I fumbled for my ranger's whistle, set it to my lips, and blew the "Cease firing!"
"Let them alone!" I shouted angrily at Mount. "Have you no better work than to waste powder on a parcel of frightened clodhoppers? Send those militiamen to their posts! Two to a loop, yonder! Lively, lads; and see that you fire at nothing except Indians and soldiers. Jack, come up here!"
The big rifleman mounted the ladder and leaped to the rifle-platform, which quivered beneath his weight.
"I thought I'd best sting them once," he muttered. "Their main force has circled the town westward toward the Hall. Lord, sir, it was a bad surprise they gave us, for we understood that Willett held them at Tribes Hill!"
I caught his arm in a grip of iron, striving to speak, shaking him to silence.
"Where—where is Miss Grey?" I said hoarsely. "You say the women are safe, do you not?"
"Mr. Renault—sir—" he stammered, "I have just arrived at the jail—I have not seen your wife."
My hand fell from his arm; his appalled face whitened.
"Last night, sir," he muttered, "she was at the Hall, watching the flames in the sky where Butler was burning the Valley. I saw her there in a crowd of townsfolk, women, children—the whole town was on the lawn there——"
He wiped his clammy face and moistened his lips; above us, in the wooden tower, the clamor of the bell never ceased.