer's assistance.

"Father, it is or y just to hear him." Her plea sprang from a desire,
deep down in her heart, to hear him herself. She hoped to find in his
words something to mitigate the judgment she had passed upon him in a
letter which had failed so miserably of its true aim--to recall him from
his rebellious course.

Mandeville, inwardly alarmed at the memory of all that had been said that
morning in the governor's study, and quite undecided as to how to bear
himself now, so that he might reconcile and serve conflicting interests,
sat still and watchful, a player who waits until opportunity shall show
him what line of play to follow.

"Sir Andrew," Latimer was saying, "you who live sheltered here in a
province upon which the hand of the royal government rests lightly, can
have no more conception than I had until I went there four months ago of
what is happening in the North."

But Sir Andrew did not mean to listen to a political harangue.

"Can I not?" Contemptuous laughter brought the words out in a croak. "Can
I not? There's treason happening in the North. That's what's happening.
And that's what you've borne a hand in; plotting God knows what devilries
against your king."

"That," said Mr. Latimer, "is hardly true."

"D'ye think your seditious actions have not been reported to us?"

"Reported?" Latimer almost smiled as his keen eyes wandered to Captain
Mandeville. He bowed a little to the captain. "I become important, it
seems. I am honoured, sir, to be the subject of your reports."

"As equerry to his excellency the governor, certain duties devolve upon
me," Mandeville answered smoothly. "Perhaps, Mr. Latimer, no." are
overlooking that."

"Oh, no." There was a gleam of that sedate amusement so natural to
Latimer, and as irritating now to Captain Mandeville as it had been to
many another who imagined himself to be the object of Mr. Latimer's
covert mirth. "I gratified this morning my curiosity on the score of your
activities." The captain flushed despite himself. "But your reports--or,
at least, the inferences you have drawn from them--have not been quite
accurate. Inference, I believe, is not the strength of the official
mind."

He turned again to Sir Andrew who was containing himself with difficulty,
and who only half understood what was passing between Latimer and the
equerry. "I have been plotting, perhaps. But certainly nothing against
the king. By which I mean that I am not of those extremists who already
utter the word Independence. On the contrary, I am of those who are
labouring to preserve the peace in spite of every provocation to support
constitutionalism against all the endeavours to cast it aside for
coercive violence."

The baronet restrained himself to sneer.

"It was out of your concern for peace, I suppose, that you planned the
raid on the armoury last April?"

Latimer's eyes flashed upon Mandeville again.

"Your reports have been very full, Captain Mandeville." This time the
captain gave him back gibe for gibe.

"Inference, you see, Mr. Latimer, is not always the weakness of the
official mind."

But Latimer's counter whipped the weapon from his hand.

"That was not inference, captain. It was information. It is one of the
things I ascertained this morning; one of the things I went to ascertain.
For the rest"--and without giving the captain time to answer him, he
swung again to Sir Andrew--"we desired to avoid here what was done in
Boston: British subjects shot down by British troops. Si vis pacem, para
bellum. It's sound philosophy. Since England, or rather England's king,
acting through a too pliant ministry, chooses to treat this Britain
overseas as enemy country, what choice is left us? We prepare for war
that we may avert it; that we may prevail upon a ministry at home to
receive our petitions, consider our grievances, and redress our wrongs,
instead of brutally compelling us by force to submit ourselves to
injustice."

"My God! You're mad! That's it! Mad!"

Captain Mandeville interpolated gently: "Did not Boston bring down upon
itself this trouble by its insubordination?"

"Ay! Answer that!" Sir Andrew challenged.

"Insubordination?" Mr. Latimer shrugged a little. "To what should Boston
have been subordinated? The subjection of a free people to the executive
authority of government is no more than a compliance with the laws they
have themselves enacted."

"You are quoting Dr. Franklin, I suppose," said the captain with the
least suspicion of a sneer.

"I am quoting from one of the letters of Junius, Captain Mandeville, one
of the letters addressed to a king and a ministry who are so reckless as
to threaten the liberties of Englishmen in England as well as in the
colonies."

Sir Andrew's indignation blazed.

"Is that a thing to say of his gracious majesty?"

"That there should be occasion to say it is deplorable. But the occasion
itself is not to be denied."

