And so it proved. The marauders, having received a very different reception from the one they had expected, were utterly discomfited when an unseen enemy--in the person of Joane and her blunderbuss--scattered a mighty charge of slugs and bullets in their midst. Their leader was struck in the arm, and fearing they had fallen into an ambuscade from which it would be difficult to escape, he shouted to his men that he was wounded, and bade them fly to the ship. This was the last of the raids that had so annoyed the colonists, and thenceforth they were free from such molestation. John Devereux's days passed on, full of peace and pleasantness, until he died at a ripe old age, respected and loved by all his fellow-townsmen, and mourned deeply by the faithful wife who did not long survive him. The boys lived to man's estate, were married, and had children of their own. But Humphrey and John died in their father's lifetime; and so it was that Robert, the second son, became the heir. CHAPTER I Marblehead, and July, in the year of our Lord 1774. In the harbor (now known as Great Bay) the water lay, a smooth, glistening floor of amethystine hue, shut in protectively by the "Neck," thrust out like a strong arm between it and the rougher sea beyond, stretching, purple and endless, to the rim of the cloudless horizon. To the north and northwest lay the islands, the nearer ones sharply outlined in trees and verdure, but showing here and there a grayness of beach or boulder, like the bald spot among some good man's otherwise plentiful locks. Looking eastward, Cat Island was closest of all to the mainland, the charred ruins upon it showing sharply in the brilliant afternoon sunshine; and here, amid the desolation, a few of the blackened timbers still remained upright, like arms lifted in protest against the vengeance visited upon the hospital a short time before by the well-meant zeal of the infuriated townsfolk. In August of the previous year, during an epidemic of smallpox, a meeting was called in the townhouse, and Elbridge Gerry, John Glover, Azor Orne, and Jonathan Glover petitioned that a hospital be built on Cat Island, for the treatment of smallpox patients, or else that the town permit certain individuals to do this at their own expense. The town refused to build the hospital, but gave permission to the individuals to construct one, provided the adjoining town of Salem gave its consent; it being also stipulated that the hospital should be so regulated as to shield the inhabitants of Marblehead from any "danger of infection" therefrom. The necessary approval having been obtained from Salem, preparations were made in September for erecting the hospital.