The next morning the frigate was under way before we were up, but as the water appeared shoal at the end of the reach, she was anchored to await high tide, for the river is very narrow here and dangerous for a large vessel to turn about in. When we arose and came on deck a little later, we had the pleasure of seeing our friends, or rather enemies, of yesterday, pass close under the frigate's stern; and as they did so Barron leaned over the rail and saluted Captain Cahill very pleasantly and wished him a safe and happy voyage.

We stood on the Fowey's high poop and watched the swift little schooner pass up the river and disappear around the bend above us. Soon afterwards we heard the rattle of musket firing, followed by the heavy, deep boom of her pivot-gun. After the reverberating echoes died away along the wooded shores, all was silent. The sun broke through the river mist and shone warmly on the muddy water, and the day promised to be bright and quiet. The two small craft that followed the schooner now took in their sails and put out their oars, and their niggers pulled to a lusty chorus.

Dunmore was up early. He was evidently annoyed at having to spend so much time on the river, for he came on deck in quite bad humor. He greeted us rather stiffly, and then turned to Captain Graham who had also just made his appearance.

"What is that firing about?" demanded the Governor in no uncertain tone.

"I don't know, your excellency," replied Graham.

"Captain Graham," said the Governor, "you will please tell me just what you know, sir, quickly. It won't take a minute, sir, or else write it down on a slip of paper. Send Mr. Johnson to me, sir!"

The Captain went forward on the poop, and a moment afterward a young officer appeared coming aft. He saluted the Governor and stood attention.

"Mr. Johnson, it is your watch on deck, sir. What was that going about on board the Black Eagle?" inquired Dunmore.

"I d-d-do not k-k-know,—your"—

"Call the Corporal of the guard, sir. Don't stand there and stammer at me, sir," cried the Governor, interrupting him and waxing furious.

The poor lieutenant retreated to the break of the poop, closely followed by his master, but he was too excited to speak plainly.

"Corp'ral g-g-g'ard! Corp'ral g-g-g'ard!" he cried weakly, but there was no response from the main deck.

"What are you doing, sir!" thundered Dunmore as he came up behind him.

"Trying t-t-to c-c-call the Corporal of the g-g-g'ard, your"—

"For God's sake, Mr. Johnson call somebody. Call somebody, sir, quick," cried his lordship, walking to and fro across the deck and wringing his hands. Then, as he came to where the Lieutenant stood, he could stand it no longer and waxed into a frenzy.

"Do something! Call somebody! Do something for God's sake! Do something Mr. Johnson, or get off this ship," he cried. And the young officer, showing him self to be a man more fitted for action than words, dashed down the companion ladder and dragged the corporal he wished for up again by the collar of his coat.

Then, after much swearing and questioning, the Governor heard that Captain Cahill had fired upon a small hut, just visible beyond the bend of the river. I tell these events that happened on board the Fowey, frigate, to give an idea of the Governor's temper, and also because every incident of that time stands out clearly before me. Mr. Jones, the young officer who took us off the Black Eagle was very pleasant to us, and warned us against the tempers of Captain Foy and the Governor, after which he kept out of our way, and we saw him no more to speak to while we were aboard the ship. He was a promising young man and I hoped to have him help us get ashore, but he evidently thought it best not to be intimate with neutrals.

After breakfast his lordship was in better spirits, and these were more improved later in the morning upon the arrival of a small boat which carried Mr. Robinson, a noted tory, and several of his family to the frigate. Mrs. Robinson was a woman of fine presence, and her daughter might have been said to have been beautiful, judging from the standard of those days, but she was no longer young and her lack of success in the matrimonial field appeared to have soured her temper. These people were made comfortable in the officer's cabin and were very outspoken in their opinions regarding Mr. Patrick Henry.

When the tide turned in the afternoon and began to run a strong ebb, the frigate was gotten under way, and, with her working canvas set, headed down stream. The wind was so light that, in spite of the most careful steering, she was run on a mud bank before going much over a mile. Captain Foy, however, was equal to the occasion. He soon had a kedge out and before the falling tide left her fast he warped the ship back again into the channel. Bad luck did not desert us here, for the frigate had hardly gathered way again before she piled heavily upon a sand bar and all attempts to pull her off proved useless. It was then decided to await the next high water.

The day passed stupidly enough in spite of the presence of Miss Robinson on board. We were all anxious to get down river and Lord Dunmore was now in such a bad humor that he refused flatly, and with some energy, our request to have a small boat put us ashore, so we could walk the twenty miles or more across country to Judkins' Hall.

But we were not the only ones to suffer from his lordship's temper. Mr. Johnson, the young navigating lieutenant, came in for his share also.