"Not to be denied!" Sir Andrew almost barked. "I deny it for one, as I
deny every word of your trumped-up pretexts of rebellion! The damnable
gospel of these Sons of Liberty. Sons of Liberty!" He snorted. "Sons of
riff-raff!"

The tone stung Latimer to a momentary resentment.

"It was an Englishman, a member of the House of Commons, who gave us that
name at which you sneer, speaking in admiring terms of our stand for
liberty."

"I nothing doubt it. There are rebels in England, just as there are loyal
men in America."

"Yes, and as time goes on there may be more of the former and fewer of
the latter. For this, sir, I say again is no quarrel between England and
America. That independency by which the North American colonies may be
lost to Britain, desired at present by so few of us, may yet come to be
the only issue. If it should come to pass, it will be the achievement of
a besotted king who, although he glories in the name of Britain--"

But he got no further.

Sir Andrew on his feet, livid with passion, furiously interrupted him:
"You infamous traitor! My God! You d utter such words in my house, would
you? You heard, Robert? You have a duty, surely!"

Captain Mandeville, too, had risen, and was obviously ill at ease.

"Robert!" It was a cry from Myrtle. In her distress--for she well
understood her father's invitation to him--the ceremonious term of
'cousin' was omitted. Both Mandeville mid Latimer remarked it, intent
though they might be upon a graver issue, and both were thrilled, though
each after a different fashion.

"Pray have no fear, dear Myrtle," the captain reassured her. And lie
swung to Latimer who was watching him.

"Here, under Sir Andrew's roof, I cannot take heed of the words you have
used."

The tilt of Mr. Latimer's nose seemed to become more marked.

"If you imply regret, sir, of that circumstance, I shall be happy to
repeat my words in any place and time your convenience would prefer."

Again Myrtle distractedly intervened, yet never beginning to suspect that
she herself, rather than any political consideration, was disposing these
two in such ready hostility.

"Harry, are you mad? Robert, please, please Don't heed what he says."

"I do not," said Mandeville. He bowed a little to Latimer, his manner
entirely disarming. "I do not wish you to misapprehend me, sir. All I
offer is an explanation of conduct in one who wears his majesty's
uniform."

"It did not occur to me, sir, that you would offer more."

Sir Andrew turned upon him, his face now as purple as a mulberry.

"Leave my house, sir! At once! I had never thought to see you here again
but that you should come to offend my ears with your abominable doctrines
of rebellion--"

Latimer interrupted him. "That, sir, was not my intent. I came solely
that I might do you a service."

"I desire no service of you! Go! Or I will have you thrown out."

Myrtle stood behind Sir Andrew, white and distressed, passionately
impelled to intervene, to seek yet to make the peace between her father
and her lover--for that he was her lover still, her heart was telling
her--and yet not daring to attempt to curb a passion so sweeping as that
which now controlled the baronet.

"The matter that brought me," said Latimer, coolly fronting that wrath,
"concerns the life of Gabriel Featherstone."

His ear caught the sharp intake of breath from Sir Andrew, and he saw the
sudden movement of Captain Mandeville. But not even so much was necessary
to announce how deeply he had startled them. Their countenances
abundantly betrayed it. He paused a moment, looking squarely into the
baronet's glowering eyes. "You would do well to bid your factor get his
son out of Charles Town and out of the province before evening."

For the second time there was something akin to an explosion from that
normally very self-possessed Captain Mandeville.

Mr. Latimer smiled a little. "Captain Mandeville, you see, realizes the
occasion."

"What do you mean?" Sir Andrew controlled himself to demand. But Latimer
observed that he was trembling.

"I mean that if Gabriel Featherstone is not beyond the reach of the Sons
of Liberty by evening, he will very certainly be hanged, and probably
tarred-and-feathered first."

"Gabriel Featherstone?" The baronet's cheeks had grown actually pale.

"I see," said Latimer, "that you are acquainted with his activities, Sir
Andrew; with the particular form of service to the royal government in
which he had been employed by Captain Mandeville."

"By me, sir?" Mandeville demanded.

Latimer's ironic smile was momentarily turned upon him.

