“Will Uncle Bob be rich too?” inquired Hannibal.

“Certainly.  How can he be poor when we possess wealth?” answered the judge.

“You reckon he will always live with us, don’t you, grandfather?”

“I would not have it otherwise.  I admire Mr. Yancy—­he is simple and direct, and fit for any company under heaven except that of fools.  His treatment of you has placed me under everlasting obligations; he shall share what we have.  My one bitter, unavailing regret is that Solomon Mahaffy will not be here to partake of our altered fortunes.”  And the judge sighed deeply.

“Uncle Bob told me Mr. Mahaffy got hurt in a duel, grandfather?” said Hannibal.

“He was as inexperienced as a child in the use of firearms, and he had to deal with scoundrels who had neither mercy nor generous feeling—­but his courage was magnificent.”

Presently Hannibal was deep in his account of those adventures he had shared with Miss Betty.

“And Miss Malroy—­where is she now?” asked the judge, in the first pause of the boy’s narrative.

“She’s at Mr. Bowen’s house.  Mr. Carrington and Mr. Cavendish are here too.  Mrs. Cavendish stayed down yonder at the Bates’ plantation.  Grandfather, it were Captain Murrell who had me stole—­do you reckon he was going to take me back to Mr. Bladen?”

“I will see Miss Malroy in the morning.  We must combine—­our interests are identical.  There should be hemp in this for more than one scoundrel!  I can see now how criminal my disinclination to push myself to the front has been!” said the judge, with conviction.  “Never again will I shrink from what I know to be a public duty.”

A little later they went down-stairs, where the judge had Yancy make up a bed for himself and Hannibal on the floor.  He would watch alone beside Mahaffy, he was certain this would have been the dead man’s wish; then he said good night and mounted heavily to the floor above to resume his vigil and his musings.

Just at daybreak Yancy was roused by the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, and opening his eyes saw that the judge was bending over him.

“Dress!” he said briefly.  “There’s every prospect of trouble —­get your rifle and come with me!”

Yancy noted that this prospect of trouble seemed to afford the judge a pleasurable sensation; indeed, he had quite lost his former air of somber and suppressed melancholy.

“I let you sleep, thinking you needed the rest,” the judge went on.  “But ever since midnight we’ve been on the verge of riot and possible bloodshed.  They’ve arrested John Murrell—­it’s claimed he’s planned a servile rebellion!  A man named Hues, who had wormed his way into his confidence, made the arrest.  He carried Murrell into Memphis, but the local magistrate, intimidated, most likely, declined to have anything to do with holding him.  In spite of this, Hues managed to get his prisoner lodged in jail, but along about nightfall the situation began to look serious.  Folks were swarming into town armed to the teeth, and Hues fetched Murrell across country to Raleigh—­”