He was standing on the edge, or break, of the poop, after the frigate had run hard and fast aground, and was much upset in his mind, although the accident was unavoidable.

A little imp of a powder-monkey boy thought to take advantage of a moment when his back was turned, to imitate his defect in speech and make faces at him for the benefit of the ship's company. The officer, however, turned and caught him in the act.

"Damn you, sir! Come to the m-m-mast!" he bawled, and Lord Dunmore, hearing the noise, came forward to see what was the matter, and take a hand in the disturbance if occasion demanded it.

"What has he done?" asked the Governor, as the boy came aft crying with fear.

"Nothin'," snuffled the little rascal, speaking before anyone could stop him. "'E just sez, 'Dam you, sir, come to the mast,' an' I comes."

"Did you swear at this boy for nothing?" demanded the Governor.

"No, your excellency," said Mr. Johnson. "I said d-d-damn y-y-you, sir, c-c-come here, because he"—

"That will do!" thundered the Governor. "Go to your quarters in arrest, sir. I won't have you swearing at my men for nothing. Go, sir!" And after this affair we gave his excellency a wide berth for the rest of the day.

The next morning the tide floated us clear, and we got under way just as the Black Eagle came around the bend above us. She soon caught up with the frigate and we learned that she had a dozen or more prominent tories aboard who wished to take refuge with the royal Governor.

We stopped twice on the way down the river, once to take aboard a tory named Thornton, who lived on a large plantation on the south side, and once we stayed an hour or more on a mud flat.

It was nearly sundown before the white pillars of Judkins Hall showed through the fringe of willows on the river bank. The red light of the setting sun flooded the south portico and a pane of glass in a window, catching a ray at an angle, burned like a bright eye for an instant as we drifted past.

Dunmore reluctantly consented to send us ashore in a boat with Mr. Johnson and a guard of soldiers to see if anyone remained at the Hall, and if so, to help carry what luggage there was to be sent aboard the frigate. My slaves could follow us in the small craft. As the boat drew near the beach, where only a few days before Bullbeggor had won his strange victory over Harrison, we looked for some signs of welcome from our people. Not a leaf stirred in the calm of the bend, and not a sound from the shore broke the ominous stillness of that warm, clear evening. None of us spoke and even Barron's face appeared grave with some thought of impending evil. The sun shone on the sweating faces of the rowers, and the regular clank of their oars in the row-locks beat time to my heart throbs as I waited to learn what was wrong.

When the boat's keel struck the sand, we sprang quickly ashore and proceeded rapidly by the river path toward the Hall. On entering the fringe of bushes and undergrowth on the river bank I thought I heard a strange noise close by me to the right. We stopped a moment and listened, but the four men and Mr. Johnson, who were following close behind us, came up, and we started on again toward the Hall.

All of a sudden I heard a faint cry.

"Marse Dick!" it said feebly, and the voice came from the direction I had first heard the noise. Barron, Byrd and myself heard the cry simultaneously, and we instantly started toward the spot from whence it came. The next minute we broke through a thicket of blackberry bushes, and found a small cleared spot in the midst of the grass and briars.

There, lying upon his back, with his left hand held over a nasty cut in his abdomen, was my boy, Sam. The poor fellow saw me and I caught his glad look of recognition, but his glance wandered back of me to Mr. Johnson and his men, and his look turned to one of savage fury. He started to rise, but I quickly held him in my arms while the rest crowded around us.

"What's happened?" I gasped. "Where is mother and Mary—and Miss Carter?"

"Miss Mary, she gone wid Marse Berk—all alone—old missus and Miss Rose gone away, too," said the poor fellow, with great difficulty.

I looked at Will and saw him turn ashy pale and his jaws set until the bands of muscle in his lean face seemed about to break with the strain.

"What rascal do you suppose did this?" asked Mr. Johnson, coming up closer and noticing the look on Will's face. But no one answered.

"Who gave you that cut, Sam?" I asked, bending over him and gently removing his hand from the gash. "Get some water, quick!" I continued to the men, but Barron had already started for the boat, where he found a bailer, and returned in a moment with it full of water. In a few moments Sam felt better, and I immediately set to work to dress his wound. "Who cut you?" I asked again, for I saw he hesitated about telling me. I soon had a bandage in place, and then I repeated the question.

"Marse Berk," he finally whispered, and as he did so Will leaned over him to catch the words. "He an' that Captain were here—Marse Berk—he wanted Miss Mary to go off alone with him on the schooner—an' he took her—she wanted to wait for old missus an' she cried—I came—so he killed me."

"But mother and Miss Carter, Sam, quick; where are they?" I asked, frantically.

