“I yerry, misses.”
“Very good! And now, when you see Massa Richard, tell him not to come. Tell him better go farther off, across the fork, and across the other river; for that Mat Dunbar means to push after him to-morrow, and has sworn to hunt him up before he stops. Tell him, I beg him, for my sake, though he may not be afraid of that bad man, to keep out of his way, at least until he gathers men enough to meet him on his own ground.”
The startling voice of Dunbar himself broke in upon the whispered conference. “Mat Dunbar is exceedingly obliged to you, Miss Sabb.”
“Ah!” shrieked the damsel—“Brough—fly, fly, Brough.” But Brough had no chance for flight.
“His wings are not sufficiently grown,” cried the loyalist, with a brutal yell, as he grappled the old negro by the throat, and hurled him to the ground. In the next moment he possessed himself of the paper, which he read with evident disappointment. By this time the sound of his bugle had summoned his lieutenant, with half a dozen of his followers, and the kitchen was completely surrounded.
“Miss Sabb, you had best retire to the dwelling. I owe you no favors, and will remember your avowed opinion, this night, for Mat Dunbar. You have spoken. It will be for me yet to speak. Lieutenant Clymes, see the young lady home.”
“But, sir, you will not maltreat the negro?”
“Oh! no! I mean only that he shall obey your commands. He shall carry this note to your favorite, just as you designed, with this difference only, that I shall furnish him with an escort.”
“Ah!”
Poor Frederica could say no more. Clymes was about to hurry her away, when a sense of her lover’s danger gave her strength.