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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48258
   :PG.Title: The Old Dominion
   :PG.Released: 2015-02-14
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Mary Johnston
   :DC.Title: The Old Dominion
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1907
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE OLD DOMINION
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   .. _`Mary Johnston`:

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      :alt: Mary Johnston

      Mary Johnston

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      THE OLD
      DOMINION

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      BY

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      MARY JOHNSTON

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      Author of "By Order of the Company" "Audrey"
      and "Sir Mortimer"

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      LONDON
      ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
      1907

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   \ 1st Impression, January, 1899
   \ 2nd      "      August, 1899
   \ 3rd      "      May, 1900
   \ 4th      "      July, 1900
   \ 5th      "      October, 1900
   \ 6th      "      February, 1901
   \ 7th      "      August, 1901
   \ 8th      "      August, 1902
   \ 9th      "      April, 1904
   \10th     "      (Pocket Edition) March, 1906
   \11th     "          "      "     Sept. 1907

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      TO MY FATHER

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   CONTENTS

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CHAPTER

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I.  `A Sloop comes in`_
II.  `Its Cargo`_
III.  `A Colonial Dinner Party`_
IV.  `The Breaking Heart`_
V.  `In the Three-Mile Field`_
VI.  `The Hut on the Marsh`_
VII.  `A Mender of Nets`_
VIII.  `The New Secretary`_
IX.  `An Interrupted Wooing`_
X.  `Landless pays the Piper`_
XI.  `Landless becomes a Conspirator`_
XII.  `A Dark Deed`_
XIII.  `In the Tobacco House`_
XIV.  `A Midnight Expedition`_
XV.  `The Waters of Chesapeake`_
XVI.  `The Face in the Dark`_
XVII.  `Landless and Patricia`_
XVIII.  `A Capture`_
XIX.  `The Library of the Surveyor-General`_
XX.  `Wherein the Peace Pipe is smoked`_
XXI.  `The Duel`_
XXII.  `The Tobacco House again`_
XXIII.  `The Question`_
XXIV.  `A Message`_
XXV.  `The Road to Paradise`_
XXVI.  `Night`_
XXVII.  `Morning`_
XXVIII.  `Bread cast upon the Waters`_
XXIX.  `The Bridge of Rock`_
XXX.  `The Backward Track`_
XXXI.  `The Hut in the Clearing`_
XXXII.  `Attack`_
XXXIII.  `The Fall of the Leaf`_
XXXIV.  `An Accident`_
XXXV.  `The Boat that was not`_
XXXVI.  `The Last Fight`_
XXXVII.  `Vale`_





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.. _`A SLOOP COMES IN`:

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   CHAPTER I


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   A SLOOP COMES IN

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"She will reach the wharf in half an hour."

The speaker shaded her eyes with a great fan of
carved ivory and painted silk.  They were beautiful
eyes; large, brown, perfect in shape and expression,
and set in a lovely, imperious, laughing face.  The
divinity to whom they belonged was clad in a gown of
green dimity, flowered with pink roses, and trimmed
about the neck and half sleeves with a fall of yellow
lace.  The gown was made according to the latest
Paris mode, as described in a year-old letter from the
court of Charles the Second, and its wearer gazed
from under her fan towards the waters of the great
bay of Chesapeake, in his Majesty's most loyal and
well beloved dominion of Virginia.

The object of her attention was a large sloop that
had left the bay and was sailing up a wide inlet
or creek that pierced the land, cork-screw fashion,
until it vanished from sight amidst innumerable green
marshes.  The channel, indicated by a deeper blue
in the midst of an expanse of shoal water, was
narrow, and wound like a gleaming snake in and out
among the interminable succession of marsh islets.
The vessel, following its curves, tacked continually
its great sail, intensely white against the blue of inlet,
bay and sky, and the shadeless green of the marshes,
zigzagging from side to side with provoking leisureliness.
The girl who had spoken watched it eagerly,
a color in her cheeks, and one little foot in its
square-toed, rosetted shoe tapping impatiently upon the floor
of the wide porch in which she stood.

Her companion, lounging upon the wooden steps,
with his back to a pillar, looked up with an amused
light in his blue eyes.

"Why are you so eager, cousin?" he drawled.
"You cannot be pining for your father when 't is
scarce five days since he went to Jamestown.  Do the
Virginia ladies watch for the arrival of a new batch
of slaves with such impatience?"

"The slaves!  No, indeed!  But, sir, in that boat
there are three cases from England."

"Ah, that accounts for it!  And what may these
wonderful cases contain?"

"One contains the dress in which I shall dance
with you at the party at Green Spring which the
governor is to give in your honor—if you ask me, sir.
Oh, I take it for granted that you will, so spare us
your protestations.  'T is to have a petticoat of blue
tabby and an overdress of white satin trimmed with
yards and yards of Venice point.  The stockings are
blue silk, and come from the French house in Covent
Garden, as doth the scarf of striped gauze, and the
shoes, gallooned with silver.  Then there are my
combs, gloves, a laced waistcoat, a red satin bodice, a
scarlet taffetas mantle, a plumed hat, a pair of clasped
garters, a riding mask, a string of pearls, and the
latest romances."

"A pretty list!  Is that all?"

"There are things for aunt Lettice, petticoats and
ribbons, a gilt stomacher and a China monster, and
for my father, lace ruffles and bands, a pair of French
laced boots, a periwig, a new scabbard for his rapier,
and so on."

The young man laughed.  "'T is a curious life you
Virginians lead," he said.  "The embroidered suits
and ruffles, the cosmetics and perfumes of Whitehall
in the midst of oyster beds and tobacco fields, savage
Indians and negro slaves."

The girl put on a charming look of mock offense.
"We *are* a little bit of England set down here in the
wilderness.  Why should we not clothe ourselves like
gentlefolk as well as our kindred and friends at
home?  And sure both England and Virginia have
had enough of sad colored raiment.  Better go like a
peacock than like a horrid Roundhead."

Her companion laughed musically and sang a stave
of a cavalier love song.  He was a slender, well-made
man, dressed in the extreme of the mode of the year
of grace, sixteen hundred and sixty-three, in a richly
laced suit of camlet with points of blue ribbon, and
the great scented periwig then newly come into fashion.
The close curled rings of hair descending far
over his cravat of finest Holland framed a handsome,
lazily insolent face, with large steel-blue eyes and
beautifully cut, mocking lips.  A rapier with a
jeweled hilt hung at his side, and one white hand, half
buried in snowy ruffles, held a beribboned cane with
which, as he talked, he ruthlessly decapitated the pink
and white morning-glories with which the porch was
trellised.

The house to which the porch belonged was long
and low, built of wood, with many small windows,
and at either end a great brick chimney.  From the
porch to the water, a hundred yards away, stretched
a walk of crushed shells bisecting an expanse of green
turf dotted with noble trees—the cedar and the
cypress predominating.  Diverging from this central
walk were two narrower paths which, winding in and
out in eccentric figures, led, on the one hand, to a
rustic summer-house overgrown with honeysuckle and
trumpet-vine, and on the other to a tiny grotto
constructed of shells and set in a tangle of periwinkle.
Along one side of the house, and protected by a stout
locust paling overrun with grape-vines, lay the garden,
where flowers and vegetables flourished contentedly
side by side, the hollyhocks and tall white lilies, the
hundred-leaved roses and scarlet poppies showing like
gilded officers amidst the rank and file of sober
essuculents.  Behind the house were clustered various
offices, then came an orchard where the June apples
and the great red cherries were ripening in the hot
sunshine, then on the shore of a second and narrower
creek rose the quarters for the plantation servants,
white and black—a long double row of cabins,
dominated by the overseer's house and shaded by ragged
yellow pines.  Along one shore of this inlet was
planted the Indian corn prescribed by law, and from
the other gleamed the soft yellow of ripening wheat,
but beyond the water and away to the westward
stretched acre after acre of tobacco, a sea of vivid
green, broken only by an occasional shed or drying
house, and merging at last into the darker hue of the
forest.  Over all the fair scene, the flashing water,
the velvet marshes, the smiling fields, the fringe of
dark and mysterious woodland, hung a Virginia
heaven, a cloudless blue, soft, pure, intense.  The
air was full of subdued sound—the distant hum of
voices from the fields of maize and tobacco, the faint
clink of iron from the smithy, the wash and lap of
the water, the drone of bees from the hives beneath
the eaves of the house.  Great bronze butterflies
fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds,
plunged deep into the long trumpet-flowers; from the
topmost bough of a locust, heavy with bloom, came
the liquid trill of a mock bird.

It was a fair domain, and a wealthy.  The Englishman
thought of certain appalling sums lost to Sedley
and Roscommon, and there flitted through his brain
a swift little calculation as to the number of
hogsheads of Orenoko or sweet-scented it would take to
wipe off the score.  And the girl beside him was
beautiful enough to take Whitehall by storm, to be
berhymed by Waller, and to give to Lely a subject
above all flattery.  He set his lips with the air of a
man who has made up his mind, and turned to his
companion, who was absorbed in watching the white
sail grow slowly larger.

"How long, now, cousin?"

"But a few minutes unless the wind should fail."

"And then you will have your treasures.  But,
madam, when you have assumed all the panoply your
sex relies on to increase its charms 't will be but to
'gild refined gold or paint the lily.'  The Aphrodite
of this western ocean needs no adornment."

The girl looked at him with laughter in her eyes.
"You make me too many pretty speeches, cousin,"
she said demurely.  "We know the value of the fine
things you court gallants are perpetually saying."

"Upon my soul, madam, I swear"—

"Do you know the amount of the fine for
swearing, Sir Charles?  See how large the sail has grown!
When the boat rounds the long marsh she will come
more quickly.  We will soon be able to see my
father wave his handkerchief."

The young man bit his lip.  "You are pleased to
be cruel to-day, madam, but I am your slave and I
obey.  We will look together for Colonel Verney's
handkerchief.  How many black slaves does he bring
you?"

She laughed.  "But half a dozen blacks, but there
will be several redemptioners if you prefer to be
numbered with them."

"Redemptioners!  Ah, yes!  the English servants
who are sold for their passage money.  I thank you,
madam, but *my* servitude is for life."

"The men my father will bring may not be the
ordinary servants who come here to better their
condition.  He may have obtained them from a batch of
felons from Newgate who have been kept in gaol in
Jamestown until word could be got to the planters
around.  I am sure I wish the ship captains and the
traders would stop bringing in the wretches.  It is
different with the negroes: we can make allowance
for the poor silly things that are scarce more than
animals, and they grow attached to us and we to them,
and the simple indented servants are well enough
too.  There are among them many honest and
intelligent men.  But these gaol birds are dreadful.  It
sickens me to look at them.  Thieves and murderers
every one!"

"I should not think the colony served by their importation."

"It is not indeed, and we have hopes that it will
cease.  I beg my father not to buy them, but he says
that one man cannot stop an abuse—that as long as
his fellow-planters use them he might as well do so
too."

Sir Charles Carew delicately smothered a yawn.
"The ship that brought me over a fortnight ago," he
said lazily, "had a consignment of such rascals.  It
was amusing to watch their antics, crowded together
as they were in the hold.  There were two wild
Irishmen whom we used to have on deck to dance for us.
Gad!  what figures they cut!  The captain and I had
a standing wager of five of the new guineas as to
which of the rascals could hold out longest, promising
a measure of rum to the victorious votary of Terpsichore.
When I had lost a score of guineas I found
that the captain was in the habit of priming his man
before he came upon deck.  Naturally, being filled
with Dutch courage, he won."

"Poor Sir Charles!  What did you do?"

"Sent the captain a cartel and fought him on his own
deck.  There was one man in the villainous company
whom, I protest, I almost pitied, though of course the
rogue had but his deserts."

"What was he?"

"A man of about thirty.  A fellow with a handsome
face and a lithe well-made figure which he managed
with some grace.  He had the air of one who
had seen better days.  I remember, one day when the
captain was bestowing upon him some especially choice
oaths, seeing him clap his hand to his side as though
he expected to touch a rapier hilt.  He was cleanly
too; kept his rags of clothing as decent as circumstances
allowed, and looked less like a wild beast in a
litter of foul straw than did his fellows.  But he was
an ill-conditioned dog.  We had some passages
together, he and I.  He took it upon himself to defend
what he was pleased to call the honor of one of his
precious company.  It was vastly amusing....  After
that I fell into the habit of watching him through the
open hatches.  A little thing provides entertainment
at sea, Mistress Patricia.  He would sit or stand for
hours looking past me with a perfectly still face.
The other wretches were quick to crowd up, whining
to me to pitch them half pence or tobacco, but try
as I would, I could not get word or look from him.
Sink me!  if he did n't have the impudence to resent
my being there!"

"It was cruel to stare at misery."

"Lard, madam!  such vermin are used to being
stared at.  In London, Newgate, and Bridewell are
theatres as well as the Cockpit or the King's House,
and the world of mode flock to the one spectacle as
often as to the other.  But see!  the sloop has passed
the marsh and has a clean sweep of water between
her and the wharf."

"Yes, she is coming fast now."

"What is coming?" asked a voice from the doorway.

"The Flying Patty, Aunt Lettice," the girl
answered over her shoulder.  "Get your hood and come
with us to the wharf."

Mistress Lettice Verney emerged from the hall, two
red spots burning in her withered cheeks, and her tall
thin figure quivering with excitement.

"I am all ready, child," she quavered.  "But, mark
my words, Patricia, there will be something wrong
with my paduasoy petticoat, or Charette will not have
sent the proper tale of green stockings or Holland
smocks.  Did you not hear the screech owl last
night?"

"No, Aunt Lettice."

"It remained beneath my window the entire night.
I did not sleep a wink.  And this morning Chloe
upset the salt cellar, and the salt fell towards
me."  Mistress Lettice rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed
lugubriously.  Patricia laughed.

"I dreamed of flowers last night, Aunt Lettice;
miles and miles of them, waxen and cold and sweet,
like those they strew over the dead."

Mistress Lettice groaned.  "'T is a dreadful sign.
Captain Norton's wife (she that was Polly Wilson)
dreamed of flowers the night before the massacre of
'forty-four.  The only thing the poor soul said when
the warwhoop wakened them in the dead of the night
and the door came crashing in, was, 'I told you so.'  They
were her last words.  Then Martha Westall dreamed
of flowers, and two days later her son James
stepped on a stingray over at Dale's Gift.  And I
myself dreamed of roses the week before those horrid
Roundhead commissioners with the rebel Claiborne at
their head and a whole fleet at their back, compelled
us to surrender to their odious Commonwealth."

"At least that evil is past," said the girl with a gay
laugh.  "And ill fortune will never come to me
aboard the Flying Patty, so I shall go down to the
wharf to see her in.  Darkeih!  my scarf!"

A negress appeared in the doorway with a veil of
tissue in her hand.  Sir Charles took it from her and
flung it over Patricia's golden head, then offered his
arm to Mistress Lettice.

The wharf was but a stone's throw from the wooden
gates, and they were soon treading the long stretch of
gray, weather-beaten boards.  Others were before
them, for the news that the sloop was coming in had
drawn a small crowd to the wharf to welcome the
master.

The dozen or so of boatmen, white and black, who
had been tinkering about in the various barges, shallops
and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their
employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a
trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string
and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall
slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off
with the meat, so intense was their interest in the
oncoming sail.  A knot of negro women had left the
great house kitchen and stood, hands on hips, chatting
volubly with a contingent from the quarters, their
red and yellow turbans nodding up and down like
grotesque Dutch tulips.  The company was made up
by an overseer with a broadleafed palmetto hat pulled
down over his eyes and a clay pipe stuck between
his teeth, a pale young man who acted as secretary to
the master of the plantation, and by three or four
small land-owners and tenants for whom Colonel
Verney had graciously undertaken various commissions
in Jamestown, and who were on hand to make
their acknowledgments to the great man.

They all made deferential way for the two ladies
and Sir Charles Carew.  Mistress Lettice commenced
a condescending conversation with one of the tenants,
Darkeih added a white tulip to the red and yellow
ones, and Patricia, followed by Sir Charles, walked to
the edge of the wharf, and leaning upon the rude
railing looked down the glassy reaches of the water
to the approaching boat.

