My first impulse was to stop him. Then I remembered that he of all men would prevent me from entering the house. And from this meeting I took some hope. If there was an unwatched passage by which he could get out, I might enter by the same way. Suddenly there leaped into my head a damning thought. He rode hard, like one mad with fear, looking neither to the right nor to the left. “What a coward,” thought I, “thus to leave his daughter to her fate.” Among all his crimes, he had ever clung to his one virtue, love of his daughter. Never, save when his infirmity was upon him, had he shown anything but the most loving tenderness to her. And now, at the great moment of peril, he had left her to ride like a coward for his own life. He passed me so close I could have touched him. Perhaps his conscience stung him in spite of all, for I heard her name on his lips as he dashed by me. “Miriam,” he was saying; “Miriam, I give you all.” I turned to follow with my eyes this worthless coward who could think of his daughter and not stay and die with her. Two minutes later he was fleeing beyond the little patch of woods and within full sight of the mob. But they were so intent upon their attack that they did not see him at first. I listened for their yell of discovery with the tension of a slow striking bell. It did not come. Then—had the man gone mad? Van Volkenberg slackened his pace, fell into a walk, then stopped and turned back towards the mob. What was he going to do? Why did he not continue his cowardly flight? If he were going to escape, did he not know that every second was a year of his life? I saw him raise his finger and make the sign of the cross. Then he put his hands to his mouth like a trumpet and shouted: “Ho! Do you seek me? Van Volkenberg?” What followed I cannot tell. I can hardly bear even to think of it. He dashed spurs into his horse and fled towards New York. I heard a yell of joy from the savage mob. A sight of him was like a taste of blood. They followed out across the open ground. But, as might have been expected, he gained on them fast and they saw that they would lose him. With that they turned back. The house, at least, was at their mercy. But as they turned back, Van Volkenberg turned back also. He rode gallantly, and I could hear his powerful voice taunting them for cowards. “Is it the leader of the Red Band you seek? Come on, you scum of Yorke. Here is a man. Come on, you dogs.” They were after him again, pell-mell. It was then that I lifted up my voice and cried with a will: “God save the good patroon!”