"Dunno, Marse Dick. I'se been here sence yesterday—I ain't seen no one—they all must be gone somewheres, too."

"Carry him to the Hall," I said to the soldiers, and then Will and I started on a run towards the house. On reaching the front door we found it shut fast, but Will burst the fastening of a window on the verandah and sprang into the dining room, and I followed at his heels. I bawled out my mother's name, and Will cried out for my sister, but our voices echoed through an empty house. There was not even a slave there.

We quickly went through the rooms upstairs, and then through the pantries and kitchens in the rear, without finding a single house servant. Then we started for the slave quarters to see if anyone had remained there, but not even a single pickaninny was in sight. Everywhere there were traces of hurried preparations for departure. Clothes were scattered about the floors, and in the servants' dining room the evening meal lay untouched upon the table. We went outside and looked about the court, and then went to the stables. We had only been through the empty stalls on the lower floor, when we saw two of my niggers coming on a run through the field to the northward. They had seen us and had come from hiding places, and in a few minutes they were with us and seizing our hands, thanking us for coming back again. Then Mr. Johnson came up with his men, carrying Sam on a litter made of their crossed muskets, and Barron showed them the way to a couch in the slave quarters.

My two field hands, who were telling me what had happened, were ready to run at the sight of the soldiers, but I bade them be still and tell their story.

They told how the schooner, Hound, had anchored just off Harrison's plantation, the evening we were captured by Captain Cahill, and how Berkley Harrison had come over to the Hall with Captain Fordyce and a file of soldiers. Then all hands had gotten drunk, in spite of my mothers' presence, and Harrison had insisted on my family and Miss Carter accompanying him to Norfolk on the vessel. My mother had remonstrated at this high handed business, but Harrison stormed and threatened, and vowed he could not keep the soldiers from looting and burning the Hall if they were not all on board and ready to sail within an hour. My sister took him outside to try and get him into a more reasonable mood, and that was the last anyone on the plantation, except Sam, saw of her.

After waiting half an hour, my mother and Miss Carter became alarmed at her absence, and also at the actions of the soldiers, who began to fire their muskets at random. Upon looking for their Captain, they found him sitting on the verandah with a bottle of spirits on a table before him and much the worse for what he had already drank. He informed my mother roughly that Harrison and my sister had embarked aboard the Hound, which would sail within the hour. He then rose from the table and insulted Miss Carter, after which he staggered down to the shore and was carried aboard his vessel, leaving the Hall at the mercy of his men. These rascals broke into the women's side of the slave quarters and such a scene of riot followed that my poor mother and Miss Rose fled across the fields for their lives. They reached Harrison's place and had the frightened slaves, who were preparing to follow their master, harness a horse for them. Then they drove with all speed for Pendleton's Inn at the cross-roads several miles to the eastward. Here they were made comfortable and were now awaiting news of our whereabouts. As the men finished their story, Barron reappeared with the Lieutenant, and I repeated some of the details. Then I turned to the officer.

"You may give the Governor my compliments," I said, in a dry, rasping tone that seemed to stick in my throat, "and tell him that I am sorry not to be able to accompany him to Norfolk this evening. I shall, however, hope to meet him and his party quite soon, and will make all haste after I see affairs attended to here. Mr. Byrd, and, perhaps, Mr. Barron, will go with you," and I gave Will a look that made him nod assent.

"I am v-very s-s-sorry, sir," stammered Mr. Johnson, "but the Governor's orders were positive. They were that all of you should return with me to the Fowey."

"Indeed?" asked Will, blandly.

"And of course you will carry out the Governor's orders?" asked Barron, smiling pleasantly.

"At any cost, sir," replied Mr. Johnson.

"So you say," remarked Barron, still smiling.

"So I'll do," replied Mr. Johnson coloring a little at Barron's remark. "If you doubt me, sir, try me," and he looked about him for his men who now came straggling up.

"No offence, sir," put in Barron, quickly. "I merely repeated a remark said to have been made quite often in the society at court—a remark expressing doubt in the mind of the person making it, without reflecting in any manner upon the sincerity of the person telling of the supposed event."

"At any rate, you certainly will allow us time to collect my people and attend to my scattered property. Also, you will allow us to make what necessary changes in our personal attire we see fit?" I asked.

"Certainly, sir," replied the officer, "the frigate will anchor for the night in the broad reach a few miles below the bend, and you shall have plenty of time, not only to pack your effects, but to send for whatever relatives you wish to accompany you. The men, meanwhile, can collect your slaves and send them on ahead of us."

"We shall make our preparations," I answered shortly, and then I led the way into the Hall.