The wind had sunk into a fitful breeze and the
white sail moved very slowly.  The tide was in, and
the water lapped with a cooling sound against the
dark green piles.  In the distance the blue of the
bay melted into the blue of the sky, while the nearer
waters mirrored every passing gull, the masts of the
fishing boats, the tall marsh grass, the dead twigs
marking oyster beds—each object had its double.
On a point of marshy ground stood a line of cranes,
motionless as soldiers on parade, until, taking fright
as the great sail glided past, they whirred off, uttering
discordant cries and with their legs sticking out like
tail feathers.  Slowly, and keeping to the middle of
the channel, the boat came on.  Upon the long low
deck men were preparing to lower the sail, and a
portly gentleman standing in the bow was vigorously
waving his handkerchief.  The sail came down with a
rush, the anchor swung overboard, and half a dozen
canoes and dugouts shot from under the shadow of
the wharf and across the strip of water between it and
the sloop.  The gentleman with the handkerchief,
followed by a man plainly dressed in brown, sprang
into the foremost; the others waited for their lading
of merchandise.

Before the boat had touched the steps the master
of the plantation began to call out greetings to his
expectant family.

"Patricia, my darling, are you in health?  Charles,
I am happy to see you again!  Sister Lettice,
Mr. Frederick Jones sends you his humble services."

"La, brother!  and how is the dear man?"
screamed Mistress Lettice.

"As well as't is in nature to be, with his heart at
Verney Manor and his body at Flowerdieu Hundred."

The boat jarred against the piles and the planter
stepped out, grasping Sir Charles's extended hand.

"Again, I am happy to see you, Charles," he cried
in a round and jovial voice.  "I have been telling my
up-river good friends that I have the most topping
fellow in all London for my guest, and you will have
company enough anon."

Sir Charles smiled and bowed.  "I hope, sir, that
you were successful in the business that took you to
Jamestown?"

"Fairly so, fairly so.  Haines here," with a wave
of the hand towards the man in brown, "had a lot
picked out for me to choose from.  I have six
negroes and three of those blackguards from Newgate—mighty
poor policy to shoulder ourselves with such
gaol sweepings.  I doubt we 'll repent it some day.
The blacks come by way of Boston, which means
that they will have to be cockered up considerably
before they are fit for work.  Is that you, Woodson?
How have things gone on?"

The overseer took his pipe from between his teeth
and made an awkward bow.

"Glad to see your Honor back," he said deferentially.
"Everything 's all right, sir.  The last rain
helped the corn amazingly, and the tobacco 's prime.
The lightning struck a shed, but we got the flames
out before they reached the hogsheads.  The Nancy
got caught in a squall; lost both masts and ran
aground on Gull Marsh.  The tide will take her off at
the full of the moon.  Sambo 's been playing 'possum
again.  Said he 'd cut his foot with his hoe so badly
that he could n't stand upon it.  Said I could see
that by the blood on the rag that tied it up.  I made
him take off the rag and wash the foot, and there
wa'n't no cut there.  The blood was puccoon.  If
he 'd waited a bit he could 'a' had all he wanted to
paint with, for I gave him the rope's end lively,
until Mistress Patricia heard him yelling and made
me stop."

"All right, Woodson.  I reckon the plantation
knows by this time that what Mistress Patricia says
is law.  Here come the boats with the boxes.  Tell
the men to be careful how they handle them."

After a hearty word or two to tenants and land
owners the worthy Colonel joined his daughter and
sister; and together with Sir Charles Carew they
watched the precious boxes conveyed up the slippery
steps, the overseer shouting directions, plentifully
sprinkled with selected, unfinable oaths to the panting
boatmen.  When all were safely piled upon the wharf
ready to be wheeled to the great house, the empty
boats swung off to make room for others, laden with
the colonel's Jamestown purchases.

One by one the articles climbed the stairs, each as
it reached the level being claimed by the overseer
and told off into a lengthening line.  Six were
negroes, gaunt and hollow-eyed, but smiling widely.
They gazed around them, at the heap of clams and
oysters piled upon the wharf, at the marshes, alive
with wild fowl, at the distant green of waving corn,
the flower-embowered great house, the white quarters
from which arose many little spirals of savory smoke,
and a bland and child-like content took possession of
their souls.  With eager and obsequious "Yes
Mas'rs" they obeyed the overseer's objurgatory
indications as to their disposition.

There next arose above the landing the head of a
white man—a countenance of sullen ferocity, with a
great scar running across it, and framed in elf locks
of staring red.  The body belonging to this prepossessing
face was swollen and unshapely, and its owner
moved with a limp and a muttered curse towards the
place assigned him.  He was followed by a sallow-faced,
long-nosed man, with black oily hair and an
affected smirk which twitched the corners of his thin
lips.  Singling out his master's family with a furtive
glance from a pair of sinister greenish eyes, he made
a low bow and stepped jauntily into line.

The third man rose above the landing.  Sir Charles,
standing by Patricia, laughed.

"This world is a place of fantastic meetings,
cousin," he said, airily.  "Now who would suppose
that I would ever again see that chipping from a
London gaol I told you of—my shipmate of cleanly
habit and unsocial nature.  Yet there he is."





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.. _`ITS CARGO`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   ITS CARGO

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The afternoon sunshine lay hot upon the house
and garden of Verney Manor—the leaves drooped
motionless, the glare of the white paths hurt the eye,
the flowers seemed all to  be red.  The odor of rose
and honeysuckle was drowned in the heavy cloying
sweetness of the pendant masses of locust bloom.
Down in the garden the bees droned in the vines, and
on the steps the flies buzzed undisturbed about the
sleeping hounds.  Above the long, deserted wharf
and the green velvet of the marshes quivered the
heated air, while to look upon the water was like
gazing too closely at blue flame.  From the tobacco
fields floated the notes of a monotonous many-versed
chant, and a soft, uninterrupted cooing came from
the dove cot.  Heat and fragrance and drowsy sound
combined to give a pleasant somnolence to the wide
sunny scene.

Deep in the cavernous shade of the porch lounged
the master of the plantation, his body in one chair,
his legs in another, and a silver tankard of sack
standing upon a third, over the back of which had
been flung his great peruke and his riding coat of
green cloth, discarded because of the heat.  Thin,
blue clouds curled up from his long pipe, and
obscured his ruddy countenance.

His shrewd gray eyes under their tufts of grizzled
hair were half closed in a lazy contentment, born of
the hour, the pipe, and the drink.  The world went
very well just then in Colonel Verney's estimation.
His crop of the preceding year had been a large and
profitable one: this year it bid fair to be still more
satisfactory.  During the past few months he had
acquired a number of servants and slaves, and his head
rights would add a goodly number of acres to his
already enormous holdings; land, land, always more
land! being the ambition and the necessity of the
seventeenth century Virginia planter.  Trader, planter,
magistrate, member of the council of state, soldier,
author on occasion, and fine gentleman all rolled into
one, after the fashion of the times; Cavalier of the
Cavaliers, hand in glove with Governor Berkeley, and
possessed of a beautiful daughter, for whose favor one
half of the young gentlemen of the counties of York
and Gloucester were ready to draw rapier on the other
half,—Colonel Verney's world was a fair and stirring
one, and gave him plentiful food for meditation on a
fine afternoon.

Opposite him sat his kinsman and guest, Sir
Charles Carew.  He was similarly equipped with pipe
and sack, but there the resemblance to his host ended,
Sir Charles Carew being a man who made it a point
of honor to be clad like the lilies of the field on every
possible occasion in life, from the carrying a breach
to the ogling a milkmaid.  The sultry afternoon had
no power to affect the scrupulous elegance of his
attire, or to alter the careful repose of his manner.
In his hand he held a volume of "Hudibras," but his
thoughts were not upon the book, wandering instead,
with those of his kinsman, over the fertile fields of
Verney Manor.

"You have a princely estate, sir, in this fair, new
world," he said at last, in a sweetly languid voice.

The planter roused himself from considering at
what point of his newly acquired land he should
begin the attack upon the forest.  "It 's a fair
enough home for a man to end his days in," he said
with complacence.

"We of the court have very erroneous ideas as to
Virginia.  I confess that my expectation of finding a
courteous and loving kinsman," a gracious smile and
inclination of the head towards the older man, "is
the only one in which I have not been disappointed.
I thought to see a rude wilderness, and I find, to
borrow the language of our Roundhead friends, a very
land of Beulah."

"Ay, ay.  D' ye remember what old Drayton
sings?

   |  'Virginia!
   |  Earth's only paradise!'

And a paradise it is, with mighty few drawbacks,
now that the King has come to his own again, if you
except these d—d canting Quakers and Anabaptists,
and those yelling red devils on the frontier, and the
danger of a servant insurrection, and the fact that his
Majesty (God bless him!) and the Privy Council
fleece us more mercilessly than did old Noll himself.
I verily think they believe our tobacco plants made
of gold like those they say Pizarro saw in Peru.  But
'tis a sweet land!  Why, look around you!" he cried,
warming to his subject.  "The waters swarm with
fish, the marshes with wild fowl.  In the winter the
air rings with the *cohonk! cohonk!* of the wild geese.
They darken the air when they come and go.  There
in the forest stand the deer, waiting for your bullet;
badgers and foxes, bears, wolves, and catamounts are
more plentiful than are hares in England.  You taste
pleasure indeed when you ride full tilt through the
frosty moonlight, down the ringing glades of the forest,
and hear the hounds in full cry, and see before you,
black against the silver snow, a pack of yelling wolves.
Then in summer the woods are full of singing birds
and of such flowers as you in England only dream of.
Strawberries make the ground red, and there are
wild melons and grapes and mulberries, and more
nuts than squirrels, which is saying much for the nuts.
Everything grows here.  'T is the garden of the
world.  And what is there fairer than the green of
the tobacco and the golden corn tassels?  And the
noble rivers, whose head waters no man has ever
found, hidden by the Lord in the Blue Mountains
near to the South Sea!  Sir, Virginia is God's country!"

"You in these lowlands have no trouble with the Indians?"

"None to speak of since 'forty-four, when
Opechancanough came down upon us.  The brush with
the Ricahecrians seven years ago was nothing.  They
are utterly broken, both here and in Accomac.
Further up the rivers the devil still holds his own, we
hearing doleful tales of the butchery of pioneers with
their wives and children; and above the falls of
the far west, in the Monacan country, and towards the
Blue Mountains, is his stronghold and capitol; but
here in the lowlands all's safe enough.  There is no
fear of the savages.  Would we could say as much of
the servants!"

"Why, what do you fear from them?"

"It 's hard to say; but an uneasy feeling has
prevailed for a year or more.  It's this d—d Oliverian
element among them.  You see, ever since his
Majesty's blessed restoration, gang after gang of rebels
have been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians,
Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous
fanatics all!  Many are Naseby or Worcester
rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of
that devil's lieutenant, Oliver.  All have the gift of
the gab.  We disperse them as much as possible, not
allowing above five or six to any one plantation, we
of the Council realizing that they form a dangerous
leaven.  Should there be trouble, which heaven
forbid! they would be the instigators, restless
mischief-makers and overturners of the established order of
things that they are!  Then there are their fellow
criminals, the highwaymen, forgers, cutpurses and
bullies of whom we relieve his Majesty's government.
They are few in number, but each is a very plague
spot, infecting honester men.  The slaves, always
excepting the Portuguese and Spanish mulattoes from
the Indies, who are devils incarnate, have not brain
enough to conspire.  But in the actual event of a
rising they would be fiends unchained."

"A pleasant state of affairs!"

"Oh, it is not so serious!  We who govern the Colony
have to take all possibilities, however unpleasant,
into consideration.  I myself do not think the danger
imminent, and many in the Council and among the
Burgesses, and well-nigh all outside will not allow
that there is danger at all.  We passed more stringent
servant laws last year, and we depend upon them,
and upon the great body of indented servants, who
are, for the most part, honest and amenable and know
upon which side their bread is buttered, to repress the
unruly element."

"What will you do with the convicts you brought
with you this morning?"

"Use them in the tobacco fields just now when all
hands are needed to weed and sucker the plants, and
afterwards put them to hewing down the forest.  I
told Woodson to bring them around to me this
afternoon when they had been decently clothed.  I always
give the scoundrels a piece of my mind to begin with.
It saves trouble."

"Do they give you much trouble?"

"Not on this plantation.  Woodson and Haines
are excellent overseers."

The planter refilled his pipe, struck a light with his
flint and steel, and leaning back amidst the fragrant
clouds, allowed his eyelids to droop and his mind to
wander over a pleasant sunshiny tract of nothing in
particular.

Sir Charles tasted his sack, adjusted his ruffles,
and resumed his reading.  But even the delectable
adventures of the Presbyterian knight, over whom all
London was laughing, palled on such an afternoon,
and the young gentleman, after listlessly turning a
page or two, laid the book across his knee, and with
closed eyes commenced the construction of an air
castle of his own.

He was roused by the sound of approaching footsteps
upon the shell path leading to the back of the
house, and by the harsh voice of the overseer.

"Here come your hopeful purchases, sir," he said
lazily.

The overseer turned the corner of the house and
came forward with the three convicts at his heels.
He doffed his hat to the two gentlemen, then turned
to his charges.  "Fall into line, you dogs, and salute
his Honor!"

The first man, he of the long nose and the twitching
lip, smiled sweetly, and bent so low that his fell
of greasy hair well-nigh swept the steps; the second,
with a brow like a thunder cloud, gave a vicious nod;
the third, with as impassive a countenance as Sir
Charles's own, bowed gravely, and stood with folded
arms and a quietly attentive mien.

The planter gathered himself up from his chair
and came forward to the top of the steps, his tall,
corpulent figure towering above the men below much
as his fortunes towered above theirs.

"Now, men," he said, speaking sternly and with
slow emphasis.  "I have just one word to say to you.
Listen well to it.  I am your master; you are my
servants.  I reckon myself a good master, it not
being my way to treat those belonging to me, whether
white or black, like dumb beasts.  Give me
obedience and the faithful work of your hands, and you
shall find me kind.  But if you are stubborn or
rebellious, by the Lord, you will rue the day you left
Newgate!  Whipping-post and branding-irons are at
hand, and death is something closer to a felon in
Virginia than in England.  Be careful!  Now,
Woodson, what have you put these men to?"

"They 'll go into the three-mile field to-morrow
morning, your honor, unless you wish other
disposition made of them."

"No, that will do.  Take them away."

The overseer faced about and was marching off
with the recruits for the three-mile field when his
master's voice arrested him.

"Take those two in front on with you, Woodson,
and send me back the brown-haired one."

The "brown-haired one" turned as his companions
disappeared around a hedge of privet and came slowly
back to the steps.

"You wished to speak to me, sir?" he said quietly.

"Yes.  You are the man who was tolerably helpful
in the squall last night?"

"I was so fortunate as to be of some small service, sir."

"You understand the handling of a boat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hum.  I will tell Woodson to try you with a
sloop when the press of work in the fields is past.
What is your name?"

"Godfrey Landless."

"Chevalier d'Industrie and frequenter of the
Newgate Ordinary," put in Sir Charles lazily.  "Of the
Roundhead persuasion too, if I mistake not,—from
robbery in the large, descended to thievery in the
small; from the murder of a King to knives and
a black alley mouth.  Commend me to these grave
rogues for real knaves!  Pray inform us to what little
mishap we owe the honor of your company.  Did
you mercifully incline to relieve weary travelers over
Hounslow Heath by disburdening them of their
heavy purses?  Or did you mistake your own
handwriting for that of some one else?  Or did you woo
a mercer's wife a thought too roughly?  Or perhaps—"

The man shot a fiery upward glance at the slim,
elegant figure and mocking lips of his tormentor, but
kept silence.  Colonel Verney, who had returned to
his pipe, interposed.  "What is all this, Charles?
What are you saying to the man?"

"Oh, nothing, sir!  This gentleman and I were
shipmates, and I did but ask after his health since
the voyage."

"Sir Charles Carew is very good," the man said
proudly.  "I assure him that the object of his solicitude
is well, and only desires an opportunity to repay, with
interest, those little attentions shown him by his
courteous fellow voyager."

The planter looked puzzled: Sir Charles laughed.

"Our liking is mutual, I see," he said coolly.  "I—but
what is this, Colonel Verney!  Venus descending
from Olympus?"

