"Why, Lord sakes! it's our Virgie!" cried Rhoda Holland.
The girl, with all the energy of dread, sprang into the carriage by
William Tilghman's side and threw her arms around him:
"Save me! Save me!"
"What ails you, Virgie?" cried the young man, assuringly. "You are in no
danger, child!"
"I am sold," the girl gasped, with terror on her tongue and in her wild
eyeballs. "Miss Vesty's sold me to her Uncle Allan. He's sent the
kidnappers after me. They're yonder, in Princess Anne. Oh, drive me to
the North, to the swamps, anywhere but there!"
"I know your mistress made you over to her mother, Virgie, for a
precaution, fearing you might not be safe in her own hands. She told me
so, and asked if the death of her mother could possibly affect you."
"Oh, it has!" the girl whispered. "Mary knows the kidnapper that's come
for me. He is the same that stole Hominy and the children. He kept her
chained on an island. He says he'll have me to-night, to do as he
pleases. Master McLane lets him have me!"
The girl, in her terror, as the carriage had descended the hill already
and crossed the Manokin, seized the reins in Tilghman's hands and drew
them with such frenzy that the horses, as they came to Meshach Milburn's
store, were pulled into the open area before it, where something in
their surprise or lying on the ground gave them immediate fright, and
they dashed at a gallop into Front Street, the wheels passing over an
object by the old storehouse that nearly upset the carriage.
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