“Colonel Corsoni, are you a gentleman, and will you permit this violence to be done me?” she demanded of the Free Sword. But the guerrilla chief was marshaling his band, and did not even hear her words. “Alberta, Alberta, why do you not interfere? You promised that no wrong should be done me that you could prevent!” she screamed, turning her head—the only part of her person she could move—towards Madame Corsoni. “Would to heaven I could prevent this, Elfie!” exclaimed the guerrilla’s wife. Then turning to her cousin, she said, sharply: “Albert Goldsborough, if you have a spark of manhood left, release the girl and leave her here. The Federals will find her when they come, and protect her, until they can send her to her friends.” “Ha, ha, ha! Quite right, Alberta,” laughed Colonel Goldsborough. “As lady and chieftainess you could not say less. Though, of course, your interference was a mere form; for you know as well as I do that Elfie would not thank you for hindering me; because at heart she is just as willing to be carried off as I am to take her.” “Oh, you—you—you _unutterably_, contemptible miscreant!” cried Elfie, at a loss for names base enough to bestow on her captor. But at that instant the order was given to move forward; and Goldsborough put spurs to his horse and bounded away. The troop started—very much as a company of fox hunters start when the fox has broken cover—all in wildest haste and disorder, the first object being to get away as quickly as possible—the great difference that in this case the party were the hunted instead of the hunters. They galloped, without drawing rein, until they had put miles and miles between themselves and their late encampment. Then, on the edge of another great forest, they slackened pace to breathe their horses. When all the troop—the men and horses covered with dust and reeking with sweat—rode up, their chief lifted his hand and spoke to them; “ATTENTION! Scatter yourselves through the forest, and rendezvous to-night at the Black Bear’s Pass, where we join Colonel Goldsborough’s force.” Then they entered the forest by different paths, and scattered themselves according to order. Some little distance into the forest Colonel Corsoni and Alberta rode side by side. “So we go to Goldsborough’s encampment,” she said. “Yes. This morning, when the scouts brought in the news that the enemy’s cavalry, informed by the little spy Gill, was after us, we called a hasty council of war—Goldsborough, myself, Mutchison, and Abershaw; when it was decided that we should consolidate the remnant of our bands, at the Black Bear’s Pass, there to wait for Monck, who is expected down from the Shenandoah Valley, to plan another raid into Pennsylvania or Maryland. Ah, what a hard life this for you, my tenderly reared love!” said the guerrilla chief, suddenly breaking off from his talk of rapine and bloodshed, to gaze with ineffable tenderness upon his companion.