Then I told him the horrid tale. He got to his feet and strode up and down the room, with his dark face working.
"God's mercy, what a calamity! I knew the folk. They came here with letters from his Grace of Shrewsbury. Are you certain your news is true?"
"Alas! there is no doubt. Stafford county is in a ferment, and the next post from the York will bring you word."
"Then, by God, it is for me to move. No Council or Assembly will dare gainsay me. I can order a levy by virtue of His Majesty's commission."
"I have come to pray you to hold your hand till I send you better intelligence," I said.
His brows knit again. "But this is too much. Am I to refrain from doing my duty till I get your gracious consent, sir?"
"Nay, nay," I cried. "Do not misunderstand me. This thing is far graver than you think, sir. If you send your levies to the Rapidan, you leave the Tidewater defenceless, and while you are hunting a Cherokee party in the north, the enemy will be hammering at your gates."
"What enemy?" he asked.
"I do not know, and that is what I go to find out." Then I told him all I had gathered about the unknown force in the hills, and the apparent strategy of a campaign which was beyond an Indian's wits. "There is a white man at the back of it," I said, "a white man who talks in Bible words and is mad for devastation."
His face had grown very solemn. He went to a bureau, unlocked it, and took from a drawer a bit of paper, which he tossed to me.