No sooner was Wingina released from the witness' stand, than she went
straightway to Dr. Evylin's, as she had promised his daughter.

“Now, Wingina,” said Ellen, as the former re-entered her room, “now we
have succeeded in releasing Mr. Hall, for one of the servants tells me he is
already at liberty, you can tell me of the captive lady, and the message she
sent by you to this strange and unaccountable Mr. Hall.”

“You must know, Miss Ellen, that we were closely watched, and that it
was only as chance occasions offered, that I could hold even five minutes
conversation with her, and therefore I may not have caught her meaning
exactly.”

“Well, well, tell me what you did learn from her, and perhaps I may understand
it better than you can.”

“As I was about to tell you, on one of those stolen interviews of a
moment, she asked me if a young man, by the name of Hall, had arrived in
the Colony? I told her yes—that I had seen such a young gentleman I

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believed, and had heard a great deal more about him—that he had been living
with the Governor's family, and, I believed, teaching his youngest son. She
said it must be the same; but she could not see why he should undertake the
business of teaching—but she told me, if I succeeded in escaping, to go
straight to this Mr. Hall, as soon as I arrived at the capital, and tell him that
Eugenia Elliot is a captive in the hands of the Indians, and her father murdered,
and if he indeed loves me, to save me from a fate worse than death!”

“Did she say that?” exclaimed Ellen, pacing the room.

“As near her words as I can recollect, and that was the reason that I discovered
the situation of Mr. Hall as soon as I did. The first person I met, as
I approached the city, I asked if he knew whether Mr. Hall was in the
capital—`yes,' said he, `snug enough, they're trying him for his life.' From
the next, I received almost the same answer, and then I knew there was something
wrong, and thinking over the position in which he slept at the stockade,
and how little any one here could know of the real circumstances of the murder,
I hurried on to you. Now, that we have succeeded, must I still seek him out,
and deliver the captive lady's message?”

“By all means, Wingina, and hark you, be sure and tell him that you have
told all she said to me, and haste back here, and tell me what he says, when
you have done.”

Wingina went immediately in pursuit of Hall, and after hunting over most
of the town, found him again at his old quarters, the Governor's, who had insisted
on taking him to the Palace at once.

“Oh my little deliverer,” said Hall, as he saw her approaching him, “I wonld
have sought you out, had I known where to find you, not only to return you
my sincere thanks for your heroic exertions in my behalf—for I understand
you have traversed a wild wilderness to save me—but to make farther inquiries,
concerning the fate of some dear friends whom you mentioned in your
testimony.”

“That, is the very business which induced me to disturb you now.”

“Oh! Miss Elliot! tell how I can best undertake to deliver her from her
cruel captors.”

“We were fellow prisoners and almost the last words she uttered to me,
was a charge to find you out, and tell of her sad state; she told me moreover,
of the near and dear ties which bound you together, and said she trusted her
whole hopes of deliverance upon you.”

“She told you this! poor girl, her misfortunes have surely touched her
brain, nevertheless I will exert myself to the uttermost to restore her to her
friends.”

“Poor young lady, she said she had no friends in the world except yourself.”

“She has many, the Governor himself among the number, and when I
received your message we were even then discussing the question whether an
expedition to set out immediately, would be of any avail; but here he comes
to speak for himself. I was just mentioning the subject of our conversation,
your Excellency, to my little deliverer here, and asking her about the prospect
of success?”

The Governor appeared greatly moved at the sight of Wingina, and took
her hand and turned his head away to hide a tear, but quickly dashed it away
and joined in the conversation.

“You can, indeed, tell us Wingina, whether an expedition to set out this
night, would have any prospect of overtaking your brother and his mad
companions.”

“That depends entirely upon the question, whether they have returned in
pursuit of me, or have pursued their way to the mountains. I think they have
gone on to the mountains, at least the main body of them, because they
intend to oppose your passage over the Apalachee, and as they knew nothing

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of the causes of the delay of the expedition here, they would be expecting you
to have set out by this time. My brother, may indeed be even now on the look
out for me round the city, but if it is even so, the young lady has gone on
with his friends.”

“What!” exclaimed the Governor, “do they hope to oppose my passage
with a handful of raw pupils from College—tut, tut, I will cut them to pieces
with my old guard.”

“Oh no, Sir, they hope no such thing—they intend to rouse up every Indian
on the frontier. I heard them discussing the matter, and each one is to visit
his own people—for you know they are all of different tribes—stir up their
wrath against your Excellency, and meet you hand to hand at the mountain
pass.”

