Then I announced my plan.  “I am going to try to reach Lawrence,” I said.

No one spoke.  Shalah lifted his head, and looked at me gravely.

“Does any man object?” I asked sharply, for my temper was all of an edge.

“Your throat will be cut in the first mile,” said Donaldson gruffly.

“Maybe it will, but maybe not.  At any rate, I can try.  You have not heard what Shalah and I found in the hills yesterday.  Twelve miles south there is a glen with a plateau at its head, and that plateau is as full of Indians as a beehive.  Ay, Ringan, you and Lawrence were right.  The Cherokees are the least of the trouble.  There’s a great army come out of the West, men that you and I never saw the like of before, and they are waiting till the Cherokees have drawn the fire of the Borderers, and then they will bring hell to the Tidewater.  You and I know that there’s some sort of madman in command, a man that quotes the Bible and speaks English; but madman or not, he’s a great general, and woe betide Virginia if he gets among the manors.  I was sent to the hills to get news, and I’ve got it.  Would it not be the part of a coward to bide here and make no effort to warn our friends?”

“What good would a warning do?” said Ringan.  “Even if you got through to Lawrence—­which is not very likely—­d’you think a wheen Borderers in a fort will stay such an army?  It would only mean that you lost your life on the South Fork instead of in the hills, and there’s little comfort in that.”

“It’s not like you to give such counsel,” I said sadly.  “A man cannot think whether his duty will succeed as long as it’s there for him to do it.  Maybe my news would make all the differ.  Maybe there would be time to get Nicholson’s militia to the point of danger.  God has queer ways of working, if we trust Him with honest hearts.  Besides, a word on the Border would save the Tidewater folk, for there are ships on the James and the York to flee to if they hear in time.  Let Virginia go down and be delivered over to painted savages, and some day soon we will win it back; but we cannot bring life to the dead.  I want to save the lowland manors from what befell the D’Aubignys on the Rapidan, and if I can only do that much I will be content.  Will you counsel me, Ringan, to neglect my plain duty?”

“I gave no counsel,” said Ringan hurriedly.  “I was only putting the common sense of it.  It’s for you to choose.”

Here Grey broke in.  “I protest against this craziness.  Your first duty is to your comrades and to this lady.  If you desert us we lose our best musket, and you have as little chance of reaching the Tidewater as the moon.  Arc you so madly enamoured of death, Mr. Garvald?” He spoke in the old stiff tones of the man I had quarrelled with.

I turned to Shalah.  “Is there any hope of getting to the South Fork?”

He looked me very full in the face.  “As much hope as a dove has who falls broken-winged into an eyrie of falcons!  As much hope as the deer when the hunter’s knife is at its throat!  Yet the dove may escape, and the deer may yet tread the forest.  While a man draws breath there is hope, brother.”