Out of the doorway fluttered a brilliant vision, all
blue and white like the great butterflies hovering over
the clove pinks.  Behind it appeared the faded
countenance of Mrs. Lettice, and a group of turbaned
heads peered, grinning, from out the cool darkness of
the hall.

"Papa!" cried the vision.  "I want to show you
my new dress!  Cousin Charles, you are to tell me if
it is all as it should be!"

Sir Charles bowed, with his hand upon his heart.
"Alas, madam!  I could as soon play critic to the
choir of angels.  My eyes are dazzled."

"Stand out, child," said her father gazing at her
with eyes of love and pride, "and let us see your
finery.  D' ye know what the extravagant minx has
upon her back, Charles?  Just five hogsheads of
prime tobacco!"

Mistress Lettice struck in: "Well, I 'm sure, brother,
't is much the prettiest use to put tobacco to, to turn
it into lace and brocade and jewels,—much better,
say I, than to be forever using it to accumulate filthy
slaves."

Patricia floated to the centre of the porch and stood
sunning herself in a stray shaft of light, like a very
bird of paradise.  The "tempestuous petticoat,"
sky-blue and laced with silver, swelled proudly outwards,
the gleaming satin bodice slipped low over the snowy
shoulders and the heaving bosom, and the sleeves,
trimmed with magnificent lace and looped with pearls,
showed the rounded arms to perfection.  Around the
slender throat was wound a double row of pearls, and
the golden ringlets were partially confined by a snood of
blue velvet.  She unfurled a wonderful fan, and lifted
her skirts to show the tiny white and silver shoes and
the silken silver-clocked ankles.  Her eyes shone like
stars, faint wild roses bloomed in her cheeks, charming
half smiles chased each other across her dainty mouth.
Such a picture of radiant youth and loveliness did she
present that the Englishman's pulses quickened, and
he swore under his breath.  "Surely," he muttered,
"this is the most beautiful woman in the world, and
my lucky stars have sent me to this No Man's Land to
win her."

"How do you like me?" she cried gayly.  "Is't
not worth the five hogsheads?"

Her father drew her to him and kissed the smooth
forehead.

"You look just as your mother did, child, the day
that we were betrothed.  I could not give you higher
praise than that, sweetheart."

"And does it really lack nothing, cousin?" she
cried anxiously.  "Is it in truth such a dress as they
wear at Court?"

"Not at Whitehall, madam, nor at Brussels, nor
even at St. Germains have I seen anything more point
device than the dress,—nor as beautiful as the
wearer," he added in a lower voice and with a lulling
look.

The girl's face dimpled with pleasure and innocent,
gratified vanity.  She swept him a magnificent
courtesy, and he bent low over the slender fingers she
gave him.  Suddenly he felt them stiffen in his clasp,
and looking up, saw a curious expression of fear and
aversion pass like a shadow across her face.  She
spoke abruptly.  "That man!  I did not see him!
What does he here?"

Sir Charles wheeled.  The convict, forgotten by the
two gentlemen, had been left standing at the foot of
the steps, and his sombre eyes were now fixed upon
the girl in a look so strange and intent as fully to
explain her perturbation.  Through his parted lips
the breath came hurriedly, in his eyes was a mournful
exaltation as of one who looks from a desert into
Paradise.  He stood absorbed, unconscious of aught
save the splendid vision above him.  For a moment
she stared at him in return, her eyes, held by his,
slowly widening and the color quite gone from her
face.  With a slow, involuntary movement one white
arm rose, and stiffened before her in a gesture of
repulsion.  The fan fell from her hand upon the floor
with a click of breaking tortoise shell.  The sound
broke the spell, and with a strong shudder she turned
her eyes away.  "Make him go," she said in a
trembling voice.  "He frightens me."

Sir Charles sprang forward with an oath.  "Curse
you, you dog!  Take your ill-omened eyes from the
lady!  Colonel Verney, do you not see that the fellow
is annoying your daughter?"

The planter had fallen into a reverie born of recollections
of the Patricia of his youth, long laid in her
grave, but he roused himself at the words of his guest.

"What's that?" he cried.  "Annoying Patricia!"
He walked to the head of the steps and raised his cane
threateningly.

"Hark ye, sirrah!  The servants of Verney Manor,
white or black, felon or indented, need all their
eyesight for their work.  They have none to waste in
idle gazing at their betters.  Begone to your mates!"

The man who, at Sir Charles's intervention, had
started as from a dream, colored deeply and
compressed his lips, then glanced from one to the other of
the group above him.  There was pain, humiliation,
almost supplication in the look which he directed to
the girl who had brought this rating upon him.  He
glanced at his master with a countenance studiously
devoid of expression, at Mistress Lettice with indifference,
at Sir Charles Carew with chill defiance.  Then,
with a grave inclination of his head, he turned, and a
moment later had disappeared behind the hedge.





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.. _`A COLONIAL DINNER PARTY`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   A COLONIAL DINNER PARTY

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Three days later the master of Verney Manor
gave a dinner party.

At Jamestown, twenty miles away, the Assembly
had just adjourned after a busy session.  A law
debarring that "turbulent people" the Quakers from
further admittance into the colony, and providing
cold comfort for those already within its doors, was
passed with acclamation, as was another against
Anabaptists, and a third concerning the hue and cry for
absconding servants and slaves.  The selling rates for
wines and strong waters were fixed, a proper penalty
attached to the planting of tobacco contrary to the
statute, a regulation for the mending of the highways
adopted, a fine imposed for non-attendance at church,
the Navigation Act formally protested against, the
trainbands strengthened, an appropriation made for
the erection of new whipping-posts and pillories, a
cruel mistress deprived of the slave she had
mistreated, a harborer of schismatics publicly reproved,
and a conciliatory message and present sent to the
up-river Indians—when the Assembly adjourned with
the consciousness of having nobly done its duty.  The
only measure upon which there was not unanimity of
opinion was one proposing the erection of schoolhouses
at convenient cross-roads, and the Governor's
weight being thrown into the balance against it, it
was promptly quashed.

The burgesses from the fourteen counties filled the
twenty houses that constituted the town to suffocation.
Up-river planters, too, had come in, choosing
the time the Assembly was in session to attend to
their interests in the "city."  Several ships were in
harbor, and their captains, professing themselves tired
of salt water, threw themselves upon the hospitality of
their friends ashore.  The crowded population
overflowed into the houses of the neighboring planters,
who, after the manner of their kind, entertained
profusely, giving jovial welcome and good liquor to all
comers.  There was a constant jingling of reins along
the bridle paths, a constant passing of white-sailed
sloops upon the river, as gentlemen in riding coats
and jack boots, or in laced coats and silk stockings,
fared to and fro between plantation and town.  In
the intervals of business the worthy burgesses and
their fellow planters made merry.  They were good
times—for king's men—and it behooved every loyal
subject to follow (at a respectful distance) his
Majesty's example, and get all possible enjoyment from
a laughing world.  So there were horse-races and
cock-fights and bear-baitings, as well as dinners and
suppers, at which much sack and aqua vitæ was drunk
to king, church, and reigning beauties.  And if a
quarrel sprung, full armed, from the heated brains
of young gallants, crossed rapiers did but add a
piquancy, a dash of cayenne, to life.

Popular with the elder gentlemen because of his
excellent Madeira, quick wit, jovial soul, and
friendship with the Governor, and with the younger by
virtue of being father to Mistress Patricia Verney,
Colonel Richard Verney had no difficulty in securing
a score of guests for a day's entertainment at Verney
Manor.

About ten in the morning of the appointed day the
guests began to arrive, some by water, some on
horseback, Colonel Verney meeting each arrival with a
stately bow and a high-flown speech of welcome, and
handing him on to the hall where stood Sir Charles
Carew and the ladies of the household.

Upon a pillion behind her father, Major Miles
Carrington, Surveyor-General to the Colony, came Mistress
Betty Carrington, bosom friend to Mistress Patricia
Verney.  Her sweetly serious face, pensive eyes, and
smooth, dark hair, with her dress of sober silk and
kerchief of finest lawn, demurely crossed over her
bosom, contrasted finely with Patricia's radiant beauty,
decked in shimmering satin and rich lace, and
heightened by a tinge of vermilion upon the smooth cheek,
and a long black patch beneath the left temple.  The
two met like friends whom weary years have parted,
and indeed they had not seen each other for nearly a
week.

All the guests, save one, had arrived.  Colonel
Verney fidgeted, sent a servant wench to look at the
kitchen clock, and dispatched his secretary to an
upstairs window, whence was visible a long stretch of
what courtesy called the highroad.

The secretary returned and whispered his master.
"God be thanked!" exclaimed the latter.  "I feared
that his machine had mired in the Two-Mile Swamp,
or had toppled into a gully coming through the Devil's
Strip.  Gentlemen, the Governor's coach is in sight.
Shall we adjourn to the porch and there await his
Excellency?"

A mighty straining, jingling and lumbering came
with the breeze down the road and proceeded from a
pillar of dust which was approaching the house with
reasonable rapidity.  Presently the road changed
from a trough of dust into a ribbon of greensward.
The cloud dissipated itself, streaming away like the
tail of a comet, and a ponderous and much begilt
coach, drawn by six horses, their manes and tails tied
with red ribbons, and outriders in gorgeous livery at
the heads of each pair, rolled, or rather bumped into
sight.  With a seasick motion it undulated over the
green acclivities of the road, and finally drew up
beside the great horse-block at the gate.

Two lackeys sprang from their perch behind the
vehicle, flung open the door, and lowered a short flight
of steps.  A very stately gentleman, richly dressed,
with a handkerchief of point in one hand and a
jeweled snuff-box in the other, descended the steps,
placing one shapely leg in its maroon-colored stocking
before the other with the mannered grace of the
leader of a Coranto.

Colonel Verney met him with a low bow and smiling
face, after which the two embraced, for they were
old friends.

"My dear Governor!"

"My dear Colonel!"

"I am charmed to welcome your Excellency to my
poor house."

"My dear Colonel, I am charmed to be here.  Gad! the
possession of the only chariot in the Colony is a
burdensome honor!  I thought dinner would be over,
and the stirrup cup in order while I was creeping, like
a snail with his house on his back, over these 'fair
and pleasant roads'—as I call them in my book, eh,
Dick!  But you have a goodly company, I see;
Ludwell, Fitzhugh, Carey, Anthony Nash, mine ancient
enemy Lawrence, Wormeley, Carrington our Puritan
convert and his pretty daughter, young Peyton, and
that pretty fellow, your nephew or cousin, is he?
Odzooks! he is much what I was at his age, begotten
of Delilah and Lucifer, hand of iron in glove of
velvet, eh, Dick!  I hear he is hail-fellow-well-met with
the King and with Buckingham and Killigrew and
their wild set.  Ah, boys will be boys!  'We have
heard the chimes at midnight,' eh, Dick?"

And the Governor in high good humor skipped
up the steps with the agility of youth, bent low with
sugared compliments over the hands of his hostesses
and of Mistress Betty Carrington, and gave courteous
greeting to the assembled gentlemen, after which the
company flowed back into the grateful twilight of hall
and "great room," where the weather, the state of
the crops, and the last horse-race engaged them until
the announcement of dinner.

With a flourish of his costly handkerchief, the
Governor offered his arm to the young mistress of the
house, and led the way to the dining-room, where old
Humfrey, the butler, marshaled the guests to their
seats.  Mistress Betty Carrington had for her
cavalier Sir Charles Carew, to whose honeyed words she
listened with a species of awe, wondering in her innocent
soul if all the wild tales they told of this very fine,
smooth-tongued, handsome gentleman could be true.

Doctor Anthony Nash made a long and fluent grace
wherein much latinity was aired, a neat allusion made
to the *jus divinum*, and an anathema hurled against
those "who break down the carved work of the
sanctuary."  Then was uncovered the mighty saddle of
mutton, reposing in the dish of honor, the roast pig,
the haunch of venison, the sirloin of beef, the breast
of veal, the powdered goose, the noble dish of
sheeps-head and bluefish, and the pasty in which was
entombed a whole flock of pigeons.  These *pièces de
resistance* were flanked by bowls of oysters, by rows
of wild fowl skewered together, by mince pies and a
grand salad, while upon the outskirts of the damask
plain were stationed trenchers piled with wheat bread,
platters of pease and smoking potatoes, cauliflower
and asparagus, and a concoction of rice and prunes,
seasoned with mace and cinnamon and a pinch of
assafœtida.  A great silver salt-cellar stood in the
centre of the table, and smaller receptacles of the
same metal held pepper and spices.  Silver flagons of
cider and ale were placed at intervals, the Madeira,
Fayal and Rhenish awaiting upon the sideboard the
moment when, the cloth drawn and the ladies gone, a
gentlemanly carousal should be inaugurated.

The company drew their Russian leather chairs
closer to the table, spread over their silken knees the
fringed damask napkins, and for a space little was to
be heard but the sound of knife and spoon (forks
there were none), for the morning ride had sharpened
appetites.  The servants passed from chair to chair;
the master, seconded by his daughter and sister,
pricked his guests on to fresh attacks, pressing a third
slice of mutton on one, a fresh helping of capon upon
another, protesting that a third ate as though it were
a fast day, and that a fourth drank as though the
October were sea-water.

When the cloth was drawn and the banquet put
on, tongues were loosened.  The Governor quoted
passages from his "Lost Lady" to Patricia, lifting
her lovely flushed face from the carving of a tart
with wonderfully constructed towering walls.  Behind
a second turreted marvel of pastry, Mistress Lettice
and Mr. Frederick Jones sighed and ogled with
antique grace.  Sir Charles Carew, fingering his
cherries, told a piquant little court anecdote to Mistress
Betty Carrington, and was lazily amused at the blush
and veiled eyelids with which the young lady received
it.  Young Mr. Peyton, on her other side, looked
very black.

The wine was put on and the toast to King and
Church drunk standing, after which the ladies dipped
their white fingers into the basin of perfumed water,
dried them on the silver-fringed napkin, and sailed
to the door, through which, after the profoundest of
courtesies on the one side and the lowest of bows
upon the other, they vanished, leaving the gentlemen
to wine and wassail.

Colonel Verney drank to the Governor; the
Governor to Colonel Verney; Sir Charles to the
author of the "Lost Lady" and the "Discourse and
View of Virginia," so tickling the Governor's vanity
thereby that he became altogether charming.
Mr. Peyton toasted Mistress Betty Carrington, and
Mr. Frederick Jones, Mistress Lettice Verney, "fairest
and most discreet of ladies."  They drank to Captain
Laramore's next voyage, to Mr. Wormeley's success
in vine planting, to Major Carrington's conversion.
They drank confusion to Quakers, Independents, Baptists
and infidels, to the heathen on the frontier and
the Papists in Maryland, the Dutch on the Hudson
and the French on the St. Lawrence,—"Quebec in
exchange for Dunkirk!"  In short, there were few
things in heaven or earth but justified draughts of
Madeira.

The room filled with a blue and fragrant mist
proceeding from twenty pipe-bowls.  Mr. Peyton sang a
pretty song of his own composing.  The company
applauded.  Sir Charles Carew, in a richly plaintive
tenor voice, sang a lyric of Rochester's.  Several of
the gentlemen looked askance (the clergyman had
left the room with the ladies), but on the Governor's
crying out "Excellent!" they considered themselves
over-squeamish, and clapped loudly.

Sir Charles, being dry after his song, drank to
Hospitality,—"A duty," he said, smiling, "that you
gentlemen make so paramount that you must wonder at
the omission of 'Thou shalt be hospitable' from the
Decalogue."

"Faith, sir!" cried Mr. Peyton, "God is too good
a Virginian not to consider such a commandment
superfluous."

The Governor commenced a story which all present,
but one, had heard a dozen times.  It mattered the
less, as it was a good one.  Sir Charles capped it with
a better.  The Governor told a weird tale of Lunsford's
men, the "babe-eating" regiment.  Sir Charles
recounted a little adventure of His Grace of
Buckingham with a quack astrologer, a Court lady, and an
orange girl, which made the company die of laughter.

"Rat me! but you tell a story well, sir!" said the
Governor, wiping his eyes.

"I serve King Charles the Second, your Excellency."

"And so have to live by your wit, eh, sir?"

