2
. - IN WHICH I KEEP TRYST
CHAPTER XXX. - IN WHICH WE START UPON A JOURNEY
CHAPTER XXXI. - IN WHICH NANTAUQUAS COMES TO OUR RESCUE
CHAPTER XXXII. - IN WHICH WE ARE THE GUESTS OF AN EMPEROR
CHAPTER XXXIII. - IN WHICH MY FRIEND BECOMES MY FOE
CHAPTER XXXIV. - IN WHICH THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT
CHAPTER XXXV. - IN WHICH I COME TO THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE
CHAPTER XXXVI. - IN WHICH I HEAR ILL NEWS
CHAPTER XXXVII. - IN WHICH MY LORD AND I PART COMPANY
CHAPTER XXXVIII. - IN WHICH I GO UPON A QUEST
CHAPTER XXXIX. - IN WHICH WE LISTEN TO A SONG
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I THROW AMBS-ACE
THE work of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep, pipe in hand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not more still than is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has sunk away, and it is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten slowly and softly, one by one. The birds that sing all day have hushed, and the horned owls, the monster frogs, and that strange and ominous fowl (if fowl it be, and not, as some assert, a spirit damned) which we English call the whippoorwill, are yet silent. Later the wolf will howl and the panther scream, but now there is no sound. The winds are laid, and the restless leaves droop and are quiet. The low lap of the water among the reeds is like the breathing of one who sleeps in his watch beside the dead.
I marked the light die from the broad bosom of the river, leaving it a dead man's hue. Awhile ago, and for many evenings, it had been crimson, - a river of blood. A week before, a great meteor had shot through the night, blood-red and bearded, drawing a slow-fading fiery trail across the heavens; and the moon had risen that same night blood-red, and upon its disk there was drawn in shadow a thing most marvelously like a scalping knife. Wherefore, the following day being Sunday, good Mr. Stockham, ou