"Yes, all ready," said the Captain, recovering his tongue. "Don't be afraid, Harriet, my dear--Kate, bid your cousin good-bye. No great harm done,--only a little flesh wound that you can stitch up with your needle--by the lord, that's all! Must send you away--father sent a message after you--must have you to nurse him. Be a good girl, don't cry; 't an't all bad wounds do damage; saw many tomahawk-slashes at the fatal field of Braddock, and some got well. Tell the Colonel I'll be down to see him, and hope to fetch the assassin along." "The assassin, Captain?" cried the young officer, as he leaped upon his horse, his sister having been already, almost without any exercise of her own will, thrust into the carriage, and the door secured. "Quick, Phil, you scoundrel, will you never have done strapping?--The assassin, Captain! oh yes, the assassin!--Remember the description--tall man, lantern-jawed, white horse, with a dappled near fore-leg, a black coat, and preaches!" "Hah!" cried Captain Loring, with a shout of triumph, "saw the rascal, and meant to arrest him, but couldn't stand his sermons! I couldn't, by the lord!--Your horse, Phil! your horse! doctor, I'll take yours!--Whoop, Harry, you dog! down to the old witch's, and we'll nab him yet!" While the Captain gave utterance to these expressions, he seized upon the nearest horse, and mounted him--a feat, that nothing but the frenzy of his enthusiasm could have urged him to attempt; for his infirmity had almost altogether incapacitated him from riding, save at the gentlest pace. But the recollection of the zealous Nehemiah, the assassin of his friend, now sheltered under a roof that he fancied, in the ardour of the moment, he could almost touch with his hand--and that holy impostor a villain so notorious and redoubted as the chief Hawk of the Hollow!--the fiery conception scattered his years and infirmities to the winds, and in an instant he was astride the beast of mettle, galloping over the park at full speed, followed by the two soldiers, as soon as they comprehended the meaning of his words--by the coach, which the venerable Richard set in motion upon an impulse of his own--and by some half a dozen of the male loungers, some on foot, some on horse, and all fired with the prospect of capturing a foe so famous and so deeply abhorred.