"Precisely, your Excellency."

"Emigrate to Virginia, man! to the land of good
eating, good drinking, good fighting, stout men, and
pretty women—who make angelic wives."  And the
Governor, who loved his own wife with chivalric
devotion, kissed a locket which he wore at his neck.
"Come to Virginia where we need loyal men and
true.  Lord! we all thought the millennium was come
with the king, but damme! if it doesn't seem as far
off as ever!  Not that his Majesty is to blame," he
added quickly, as though fearing that his words might
be taken as an aspersion upon Charles's ability to
conduct the millennium single-handed.  "The naughty
spirit of the age sets itself against the Lord's
Anointed.  The Puritan snake is but scotched, not killed.
It's the old prate of freedom of conscience, government
by the people, and the like disgusting stuff (no
offense to you, Major Carrington) that makes the
trouble of the times both here and at home.  I sigh
for the good old days when, for eleven sweet years,
no Parliament sat to meddle in affairs of state, when
Wentworth kept down faction and the saintly Laud
built up the Church which he adorned."  And the
Governor buried his woes in the Rhenish.

"Sir William Berkeley's loyalty is proverbial,"
said Sir Charles suavely.  "The King knows that
while he is at the helm in Virginia, the colony is on
the high road to that era of peace and prosperity
which his majesty so ardently desires—for his
tax-paying people.  And I have thought more than once
of late that I might do worse than to dispose of my
majority in the 'Blues,' bid the Court adieu, and
obtaining from his Majesty a grant of land, retire here
to Virginia to pass my days on my own land and amid
a little court of my own, in the patriarchal fashion
you gentlemen affect.  Under certain circumstances
it is a course I might possibly pursue."  He glanced
at his kinsman, whose countenance showed high
approval of a plan which dovetailed nicely with one of
his own making.

"Can you guess the 'certain circumstances' which
are to give us the pleasure of his confounded
company?" whispered Mr. Peyton to Mr. Carey.

"An easy riddle, Jack.  Damn the insolent,
smooth-spoken knave of hearts, and confound the women!
They all drop to a court card."

"Not Mistress Betty Carrington.  She looks below
the surface."

"Humph!  What does she see below thine?  An
empty gourd with a few madrigals and sonnets, and
fine images, conned from the 'Grand Cyrus,' rattling
about like dried seeds?"

"Hush, thou green persimmon! the Governor is
speaking."

The governor rose with care to his feet.  His wig
was awry, his cravat of fine mechlin under one ear.
Benevolent smiles played like summer lightning across
his flushed face.  He raised his tankard slowly and
with attentive steadiness.  "Gentlemen," he said in a
high voice, "we have eaten and we have drunken.
Dick Verney's wine is as old as the hills and as mellow
as sunlight.  It groweth late, gentlemen, and some of
you have miles to travel, and it takes cool heads to
ride the 'planter's pace.'  For William Berkeley,
gentlemen, Governor of Virginia by the grace of God
and his Majesty, King Charles the Second, it takes
more than Dick Verney's wine to fluster him.  I call
a final toast.  I drink again to our loving friend and
host, the worshipful Colonel Richard Verney, to his
beauteous daughter and sister, to his man-servant and
his maid-servant, his ox and his ass, and the stranger
which is within his gates."  He smiled benignly at a
reflection of Sir Charles in a distant mirror.
"Gentlemen, the devil, you see, can quote scripture.  Let
the cup go roun' go roun', go roun'."

The toast was drunk with fervor, and the party
broke up.

The Governor, with Colonel Ludlow and Captain
Laramore, was to sleep at Verney Manor, and Mistress
Betty Carrington was left by her father to bear
Patricia company for a day or two.  One by one the
remainder of the company rode or sailed away, those
who had an even keel beneath them being in much
better case than their brethren on horseback.

When the last sail showed a white speck in the
distance, Patricia and Betty came out upon the porch
and sat them down, one on either side of the Governor,
with whom they were great favorites.  Colonel
Ludlow and Captain Laramore were at dice at a table
within the hall, and Colonel Verney had excused
himself in order to hear the evening report from his
overseers.  Sir Charles Carew, very idle and
purposeless-looking, lounged in a great chair, and studied the
miniature upon his snuff-box.  The Governor, whom
the wine had mellowed into a genial softness, a kind
of sunset glow, alternately puffed wide rings of smoke
into the air, and paid compliments to the young ladies.
The evening breeze had sprung up, rustling the leaves
of the trees, and bringing with it the sound of the
water.  In the western sky crimson islets forever
shifted shapes in a sea of gold.  A rosy light suffused
the earth.  In it the water turned to the pink of a
shell, the marshes became ethereal and far away,
earth and sky seemed one.  The flashing wings of
gull and curlew were like fairy sails faring to and fro.

"If I had wings," said Patricia dreamily, her hands
clasped over her knees, "I would fly straight to that
highest island of cloud.  The one, Betty, that looks
like a field of daffodils, with those beautiful peaks
rising from it, and the violet light in the hollows.  I
would set up my standard there, Sir William, and the
island should be mine, and I would rule the fairies
that must inhabit it, with a rod of iron—as you rule
Virginia," she ended with a laugh.

The Governor laughed with her.  "You would
have no such stiff-necked folk to deal with, my love,
as have I."

"No, they should all be good Cavaliers and
Churchmen—no Roundheads, no servants—and if Indians
on neighboring isles threatened we would pray for a
wind and sail away from them, around and around the
bright blue sky."

"And when you are gone to take possession of your
castle in the air what will poor Virginia do?"
gallantly demanded the governor.

"Oh, she would still exist!  But I am not going
to-night.  The princess of the castle in the air is
engaged to his Excellency the Governor of Virginia for
a game of chess.  In the mean time here comes my
father, who shall entertain your Excellency while
Betty and I go for a walk.  Come, Lady-bird."

The two graceful figures twined arms and moved
off down the walk.  Sir Charles looked after them a
moment, then, with a "Permit me, sir," to the
Governor, he snapped the lid of his snuff-box and started
down the steps.  The Governor laughed.  "We will
excuse you, sir," he said graciously.  "Dick," to
Colonel Verney, as the young gentleman hastened
after the ladies, "that fine spark is to be your
son-in-law, eh?"

"It is the wish of my heart, William."

"Humph!"

"He has birth and breeding.  His father was my
good friend and kinsman, and as loyal a Cavalier as
ever gave life and lands for the blessed Martyr.  He
died in my arms at Marston Moor, and with his last
breath commended his son to me.  My dear wife was
then expecting the birth of our child, of Patricia.  I
can see him now as he smiled up at me (he was ever
gay) and said, 'If it's a girl, Dick, marry her to my
boy.'  Well! he died, and his brother took the boy,
and my wife and I came over seas, and I never saw
the lad from that day to this, when he comes at my
invitation to visit us."

"Well, he is a very pretty fellow!  And what does
Patricia say to him?"

"Patricia is a good daughter," said the Colonel
sedately, "and is possessed of sense beyond the
average of womenkind.  She knows the advantages this
match offers.  Sir Charles Carew can give her a title,
and a name that's as old as her own.  He is a man of
parts and distinction, has served the King, is familiar
with the courts of Europe.  I do not pin my faith to
the tales that are told of him.  His father was a
gallant gentleman, and I am not the man to believe ill
of his son.  Moreover, if, as he hath half promised,
he will come to Virginia, he will throw off here the
vices of the Court, the faults of youth, and become an
honest Virginia gentleman, God-fearing, law-abiding,
reverencing the King, but not copying him too
closely—such an one as them or I, William.  The king
should give him large grants of land, and so, with
what Patricia will have when I am gone, there will be
laid the foundation of a great and noble estate, which,
please God, will belong in the fair future of this fair
land to a great and noble family sprung from the
union of Verney and Carew.  Patricia, trust me, sees
all this with my eyes."

"Humph!" said the Governor again.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BREAKING HEART`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BREAKING HEART

.. vspace:: 2

Sir Charles was up with the two girls before they
reached the garden; and they passed together through
the gate and into the spicy wilderness.  The dew was
falling and as they sauntered through the narrow
paths, Betty held back her skirts that the damp leaves
of sage and marjoram might not brush them; but
Patricia, gathering larkspur and sweet-william, was
heedless of her finery.  At the further end of the
garden was a wicket leading into a grove of
mulberries.  The three walked on beneath the spreading
branches and the broad, heart-shaped leaves, until they
came to a tree of extraordinary height and girth
whose roots bulged out into great, smooth excrescences
like inverted bowls.  Patricia stopped.  "Betty is
tired," she said kindly, "and she shall sit here and
rest.  Betty is a windflower, Sir Charles, a little
tender timid flower, frail and sweet—are you not,
Betty?"  She sat down upon one of the bowls, and
pulled her friend down beside her.  Sir Charles leaned
against the trunk of the tree.  "Betty is a little
Puritan," continued Patricia; "she would not wear the
set of ribbons I had for her; and that hurt me very
much."

"O Patricia!" cried Betty, with tears in her eyes.
"If I thought you really cared!  But even then I
could not wear them!"

"No, you little martyr," said the other, with a kiss.
"You would go to the stake any day for what you
call your 'principles.'  And I honor you for it, you
know I do.  Cousin Charles, do you know that Betty
thinks it wrong to hold slaves?"

Sir Charles laughed, and Betty's delicate face
flushed.

"O Patricia!" she cried.  "I did not say that!  I
only said that we would not like it ourselves."

"'Pon my soul, I don't suppose we would," said Sir
Charles coolly.  "But, Mistress Betty, the negroes
have neither thin skins nor nice feelings."

"I know that," said Betty bravely; "and I know
that our divines and learned men cannot yet decide
whether or not they have souls.  And, of course, if
they have not, they are as well treated as other
animals; but all the same I am sorry for them, and I
am sorry for the servants too."

"For the servants!" cried Patricia, arching her
brows.

"Yes," said Betty, standing to her guns.  "I am
sorry for the servants, for those who must work seven
years for another before they can do aught for
themselves.  And often when their time is out they are
bowed and broken; and those whom they love at
home, and would bring over, are dead: and often
before the seven years have passed they die themselves.
And I am sorry for those whom you call rebels, for
the Oliverians; and for the convicts, despised and
outcast.  And for the Indians about us, dispossessed
and broken, and—yes, I am sorry for the Quakers."

"I waste no pity on the under dog," said Sir
Charles.  "Keep him down—and with a heavy
hand—or he will fly at your throat."

"Hark!" said Patricia.

Some one in the distance was singing:—

   |  "Gentle herdsman, tell to me
   |    Of courtesy I thee pray,
   |  Unto the town of Walsingham,
   |    Which is the right and ready way?

   |  "Unto the town of Walsingham
   |    The way is hard for to be gone,
   |  And very crooked are those paths
   |    For you to find out all alone."

.. vspace:: 2

The notes were wild and plaintive, and sounded
sadly through the gathering dusk.  A figure flitted
towards them between the shadowy tree trunks.

"It is Mad Margery," said Patricia.

"And who is Mad Margery?" asked Sir Charles.

"No one knows, cousin.  She does not know
herself.  Ten years ago a ship came in with servants,
and she was on it.  She was mad then.  The captain
could give no account of her, save that when, the day
after sailing, he came to count the servants, he found
one more than there should have been, and that one
a woman, stupid from drugs.  She had been spirited
on board the ship, that was all he could say.  It's a
common occurrence, as you know.  She never came to
herself,—has always been what she is now.  She was
sold to a small planter, and cruelly treated by him.
After a time my father heard her story and bought
her from her master.  She has been with us ever since.
Her term of service is long out; but there is nothing
that could drive her from this plantation.  She
wanders about as she pleases, and has a cabin in the woods
yonder; for she will not live in the quarters.  They
say that she is a white witch; and the Indians, who
reverence the mad, lay maize and venison at her door."

The voice, shrill and sweet, rang out close at hand.

   |  "Thy years are young, thy face is fair,
   |    Thy wits are weak, thy thoughts are green,
   |  Time hath not given thee leave as yet,
   |    For to commit so great a sin."

.. vspace:: 2

"Margery!" called Patricia softly.

The woman came towards them with a peculiar
gliding step, swift and stealthy.  Within a pace or
two of them she stopped, and asked, "Who called
me?" in a voice that seemed to come from far away.
She was not old, and might once have been beautiful.

"I called you, Margery," said Patricia gently.
"Sit down beside us, and tell us what you have been
doing."

The woman came and sat herself down at Patricia's
feet.  She carried a stick, or light pole, wound with
thick strings of wild hops, which she laid on the
ground.  Taking one of the wreaths from around it,
she dropped the pale green mass into Patricia's lap.

"Take it," she said.  "They are flowers I gathered
in Paradise, long ago.  They wither in this air; but
if you fan them with your sighs, and water them with
your tears, they will revive....  Paradise is a long
way from here.  I have been seeking the road all
day; but I have not found it yet.  I think it must
lie near Bristol Town, Bristol Town, Bristol Town."

Her voice died away in a long sigh, and she sat
plucking at the fragrant blooms.

Patricia said softly, "She talks much of Bristol
Town, and she is always seeking the road to Paradise.
I think that once some one must have said to her,
'We will meet in Paradise.'"

"I know little of Paradise, Margery," said Sir
Charles, good-naturedly; "but Bristol Town is many
leagues from here, across the great ocean."

"Yes, I know.  It lieth in the rising of the sun.  I
have never seen it except in my dreams.  But it is a
beautiful place—not like this world of trees.  The
church bells are ever ringing there, ... and the
children sing in the streets.  It is all fair, and smiling
and beautiful, all but one spot, one black, black,
black spot.  I will tell you."  She sunk her voice to
a whisper and looked fearfully around.  "The mouth
of the Pit is there, the Bottomless Pit that the
Preacher tells about.  It is a small room, dark, dark,
... and there is a heavy smell in the air, ... and
there are fiends with black cloth over their faces.
They hold a draught of hell to your mouth, and they
make you drink it; ... it burns, burns.  And then
you go down, down, down, into everlasting blackness."

She broke off, and shuddered violently, then burst
into eldritch laughter.

"Shall I tell you what I found just now while I
was looking for Paradise?"

"Yes," said Patricia.

"A breaking heart."

"A breaking heart!"

Margery nodded.  "Yes," she said.  "I thought
it would surprise you.  I find many things, looking
for Paradise.  The other day I found a brown pixie
sitting beneath a mushroom, and he told me curious
things.  But a breaking heart is different.  I know
all about it, for once upon a time my heart broke;
but mine was soft and easy to break.  It was as soft,
and weak as a baby's wrist, a little, tender, helpless
thing, you know, that melts under your kisses.  But
this heart that I found will take a long time to break.
Proud anger will strengthen it at first; but one string
will snap, and then another, and another, until, at
last—" she swept her arms abroad with a wild and
desolate gesture.

"What does she mean?" asked Sir Charles.

"I do not know," answered Patricia.

Margery rose and took up her leafy staff,

"Come," she said.  "Come and see the breaking heart."

"O Patricia!" cried Betty, "do not go with her!"

"Why not?" asked Patricia resolutely.  "Come,
cousin, let us find out what she means.  We will go
with you, Margery; but you must not take us far.  It
grows late."

Margery laughed weirdly.  "It is never late for
Margery.  There is a star far up in heaven that is
sorry for Margery, and it shines for her, bright,
bright, all night long, that she may not miss the road
to Paradise."

She glided in front of them, and moved rapidly
down the dim alley of trees, her feet seeming scarce
to touch the short grass, and the long green wreaths,
stirred by the wind, coiling and uncoiling around her
staff like serpents.  Patricia, with Betty and Sir
Charles, followed her closely.  She led them out of
the mulberry grove, through a small vineyard, and
into a patch of corn, beyond which could be seen the
gleam of water, faintly pink from the faded sunset.

"She is taking us towards the quarters!"
exclaimed Patricia.  "Margery!  Margery!"

But Margery held on, moving swiftly through the
waist-deep corn.  Betty looked down with a little
sigh at her dainty shoes, which were suffering by their
contact with the dew-laden leaves of pumpkins and
macocks.  Sir Charles put aside the long corn blades
with his cane, and so made a way for the girls.  He
felt mildly curious and somewhat bored.

