Books published by publisher The Macmillan Company, New York

IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns, that swayed from the beams overhead, cast blending white circles in the middle space, while the corners still remained dusky. Somewhere, there in the dark, a woman was crying hysterically, and others, calmer, but with startled, white faces, were standing beyond the group of men, who were gathered round the door of the Billingtons' cabin. Miles saw about him all the faces, terrified or menacing, but it was blurrily, as in a dream. He kept telling himself it was all a dream, an ugly dream, and presently he would awake to find he had never gone with Francis Billington, and very glad he would be to awake so.But the grasp on his neck—it was big John Alden, the cooper from Southampton, who had dragged him out into the great cabin—was real, and so, he now found, were the faces of the men who confronted him. The Elder, William Brewster, with his gray hair, and grave Governor Carver, he noted among them, with a hopeless feeling that[18] all the majesty of the company was come thither to judge him. Close by, he heard Francis Billington crying, with tearful sobs, not dry howls alone, but Miles dropped his shamed eyes to the floor of the cabin and did not look at his companion. He heard Goodman Billington's rough voice, thick with abuse and threats against his son, and then he heard the Elder cut him short: "Peace now, friend. Maybe the lad is hurt."