"Lord William Campbell," he said, "is hardly the most discreet of men. He
is rather too easily drawn. And that without the lure of personal gain
that dulled your own wits, captain. There are times when self-interest
becomes a bandage to the eyes of caution. That, I think, was your own
case this morning.

"You infernal spy!" said Mandeville with cold rage.

Latimer shrugged airily. "A thief to catch a thief."

"Will you tell me what it means?" demanded Sir Andrew. "What has this to
do with Featherstone?"

"I'll tell you, sir," cried Mandeville. But Latimer stayed him. He
dominated now, by the fear for Featherstone which he had inspired.

"I think it will come better from me, perhaps. Gabriel Featherstone is a
member of the General Committee of the Provincial Congress, and a member
also of more than one of its sub-committees. He has abused his position
to keep the King's Council informed of our secret measures, and he has
already woven a rope for the necks of several of us. The moment isn't
opportune for hanging us. But should it come, as the king's government
confidently believes it will, Featherstone will be brought forward as a
witness to swear away our lives. I gather that the royal council will be
content with hanging me, the ringleader, as a warning and an example.
It's a bugbear that does not greatly alarm me. Anyhow, I am prepared to
take the risk, sooner than give you occasion, Sir Andrew, to mourn a
valued servant, the son of one still more valued. But you can't expect
the others concerned to be equally complacent. To remove the risk, they
will remove Featherstone. And the manner of it will be as I have said."

Sir Andrew stared at him, his jaw fallen, the anger, which seethed
abundantly within him, momentarily held in leash by dismay. And then at
last Mandeville spoke.

"It's false," he said. "False! A silly trap to catch the name of the real
denouncer. Featherstone is not the man. It was not Featherstone who
supplied Lord William with his list."

"In that case it is odd that the list should be in Featherstone's
handwriting," Mr. Latimer mocked him. "You'll remember that I saw it,
Captain."

Mandeville remembered not only that he had seen it but that he had very
closely inspected it.

"When did you see it? How did you see it?" Sir Andrew demanded.

And it was Mandeville who answered him, and who, by his answer which
related the whole of that morning's interview at the governor's,
explained to him several obscurities in what Latimer had just said.

"So that you're no better than a dirty spy!" cried Sir Andrew in disgust
and fury. "A dirty spy! You and your friend Cheney."

"A spy, if you will. But the rest I disavow. Cheney's no friend of mine.'

"And you've denounced Gabriel to your fellow-rebels?" Sir Andrew asked
him.

Mr. Latimer shook his head. "If I had already done that, should I be here
to warn you to get him removed? The moment after I denounce him he will
certainly be apprehended, and then--" Mr. Latimer shrugged eloquently. "I
trust, Sir Andrew, that you will place this at least to my credit: that
out of my anxiety to spare you unnecessary pain--the pain of one who may
feel himself in part responsible for the dreadful fate that overtakes
another--I have been less than faithful to my duty."

Sir Andrew made him no answer. He looked heavily at Mandeville, as if for
guidance. Mandeville's face, now a mask of complete composure, dissembled
the activity of his mind. The dismay and anger at the prospect of losing
so very valuable a spy--for whether Featherstone escaped or were hanged,
he would be lost to Mandeville as a channel of information--was being
dissipated by the knowledge that Latimer had not yet denounced him. In
that case all might yet be well.

"And of course," he said acidly, "your regard for Sir Andrew will hardly
go so far as to cause you to refrain from denouncing Featherstone."

Latimer did not conceal his rather scornful amusement.

"Such guilelessness, captain! Oh, the official mind! But I make you a
present of the knowledge you seek. I shall go before the Committee at six
o'clock to-day with the information you were good enough to give me this
morning."

"You really think you will?" said Mandeville unpleasantly.

"I know I will. Which is why I must be taking, my leave. Meanwhile, Sir
Andrew, you are warned, and in good time to pass the warning on to
Featherstone."

Sir Andrew, standing stiff and scowling, made him no answer. Mr. Latimer
bowed gracefully, and turned to depart.

But he found that Mandeville had got between him and the door. The
captain spoke, his voice cold and level but full of menace.

"Sir Andrew, this man must not be allowed to leave."



CHAPTER VI - THE DECEPTION


Sir Andrew roused himself at that summons. He reached out a hand to arm
himself with the riding-whip that lay across the board.

