"What has he done?" asked the Governor, as the boy came aft crying with fear.
"Nothin'," snuffled the little rascal, speaking before anyone could stop him. "'E just sez, 'Dam you, sir, come to the mast,' an' I comes."
"Did you swear at this boy for nothing?" demanded the Governor.
"No, your excellency," said Mr. Johnson. "I said d-d-damn y-y-you, sir, c-c-come here, because he"—
"That will do!" thundered the Governor. "Go to your quarters in arrest, sir. I won't have you swearing at my men for nothing. Go, sir!" And after this affair we gave his excellency a wide berth for the rest of the day.
The next morning the tide floated us clear, and we got under way just as the Black Eagle came around the bend above us. She soon caught up with the frigate and we learned that she had a dozen or more prominent tories aboard who wished to take refuge with the royal Governor.
We stopped twice on the way down the river, once to take aboard a tory named Thornton, who lived on a large plantation on the south side, and once we stayed an hour or more on a mud flat.
It was nearly sundown before the white pillars of Judkins Hall showed through the fringe of willows on the river bank. The red light of the setting sun flooded the south portico and a pane of glass in a window, catching a ray at an angle, burned like a bright eye for an instant as we drifted past.
Dunmore reluctantly consented to send us ashore in a boat with Mr. Johnson and a guard of soldiers to see if anyone remained at the Hall, and if so, to help carry what luggage there was to be sent aboard the frigate. My slaves could follow us in the small craft. As the boat drew near the beach, where only a few days before Bullbeggor had won his strange victory over Harrison, we looked for some signs of welcome from our people. Not a leaf stirred in the calm of the bend, and not a sound from the shore broke the ominous stillness of that warm, clear evening. None of us spoke and even Barron's face appeared grave with some thought of impending evil. The sun shone on the sweating faces of the rowers, and the regular clank of their oars in the row-locks beat time to my heart throbs as I waited to learn what was wrong.
When the boat's keel struck the sand, we sprang quickly ashore and proceeded rapidly by the river path toward the Hall. On entering the fringe of bushes and undergrowth on the river bank I thought I heard a strange noise close by me to the right. We stopped a moment and listened, but the four men and Mr. Johnson, who were following close behind us, came up, and we started on again toward the Hall.