“They will meet me at Philippi, will they, damn their impudence, if it were
not for the poor girl in the case, I would wish no better sport than teaching
my little army how to flesh their maiden swords!” and here the old veteran
strode about at a magnificent rate, almost forgetting the urgency of the case
he came to consult about, in the fire of his military ardor, he had even began
to hum a martial air, but checked himself suddenly, and was again seated
near the other two.

“Well, Hall,” said he, what think you, will you take the troop I offer, and
and a trusty guide, and precede us to the scene of massacre, or will you wait
for the rest of the expedition?”

“I leave the case entirely with your Excellency, if you think I would stand
the slightest chance of overtaking the crafty marderers by preceding you, I
will set out this very afternoon.”

“I do not think you would, said the Governor promptly, nor do I think I
ought to let you go—you have no experience with these red men, they would,
even if you should overtake them, lead you into an ambush, and perhaps scalp
you all before we could come to the rescue—nay, nay, no impatience, my lad,
it is no impeachment of either your soldiership or discretion. Moreover, you
know that there is to be a meeting of the young gentry in the Capitol to night,
at which I am particularly anxious you should be present.” Here the Governor
placed his finger upon his lip, and then called a servant to whom he consigned
Wingina, telling him to lead her to his daughters. When she was
out of hearing, he resumed. I am particularly anxious that you should be
there, for I understand that Harry Lee intends to object to your name being
enrolled among the young chivalry of the Colony.”

“Ah! upon what new tack is he now?”

“He says, I hear, that you have only cleared your name from one of the
charges with which it is blackened, and that he for one will not be of the expedition,
if you are permitted to be. He says that the other Hall has arrived
and he has sent an express to York for him.”

Hall appeared a good deal agitated at this news and walked the floor with
some perturbation—the Governor eyeing him the while in any thing but a
satisfactory manner, he would rather have heard him speak out promptly and
manfully to the challeuge of his enemy. At length Hall discerned what was
passing in the frank old veteran's mind, and he approached him and said,
“Governor Spotswood, I have too long taxed the patience and credulity of you
and your friends. I acknowledge that there has been a mystery about my
movements, but not one played off in any idle prank, nor yet for sinister purposes.
I have merely acted hitherto, from the necessity of case. I must
ask you to forbear with me only until to-night. I must indeed attend this
meeting, and if I do not then and there put the blush of shame and deep mortification
upon my enemies, then you are fully at liberty to set me down for all
they would represent me to be.”

“Well, my man, no one can, after what has happened to-day, shake my

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confidence in you, but yourself. I grant you that I was a little shaken just
now by your hesitation, but that is all over, and I will wait patiently, and in
full faith until the time you name; and by the by, when you and Harry come
to hard words, don't forget to throw into his teeth his shameful desertion
from the House of Burgesses, when, for all he knew to the contrary, the whole
enterprise hung upon his vote.”

“Never fear, Sir, never fear, I will give him something harder to swallow
than that; but before this meeting takes place, I have a great favor to ask of
you, it is that you will furnish me with a fleet horse and a trusty messenger,
for a couple of hours.”

“Certainly—certainly! but for what object?”

“I must contrive some means, to slip a note into the hand of this new Mr.
Hall, before they produce him at the capital to confront me.”

The Governor was taken all aback again, and did not pretend to disguise
his doubts and gathering indignation. His eye rested upon the
young man as if he would penetrate his very soul, but he quailed not beneath
the prolonged examination. The old veteran lowered his grey shaggy eyebrows,
into an awfulfrown of gathering wrath, and every instant Hall expected
to see the storm burst, but he had lately been through various ordeals, well calculated
to steady his nerves, and he stood up under the gathering storm in a way
at once so meek, and yet so dignified, that the old soldier was partially satisfied,
and characteristically exclaimed, “Damn me, if there is another man in the
Colony, who would have dared to ask me to be a party to such a scheme, and
yet you brave it out, as if there was nothing in it.”

“Nor is there any thing in it, your Excelleny, except a little innocent counterplotting,
an ambuscade perhaps—nothing more, I assure you.”

“Is it so indeed, and no more of these infernal mysteries after all. Forgive
me, my boy, here is my hand upon it, you shall have my assistance, but the fact
is, you have been so long wrapt up in the clouds that I did not know but this
was some new freak of yours to mystify us all again.”

“And so it is, your Excellency, but only for a few hours, you shall yourself
be witness to the explanation, and I think, you will say it was well done.”