Mr. Latimer, midway between the baronet and the equerry, although
arrested by the latter's words and clear purpose, did not appear to
suffer any distress.

"You think to detain me by force?" he asked, and smiled.

The captain found himself admiring the young man's composure. And he was
something of an arbiter in matters of deportment. He belonged to an age
in which artificiality, the suppression of emotion, the histrionic
affectation of nonchalance in all circumstances, was accepted as the
outward mark of the man of quality. In England, where between
Westminster and Oxford he had spent some six years, Mr. Latimer had
readily acquired this art of genteel conduct which, for the rest, sat
easily enough upon a spirit that was naturally calm, detached and
critical.

"You must see, Mr. Latimer, that in the circumstances we cannot possibly
suffer you to depart."

"Not only do I see it. I foresaw it. It was part of the risk I took."

"Lay hold of him, Robert," cried Sir Andrew. He sprang forward as he
spoke, and Captain Mandeville did the like from Latimer's other side.

To avoid them, Latimer backed swiftly to the sideboard, and at the same
time lugged from the pocket of his bottle-green riding coat a heavy,
ugly-looking pistol.

"Not so fast, gentlemen!" he begged them, displaying that intimidating
weapon.

It brought them up sharply in their advance, and Myrtle cried out at the
same moment.

"You didn't understand me, I think," said Latimer. "I told you that I
foresaw something of this kind. Praemonitus, praemunitis." And he wagged
the pistol. "It is the motto of my house. As Sir Andrew can tell you, I
come of a singularly prudent family, Captain Mandeville. And now that you
realize you are at a disadvantage, perhaps you will permit me to depart
without doing violence to the proprieties."

"My God, you graceless blackguard," Sir Andrew railed at him. "D'ye dare
threaten me? D'ye dare draw a pistol on me? On me?"

"Nay, Sir Andrew. It is you who threaten. I do no more than protect
myself. Self-preservation is the first law of Nature."

Thus his cursed irony, which he could not repress, dug wider than ever
the breach between himself and the man he loved, the man who because his
erstwhile affection for Harry was now turned to gall, would, he knew,
show him no mercy.

Sir Andrew measured him with eyes of unspeakable hate, the hate born of
anger that is baffled and mocked.

"Let the dog go, Robert," he growled.

Mandeville had no intention of doing anything of the kind. He would risk
being shot rather than lose the services of Featherstone. But because he
preferred--self-preservation being the first law of nature with him,
too--that Latimer should first empty his pistol into somebody else, he
made a pretence of acquiescence.

He bowed a little, shrugged, and stepped aside.

"You win the trick, Mr. Latimer," he said lightly. "But it is only the
first in the game."

"Observe though that I've trumped-the knave," Mr. Latimer smiled back at
him. He pocketed his pistol, but took the precaution of keeping his hand
on the butt. As if perceiving this, and as if ostentatiously to show him
that his way to the door was clear, Captain Mandeville turned aside and
crossed the room to the mantelpiece at the other end.

Latimer paused a moment looking at Sir Andrew, and his eyes clouded with
regret. He appeared on the point of speaking. Then, as if realizing that
here words must be wasted, he bowed again and walked to the door. Even as
his fingers closed upon its crystal knob, Captain Mandeville's seized the
bell-rope by which he had gone to stand. Once, twice, thrice he tore at
it, sounding in the servants' quarters a tocsin of alarm that must bring
every lackey in the place at the double to intercept Latimer before he
could leave the house.

But, out of the corner of his eye, Mr. Latimer caught the violent pumping
action of Mandeville's raised arm. He paused, his hand upon the knob.

"I ought to shoot you for that," he told the captain. "But it isn't
necessary." He locked the door, withdrew the key, and crossed the room
again, under their wondering eyes. "I shall have to follow the example of
King Charles, and leave by the window." He unfastened the long glass door
that gave egress to the lawn.

"It's an omen," Carey raged at him. "You go to the same fate."

"But in a better cause," said Latimer, as he pulled open the wing of the
door.

"I warn you, sir," Carey flung after him, as he was stepping out, "that if
any harm comes to Featherstone, I'll see you hanged for it. I will so, by
God I though it cost me life and fortune. You graceless, treacherous
hound!"

