Still Berkeley hesitated, but his friends could see by the quiver of his lip, that the struggle was still going on, and that he was thinking with grim satisfaction of that promised vengeance. “Let me urge you,” continued Beverley, encouraged by the effect which he was evidently producing; “let me urge you to a prompt decision. Will you remain longer in Jamestown, this nest of traitors, and expose your faithful adherents to certain death? Is loyalty so common in Virginia, that you will suffer these brave supporters of your cause to be sacrificed? Will you leave their wives and daughters, whom they can no longer defend, to the insults and outrages of a band of lawless adventurers, who have shown that they disregard the rights of men, and the more sacred deference due to a woman? We have done all that became us, as loyal citizens, to do. We have sustained the standard of the king until it were madness, not courage, further to oppose the designs of the rebels. Beset by a superior force, and with treason among our own citizens, and defection among our own soldiers—with but twenty stout hearts still true and faithful to their trust—our alternative is between surrender and death on the one hand, and flight and future vengeance on the other. Can you longer hesitate between the two? But see, the sky grows brighter toward the east, and the morning comes to increase the perils of the night. I beseech you, by my loyalty and my devotion to your interest, decide quickly and wisely.” “I will go,” replied Berkeley, after a brief pause, in a voice choking with emotion. “But God is my witness, that if I only were concerned, rebellion should learn that there was a loyalist who held his sacred trust so near his heart, that it could only be yielded with his life-blood. But why should I thus boast? Do with me as you please—I will go.”