Suddenly they emerged upon the banks of the inlet,
within a hundred yards of the quarters.  Patricia
would have spoken, but Margery put her finger to her
lips and flitted on towards the row of cabins.

Before them stretched a long, narrow lane, sandy
and barren, with a pine-tree rising here and there.
Rude cabins, windowless and with mud chimneys,
faced each other across the lane.  Half way down
was an open space, or small square, in the centre of
which stood a dead tree with a board nailed across
its trunk at about a man's height from the ground.
In either end of the board was cut a round hole big
enough for a man's hand to be squeezed through, and
above hung a heavy stick with leathern thongs tied to
it, the whole forming a pillory and whipping-post,
rude, but satisfactory.

It was almost dark.  The larger stars had come
out, and the fireflies began to sparkle restlessly.  The
wind sighed in the pines, and a strong salt smell came
from the sea.  Overhead a whippoorwill uttered its
mournful cry.

The long day's work, from sunrise to sunset, was
over, and the population of the quarter had drifted
in from the fields of tobacco and maize, the boats, the
carpenter's shop, the forge, the mill, the stables, and
barns.  Hard-earned rest was theirs, and they were
prepared to enjoy it.  It was supper-time.  In the
square a great fire of brush-wood had been kindled,
and around it squatted a ring of negroes, busy with
bowls of loblolly and great chunks of corn bread.
They chattered like monkeys, and one who had
finished his mess raised a chant in which one note was
a yell of triumph, the next a long-drawn plaintive
wail.  The rich barbaric voice filled the night.  A
figure, rising, tossed aside an empty bowl, and began
to dance in the red fire-light.

The white men ate at their cabin doors, sitting upon
logs of wood, or in groups of three or four messed at
tables made by stretching planks from one tree-stump
to another.  It was meat-day; and they, too, made
merry.  From the women's cabins also came shrill
laughter.  Snatches of song arose, altercations that
suddenly began and as suddenly ceased, a babel of
voices in many fashions of speech.  Broad Yorkshire
contended with the thin nasal tones of the cockney;
the man from the banks of the Tweed thrust cautious
sarcasms at the man from Galway.  A mulatto, the
color of pale amber, spoke sonorous Spanish to an
olive-hued piece of drift-wood from Florida.  An
Indian indulged in a monologue in a tongue of a
far-away tribe of the Blue Mountains.

The glare from the fire and from flaring pine-knots
played fitfully over the motley throng, now bringing
out in strong relief some one face or figure, then
plunging it into profoundest shadow.  It burnished
the high forehead and scalp lock of the Indian, and
made to gleam intensely the gold earring in the ear
of the mulatto.  The scarlet cloth wound about the
head of a Turk seemed to turn to actual flame.
Under the baleful light vacant faces of dully honest
English rustics became malignant, while the negro,
dancing with long, outstretched arms and uncouth
swayings to and fro, appeared a mirthful fiend.

The three gentlefolk and their mad conductress
gazed from out the shadow and at a safe distance.
Sir Charles Carew, a man of taste, felt strong artistic
pleasure in the Rembrandtesque scene before him—the
leaping light, the weird shadows, resolving
themselves into figures posed with savage freedom, the
dancing satyr, the sombre pines above, and, beyond
the pines, the stillness of the stars.  Betty drew a
little shuddering breath, and her hand went to clasp
Patricia's.  The latter was looking steadily upward at
the slender crescent moon.

"Do not look, Betty," she said quietly.  "I do not.
It is a horror to me—a horror.  I am going back,"
she said, turning.

But she had reckoned without Margery, who caught
her by the arm.  "Come," she said imperiously.
"Come and see the breaking heart!"  Patricia
hesitated, then yielded to curiosity and the insistent
pressure of the skeleton fingers.

The cabins nearest them were deserted, their
occupants having joined themselves to the groups further
down the lane where the firelight beat strongest and
the torches were more numerous.  With no more
sound than a moth would make, flitting through the
dusk, the mad woman led them to the outermost of
these cabins.  Within five paces of the door she
stopped and pointed a long forefinger.

"The breaking heart!" she said in a triumphant
whisper.

A man lay, face downwards, in the coarse and
scanty grass.  One arm was bent beneath his forehead,
the other was outstretched, the hand clenched.
It was the attitude of one who has flung himself down
in dumb, despairing misery.  As they looked, he gave
a long gasping sob that shook his whole frame, then
lay quiet.

A burst of revelry came down the lane.  The man
raised his head impatiently, then let it drop again
upon his arm.

Patricia turned and walked quickly back the way
they had come.  Betty and Sir Charles followed her;
Margery, her whim gratified, had vanished into the
darkness of the pines.

No one spoke until they were again amidst the wet
and rustling corn.  Then said Betty with tears in her
voice, "O Patricia, darling! there is so much misery
in the world, fair and peaceful as it looks to-night.
That poor man!"

"That 'poor man,' Betty," answered Patricia in a
hard voice, "is a criminal, a felon, guilty of some
dreadful, sordid thing, a gaol-bird reclaimed from the
gallows and sent here to pollute the air we breathe."

"It was the convict, Landless, was it not?" asked
Sir Charles.

"Yes."

"But, Patricia," said the gentle Betty, "whatever
he may have done, he is wretched now."

"He has sowed the wind; let him reap the whirlwind,"
said Patricia steadily.

They went on to the house and into the great room
where the myrtle candles were burning softly, the
dimity curtains shutting out the night.  Mrs. Lettice
was at the spinet, with Captain Laramore to turn the
leaves of her song book, and the Governor, with the
chess table out and the pieces in battle array, awaited
(he said) the arrival of the Princess of the Castle in
the Air.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN THE THREE-MILE FIELD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE THREE-MILE FIELD

.. vspace:: 2

In a far corner of the Three-mile Field Landless
bent over tobacco plant after tobacco plant, patiently
removing the little green shoots or "suckers" from
the parent stem.

His back and limbs ached from the unaccustomed
stooping, the fierce sunshine beat upon his head, the
blood pounded behind his temples, his tongue clave to
the roof of his mouth,—and the noontide rest was still
two hours away.  As, with a gasp of weariness, he
straightened himself, the endless plain of green rose
and fell to his dazzled eyes in misty billows.  The
most robust rustic required several months of seasoning
before he and the Virginia climate became friends,
and this man was still weak from privation and
confinement in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship.

He turned his weary eyes from the vivid gold green
of the fields to the shadows of the forest.  It lay
within a few yards of him, just on the other side of
a little stream and a rail fence that zigzagged in gray
lines hung with creepers.  At the moment he defined
happiness as a plunge into the cool, perfumed
darkness, a luxurious flinging of a tired body upon the
carpet of pine needles, a shutting out, forever, of the
sunshine.

Suddenly he felt that eyes were upon him, and his
glance traveled from the fringe of trees to meet that
of an Indian seated upon a log in an angle of the fence.

He was a man of gigantic stature, dressed in coarse
canvas breeches, and with a handkerchief of gaudy
dye twisted about his head.  His bold features wore
the usual Indian expression of saturnine imperturbability,
and he half sat, half reclined upon the log
as motionless as a piece of carven bronze, staring at
Landless with large, inscrutable eyes.

Landless, staring in return, saw something else.
The rank growth of weeds in which the log was sunk
moved ever so slightly.  There was a flash as of a
swiftly drawn rapier, and something long and mottled
hung for an instant upon the shoulder of the Indian,
and then dropped into its lair again.

With a sudden lithe twist of his body, the savage
flung himself upon it, and holding it down with one
hand, with the other beat the life out with a heavy
stick.  The creature was killed by the first stroke,
but he continued to rain vindictive blows upon it until
it was mashed to a pulp.  Then, with a serenely
impassive mien, he resumed his seat upon the log.

Landless sprang across the stream, and went up to him.

"You are bitten!  Is there aught I can do?"

The Indian shook his head.  With one hand he
pulled the shoulder forward, trying, as Landless saw,
to meet the wound with his lips: but finding that it
could not be done, he desisted and sat silent, and to
all appearance, unconcerned.

Landless cried out impatiently, "It will kill you,
man!  Do you know no remedy?"

The Indian grunted.  "Snake root grow deep in
the forest, a long way off.  Besides, an Iroquois does
not die for a little thing like a pale face or a dog of
an Algonquin."

"Why did you try to reach the sting with your mouth?"

"To suck out the evil."

"Is that a cure?"

The Indian nodded.  Landless knelt down and
examined the shoulder.  "Now," he said, "tell me if I
set about it in the right way," and applied his lips to
the swollen, blue-black spot.

The Indian gave a grunt of surprise, and his white
teeth flashed in a smile; then he sat silent under the
ministrations of the white man who sucked at the
wound, spitting the venom upon the ground, until
the dark skin was drawn and wrinkled like the hand
of a washerwoman.

"Good!" then said the Indian, and pointed to the
stream.  Landless went to it, rinsed his mouth, and
brought back water in his cap with which he laved
the shoulder of his new acquaintance, ending by
binding it up with the handkerchief from the man's head.

A guttural sound from the Indian made him look
up.  At the same instant the whip of the overseer,
descending, cut him sharply across the shoulders, he
sprang to his feet, the veins in his forehead swollen,
his frame tense with impotent anger.  The overseer,
having gained his attention, thrust the whip back into
his belt.

"If you don't want to get what will hurt as bad as
a snake bite," he said grimly, "you had best tend to
your tobacco and let vagrom Indians alone.  That
row is to be suckered before dinner-time or your pork
and beans will go begging.  As for you," turning to
the Indian, "what are you doing on this plantation?
Where 's your pass?"

The Indian took from his waistband a slip of paper
which he handed to the overseer, who looked at it and
gave it back with a grudging—"It's all right this
time, but you 'd better be careful.  It's my opinion
that Major Carrington lets his servants run about a
deal more than 's good for them.  Anyhow, you 've
no business in this field.  Clear out!"

The Indian arose and went his way.  But as he
passed Landless, suckering a plant with angry energy,
he touched him, as if by accident, with his sinewy
hand.

"Monakatocka never forgives an enemy," came in
a sibilant whisper too low to be heard by the watchful
overseer.  "Monakatocka never forgets a friend.
Some day he will repay."

The red-brown body slipped away through the tall
weeds and clumps of alder, like the larger edition of
the thing that had hung upon its shoulder.  The
overseer strode off down the field, sending keen glances to
right and left.  He was a conscientious man and
earned every pound of his wages.

Landless, left alone, worked steadily on, for he had
no mind to lose his midday meal, uninviting as he
knew it would prove to be.  Moreover, he was one
who did with his might what his hand found to do.
His body was weary, and his heart sick within him,
but the green shoots fell thick and fast.

"Yon was a kindly thing you did.  Pity 't was in no
better cause than the saving of a worthless natural."

The speaker, who was at work on the next row
of plants, had caught up with Landless from behind,
and now moved his nimble fingers more slowly, so as
to keep pace with the less expert new hand.

Landless, raising his head, stared at a figure of
positively terrifying aspect.  Upon a skeleton body
of extraordinary height was set a head bare of any
hair.  Scalp, forehead and cheeks were of one dull,
ivory hue like an eastern carving.  Upon the smooth,
dead surface of the right cheek sprawled a great red
R, branded into the flesh, and through each large
protruding ear went a ragged hole.  For the rest, the
lips were of iron, and the small, deep-set eyes were
so bright and burning that they gave the impression
that they were red like the great letter.  It might
have been the face of a man of sixty years, though it
would have been hard to tell wherein lay the semblance
of age, so smooth was the skin and so brilliant
the eyes.

"The Indian needed help.  Why should I not have
given it him?" said Landless.

"Because it is written, 'Cursed are the heathen
who inhabit the land.'"

Landless smiled.  "So you would not help an
Indian in extremity.  What if it had been a negro?"

"Cursed are the negroes!  'Ye Ethiopians also,
ye shall be slain by the sword.'"

"A Quaker?"

"Cursed are the Quakers!  'Silly doves that have
no heart.'"

Landless laughed.  "You have cursed pretty well
all the oppressed of the land.  I suppose you reserve
your blessings for the powers that be."

"The powers that be!  May the plagues of Egypt
light upon them, and the seven vials rain down their
contents upon them!  Cursed be they all, from the
young man, Charles Stuart, to that prelatical,
tyrannical, noxious Malignant, William Berkeley!  May
their names become a hissing and an abomination!
Roaring lions are their princes, ravening wolves are
their judges, their priests have polluted the sanctuary!
May their flesh consume away while they stand
upon their feet, and their eyes consume away in their
holes, and their tongues consume away in their mouths,
and may there be mourning among them, even as
the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon!"

"You are a Muggletonian?"

"Yea, verily am I! a follower of the saintly
Ludovick Muggleton, and of the saintlier John Reeve,
of whom Ludovick is but the mouthpiece, even as
Aaron was of Moses.  They are the two witnesses of
the Apocalypse.  They are the two olive trees and the
two candlesticks.  To them and to their followers it
is given to curse and to spare not, to prophesy against
the peoples and kindred and nations and tongues
whereon is set the seal of the beast.  Wherefore I,
Win-Grace Porringer, testify against the people of
this land; against Prelatists and Papists, Presbyterians
and Independents, Baptists, Quakers and heathen;
against princes, governors, and men in high places;
against them that call themselves planters and trample
the vineyard of the Lord; against their sons and their
daughters who are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth
neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing
and making a tinkling with their feet.  Cursed be
they all!  Surely they shall be as Sodom and
Gomorrah, even the breeding of salt-pits and a perpetual
desolation!"

"Your curses seem not to have availed, friend,"
said Landless.  "Curses are apt to come home to
roost.  I should judge that yours have returned to
you in the shape of branding-irons."

The man raised a skeleton hand and stroked the
red letter.

"This," he said coolly, "was given me when I ran
away the second time.  The first time I was merely
whipped.  The third time I was shaven and this
shackle put upon my leg."  He raised his foot and
pointed to an iron ring encircling the ankle.  "The
fourth time I was nailed by the ears to the pillory,
whence come these pretty scars."

Landless burst into grim laughter.  "And after
your fifth attempt, what then?"

The man gave him a sidelong look.  "I have not
made my fifth attempt," he said quietly.

They worked in silence for a few minutes.  Then
said Master Win-Grace Porringer:—

"I was sent to the plantations, because, in defiance
of the Act of Uniformity (cursed be it, and the
authors thereof), I attended a meeting of the
persecuted and broken remnant of the Lord's people.
What was your offense, friend, for I reckon that you
come not here of your free will, being neither a rustic
nor a fool?"

"I came from Newgate," said Landless, after a
pause.  "I am a convict."

The man's hand stopped in the act of pulling off a
shoot.  He gave a slow upward look at the figure
beside him, let his eyes rest upon the face, and looked
slowly down again with a shake of the head.

"Humph!" he said.  "The society in Newgate
must be improved since my time."

They worked without speaking until they had nearly
reached the end of the long double row, when said the
Muggletonian:—

"You are too young, I take it, to have seen service
in the wars?"

"I fought at Worcester."

"Upon which side?"

"The Commonwealth's."

"I thought as much.  Humph!  You were all,
Parliament and Presbytery, Puritan and Independent,
Hampden and Vane and Oliver, in the gall of bitterness
and the bond of iniquity, very far from the pure
light in which walk the followers of the blessed
Ludovick.  At the last the two witnesses will speak against
you also.  But in the mean time it were easier for the
children of light to walk under the rule of the
Puritan than under that of the lascivious house of
Jeroboam which now afflicts England for her sins.  But
the Lord hath a controversy with them!  An east
wind shall come up, the wind of the Lord shall come
up from the wilderness!  They shall be moved from
their places!  They shall lick the dust like serpents,
they shall move out of their holes like worms of the
earth, and be utterly destroyed!  Think you not as I
do, friend?" he asked, turning suddenly upon Landless.

"I think," said Landless, "that you are talking
that which, if overheard, might give you a deeper scar
than any you bear."

"But who is to hear? the tobacco, the Lord in
heaven, and you.  The senseless plant will keep counsel,
the Lord is not like to betray his servant, and as
for you, friend,—" he looked long and searchingly at
Landless.  "Despite the place you come from, I do
not think you one to bring a man into trouble for
being bold enough to say what you dare only think."

Landless returned the look.  "No," he said quietly.
"You need have no fear of me."

