Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 234: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

216 Tom ANDERSON, DarE-DEVIL was certain. There was the hoarse roar of an ugly mob. There were shouts and shrieks. “Take him! To the gibbet!”’ On a sudden, a bugle signal. The roll of a drum. And then, high above the uproar an eagle-scream — the bag- ipes. i As the fugitive listened to the outburst a crowd darted by. In an instant he was one of them, running at top speed with the rabble. In the shadow of old St. Michael’s he slackened his pace. Iwo dragoons rushed round a corner. “Who murdered him?” they shouted, hoarse with ex- citement. “Nobody knows. Bad business!’’ He stood panting and mopping his forehead. [hey hurried on. The church door was ajar; and a feeble light showed through the opening. Next instant a black figure had slipped through the half-open door. The keys dangled from the lock. These went into the intruder’s pocket, and then he stopped to reconnoiter. An old white-headed negro sexton was extinguishing lights and making windows and doors secure; after a wed- ding ceremony, yes; for there were flowers on the altar, innumerable tapers had been half burned, and the old black wore a wedding favor as white as his own head. Skulking in the organ loft, Tom seized these details. He watched the old man prepare to depart; heard his grum- bling, pottering search for the missing keys. There was a dissatisfied pause; some inaudible objurgations; and the door slammed, doggedly. “Hope I’m rid of *em both, the sexton and the spy. I’d no mind to be locked up in here.” In deadly darkness he began the ascent of the spiral steeple stairs. ‘There are bound to be windows after a while.” Up and up, and up». At length, twilight. Then flaming moonlight. From the highest window in St. Michael’s, at an altitude of EGomicbooks, Go m