Rand paused to take a letter from his pocket.  “Burr is.  I have this to-day from him in cipher.  Listen!” He unfolded the paper, brought it into the firelight, and began to read in a clear, low voice.  “Burr has written to Wilkinson in substance as follows:  Funds are obtained and operations commenced.  The eastern detachment will rendezvous on the Ohio the first of November.  Everything internal and external favours our views.  The naval protection of England is secured.  Final orders are given to my friends and followers.  It will be a host of choice spirits.  Burr proceeds westward never to return.  With him go his daughter and grandson.  Our project, my dear friend, is brought to a point so long desired.  Burr guarantees the result with his life and honour, with the lives and honour and fortune of hundreds, the best blood of our country.  Burr’s plan of operation is to move down rapidly from the falls on the fifteenth of November, with the first five hundred or one thousand men, in light boats, now constructing for that purpose, to be at Natchez between the fifth and fifteenth of December, there to meet Wilkinson, there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on, or pass by, Baton Rouge.  The people of the country to which we are going are prepared to receive us; their agents, now with Burr, say that if we will protect their religion, and will not subject them to a foreign power, then in three weeks all will be settled.  The gods invite us to glory and fortune; it remains to be seen whether we deserve the boon.’”

Rand ceased to read and refolded the paper.  “So Colonel Burr, with more to the same effect.  If he writes thus to General Wilkinson, he is undoubtedly very sure of that gentleman and of the army which he commands.  I am not of as confident a temper, and I am sure of no one save Lewis Rand.”

The other blew the flames beneath the pine knots.  “There’s Gaudylock.”

“I except Gaudylock.”

Tom rose from the brick hearth and dusted his knees.  “And there’s me.”

Rand smiled down upon his old lieutenant.  “Ah, yes, there’s you, Tom,—­you and Vinie!  Well, if we are fortunate, you shall come to me in the spring.  By then we’ll know if we are conquerors and founders of empire, or if we’re simply to be hanged as traitors.  If the fairer lot is ours, you shall have your island, my good old Panza!”

“And if it’s the other?” demanded Tom, with a wry face.

Rand gave his characteristic short laugh.  “It shall not be the other.  The hemp is not planted that shall trouble us.  There are no more astrologers now that we are grown wise,—­and still a man trusts in his star!  I trust in mine.  Well, next week you’ll open the office as usual, and to all that come you’ll state that I’ve gone, between courts, to look at a purchase of land in Wood County.  I’ll bring that forgery case to an end day after to-morrow, and by Monday Adam and I will be out of Albemarle.”