"I fear no one," said the other proudly.

Presently he craned his long body across the plant
between them until his lips almost touched the ear of
the younger man.

"Shall you try to escape?" he whispered.

A smile curled Landless's lip.  "Very probably I
shall," he said dryly.  He looked down the long lines
of broad green leaves at the toiling figures, black and
white, dull peasants at best, scoundrels at worst; and
beyond to the huddled cabins of the quarter, and to
the great house, rising fair and white from orchard
and garden; seeing, as in a dream, a man, young in
years but old in sorrow, disgraced, outcast, friendless,
alone, creeping down a vista of weary years, day after
day of soul-deadening toil, of association with the
mean and the vile, of shameful submission to whip
and finger.  Escape!  The word had beaten through
brain and heart so long and so persistently, that at
times he feared lest he should cry it aloud.

Win-Grace Porringer shook his head.

"It's not an easy thing to escape from a Virginia
plantation.  With dogs and with horses they hunt
you down, yea, with torches and boats.  They band
themselves together against the fleeing sparrow.  They
call in the heathen to their aid.  And it is a fearful
land, for great rivers bar your way, and forests push
you back, and deep quagmires clutch you and hold
you until the men of blood come up.  And when you
are taken they cruelly maltreat you, and your term of
service is doubled."

"And yet men have gotten away," said Landless.

"Yes, but not many.  And those that get away are
seldom heard of more.  The forest swallows them up,
and after a while their skulls roll about the hills,
playthings for wolves, or the deep waters flow over their
bones, or they lie in a little heap of ashes at the foot
of some Indian torture stake."

"Why did you try to escape?" asked Landless.

The man gave him another sidelong look.

"I tried because I was a fool.  I am no longer a
fool.  I know a better way."

"A better way!"

"Hush!" The man looked over his shoulder and
then whispered, "Will you go with me to-night?"

"Go with you!  Where?"

"To a man I know—a man who gives good advice."

"Many can do that, friend."

"Ay, but not show the way to profit by it as doth
this man."

"Who is he?"

"A servant even as we are servants,—a learned
and godly man, albeit not a follower of the blessed
Ludovick.  Listen!  About the rising of the moon
to-night, slip from your cabin and come to the blasted
pine on the shore of the inlet.  There will be a boat
there and I will be in it.  We will go to the cabin of
the man of whom I speak.  He is a cripple, and
knowing that he cannot run away, the godless and
roistering Malignant who calls himself our master hath
given him a hut among the marshes, where he mendeth
nets.  Come!  I may not say more than that it
will be worth your while."

"If we are caught—"

"Our skins pay for us.  But the Lord will shut the
eyes of the overseers that they see not, and their ears
that they hear not, and we will be safely back before
the dawn.  You will come?"

"Yes," said Landless.  "I will come."





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.. _`THE HUT ON THE MARSH`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   THE HUT ON THE MARSH

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It was shortly after midnight when the two servants
slipped along the inlet, silently and warily, and
keeping their boat well under the shore.  It was a
crazy affair, barely large enough for two, and
requiring constant bailing.  When they had made half a
mile from the quarters, the Muggletonian, who rowed,
turned the boat's head across the inlet, and ran into a
very narrow creek that wound in many doubles through
the marshes.  They entered it, made the first turn,
and the broad bosom of the inlet, lit by a low, crimson
moon, was as if it had never been.  On every side high
marsh grass soughed in the night wind,—plains of
blackness with the red moon rising from them.  The
tide was low.  So close were the banks of wet, black
earth, that they heard the crabs scuttling down them,
and Porringer made a jab with his pole at a great
sheepshead lying *perdu* alongside.  The water broke
before them into spangles, glittering phosphorescent
ripples.  A school of small fish, disturbed by the oars,
rushed past them, leaping from the water with silver
flashes.  A turtle plunged sullenly.  From the grass
above came the sleepy cry of marsh hens, and once a
great white heron rose like a ghost across their path.
It flapped its wings and sailed away with a scream of
wrath.

The boat had wound its tortuous way for many
minutes before Porringer said in a low voice: "We can
speak safely now.  There is nothing human moving
on these flats unless the witch, Margery, is abroad.
Cursed may she be, and cursed those who give her
shelter and food and raiment and lay offerings at her
door, for surely it is written, 'Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live.'"

"Is there anything a Muggletonian will not curse?"
asked Landless.

"Yea," answered the other complacently.  "There
are ourselves, the salt of the earth.  There are a
thousand or more of us."

"And the remainder of the inhabitants of the earth
are reprobate and doomed?"

"Yea, verily, they shall be as the burning of lime,
as thorns cut up will they be burned in the fire."

"Then why have you to do with me, and with the
man to whom we are going?"

"Because it is written: 'Make ye friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness;' and moreover there be
degrees even in hell fire.  I do not place you, who
have some inkling of the truth, nor the Independents
and Fifth Monarchy men (as for the Quakers they
shall be utterly damned) in the furnace seven times
heated which is reserved for the bigoted and bloody
Prelatists who rule the land, swearing strange oaths,
foining with the sword, and delighting in vain apparel;
keeping their feast days and their new moons and
their solemn festivals.  They are the rejoicing city
that dwells carelessly, that says in her heart, 'I am,
and there is none beside me.'  The day cometh when
they shall be broken as the breaking of a potter's vessel,
yea, they shall be violently tossed like a ball into
a far country."

Here they struck a snag, well-nigh capsizing the
boat.  When she righted, and Landless had bailed
her out with a gourd, they proceeded in silence.
Landless was in no mood for speech.  He did not know
where they were going, nor for what purpose, nor did
he greatly care.  He meant to escape, and that as
soon as his strength should be recovered and he could
obtain some knowledge of the country, and he meant
to take no one into his counsel, not the Muggletonian,
whose own attempts had ended so disastrously, nor the
'man who gave good advice.'  As to this midnight
expedition he was largely indifferent.  But it was
something to escape from the stifling atmosphere of
the cabin where he had tossed from side to side,
listening to the heavy breathing of the convict, Turk, and
peasant lad with whom he was quartered, to the silver
peace of moon-flooded marsh and lapping water.

They made another turn, and in front of them
shone out a light, gleaming dully like a will-of-the-wisp.
It looked close at hand, but the creek turned
upon itself, coiled and writhed through the marsh, and
trebled the distance.

The Muggletonian rested on his oar, and turned to
Landless.

"Yonder is our bourne," he said gravely.  "But I
have a word to say to you, friend, before we reach it.
If, to curry favor with the uncircumcised Philistines
who set themselves over us, thou speakest of aught
thou mayest see or hear there to-night, may the Lord
wither thy tongue within thy mouth, may he smite
thee with blindness, may he bring thee quick into the
pit!  And if not the Lord, then will I, Win-Grace
Porringer, rise and smite thee!"

"You may spare your invectives," said Landless
coldly.  "I am no traitor."

"Nay, friend," said the other in a milder tone.  "I
thought it not of thee, or I had not brought thee
thither."

He shoved the nose of the boat into the shore, and
caught at a stake, rising, water-soaked and rotten,
from below the bank.  Landless threw him the looped
end of a rope, and together they made the boat fast,
then scrambled up the three feet of fat, sliding earth
to the level above where the ground was dry, none
but the highest of tides ever reaching it.  Fifty yards
away rose a low hut.  It stood close to another bend
in the creek, and before it were several boats, tied to
stakes, and softly rubbing their sides together.  The
hut had no window, but there were interstices between
the logs through which the light gleamed redly.

When the two men had reached it, the Muggletonian
knocked upon the heavy door, after a peculiar
fashion, striking it four times in all.  There was a
shuffling sound within, and (Landless thought) two
voices ceased speaking.  Then some one said in a low
voice and close to the door: "Who is it?"

"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," answered
the Muggletonian.

A bar fell from the door, and it swung slowly inwards.

"Enter, friends," said a quiet voice.  Landless,
stooping his head, crossed the threshold, and found
himself in the presence of a man with a high, white
forehead and a grave, sweet face, who, leaning on a
stick, and dragging one foot behind him, limped back
to the settle from which he had risen, and fell to work
upon a broken net as calmly as if he were alone.
Besides themselves he was the only inmate of the room.

A pine torch, stuck into a cleft in the table, cast a
red and flickering light over a rude interior, furnished
with the table, the settle, a chest and a straw pallet.
From the walls and rafters hung nets, torn or mended.
In one corner was a great heap of dingy sail, in
another a sheaf of oars, and a third was wholly in
darkness.  Lying about the earthen floor were several
small casks to which the man motioned as seats.

Leaving Landless near the door, Win-Grace Porringer
dragged a keg to the side of the settle, and
sitting down upon it, approached his death mask of a
face close to the face of the mender of nets, and
commenced a whispered conversation.  To Landless,
awaiting rather listlessly the outcome of this nocturnal
adventure, came now and then a broken sentence.
"He hath not the look of a criminal, but—"  "Of
Puritan breeding, sayest thou?"  "We need young
blood."  Then after prolonged whispering, "No
traitor, at least."

At length the Muggletonian arose and came
towards Landless.  "My friend would speak with you
alone," he said, "I will stand guard outside."  He
went out, closing the door behind him.

The mender of nets beckoned Landless.  "Will
you come nearer?" he asked in a quiet refined voice
that was not without a ring of power.  "As you see,
I am lame, and I cannot move without pain."

Landless came and sat down beside the table,
resting his elbow upon the wood, and his chin upon his
hand.  The mender of nets put down his work, and
the two measured each other in silence.

Landless saw a man of middle age who looked like
a scholar, but who might have been a soldier; a man
with a certain strong, bright sweetness of look in a
spare, worn face, and underlying the sweetness a still
and deadly determination.  The mender of nets saw,
in his turn, a figure lithe and straight as an Indian's,
a well-poised head, and a handsome face set in one
fixed expression of proud endurance.  A determined
face, too, with dark, resolute eyes and strong mouth,
the face of a man who has done and suffered much,
and who knows that he will both do and suffer more.

"I am told," said the mender of nets, "that you
are newly come to the plantations."

"I was brought by the ship God-Speed a month ago."

"You did not come as an indented servant?"

Landless reddened.  "No."

"Nor as a martyr to principle, a victim of that most
iniquitous and tyrannical Act of Uniformity?"

"No."

"Nor as one of those whom they call Oliverians?"

"No."

The mender of nets tapped softly Against the table
with his thin, white fingers.  Landless said coldly:—

"These are idle questions.  The man who brought
me here hath told you that I am a convict."

The other looked at him keenly.  "I have heard
convicts talk before this.  Why do you not assert your
innocence?"

"Who would believe me if I did?"

There was a silence.  Landless, raising his eyes,
met those of the mender of nets, large, luminous,
gravely tender, and reading him like a book.

"I will believe you," said the mender of nets.

"Then, as God is above us," said the other
solemnly, "I did not do the thing!  And He knows that
I thank you, sir, for your trust.  I have not found
another—"

"I know, lad, I know!  How was it?"

"I was a Commonwealth's man.  My father was
dead, my kindred attainted, and I had a powerful
enemy.  I was caught in a net of circumstance.  And
Morton was my judge."

"Humph! the marvel is that you ever got nearer
to the plantations than Tyburn.  Your name is—"

"Godfrey Landless."

"Landless!  Once I knew—and loved—a Warham
Landless—a brave soldier, a gallant gentleman,
a true Christian.  He fell at Worcester."

"He was my father."

The mender of nets covered his eyes with his hand.
"O Lord! how wonderful are thy ways!" he said
beneath his breath, then aloud, "Lad, lad, I cannot
wholly sorrow to see you here.  Wise in counsel, bold
in action, patient, farseeing, brave, was thy father,
and I think thou hast his spirit.  Thou hast his eyes,
now that I look at thee more closely.  I have prayed
for such a man."

"I am glad you knew my father," said Landless simply.

After a long silence, in which the minds of both had
gone back to other days, the mender of nets spoke
gravely.

"You have no cause to love the present government?"

"No," said Landless grimly.

"You were heart and hand for the Commonwealth?"

"Yes."

"You mean to escape from this bondage?"

"Yes."

The mender of nets took from his bosom a little
worn book.  "Will you swear upon this that you will
never reveal what I am about to say to you, save to
such persons as I shall designate?  For myself I would
take your simple word, for we are both gentlemen,
but other lives than mine hang in the balance."

Landless touched the book with his lips.  "I swear,"
he said.

The man brought his serene, white face nearer.

"What would you have given," he asked solemnly,
"for the cause for which your father died?"

"My life," said Landless.

"Would you give it still?"

"A worthless gift," said Landless bitterly.  "Yea,
I would give it, but the cause is dead."

The other shook his head.  "The cause of the
just man dieth not."

There was a pause broken by the mender of nets.

"Thou art no willing slave, I trow.  The thought
of escape is ever with thee."

"I shall escape," said Landless deliberately.  "And
if they track me they shall not take me alive."

The mender of nets gave a melancholy smile.
"They would track you, never fear!"  He leaned
forward and touched Landless with his hand.  "What
if I show you a better way?" he asked in a whisper.

"What way?"

"A way to recover your liberty, and with it, the
liberty of downtrodden brethren.  A way to raise
the banner of the Commonwealth and to put down the
Stuart."

Landless stared.  "A miserable hut," he said, "in
the midst of a desolate Virginia marsh, and within it,
a brace of slaves, the one a cripple, the other a
convict,—and Charles Stuart on his throne in
Whitehall!  Friend, this dismal place hath turned your
wits!"

The other smiled.  "My wits are sound," he said,
"as sound as they were upon that day when I gave
my voice for the death (a sad necessity!) of this
young man's father.  And I do not think to shake
England,—I speak of Virginia."

"Of Virginia!"

"Yea, of this goodly land, a garden spot, a new
earth where should be planted the seeds of a mighty
nation, strong in justice and simple right, wise,
temperate, brave; an enlightened people, serving God in
spirit and in truth, not with the slavish observance of
prelatist and papist, nor with the indecent familiarity
of the Independent; loyal to their governors, but
exercising the God-given right of choosing those
who are to rule over them: a people amongst whom
liberty shall walk unveiled, and to whom Astrœa
shall come again; a people as free as the eagle I
watched this morning, soaring higher and ever higher,
strongly and proudly, rejoicing in its progress
heavenward."

"In other words, a republic," said Landless dryly.

"Why not?" answered the other with shining,
unseeing eyes.  "It is a dream we dreamed ten years
ago, I and Vane and Sidney and Marten and many
others,—but Oliver rudely wakened us.  Then it was
by the banks of the Thames, and it was for England.
Now, on the shores of Chesapeake I dream again, and
it is for Virginia.  You smile!"

"Have you considered, sir,—I do not know your name."

"Robert Godwyn is my name."

"Have you considered, Master Godwyn, that the
Virginians do not want a republic, that they are more
royalist and prelatical than are their brethren at home;
that they out-Herod Herod in their fantastic loyalty?"

"That is true of the class with whom you have
come into contact,—of the masters.  But there is
much disaffection among the people at large.  And
there are the Nonconformists, the Presbyterians,
Independents, Baptists, even the Quakers, though
they say they fight not.  To them all, Charles Stuart
is the Pharaoh whose heart the Lord hardened, and
William Berkeley is his task-master."

"Any one else?"

"There are those of the gentry who were Commonwealth's
men, and who chafe sorely under the loss of
office and disfavor into which they have fallen."

"And these all desire a republic?"

"They desire the downfall of the royalists with
William Berkeley at their head.  The republic would
follow."

"And when a handful of Puritan gentlemen, a few
hundred Nonconformists, and the rabble of the
colony shall have executed this project, have usurped
the government, dethroning the king, or his governor,
which is the same thing,—then will come in from
the mouth of Thames a couple of royal frigates and
blow your infant republic into space."

"I do not think so.  Thu frigates would come
undoubtedly, but I am of another opinion as to the
result of their coming.  They would not take us
unprepared as those of the Commonwealth took
William Berkeley in fifty-two.  And with a plentiful lack
of money and a Dutch war threatening, Charles
Stuart could not send unlimited frigates.  Moreover, if
Virginia revolted, Puritan New England would follow
her example, and she would find allies in the Dutch
of New Amsterdam."

