tell you that? 'Twill be pretty hearing." For myself I could but sob and moan and say, "No, no. Tell us no more! Spare them, oh, spare them!" But Mary, whose spirit was of so much firmer mould than mine, and who was no more cowed by him than was Buck himself--who, indeed, had interrupted his remarks with many contemptuous and disdainful snorts and "pishes" and "pahs" and with, once, a scornful laugh--answered him in very different fashion. "Tell us nothing, you murderous, cowardly wolf," she said, while she extended her hand defiantly at him as though she forbade him to dare to speak again, "tell us nothing, since we should not believe you. We know--God help us! we all in Virginia know--that the Indian exacts a fearful reckoning from all who have once wronged him, but we know, too, that that exactment is made upon the actual persons who have done the wrong, and not on those who have never raised hand against him, as none in this house to-night have done except in their own defence. As for you, you cowardly, crawling dog, who think you can egg on the Indians to gratify your petty spite and cruelty, what, what, think you, will they do for the gratification of your thirst for innocent blood when I, tell them who and what their great wonderworking, miracle-making medicine chief is?" and I saw her dark eyes steal into the obscurity of the ruined window frame to observe if the chief out there heard her words. But he only drew a little more in the shadow as she did so. "Silence, woman," said Roderick St. Amande, advancing threateningly towards her. "Silence, I say, or it shall be the worse for you." "Silence," she repeated, "silence! And why? So as to shield you from their wrath if they should know who you are? Silence! Nay, I tell you Roderick St. Amande, that when you have taken us away to wherever you herd now, I will speak out loudly and tell them all. All, all, as to what their great medicine man--their great _impostor_ is. A wonder-worker, a magician!" And she laughed long and bitterly as she spoke, so that his face became so distorted with anger that I feared he would rush at her and slay her. Yet, as she did so, and still spake further, I saw the Indian chief's eyes steal round the corner while he listened to her every word. "A wonder-worker! a magician!" she went on. "Ay! a pretty one forsooth. A magician who could not save his ear from a righteous vengeance; a bond-slave to an English colonist; a poor, pitiful drunkard! What a thing for a red man who cannot live in slavery, and who hates in his heart the fire-water he has learnt to drink, to worship! A magician who knows all. Ha! ha! A wonder-worker! who stole from out his owner's bookshelves a 'British Merlin' and a calendar because, perhaps, he knew the credulous creatures with whom he would ere long dwell." "Ay," exclaimed Buck, "and a book of how to do tricks with cards from me, with many recipes for palming and counterfeiting. A magician, ha! ha! ha!"