“Well, well, there is my hand upon it, I will trust to your honor and discretion,
you have come out so well thus far, that you must be knave as well as fool, to
sacrifice all now to a silly manœuvre.”

“Trust me, General Spotswood, that I am the last man in the Colony (to use
your own words in part,) who would ask you to be a party in the smallest degree
to any scheme which would sully those laurels which you have so nobly won
and so nobly wear.”

“Tut, tut, man, I am ambitious of no laurels except those which grow upon
the highest peaks of the great Apalachee, I would rather wear a sprig of that
in my cocked hat, legitimately earned, than wear the honors of Marlborough
himself. By the by, did you ever see this scar which I wear here to match
that one of your own, (bareing his breast, and exhibiting a wound which
must indeed have put his life in imminent peril) that was received as I led
a charge at the battle of Hockstadt,[12] right under the glorious old veteran's
eye. He had me carried from the field himself, and actually shed a tear over
my bier, as he supposed it to be. No one thought I could survive for twenty-four
hours. This is a mere scratch to many others which, you see, has
marked me with a premature old age; but it is only the outside, my boy—
the fire burns as brightly within as if these old locks were not decked out in
their frosty garb, and I will yet show an ungrateful ministry, that I am a better
servant to our royal mistress, than they are, with there old wives' factions.

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But we have no time to lose, you must prepare for the meeting, and so must
I—remember, now, that you are pledged to clear up all this mystery—you will
have a glorious opportunity—for your enemies, and they are numerous and
powerful, will make a combined attack upon you, and I have even received
an intimation that it will be extended to me, and that I may yet peril the expedition,
unless I throw you overboard.”

“I trust, your Excellency, that I may be enabled to right myself in the
eyes of all men; at all events you shall not suffer by me, nor shall any of my
short comings attach their odium to your enterprise. Either I enter upon it
as a gentleman of untarnished name and lineage, or I enter it not at all.
Such, I understand, indeed are the pre-requisitions to enter your chivalrous
band. I will not say, that my past life has not been fruitful of errors, but
there is no personal stain in all the sad retrospect, at least none that I think
your Excellency will consider as such; but I will not anticipate the work of
the evening, by recounting to you the only thing which could be tortured
into matter for my exclusion. I will make a clean breast of it, when we
meet—it may produce a stormy meeting and that far, I regret the necessity
on your Excellency's account.”

“Pooh, pooh. I have heard thunder too long to be frightened at a fow pop
guns let off by some run-mad boys in the Capitol. I was once as mad as any
of them, and I have not forgotten it, nor do I mean ever to forget it. I love
the wild spirit of the untamed colt, provided it is only the impetuous impulses
of young life, and nothing vicious in it. I shall keep my eye upon one
youngster, who will doubtless figure largely there to-night, however. I have
hitherto found it impossible to decide, whether he was of the true metal or
not, and only spoiled in the training, or whether he has innate deviltry so deeply
imbedded in the texture of his composition, that the ups and downs, even of
a campaign, will not wear it out.”

“I think I know to whom your Excellency alludes, and without presumption
I think I know him better than you do. You allude to Mr. Henry Lee!
Be under no apprehension for the harmony of your expedition, at least for
any disturbance that he may create on my account; for I predict now most
confidently that one or the other of us will withdraw entirely from the enterprise.
It is next to impossible that we can unite in any undertaking of the
sort, after what must necessarily come to light at the meeting. He has
hitherto had the whole game in his own hands and I have suffered him full
swing, but the time has now arrived for me to assert my just rights in this
community, so that you may possibly see a double unmasking.”

“Well, well, only do as well as you talk, my boy, and I assure you there is
no one who will be more gratified than myself. I have seen for some time
that you were in a false position, and that he maintained some unaccountable
power over you, and I thought indeed that you had given him full swing sure
enough. I rejoice to hear you say that it is now about to end. I cannot tell
you how many remonstrances I have had addressed to me on your account.
Some hinted one thing and some another, but all thought it unseemly in me
to countenance you without credentials of any sort. So, you see, it is
full time to unmask, as you say. By the by, did I not hear that you were
one of the masking party at my country house?”

“No more, your Excellency, no more; have patience only until one telling
of my tale may answer.”

“Well, good day, and remember what is before you!” and with these
words Hall was left alone. There was no need to remind him that he had an
arduous task to perform—he well knew it, and felt it keenly. He knew that
he was in a delicate position—that he was a mark, as well for the shafts of
envy and malice, as for the eager eyes of all men.

He retired to prepare the note for the Governor's trusty messenger, which
he did in a few minutes.

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