She stared with scorn at the one black woman approaching her with the silver tray, then she turned and stared at Nick Barry, sitting half overcome with drink, lolling against the other.  He cast a look of utter sheepishness at her, and then straightened himself, and rose like the other men, and Dick Barry motioned to both of the black women to withdraw, which they did, slinking out darkly, both with a fine rustle of silks.  Then Madam Story saluted the other women, though somewhat stiffly, and Dick Barry, who was never lacking in a certain gloomy dignity, though they said him to be the worse of the two brothers, stepped forward.  “Madam,” he said, “I pray you to be seated.”  With that he led her with a courtly air to a great carved chair, in which his father had been used to sit, and she therein, somewhat mollified, her black length doubled on itself, and that mourning coach on her forehead was a wonderful sight.

Then arrived Major Robert Beverly and an other notable man, one of the burgesses, whose name I do to this day conceal, in consequence of a vow to that effect, and then two more.  Then Major Beverly, who was in fact running greater risks than almost any, inasmuch as he was Clerk of the Assembly, and was betraying more of trust, after he had saluted Madam Story conferred privately with Dick Barry, and my Lord Estes, and Parson Downs, with this effect.  Dick Barry, with such a show of gallantry and seriousness as never was, prevailed upon the three ladies to forgive him his discourtesy, but hinted broadly that in an enterprise fraught with so much danger, it were best that none but the ruder sex should confer together, and they departed; Mistress Longman enjoining upon her husband to remain and deport himself like a man of spirit, and Mistress Allgood whispering with a sharp hiss into her goodman’s alarmed ear, he nodding the while in token of assent.

But Madam Tabitha Story paused on the threshold ere she departed, standing back on her heels with a marvellous dignity, and waving one long, black-draped arm.  “Gentlemen of Virginia,” said she, in a voice of such solemnity as I had never heard excelled, “I beseech you to remember the example which that hero who has departed set you.  I beseech you to form your proceedings after the fashion of those of the immortal Bacon, and remember that if the time comes when a woman’s arm is needed to strike for freedom, here is one at your service, while the heart which moves it beats true to liberty and the great dead!”

Nick Barry was chuckling in a maudlin fashion when the door closed behind her, and Parson Downs’ great face was curving upward with smiles like a wet new moon, but the rest were sober enough in spite of some over-indulgence, for in truth it was a grave matter which they had met to decide, and might mean the loss of life and liberty to one and all.

Major Robert Beverly turned sharply upon me as soon as the women were gone, and accosted me civilly enough, though the memory of my convict estate was in his tone.  “Master Wingfield,” said he, “may I inquire—­” “Sir,” I replied, for I had so made up my mind, “I am with you in the cause, and will so swear, if my oath be considered of sufficient moment.”