There was at once a general hiding out of valuables, live stock and provisions, the numerous swamps and thickets affording secure harbors all over the section.  A reign of terror existed during the next two weeks.  The dreaded marauders were at work, and stories were rife of insult to women, and outrages upon men whom they hung by the neck till almost dead unless they revealed the whereabouts of their treasures.  Thus far they had baffled the vigilance of the authorities.  The country was thinly settled, and the peculiar features of the landscape afforded facilities both for concealment and escape.

One evening the ladies of Lee Villa sat watching the resplendent sunset from the front piazza, when a ragged, barefoot urchin came up the road turning somersaults with surprising agility.  He righted himself up at the gate, then entered and sidled rather doubtfully toward the group.

“Here’s somethin’ fur Miss Lee.  Be you her?”

“Yes,” said Netta, receiving a dirty note from the boy’s dusty fingers.  “Where did you get this?”

“He gave it to me—­he did,” nodding his head down the road, “an’ he gimme this, too!” he added triumphantly, holding up a shining coin, as he darted away again at his evolutions.

Netta deciphered the following lines from Richard: 

  “We are encamped in Dry Thicket with the horses, all safe thus far. 
  Do not attempt to come; you could not find us.  Keep a brave heart. 
  We will soon entrap the rascals. (Messenger best I can find).

  “Faithfully,

  “R.T.”

About nine o’clock one morning a party of ten men, headed by the notorious Baywater, rode up the single street of Villula, sending terror to the hearts of unprotected women.  Not apprehending an attack in daytime, the two young men were on duty elsewhere, and the negroes were in the cotton fields.

Passing through the town amid a great dust and clatter, they drew rein at the villa.  The ladies came to the door in response to the captain’s imperious halloo.

“We’ve come to find out where the Lester horses are, madam—­and what’s more,” he added with a brutal oath, “we intend to know!”

“I have no information to give you,” calmly returned Mrs. Lee.

“Perhaps you won’t tell us where that box of diamonds is, either,” he sneered.

To this there was no reply.  The three girls were pallid from apprehension of the next move.  Apparently a proposition was made.  The leader shook his head.  After a brief parley he dismounted, and with five of his men, strode across the lawn to the negro quarters.  An old negress sat at the door, smoking her pipe, and knitting a coarse yarn sock.  A bright mulatto boy was crossing the back yard with a water bucket.

In vain the outlaws sought to extract from the old woman the whereabouts of her master with the horses and jewels.  She was in reality as ignorant as they.