Mr. Latimer was gone. Mandeville sprang to the window, and stepped out,
to see him racing across the lawn to the gravelled drive, where his negro
groom was waiting with the horses. At the same moment came clattering
steps across the hall outside, alarmed beatings on the door and alarmed,
plaintive, liquid accents of the black servants calling to their master.

Sir Andrew bade them cease and begone with a roughness such as he rarely
employed towards those who served him. They departed chattering and
wondering. To increase their wonder Mr. Latimer from beyond the porch,
already mounted, was calling Remus. He tossed the abstracted key to the
old butler, then wheeled his horse about and rode off with his groom.

He was half way down the avenue before there surged out of the pain
seething in his mind under the mask of nonchalance he had worn, the
recollection of another matter with which he had hoped to deal whilst
here at Fairgrove. And it was not until he had reached the gates that he
conquered the anger that was driving him headlong away despite that
recollection.

It had been his hope to make a very different impression, to earn some
consideration in return for the service he went to do at some risk to
himself. And he had also hoped from this to be given an opportunity to
explain himself to Myrtle, to reason her into a gentler frame of mind,
and to persuade her that because he loved his country was no sufficient
reason why she should refuse to marry him.

It was. Mandeville's presence at Fairgrove which had made shipwreck of
his hopes, sweeping the interview into a course so different from all
that he desired.

He drew rein, undetermined. He could not depart thus, leaving the
situation between Myrtle and himself a hundredfold worse than before he
came.

He paused, considering. From the distance came a plaintive chant, the
singing of the negro slaves in the rice fields by the river, and the
sound inspired him. He would write a note to her, begging her to come to
him out here. A friendly slave--and he was well known to them
all--should be his messenger.

He flung down from his horse, gave his reins to the groom, and ordered
him to ride on for a half-mile or so, and there await him. Then he left
the avenue, and plunged away through the live oaks and the tangle of
vines in the direction of the chanting voices. But progress through the
undergrowth of that leafy wilderness became more difficult the farther he
penetrated. And at last he was forced to pause, and, in pausing,
reconsidered. Better for his purpose than a plantation slave would be one
of the house servants; and if he waited, some one of these would surely
pass along the avenue before very long. They were all his friends, and
any one of them would do his errand secretly.

So he retraced in part his steps until the flat stump of an oak that had
been felled offered him a seat at a point whence he could, himself
unseen, command a view of the avenue, dappled with sunshine and shadow.
He sat down, and from an inner pocket he produced a notebook and a
pencil, and hurriedly scrawled a brief but very earnest appeal to Myrtle.
He tore out the leaf, folded it, and settled down to wait until chance
should send him the messenger he needed.

And meanwhile up there at the house Sir Andrew was still storming, and
Mandeville and Myrtle between them were engaged in soothing him, a task
which brought them into a close alliance very pleasant and consoling to
the captain. He felt that he had not conducted himself very well that
morning. At first he had practised a praiseworthy restraint in the face
of many difficulties and temptations. He had held aloof from all
contention, refraining from the obvious quips and sneers at Mr. Latimer's
expense to which the young apostle of liberty rendered himself
vulnerable. A less subtle man would never have missed those opportunities
of displaying his own wit and consequence. But Mandeville knew too much
of human nature. He had perceived that under Myrtle's indignation with
Harry lay a real and deep, if momentarily numbed, affection for him. And
he knew that avowedly to range himself on the side of Latimer's enemies,
to harass and vex him with manifestations of hostility, might only serve
to arouse that affection of Myrtle's into activity and provoke her
indignation against himself.

Therefore, even at the cost of having his courage put in question,
Mandeville had clung to the role of the unwilling and pained witness of a
painful scene, until the circumstances had cruelly forced him to become
an actor. The bad impression he feared thereby to have created he was now
anxious to efface. And it was a relief to him to find Myrtle, in her
ready understanding of the necessities, unresentful of the part he had
played.

He was not the man to cry over spilled milk of however precious a
quality. Latimer had got away, and therefore the utility of Featherstone
as a spy was at an end. It still remained to save his life. But his life,
shorn of its usefulness to Mandeville, was not a matter of much interest
to the captain. He was infinitely more concerned to set himself right
with Myrtle by assuming the role of tolerant, broad-minded peacemaker.
When Sir Andrew, apoplectic with anger, protested that he should have
said this, and answered that, Mandeville's calm voice laden with
compassion for the object of the baronet's invective acted as a timely
sedative.

