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 When they found the chest empty they thought I had the thing, or knew where Dabney had concealed it; and now they are after me!"

Old Charlie stopped again and wiped his face.

"I don't want to die, Abner," he added, "like Dabney—in the bed. What shall I do?"

"There is only one thing to do," replied my uncle. "Put the money by the elm in the meadow."

"But, Abner," replied the man, "where would I get a thousand dollars, as I said to Dabney?"

"I will lend it to you," replied my uncle.

"But, Abner," said Charlie, "you haven't got a thousand dollars in gold in your pocket."

"No," replied my uncle; "but if you will give me a lien on the land I will undertake to pay the money. The estate is in ruin, but it's worth double that sum."

And Randolph said that, among the other strange, mad, ridiculous things of that memorable, extraordinary day, he wrote a deed of trust on the Madison lands to secure Charlie's note to my uncle for a thousand dollars.

So great virtue was there in my uncle's word, and such power had he to inspire the faith of men, that he rode away, leaving old Charlie at peace and confident that he had escaped from peril—whether, as Randolph wondered, it was the peril of the pirate assassins in the great swamp or the gibbet of Virginia.

Two hundred yards from the house, where the strip of bush, skirting the meadow, touched the road, 97