Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/138

 passion for gold—the man about whom a grim prophecy was spoken—they will gaze at you stupidly, for, though other legends of the place survive, this tale has been forgotten.

That man was Edward Stanwicke, Jolie Stanwicke's father. Dusk of the day on which they had conferred at Marshall's inn found Lachlan and Almayne in the deep woods about a mile from Stanwicke Hall. There they left their horses and a third horse, which they had led from Charles Town, and pushed on through the forest on foot.

They wore buckskins and moccasins and each carried, besides knife and steel tomahawk, a long rifle. At the edge of the woods they waited until no more lanterns or torches moved about the plantation yard. Then they crossed the open stealthily, two dim, almost invisible shapes in the faint moonlight. Lights burned in the great central room on the first floor of the house. Presently Lachlan and Almayne stood in the deep shadow on the front porch or piazza close to the lofty double door opening into the room.

It was a large room, handsomely furnished, and lighted with tall candles, its wide deep windows open to admit the sweet-scented April breeze. In a high-backed chair beside a long table sat Edward Stanwicke, a tall, stooped, gray man of some sixty years, whose craggy face would have been both handsome and strong but for the loose under-lip. He was richly dressed, as became his station in the Province, for the Master of Stanwicke held himself second to none