"Politely, Captain," the negro's insinuating voice answered.

"Go to the front door and knock. As you enter, see that it is clear to fly open. Then, as you pa.s.s along the hall, throw the windows up."

"Politely, Captain;" the negro bowed and departed.

"Owen Daw!"

"Yer honor!"

"Climb into the big tulip-tree softly and take this musket I shall reach you. Train it on the staircase window, and fire only if you see resistance there."

The boy went up the tree with all his vicious instincts full of fight.

"Melson!"

"Ay yi!"

"Milman!"

"Ah! boy."

"Get yourselves beneath the two large windows on the hall and serve as mounting-blocks to Sorden's party. I shall storm the main door. As we enter there, Sorden, order your men right over Melson and Milman into the windows Ransom has lifted."

"I love him," muttered Sorden, admiringly, "as I never loved A male,"

and collected his party.

"Whitecar, you and your brother hold the back door with your staves. If it is forced, Miles Tindel--"

"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"

"Will throw his red-pepper dust into the eyes of any that come out."

"Oh, tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"

"Derrick Molleston!"

"See me, O see me!" the powerful negro muttered.

"Take Herron and Vincent, and two more, and guard the kitchen and the front of the main dwelling. Knock any creature stiff, except--_ayme!

ay!_--the young damsels, whose fears will soon trip them to the ground."

"See me, see me!" the negro hoa.r.s.ely said.

"As we enter the door, I shall cry, 'Patty Cannon has come!' Then spring in the windows and beat opposition down. _Relampaguea!_ Ransom is slow."

The knocker on the great door sounded, and it sprang open and quickly slammed again, and a stifled, strange sound followed, as of a scuffle.

Van Dorn, agile as a panther, sprang on Milman's back and looked into a window in the gable, drawing his face away, so as to be unseen in the night.

The bright interior was full of people, sitting back against the wainscoting, as if listening to a sermon, while down the middle of the stately hall stretched a table lighted by whale-oil lamps and many little candles, and filled with the remnants of a feast. The stairway in the corner Van Dorn could not see, and there the dusky audience was all facing, as if towards the preacher. There seemed a something out of the common in the kind of attention the inmates were paying, but Van Dorn's eyes were absorbed in the sight of several drooping and yet almost startled dove-eyed quadroon maids, and he only noticed that the spy, Ransom, could not be seen.

"Sorden," Van Dorn said, slipping down, "can Ransom have betrayed us?

_Chis!_ they all look as if a death-warrant was being read."

"My skin! No, Captain. Air they all there?"

"All," said Van Dorn; "I see thirty thousand dollars of flesh in sight."

"And n.i.g.g.e.rs won't scrimmage nohow," spoke Whitecar. "Let's beat 'em mos' to death."

"Come on then," said Van Dorn, softly; "if the windows are not lifted, break them in."

He twisted, by main strength, a panel out of the palings near the house, and led the way to the great front door. A dozen desperate hands seized the heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that moment every light in Cowgill House went out.

"Dar's ghosts in dar," the hoa.r.s.e voice of Derrick Molleston was heard to say, and the negro element stopped and shrank.

"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment's delay--the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, and sounds of thunder rolling in the sky--a blazing pine-knot, all prepared, was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and with nothing but his rude whip in his right, bounded in the door, shouting:

"Patty Cannon has come!"

At that dreaded name there were a few suppressed shrieks, and the great windows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnappers came pouring over.

Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and it lighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left and the great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the att.i.tude of defence.

"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!"

An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and the lightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him to his followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silken mustache like golden flame.

A mighty yell rose from the emboldened gang as they formed behind him, with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever would disable but fail to kill.

Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across the human objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbed it and darted on.

At the moment loud explosions and smoke and cries filled the echoing place, as a volley of firearms burst from the landing, sweeping the line of the windows and raking the hall. The band on the floor below stopped, and some were down, groaning and cursing.

"They're armed; it's treachery," a voice, in panic, cried, and the cowardly a.s.sailants ran to places of refuge, some crawling out at the portal, some dropping from the windows, and others getting behind the stairway, out of fire, and seeking desperately to draw the bolts of the smaller door there.

"Patty Cannon has come!" Van Dorn repeated, throwing himself into the body of the defenders, who, terrified at his bravery, began to retreat upward around the angles of the stairs.

One man, however, did not retreat, neither did he strike, but wrapped Van Dorn around the body in a pair of long and powerful arms, and lifted him from the landing by main strength, saying:

"High doings, friend! I'm concerned for thee."

Van Dorn felt at the grip that he was overcome. He tried to reach for his knife, but his arms were enclosed in the unknown stranger's, who, having seized him from behind, sought to push him through the square window on the landing into the gra.s.s yard below, where the rain was falling and the lightning making brilliant play among the herbs and ferns.

As the kidnapper prepared himself to fall, with all his joints and muscles relaxed, the boy, Owen Daw, lying bloodthirstily along the limb of the old tulip-tree, aimed his musket, according to Van Dorn's instructions, at the forms contending there, and greedily pulled the trigger.

The Quaker's arms, as they enclosed Van Dorn, presented, upon the cuff of his coat, a large steel or metal b.u.t.ton, and the ball from the tree, striking this, glanced, and entered Van Dorn's throat.

"_Ayme Guay!_" Van Dorn muttered, and was thrown out of the window to the earth, all limp and huddled together, till John Sorden bore him off, muttering,