The village tavern, servilely bearing the king’s arms thinly painted over the palmetto tree of South Carolina on its swinging sign-board, was a miserable doggery, full to overflowing with a riffraff of carousing soldiery.  Separating by mutual consent in the public tap-room, Richard and I presently drifted together again at a small table in a corner, with a black boy in attendance to set before us such poor entertainment as the hostelry afforded.

“Well, what luck?” asked Dick, mumbling it behind his hand, though he might safely have shouted it aloud in the din and clamor of the place.

I shook my head.  “Nothing as yet, save that I overheard a tipsy corporal telling his tipsier sergeant that the officers would be holding a revel to-night at a Tory manor house situate somewhere beyond the camp confines to the northward; the house of one Master Marmaduke Harndon, if I heard the name aright.”  Then I added:  “This rabble is too drunken to serve our purpose.  ’Tis only the common soldiery, and we shall learn nothing here.”

“There was at least one who was not a ranker,” said Dick, and there was something akin to awe in his voice.  Then he leaned across the table to whisper.  “Jack, I’ve fair had a fright!”

I smiled.  Fear, of God, man or the devil, was not one of the lad’s weaknesses.

“You may grin as you please,” he went on; “but answer me this; do the dead come back to life?”

“Not this side of the resurrection reveille, if we may believe the dominies.”

“Then I have seen a ghost—­a most horrible mask of a man we both know to our cost.”

“Name him and I will tell you whether he be a ghost or no.”

“’Tis the ghost of Frank Falconnet; or else it is what of the man himself the fire hath left,” said Dick, and I marked his shiver at the word.

“No!” said I.

“I tell you yes.”

I sprang up, but the lad reached across the table and smote me back into the chair.

“Softly, old firebrand; ’twas you who said the public matter must take precedence of the private.  Moreover, if this be Francis Falconnet whom I have seen, your sweetest revenge on him will be to let him live—­as he is.”

“I will kill him as I would a wild beast,” I raged, thinking of that midnight scene in the great forest when my sweet lady had gone on her knees to this fiend in human guise.  “And so should you,” I added, “if you care aught for the honor of the woman who loves you.”

But now it was this hot-headed Richard I have drawn for you who saw farthest and clearest.

“All in good time,” he said, coolly.  “At this present we have Dan Morgan’s fish to fry, and sitting here saucing this devil’s mess of a supper with thoughts of private revenge will never fry it.  Set your wits at work; Falconnet’s ghost has put mine hopelessly out of gear.  Ye gods! but ’twas a most fearsome thing to look at!”