Councilor Peter Forbes was magically changed. He shed his dignity and threw his hat in air. Clasping Miss Dorothy's slender waist, he planted a kiss on her damask cheek. Parson Throckmorton was ramming snuff into his nostrils, his wig all awry, while he sneezed trumpet blasts of rejoicing.
"Survivors? _Kerchooh!_ God bless me, that lusty stripling will be amongst them,--_kerchooh_,--he can survive anything but Greek and Latin,--_kerchooh_,--I will spare the rod in future."
"I told you so, Uncle Peter Forbes," laughed Dorothy.
"Not so fast," quoth he, in a mood suddenly sobered. "Captain Wellsby includes no list of those in his party."
"But, of course, one of them is _sure_ to be Master Jack," she insisted.
"I am a selfish man and a laggard officer of the Crown," he exclaimed with air of great self-reproach. "There are women in that company and wounded men, no doubt. We must take them clothing, horses, food, a surgeon."
He bustled off to the Governor's house to find that energetic gentleman absent at Sullivan's Island. Acting for him, the Secretary of the Council sent the town crier to summon all good citizens to the tavern green. In the space of an hour the men and supplies were assembled and with Mr. Forbes in command the band of mercy made haste to reach the plantation. During the march there was a buzz of anxious surmise. Was this one and that alive or dead? Had the hostages been slain and were these the sailormen of the _Plymouth Adventure_ who had been set adrift by Blackbeard? Councilor Forbes winced at hearing such talk as this, but his heart beat high nevertheless, so confident was he that he was about to behold his manly nephew.
There was loud cheering when they came to the cleared land of the indigo fields and saw a tattered British ensign fluttering from the log stockade which enclosed the huts of the overseer and his laborers. In the gateway appeared the stalwart figure of Captain Wellsby in ragged garments and with a limping gait. Other men crowded behind him and responded with huzzas which were like a feeble echo. The friends from Charles Town rushed forward to embrace them, loudly demanding to know where the rest were.
"We fetched the women safe through," answered Captain Wellsby whose eyes were sunken and the brown beard streaked with gray. "Twelve good men of my crew are dead, and three of the gentlemen passengers. The swamps took toll of some and the Indians slew the others. We were besieged a fortnight by the Yemassees,--a hard experience all of it, and wondrous luck to have escaped----"