"I want to know if you will be afraid to remain here with the girls while I run over there," answered Marcy.
"Certainly not. Take every one on the place, and save what you can. But,
Marcy, you cannot do any work with only one hand."
"No matter. I can show my good will. I don't expect to have a chance to save anything. The house has been burning so long that the roof is about ready to tumble in. Good-by."
Marcy buttoned his coat to keep it from falling off as he ran, caught his cap from the rack as he hurried through the hall, and opened the front door to find Julius waiting for him at the foot of the steps.
"Wake up everybody!" commanded Marcy. "Tell the girls to go into the house to keep their mistress company, and bring the men over to the fire. Hurry up, now!"
Marcy ran on in the direction of the gate, and, as soon as he was out of sight, Julius whirled around and seated himself on the lower step. He sat there about five minutes, and then rose and sauntered off toward the road.
"What for I want wake up everybody?" said he to himself. "I jes aint going take no men ober to de fire to holp save de cap'n's things, when de cap'n done sick de robbers on us. Luf him take keer on he own things; dat's what I say."
Marcy was right when he told his mother that he would not be in season to assist in saving the captain's property. The roof of the house fell in about the time he reached the road, and when he ran into the yard he could do no more than follow the example of Beardsley's frightened household, and stand by and look on while the fire burned itself out. He caught one glimpse of the captain's grown-up daughter standing beside the few things that had been saved, but she straightway hid herself among the negroes, and gave him no opportunity to speak to her. He looked toward Colonel Shelby's plantation, and saw that his house, too, was so far gone that there was no possible chance of saving it. This was the important thing that Captain Beardsley forgot, and of which we spoke a short time ago. He forgot the band to which Aleck Webster belonged, or perhaps he would have contrived some way to make them believe that the man Kelsey, and not himself, was to blame for the raid that had that night been made upon Mrs. Gray's house.
"Aleck and his friends must have had the strongest kind of evidence, or they never would have done such work as this," thought Marcy, as he turned his steps homeward after satisfying himself that there was nothing he could do at the fire. "I wish I knew what that evidence is, and how all this is going to end. I wish from the bottom of my heart that the fanatics who are responsible for this state of affairs could be in my place for a few days."
"I hope you asked the captain's daughter to come over here," said Mrs.
Gray, when her son entered the room in which she was sitting.