Percy pointed out the place where the attack had been made, and he looked for a stump of a small tree or for any other object upon which the negro could have fallen with such force as to mash his eye; but he saw nothing.

As soon as they reached the village, Mr. West drove directly to the town house; and there two black bodies were seen hanging from the limb of an old tree in the courthouse yard.  Percy noted that his companion showed no sign of surprise; and, after the first shock of his complete realization of the work of the night, he looked calmly upon the scene.  They had stopped almost under the tree.

“Are these the brutes who made the attack and whom you captured and delivered to the officer?” asked Mr. West.

“They are,” he replied.

“In your opinion have they received justice?”

“Yes, Sir,” Percy replied, “but I fear without due process of law.”

“Let me tell you, Sir, there is no law on the statutes under which justice could be meted out to these devils for the nameless crime which ends in death by murder or by suicide of the helpless victim, a crime which these wretches committed only in their black hearts—­thanks to you, Sir.”

As he spoke, the town marshall approached followed by the negro pastor of the local church and a few of his followers.  Silently they lowered the bodies to the ground, placed them upon improvised stretchers, and carried them to the potters field outside the village, where rough coffins and graves were ready to receive them.

As Mr. West and Percy returned to Westover they discussed the lands which in the main were lying abandoned on either side of the road.

“Here,” said Mr. West, as he paused on the brow of a sloping hillside, “was as near to Westover as the Union army came.  The position of the breastworks may still be seen.  The Southern army lay across the valley yonder.  These two trees are sprouts from an old stump of a tree that was shot away.  About seventeen hundred confederate dead were buried in trenches in the valley, but they were later removed.  The federal dead were carried away as the Union army retreated.  We never learned their number.  For three days Westover was made headquarters of the confederate officers, and my mother worked day and night to prepare food for them.”

They stopped at Westover for a few moments, Percy remaining in the “buckboard” while Mr. West reported to his family what they had seen in Montplain.

“Our report,” said Mr. West, “hideous and horrible as it is, will help to restore the child to calm and quiet.  To speak frankly, Sir, occurrences of this sort, sometimes with the worst results, are sufficiently frequent in the South so that we constantly feel the added weight or burden whenever the sister, wife, or daughter is left without adequate protection.”

The remaining hours of the morning were devoted to a drive over the country surrounding Westover; and Mr. West consented to Adelaide’s request that she be allowed to drive Percy to the station at Montplain, where he was to take the afternoon train for Richmond.  She chose the “buckboard” but insisted upon driving.