"That isn't all," said Mr. Ritchie in Rand's ear. "The plot was not only against Spain—it looked to the separation of the West from the East, with the Alleghanies for the wall between. General Wilkinson is the hero. It seems that Burr thought to implicate him and secure the army. Wilkinson sent Burr's letters in cipher to the President. The Government has had knowledge from various sources, and while he was thought to be dozing last summer, Mr. Jefferson was as wide awake as you or I. The militia are out in Wood County, and Burr will be taken somewhere upon the Ohio. Wilkinson has put New Orleans under martial law. Informer or no, he's now more loyal than loyalty itself. The Bienville is to be searched at Norfolk for a consignment of arms. They say Eaton's implicated, and Alston, Bollman, Swartwout, and this man Blennerhassett. Truxtun's name is mentioned, and it's said that Decatur was applied to. Andrew Jackson, too, has been friendly with Burr. Well, we'll see what we will see! Treason and traitor are ugly words, Mr. Rand."
"They are so considered, Mr. Ritchie," said Rand, with calmness. "Thanks for your courtesy, and good-morning!"
He bowed and made his way, not unaccosted, through the crowd to the Eagle porch. There was much excitement. The Governor was speaking from the head of the steps. Below him planters, merchants, lawyers, and politicians were now listening eagerly, now commenting sotto voce, while beyond them the nondescript population swayed and exclaimed. To one side were massed the tall plumes of the Blues. Rand saw, near these, Fairfax Cary's handsome face, not pale as it had been between nine and ten o'clock, but alert, flushed, and—or so Rand interpreted its light and energy—triumphant. He went on into the house, ordered and drank a small quantity of brandy, and when he came back upon the porch was met by those near him with a cry of "Speech! Speech!" The Governor's periods were at an end, and John Randolph of Roanoke held the impromptu tribune. Rand's eloquence, if not as impassioned and mordant, was as overwhelming, and his reasoning of a closer texture. Those around him loudly claimed him for the next to address the crowd, which now numbered a great part of the free men of Richmond. He shook off the detaining hands and, with a gesture of refusal to one and all, made his escape by a side step into the miscellany of the street, and finally out of the throng, and, by a détour, back to the deserted square where stood his office. He had lost sight of Mocket, but as he put his key into the door, the other came panting up, and the two entered the bare, sunshine-flooded room together. Rand locked the door and, without a look at his trembling subaltern, proceeded to take from his desk paper after paper, some in neatly tied packets, some in single sheets, until a crisp white heap lay on the wood beneath his hand. "Light a fire," he said over his shoulder. "There's absolutely nothing, is there, in that desk of yours?"
"Nothing. For the Lord's sake, Lewis, is this the end of everything?"
"Everything is a large word. It is the end of this." He pushed a table closer to the fireplace and transferred to it his armful of papers. "Strike a light, will you? Here goes every line that can incriminate. If Burr did as he was told, and burned two letters of mine, there'll not be a word when I finish here." He tore a paper across and tossed it into the flame. "Tom, Tom, don't look so woe-begone! Life is long, and now and then a battle will be lost. A battle—a campaign, a war! But given the fighter, all wars will not be lost. Somewhere, there awaits Victory, hard-won, but laurel-crowned!" He tore and burned another paper. "This fat's in the fire, this chance has gone by, this road's barricaded, and we must across country to another! Well, I shall make it serve, the smooth, green, country road that jog-trots to market! What is man but a Mercenary, a Swiss, to die before whatever door will give him moderate pay? I would have had a kingdom an I could. I would have ruled, ay, by God, and ruled well! The great wheel will not have it so. Down, then, that action! and up this. The King is dead: long live the King!—alias the Law, Respectability, Virginia, and the Union!" He tossed in a double handful.
"All those!" said Tom dully. "I hate to see them burn."
"They might have burned this morning," answered the other. "I gave you orders to burn them if I fell, the moment you heard it."
"But you did not fall."
"No. He fired into the air." Rand tore the paper in his hand across and across. "He had me in his trap. That was why—that was why he spared to fire! Oh, I could take this check from the hand of Fortune, or the hand of Malice, or the hand of Treachery, or the hand of Policy, but, but"—he crushed the torn paper in his hands, then flung it from him with a violent and sinister gesture—"to take it from the hand of Ludwell Cary—that requires more than my philosophy is prepared to give! Let him look to himself!" He thrust in another bundle, and held down with an ashen stick the mass of curling leaves.