"Mr. Latimer, sir, is to be compassionated. A young man of such parts, of
such agreeable qualities, to have been led away into such error!" He
sighed his infinite regret.

And he had his reward, when presently he took his departure, furiously
urged by Carey to lose no time in getting to Charles Town and placing
Featherstone for safety aboard the Tamar. Myrtle came with him, not
merely to the steps. She would walk with him to the gates. So, Captain
Mandeville must go also to the gates on foot, leading his horse. And
because of the impulse to express the increase of friendliness, almost
the tenderness, which his selflessness and his alliance with her in that
troubled hour had inspired, she thrust a hand through his left arm as she
stepped along beside him. The captain was conscious of a slight
quickening of his pulses. But ever master of himself, he conceived that
here his attitude should be one of affectionate elder-brotherliness.

"My dear child, my heart bleeds for you." He sighed. "And I am angry with
myself. To desire so intensely to lift something of this burden from your
shoulders, and to be powerless! It exasperates me."

"But you have done so much already, Robert. You have been so good, so
gentle, so patient, so generous!" She leaned a little more heavily and
looked up into his face, almost fondly, so great and natural was the
kindliness he inspired in her.

"Generous? If only I could think so. My every impulse is to give, and
give--and, my dear, I am empty-handed."

"Oh, ft is like you to forget. Didn't you persuade Lord William not to
arrest Harry? Was that nothing?"

"Nothing at all. I would have saved him, yes. Not for himself, because I
did not even know him. But for you, because he...because he has, or had,
the inestimable blessing of your regard. I conceived that unless I did
so, you might suffer; and so, even at the cost of duty, I...Oh, but what
am I saying? For, after all, I have failed. I have betrayed a trust to no
purpose."

"I shall never forget what you have done. Never."

"Then I have not altogether failed. It is a sufficient reward for me."

"But there is Harry. What--oh what--are we to do?"

His face grew overcast. "What can one do? One cannot argue with a
passion. I had hoped that when he saw whither he was going, into what
danger he was thrusting himself, he would have paused. But I might have
known that if the thought of offending you could not act as a curb upon
his conduct, personal danger would hardly have counted. At least, that is
how it would be with me. And we are often misled in judging others by
ourselves. Oh, it is all most damnable. If I could have detained him now,
on the pretext of saving Featherstone, we could have put Mr. Latimer
under lock and key until these troubles are over, as over they soon will
be once the troops arrive."

"Was that your intention?"

"What else? What other way was there of saving him from his own rashness?
Perhaps...if you were to see him..."

"I? See him?" She looked up at her companion, her little face stern, her
eyes almost flashing. And Captain Mandeville, who had made the
suggestion by way of testing her, was now given a glimpse of the sturdy
spirit that governed this frail body. He could not guess that much of it
was begotten of resentment, because Harry had almost ignored her
presence throughout the interview. Later, when reviewing it more calmly,
she would see that the occasion had been denied him. But at present
there was only resentment. And this she expressed. "I do not think that I
want to see him ever again. It is finished. Finished. Did you think I
have no pride? What do you think of me, I wonder?" She halted him, and
was confronting him, almost imperious.

"Does it matter, what I think?" There was a gentle wistfulness in his
tone.

"Should I ask if it did not?"

They were, although they knew it not, in full view of Harry Latimer where
he sat on the oak-stump, observing them with frowning eyes. And
unfortunately they were out of earshot. So that, whilst he saw all, yet
he heard nothing.

And what he saw was Mandeville turn to her, and with the bridle over his
arm, take both her hands in his, looking down at her with a face that was
all tenderness. What he was left to guess were the captain's words:

"And I, I dare not answer you," the captain said in tones that were an
answer in themselves. "I dare not. And yet I am not a coward, although
God knows I feared you might have thought so once this morning."

"Thought so? I? Robert, I thought you wonderful in your patience. Only a
brave man could have borne himself as you did."

"My dear, you fill me with pride. And as for what I think of you..." He
paused, he raised the hands he held, and stooped to kiss them, first one
and