And the man who called himself Contempt wore an expression as he talked according well with the appellation. Directing his words and gestures toward these two, not pointedly, but in a subtle manner, he so worked upon them and all the others that, when his repeated story of the massacre was told and he paused breathless, a low, moaning sigh fell from many lips, like the wail of a night wind. Then suddenly Ferdinando cried out: “To the ships! To the ships! Must we, too, perish thus? Nay!” His voice rose to a high pitch. “To the ships and England!” “Ay, ay,” came hoarsely from the terrified group. “Ay, away from this accursed country,” said Ananias Dare, who at last had found voice to speak. But a new look, more pitiable than all the weakness of his first expression, crossed his face. “Yet, stay!” he cried, as though with a great effort, some latent nobility, the mere memory of a dead courage, asserting itself. Ralph Contempt turned to the others as if he had not heard. “A huge devil,” he resumed, “brained my sole surviving comrade with an axe of stone, whereat, dragging me by the hair, for I was bound by leathern thongs, he rolled me among the burning timbers of my own house. Next, another savage—” But he was interrupted by a second shrill cry from Ferdinando: “Even now the Indians may be on their way; even now it may be too late!” “Yes,” moaned Ananias, his short-lived courage failing, “too late.” “To the ships!” It was the voice not of one man but of all, while panic-stricken they turned and, with a rush, made for the main enclosure of the town. Only the youth, who had caused the stampede, delayed, and he, smiling, started to re-enter the hut. But on the threshold he paused and looked back again. For he heard a new voice rising above the clamor of his retreating audience, a voice that he recognized instantly. Seeing the men and women hanging back before Vytal himself, who had met them at the narrow opening in the palisade, he returned to the group leisurely, his eyes on the tall figure and stern face in the gateway. “How now?” demanded the soldier, quietly. “What means this panic?” Not one gave answer. “What means it?” The words came more sharply than before. But still there was no response, each being ready to cast on his fellow the onus of explanation. And still they all hung back, their eyes cast down. Vytal looked at one and another with an infinite scorn, omitting only the forlorn Ananias in his searching gaze; for a brief glance at the governor’s son-in-law had shown him a figure of despicable shame. “No man enters the town until the truth is told.” And, drawing his rapier, he waited.