"You spin large fancies," said Landless, with some
scorn.  "I suppose you are plotting with these
gentlemen you speak of?"

"No," said the man, with a scarcely perceptible
hesitation.  "No, they are few in number and scattered.
Moreover, they might plot amongst themselves
but never with—a servant."

"Then you are concerned with the Nonconformists?"

"The Nonconformists are timid, and dream not
that the day of deliverance is at hand."

Landless began to laugh.  "Do you mean to say,"
he demanded, "that you and I, for I suppose you count
on my assistance, are to enact a kind of Pride's Purge
of our own?  That we are to drive from the land the
King's Governor, Council, Burgesses and trainbands;
sweep into the bay Sir William Berkeley and Colonel
Verney, and all those gold-laced planters who dined
with him the other day?  That we are to take
possession of the colony as picaroons do of a vessel, and
hoisting our flag,—a crutch surmounted by a ball and
chain on a ground sable,—proclaim a republic?"

"Not we alone."

"Oh, ay!  I forgot the worthy Muggletonian."

"He is but one of many," said the mender of nets.

Landless leaned forward, a light growing in his
eyes.  "Speak out!" he said.  "What is it that will
break this chain?"

The mender of nets, too, bent forward from his
settle until his breath mingled with the breath of the
younger man.

"A slave insurrection," he said.





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.. _`A MENDER OF NETS`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   A MENDER OF NETS

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"A slave insurrection!"

Landless, recoiling, struck with his shoulder the
torch, which fell to the floor.  The flame went out,
leaving only a red gleaming end.  "I will get
another," said the mender of nets, and limped to the
corner where the shadow had been thickest.  Landless,
left in darkness, heard a faint muttering as
though Master Robert Godwyn were talking to
himself.  It took some time to find the torch; but at
length Godwyn returned with one in his hand, and
kindled it at the expiring light.

Landless rose from his seat, and strode to and fro
through the hut.  His pulses beat to bursting; there
was a tingling at his finger-tips; to his startled senses
the hut seemed to expand, to become a cavern,
interminable and unfathomable, wide as the vaulted earth,
filled with awful, shadowy places and strange, lurid
lights.  The mender of nets became a far-off sphinx-like
figure.

Godwyn watched him in silence.  He had a large
knowledge of human nature, and he saw into the
mind and heart of the restless figure.  He himself
was a philosopher, and wore his chains lightly, but
he guessed that the iron had entered deeply into the
soul of the man before him.  The sturdy peasants,
indented servants with but a few short years to serve,
better fed and better clad than their fellows at home,
found life on a Virginia plantation no sweet or easy
thing; the political and ecclesiastical offenders
enjoyed it still less, while the small criminal class found
their punishment quite sufficiently severe.  To this
man the life must be a slow *peine fort et dure*,
breaking his body with toil, crushing his soul with a
hopeless degradation.  The thought of escape must be
ever present with him.  But escape in the conventional
manner, through pathless forests and over broad
streams, was a thing rarely attained to.  Ninety-nine
out of a hundred failed; and the last state of the man
who failed was worse than his first.

Landless strode over to the table, and leaned his
weight upon it.

"Listen!" he said.  "God knows I am a desperate
man!  My attempt to escape failing, there is
naught but his word between me and the deepest
pool of these waters.  I am no saint.  I hate my
enemies.  Restore to me my sword, pit me against them
one by one, and I will fight my way to freedom or
die....  A fair fight, too, a rising of the people
against oppression; a challenge to the oppressor to do
his worst; a gallant leading of a forlorn hope....
But a slave insurrection! a midnight butchery!  There
was one who used to tell me tales of such risings in
the Indies.  Murder and rapine, fire rising through
the night, planters cut down at their very thresholds,
shrieking women tortured, children flung into the
flames,—a carnival of blood and horror!"

"We are not in the Indies," said the other quietly.
"There will be no such devil's work here.  Sit down
and listen while I put the thing before you as it is.
There are, most iniquitously held as slaves in this
Virginia, some four hundred Commonwealth's men, each
one of whom, at home and in his own station, was a
man of mark.  Many were Ironsides.  And each one
is a force in himself,—cool, determined, intrepid,—and
wholly desperate.  With them are many victims
of the Act of Uniformity, godly men, eaten up with
zeal.  For their freedom they would dare much; for
their faith they would spill every drop of their blood."

"They are like our friend, the Muggletonian,
fanatics all, I suppose," said Landless.

"Possibly.  Your fanatic is the best fighting
machine yet invented.  Do you not see that these two
classes form a regiment against which no trainbands,
no force which these planters could raise, would
stand?"

"But they are scattered, dispersed through the
colony!"

"Ay, but they can be brought together!  And to
that end, seeing how few there are upon any one
plantation, upon the day when they rise, they must raise
with them servants and slaves.  Then will they
overpower masters and overseers, and gathering to one
point, form there a force which will beat down all
opposition.  It is simple enough.  We will but do
that which it was proposed to do ten years ago.  You
know the instructions given by the Parliament to the
four commissioners?"

"They were to summon the colony to surrender to
the Commonwealth.  If it did so, well and good; if
not, war was to be declared, and the servants invited
to rise against their masters and so purchase their
freedom."

"Precisely.  Berkeley submitted, and there was no
rising.  This time there will be no summons, but a
rising, and a very great one.  It will be, primarily,
a rising of four hundred Oliverians, strong to avenge
many and grievous wrongs; but with them will rise
servants and slaves, and to the banner of the
Commonwealth, beneath which they will march, will flock
every Nonconformist in the land, and, when success
is assured, then will come in and give us weight and
respectability those (and they are not a few) of the
better classes who long in their hearts for the good
days of the Commonwealth, and yet dare not lift a
finger to bring them back."

"And the royalists?"

"If they resist, their blood be upon them!  But
there shall be no carnage, no butchery.  And if they
submit they shall be unmolested, even as they were
ten years ago.  There is land enough for all."

"The servants and slaves?"

"They that join with us, of whatever class, shall be
freed."

"This insurrection is actually in train?"

"Let us call it a revolution.  Yes, it is in train as
far as regards the Oliverians.  We have but begun
to sound servants and slaves."

"And you?"

"I am, for lack of a better, General to the Oliverians."

"And you believe yourself able to control these
motley forces,—men wronged and revengeful,
fanatics, peasants, brutal negroes, mulattoes (whom
they say are devils), convicts,—to say to them, 'Thus
far must you go, and no farther.'  You invoke a fiend
that may turn and rend you!"

Godwyn shaded his eyes with his hand.  "Yes," he
said at last, speaking with energy.  "I do believe it!
I know it is a desperate game; but the stake!  I
believe in myself.  And I have four hundred able
adjutants, men who are to me what his Ironsides were to
Oliver, but none—" he stretched out his hand, thin,
white, and delicate as a woman's, and laid it upon the
brown one resting upon the table.  "Lad," he said
in a gravely tender voice, "I have none upon this
plantation in whom I can put absolute trust.  There
are few Oliverians here, and they are like Win-Grace
Porringer, in whom zeal hath eaten up discretion.
Lad, I need a helper!  I have spoken to you freely;
I have laid my heart before you; and why?  Because
I, who was and am a gentleman, see in you a gentleman,
because I would take your word before all the
oaths of all the peasant servants in Virginia, because
you have spirit and judgment; because,—in short,
because I could love you as I loved your father before
you.  You have great wrongs.  We will right them
together.  Be my lieutenant, my confidant, my helper!
Come! put your hand in mine and say, 'I am with
you, Robert Godwyn, heart and soul.'"

Landless sprang to his feet.  "It were easy to say
that," he said hoarsely, "for, in all the two years I
lay rotting in prison, and in these weeks of sordid
misery here in Virginia, yours is the only face that
has looked kindly upon me, yours the only voice that
has told me I was believed....  But it is a fearful
thing you propose!  If all go as you say it
will,—why WELL! but if not, Hell will be in the land.  I
must have time to think, to judge for myself, to
decide—"

The door swung stealthily inward, and in the opening
appeared the dead white face, with the great letter
sprawling over it, of Master Win-Grace Porringer.

"There are boats on the creek."  he said.  "Two
coming up, one coming down."

Godwyn nodded.  "I hold conference to-night with
men from this and the two neighboring plantations.
You will stay where you are and see and hear them.
Only you must be silent; for they must not know that
you are not entirely one with us, as I am well assured
you will be."

"They are Oliverians?"

"All but two or three."

"I secured the mulatto," interrupted the Muggletonian.

"Ay," said Godwyn, "I thought it well to have one
slave representative here to-night.  These mulattoes
are devils; but they can plot, and they can keep a
still tongue.  But I shall not trust him or his kind
too far."

The peculiar knock—four strokes in all—sounded
upon the door, and Porringer went to it.  "Who is
there?" passed on the one side, and "The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon" on the other.  The door
swung open, and there entered two men of a grave
and determined cast of countenance.  Both had
iron-gray hair, and one was branded upon the forehead
with the letter that appeared upon the cheek of the
Muggletonian.  Again the knock sounded, the
countersign was given, and the door opened to admit a
pale, ascetic-looking youth, with glittering eyes and a
crimson spot on each cheek, who stooped heavily and
coughed often.  He was followed by another stern-faced
Commonwealth's man, and he in turn by a brace
of broad-visaged rustics and a smug-faced man, who
looked like a small shop-keeper.  After an interval
came two more Oliverians, grim of eye, and composed
in manner.

Last of all came the mulatto of the pale amber
color and the gold ear-rings; and with him came the
long-nosed, twitching-lipped convict in whose company
Landless had crossed the Atlantic.  His name was
Trail; and Landless, knowing him for a villainous
rogue, started at finding him amongst the company.

His presence there was evidently unexpected;
Godwyn frowned and turned sharply upon the
mulatto.  "Who gave you leave to bring this man?"
he demanded sternly.

The mulatto was at no loss.  "Worthy Señors
all," he said smoothly, addressing himself to the
company in general.  "This Señor Trail is a good
man, as I have reason to know.  Once we were together
in San Domingo, slave to a villainous cavalier
from Seville.  With the help of St. Jago and the
Mother of God, we killed him and made our escape.
Now, after many years, we meet here in a like
situation.  I answer for my friend as I answer for myself,
myself, Luiz Sebastian, the humble and altogether-devoted
servant of you all, worshipful Señors."

The man with the branded forehead muttered
something in which the only distinguishable words
were, "Scarlet woman," and "Papist half-breed,"
and the smug-faced man cried out, "Trail is a forger
and thief!  I remember his trial at the Bailey, a week
before I signed as storekeeper to Major Carrington."

This speech of the smug-faced man created something
of a commotion, and one or two started to their
feet.  The mulatto looked about him with an evil eye.

"My friend has been in trouble, it is true," he said,
still very smoothly.  "He will not make the worse
conspirator for that.  And why, worthy Señors, should
you make a difference between him and one other I
see in company?  Mother of God! they are both in
the same boat!"  He fixed his large eyes on Landless
as he spoke, and his thick lips curled into a tigerish
smile.

Landless half rose, but Godwyn laid a detaining
hand upon his arm.  "Be still," he said in a low
voice, "and let me manage this matter."

Landless obeyed, and the mender of nets turned to
the assembly, who by this time were looking very
black.

"Friends," he said with quiet impressiveness, "I
think you know me, Robert Godwyn, well enough to
know that I make no move in these great matters
without good and sufficient reason.  I have good and
sufficient reason for wishing to associate with us this
young man,—yea, even to make him a leader among
us.  He is one of us—he fought at Worcester.  And
that he is an innocent man, falsely accused, falsely
imprisoned, wrongfully sent to the plantations, I well
believe,—for I will believe no wrong of the son of
Warham Landless."

There was a loud murmur of surprise through the
room, and one of the Oliverians sprung to his feet,
crying out, "Warham Landless was my colonel!  I
will follow his son were he ten times a convict!"

Godwyn waited for the buzz of voices to cease and
then calmly proceeded, "As to this man whom Luiz
Sebastian hath brought with him, I know nothing.
But it matters little.  Sooner or later we must engage
his class,—as well commence with him as with
another.  He will be faithful for his own sake."

The dark faces of his audience cleared gradually.
Only the youth with the hectic cheeks cried out, "I
have hated the congregation of evil doers, and I will
not sit with the wicked!" and rose as if to make for
the door.  Win-Grace Porringer pulled him down
with a muttered, "Curse you for a fool!  Shall not
the Lord shave with a hired razor?  When these men
have done their work, then shall they be cut down
and cast into outer darkness, until when, hold thy
peace!"

The company now applied itself to the transaction
of business.  Trail was duly sworn in, not without a
deal of oily glibness and unnecessary protestation on
his part.  The man who held the little, worn Bible
now turned to Landless, but upon Godwyn's saying
quietly, "I have already sworn him," the book was
returned to the bosom of its owner.

Each conspirator had his report to make.  Landless
listened with grave attention and growing wonder to
long lists of plantations and the servant and slave
force thereon; to news from the up-river estates, and
from the outlying settlements upon the Rappahannock
and the Pamunkey, and from across the bay in
Accomac; to accounts of secret arsenals slowly filling
with rude weapons; to allusions to the well-affected
sailors on board those ships that were likely to be in
harbor during the next two months;—to the details
of a formidable and far-reaching conspiracy.

The Oliverians spoke of the hour in which this mine
should be sprung as the great and appointed day of
the Lord, the day when the Lord was to stretch forth
his hand and smite the malignants, the day when
Israel should be delivered out of the hand of Pharaoh.
The branded man apostrophized Godwyn as Moses.
Their stern and rigid features relaxed, their eyes
glistened, their breath came short and thick.  Once
the youth who had wished to avoid the company of
the wicked broke into hysterical sobbing.  The two
rustics spoke little, but possibly thought the more.
To them the day of the Lord translated itself the day
of their obtaining a freehold.  The smug-faced
shopkeeper put in his oar now and again, but only to be
swept aside by the torrent of Biblical quotation.
The newly admitted Trail kept a discreet silence, but
used his furtive greenish eyes to good purpose.  Luiz
Sebastian sat with the stillness of a great, yellow,
crouching tiger cat.

Godwyn heard all in silence.  Not till the last man
had had his say did he begin to speak, approving,
suggesting, directing, moulding in his facile hands the
incongruous and disjointed mass of information and
opinion into a rounded whole.  The men, listening to
him with breathless attention, gave grim nods of
approval.  At one point of his discourse the branded
man cried out:—

"If the Puritan gentry you talk of would gird
themselves like men, and come forth to the battle,
how quickly would the Lord's work be done!  They
are the drones within the hive!  They expect the
honey, but do not the work."

"It is so," said Godwyn, "but they have lands
and goods and fame to lose.  We have naught to
lose—can be no worse off than we are now."

"If the Laodicean, Carrington,"—began the
branded man.

Godwyn interrupted him.  "This is beside the
matter.  Major Carrington is a godly man who hath,
though in secret, done many kindnesses to us poor
prisoners of the Lord.  Let us be content with that."

A moment later he said, "It waxeth late, friends,
and loath would I be for one of you to be discovered.
Come to me again a week from to-night.  The word
will be, 'The valley of Jehoshaphat.'"

The conspirators dropped away, in twos and threes
gliding silently off in their stolen boats between the
walls of waving grass.  When, last of all save Landless
and the Muggletonian, Trail and Luiz Sebastian
approached the door, Godwyn stopped them with a
gesture.

"Stay a moment," he said.  "I have a word to say
to you.  We may as well be frank with you.  I
distrust you, of course.  It is natural that I should.
And you distrust me as much.  It is natural that you
should.  I would do without the aid of you and the
class you represent if I could, but I cannot.  You
would do without my aid if you could, but you cannot.
Betray me, and whatever blood money you get, it will
not be that freedom which you want.  We are obliged
to work together, unequal yoke-fellows as we are.  Do
I make myself understood?"

"To a marvel, Señor," said Luiz Sebastian.

"Damn my soul, but you 're a sharp one!" said Trail.

Godwyn smiled.  "That is enough, we understand
one another.  Good-night."

The two glided off in their turn, and Godwyn said
to the Muggletonian, "Friend Porringer, that mended
sail must be bestowed in the large boat before the hut
against Haines' coming for it in the morning.  Will
you take it to the boat for me?  And if you will wait
there this young man shall join you shortly."

