He slowly shook his head.
“I see but one course for you to follow,” he said finally. “Harry cannot offer you any protection, and to remain here would be rashness. I see well enough now that the old place will be devastated ere long. Ay, I had rather die than to live to see that. And it is surely coming. Mara, are you listening, child?”
“Yes, grandpa.”
“You had better go to your Cousin Randolph’s in Woodsville. You will be safer there. I wish Harry was here. Brave boy, I never shall see him any more. Tell him that I thought of him in my last moments.”
He said but little more after this and the hue of life faded fast from his countenance.
He had lain a long time motionless, when there was a nervous twitching at his mouth and his closed eyes opened.
“Mara, where are you?”
“Here, dear grandpa.”
“See, his brow lightens with the touch of death,” whispered one of the guards to the others.
“Mara,” cried the dying man, huskily, “I have had such a vision, and things appeared so different. I see our mistake now. The flag of the South will yet trail in the dust and the stars and stripes in brighter luster than at Yorktown or New Orleans will wave over the country three times saved. It is right. ’Twas the same starry banner that my father fought for under the gallant Sumpter, and which I followed under General Jackson at New Orleans. Long may it wave, to glory undim——”