from Lord Cornwallis's main, which was then well down upon the Wateree,
I could not guess. But for the secrecy and vigilance there were good
reasons and sufficient. The patriot militia had been called out, and was
embodying under General Rutherford but a few miles distant near
Charlotte.

I had this information in guarded whispers from mine host of the tavern,
and was but a moment free of the tap-room, when I first saw Margery
Stair and so drank of the cup of trembling with madness in its lees.
She was riding, unmasked, down the high road, not on a pillion as most
women rode in that day, but upon her own mount with a black groom two
lengths in the rear. I can picture her for you no better than I could
for Richard Jennifer; but this I know, that even this first sight of her
moved me strangely, though the witching beauty of her face and the
proudness of it were more a challenge than a beckoning.

A blade's length at my right where I was standing in front of the
tavern, three redcoat officers lounged at ease; and to one of them my
lady tossed a nod of recognition, half laughing, half defiant. I turned
quickly to look at the favored one. He stood with his back to me; a man
of about my own bigness, heavy-built and well-muscled. He wore a
bob-wig, as did many of the troop officers, but his uniform was
tailor-fine, and the hand with which he was resettling his hat was
bejeweled--overmuch bejeweled, to my taste.

Something half familiar in the figure of him made me look again. In the
act he turned, and then I saw his face--saw and recognized it though
nine years lay between this and my last seeing of it across the body of
Richard Coverdale.