The Muggletonian nodded, piled the heap of dingy
sail upon his head and strode off.  The mender of nets
turned to Landless.

"Well," he said.  "What do you think?"

"I think," said Landless, raising his voice, "that
the gentleman in the dark corner must be tired of
standing."

There was a dead silence.  Then a piece of shadow
detached itself from the other heavy shadows in the
dark corner and came forward into the torch light,
where it resolved itself into a handsome figure of a
man, apparently in the prime of life, and wearing a
riding cloak of green cloth and a black riding mask.
Not content with the concealment afforded by the
mask, he had pulled his beaver low over his eyes and
with one hand held the folds of the cloak about the
lower part of his face.  He rested the other ungloved
hand upon the table and stared fixedly at Landless.
"You have good eyes," he said at last, in a voice as
muffled as his countenance.

"It is a warm night," said Landless with a smile.
"If Major Carrington would drop that heavy cloak,
he would find it more comfortable."

The man recoiled.  "You know me!" he cried
incredulously.

"I know the Carrington arms and motto.  *Tenax
et Fidelis*, is it not?  You should not wear your
signet ring when you go a-plotting."

The Surveyor-General of the Colony dropped his
cloak, and springing forward seized Landless by the
shoulders.

"You dog!" he hissed between his teeth, "if you
dare betray me, I 'll have every drop of your blood
lashed out of your body!"

Landless wrenched himself free.  "I am no traitor,"
he said coldly.

Carrington recovered himself.  "Well, well," he
said, still breathing hastily, "I believe you.  I heard
all that passed to-night, and I believe you.  You have
been a gentleman."

"Had I my sword, I should be happy to give Major
Carrington proof," said Landless sternly.

The other smiled.  "There, there, I was hasty, but
by Heaven! you gave me a start!  I ask your pardon."

Landless bowed, and the mender of nets struck in.
"I was sorry to keep you so long, Major Carrington,
in such an uncomfortable position.  But the arrival
of the Muggletonian before he was due, together with
your desire for secrecy, left me no alternative."

"I surmise, friend Godwyn, that you would not
have been sorry had this young man proclaimed his
discovery in full conclave," said Carrington with a
keen glance.

Godwyn's thin cheek flushed, but he answered
composedly, "It is certainly true that I would like to
see Major Carrington committed beyond withdrawal
to this undertaking.  But he will do me the justice to
believe that if, by raising my finger, I could so
commit him, I would not do so without his permission."

"Faith, it is so!" said the other, then turned to
Landless with a stern smile.  "You will understand,
young man, that Miles Carrington never attended, nor
will attend, a meeting wherein the peace of the realm
is conspired against by servants.  If Miles Carrington
ever visits Robert Godwyn, servant to Colonel
Verney, 't is simply to employ him (with his master's
consent) in the mending of nets, or to pass an idle
hour reading Plato, Robert Godwyn having been a
scholar of note at home."

"Certainly," said Landless, answering the smile.
"Major Carrington and Master Godwyn are at
present much interested in the philosopher's pretty but
idle conception of a Republic, wherein philosophers
shall rule, and warriors be the bulwark of the state,
and no Greek shall enslave a fellow Greek, but only
outer barbarians—all of which is vastly pretty on
paper—but they agree that it would turn the world
upside down were it put into practice."

"Precisely," said Carrington with a smile.

"You had best be off, lad," put in Godwyn.  "Woodson
is an early riser, and he must not catch you
gadding....  You will think on what you have heard
to-night, and will come to me again as soon as you
can make opportunity?"

"Yes," said Landless slowly.  "I will come, but I
make no promises."

He found Porringer seated in their boat, patiently
awaiting him.  They cast off and rowed back the way
they had come through the stillness of the hour before
dawn.  The tide being full, the black banks had
disappeared, and the grass, sighing and whispering,
waved on a level with their boat.  When they slid
at last into the broader waters of the inlet, the stars
were paling, and in the east there gleamed a faint rose
tint, the ghost of a color.  A silver mist lay upon land
and water, and through it they stole undetected to
their several cabins.

Meanwhile the two men, left alone in the hut on the
marsh, looked one another in the face.

"Are you sure that he can be trusted?" demanded
Carrington.

"I would answer for his father's son with my life."

"What of these scruples of his?  Faith! an unusual
conjunction—a convict and scruples!  Will you
manage to dispose of them?"

Godwyn smiled with wise, sad eyes.  "Time will
dispose of them," he said quietly.  "He is new to the
life.  Let him taste its full bitterness.  It will plead
powerfully against his—scruples.  He has as yet no
special and private grievance.  Wait until he gets into
trouble with Woodson or his master.  When he has
done that and has taken the consequences, he will be
ours.  We can bide our time."





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.. _`THE NEW SECRETARY`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   THE NEW SECRETARY

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..

   |  "Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind
   |   That, from the nunnery
   |  Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
   |   To war and arms I flee....

   |  "Yet this inconstancy is such
   |   As you too shall adore.
   |  I could not love thee, dear, so much,
   |   Loved I not honor more."

.. vspace:: 2

The rich notes rang higher and higher, filling the
languid air, and drowning the trill of the mockingbirds.
Patricia, filling her apron with midsummer
flowers, sang with a careless passion, her mind far
away in the midst of a Whitehall pageant, described
to her the night before by that silver-tongued courtier,
Sir Charles Carew.

Still singing, she went up the steps of the porch
and into the cool wide hall.  In her face there was a
languorous beauty born of the sunshine outside; a soft
color glowed in her cheeks, her eyes were large and
dreamy, little damp tendrils of gold strayed about her
temples.  She threw down her hat, and loosened the
kerchief of delicate lawn from about her warm young
throat; then, with the flowers still in her arms, she
raised the latch of the door of a room held sacred to
Colonel Verney, and entered, to find herself face to
face with the convict, Godfrey Landless, who sat at a
table covered with papers, busily writing.

She started violently, and the mass of flowers fell
to the floor, shattering the petals from the roses and
poppies.  Landless came forward, knelt down, and,
picking them up, restored them to her without a
word.

"I thank you," she said coldly.  "I thought my
father was here."

"Colonel Verney is in the next room, madam."

She moved to the door leading into the great room
with the gait of a princess, and Landless went back to
his work.

Colonel Verney, on his knees before the richly
carven chest containing his library, looked up from
the two score volumes to behold a mass of brilliant
blooms transferred from two white arms to the ground
outside the open window.

"Well, sweetheart," he said.  "What is it?"

"Papa," she said, coming to his side, and looking
down upon him with a vexed face: "you promised
me that you would employ no more convicts in the
house."

"Why, so I did, my dear," answered her father,
comfortably seating himself upon "Purchas: His
Pilgrimmes."  "And I meant to keep my word, but this
is the way of it.  The day after you went to
Rosemead with Betty Carrington, down comes young Shaw
with the fever, and has to be sent home to his mother.
His illness came at a precious inconvenient season, for
the gout was in my fingers again, and I was bent on
disappointing William Berkeley, who hath wagered a
thousand pounds of sweet scented that my 'Statement
of the Evil Wrought by the Navigation Laws to His
Majesty's Colony of Virginia' won't be finished in
time for the sailing of the God-Speed.  So I told
Woodson to find me some one among the men who
knew how to write.  He brought me this fellow, and
I vow he is an improvement on young Shaw.  He
does n't ask questions, and he is a very pretty Latinist.
The paper will be finished to-day.  I was but searching
for a neat quotation to close with.  Then the
fellow will go back to the tobacco, and you will be no
longer annoyed by his presence in the house.  Now
kiss me, sweet chuck, and begone, for I am busied
upon affairs of state."

Left alone, Colonel Verney pored over his books
until he found what he wanted, when, after rearranging
his library in the carved chest, he rose stiffly to
his feet, and went into the next room and up to the
writing-table.  Landless rose from his seat, and,
resigning it to his master, stood gravely by while the
Colonel looked over the manuscript upon which he had
been employed.

"Ha!" said the Colonel.  "A very fair copy!  You
have numbered and headed the pages, I observe.  Let
me see, let me see, let me see," and he ran them over
between his fingers.  "Oppressive Nature of the
Act.—Grave Dissatisfaction.—It advantageth No One
save Small Traders at Home.—Increase of Revenue
to His Majesty if 't were repealed.—Dutch
Bottoms.—Trade with Russia.—His Majesty's Poor Planters
Throw Themselves upon His Majesty's Mercy.  Very
good, very good!"

"It is nigh finished, sir," said Landless.

"Ay, ay!  By the Lord Harry, William Berkeley
will repent his wager!  A pretty paper it is, and
containeth many excellent points and much good Latin,
and you have copied it fairly and cleanly.  It is a
pity, my man," he added not unkindly, "that you
should have lived so evilly as to bring yourself to this
pass, for you have in you the making of an excellent
secretary."

"Is it your will, sir, that I finish the copy now?"

"Yes, but take it to the small table within the
window there.  I myself will sit here and jot down some
ideas for my dedication which you can afterwards
amplify."

The worthy colonel pulled the big Turkey worked
chair closer to the table, turned back his ruffles and
fell to work.  Landless retired to the table within the
window, and for a while naught was heard in the quiet
room but the scratching of quills, as master and man
drove them across the whitey-brown sheets.

At length the master pushed his chair back and
stretched himself with a prodigious yawn.  "The
Lord be thanked!" he said, addressing the air.
"That's done!  And it is time to see to the dressing
of that sore upon Prince Rupert's shoulder; and I
remember Haines said that one of the hounds had
been gored by Carrington's bull.  Haines can't dress
a wound.  Haines is a bungler.  But, by the Lord
Harry!  Richard Verney is as good a veterinary as
he is a statesman."

He lifted his burly figure from the depths of the
chair, and going over to Landless, dropped upon the
table before him a page of hieroglyphics for him to
decipher at his leisure.  Then with another word of
commendation for the beauty of the copy, he walked
heavily from the room.  A moment later Landless
heard him whistle to his dogs, and then break into
a stave of a cavalier drinking song, sung at the top
of a full manly voice, and dying away in the direction
of the stables.

Landless' hand moved to and fro across the paper
with a tireless patience.  He did not go back to the
central table, for the light was better in the window,
and a vagrant breath of air strayed in now and then.
The window was a deep one, and heavy drugget
curtains hung between it and the rest of the room.

The door opened and a man's voice said: "This
room is darkened into delicious coolness.  Shall we
try it, cousin?"

Patricia entered like a sunbeam, and after her
sauntered Sir Charles Carew, languid, debonair, and
perfectly appareled.

Landless, seeing them plainly, did not realize that
in the shadow of the heavy curtains he was himself
unseen.  He had grown so accustomed to the quiet
insolence that overlooks the presence of an inferior as
it does that of any other article of furniture, that he
did not doubt that the fine lady and gentleman
before him were perfectly aware of the presence in the
room of the slave whom his master's caprice had
raised for the moment to the post of secretary.  It
was some few minutes before he began to consider
within himself that he might be mistaken.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN INTERRUPTED WOOING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN INTERRUPTED WOOING

.. vspace:: 2

Sir Charles pushed forward the big chair for
Patricia, and himself dropped upon a stool at her feet.
Taking her fan from her, he began to play with it,
lightly commenting on the picture of the Rape of
Europa with which it was adorned.  Suddenly he
closed it, tossed it aside, and leaning forward,
possessed himself of her hand.

"Madam, sweet cousin, divinest Patricia," he
exclaimed in a carefully impassioned tone; "do you
not know that I am your slave, the captive of your
bow and spear, that I adore you?  I adore you! and
you, flinty-hearted goddess, give no word of
encouragement to your prostrate worshiper.  You trample
upon the offering of sighs and tears which he lays at
your feet; you will not listen when he would pour
into your ear his aspirations towards a sweeter and
richer life than he has ever known.  Will it be ever
thus?  Will not the goddess stoop from her throne
to make him the happiest of mortals, to win his
eternal gratitude, to become herself forever the object of
the most respectful, the most ardent, the most devoted
love?"

He flung himself upon his knee and pressed her
hand to his heart with passion not all affected.  He
had come to consider it a piece of monstrous good
luck, that, since he must make a wealthy match,
Providence (or whatever as a Hobbist he put in place of
Providence), had, in pointing him the fortune, pointed
also to Patricia Verney.  But the night before, in the
privacy of his chamber, he had suddenly sat up
between the Holland sheets with a startled and amused
expression upon his handsome face, swathed around
with a wonderful silken night-cap, and had exclaimed
to the carven heads surmounting the bed-posts, "May
the Lard sink me! but I 'm in love!" and had lain
down again with an astonished laugh.  While sipping
his morning draught he made up his mind to secure
the prize that very day, in pursuance of which
determination he made a careful toilet, assuming a suit
that was eminently becoming to his blonde beauty.
Also his valet slightly darkened the lower lids of his
eyes, thereby giving him a larger, more languishing
and melancholy aspect.

Patricia, from the depths of the Turkey worked
chair, gazed with calm amusement upon her kneeling
suitor.

"You talk beautifully, cousin," she said at length.
"'Tis as good as a page from 'Artemène.'"

Sir Charles bit his lip.  "It is a page from my
heart, madam; nay, it is my heart itself that I show
you."

"And would you forsake all those beautiful ladies
who are so madly in love with you?—I vow, sir, you
told me so yourself!  Let me see, there was Lady
Mary and Lady Betty, Mistress Winifred, the
Countess of —— and Madame la Duchesse de ——.  Will
Corydon leave all the nymphs lamenting to run after
a little salvage wench who does not want him?"

"'S death, madam! you mock me!" cried the
baronet, starting to his feet.

"Sure, I meant no harm, cousin; I but put in a
good word for the poor ladies at Whitehall.  I fear
that you are but a recreant wooer."

"Will you marry me, madam?" demanded Sir
Charles, standing before her with folded arms.

She slowly shook her head.  "I do not love you,
cousin."

"I will teach you to do so."

"I do not think you can," she said demurely.
"Though I am sure I do not know why I do not.
You are a very fine gentleman, a soldier and a courtier,
witty, brave and handsome—and this match"—a
sigh—"is my father's dearest wish.  But I do not
love you, sir, and I shall not marry you until I do."

"Ah!" cried Sir Charles, and sunk again upon
his knee.  "You give me hope!  I will teach you to
love me!  I will exhibit towards you such absolute
fidelity, such patient devotion, such uncomplaining
submission to your cruel probation, that you will
perforce pity me, and pity will grow by soft degrees into
blessed love.  I do not despair, madam!"  He pressed
her hand to his lips and cast his fine eyes upward in
a killing look.

Patricia gave a charming laugh.  "As you please,
Sir Charles.  In the mean time let us be once more
simply good friends and loving cousins.  Tell me as
much as you please of Lady Mary's charms, but leave
Patricia Verney's alone."

Sir Charles rose from his knees, smarting under an
amazed sense of failure, and very angry with the girl
who had discarded him, Charles Carew, as smilingly
as if he had been one of the very provincial youths
whom he awed into awkward silence every time they
came to Verney Manor.  Without doubt she deserved
the condign punishment which it was in his power to
inflict by sailing away upon the next ship which should
leave for England.  But he was now obstinately bent
upon winning her.  If not to-day, to-morrow; and
if not to-morrow, the next day; and if not that, the
day after.  He was of the school of Buckingham and
Rochester.  He could devote to the capture of a
woman all the tireless energy, the strategic skill, the
will, the patience, the daring, of a great general.  He
could mine and countermine, could plan an ambuscade
here, and lead a forlorn hope there, could take
one intrenchment by storm, and another by treachery.
And victory seldom forsook her perch upon his banners.

Life in Virginia was pleasant enough, and he could
afford to devote several months to this siege.  As to
how it would terminate he had not the slightest doubt.
But just now it was the course of wisdom to retreat
upon the position held yesterday, and that as quickly
as possible.  So he smoothed his face into a fine calm,
modulated his voice into its usual tone of languor,
and said with quiet melancholy:—

"You are pleased to be cruel, madam.  I submit.
I will bide my time until that thrice happy day when
you will have learnt the lesson I would teach, when
Love, tyrannous Love, shall compel your allegiance
as he does mine."

"A far day!" said Patricia with soft laughter.
"You had best return to Lady Mary.  I do not think
that I shall ever love."

She lifted her white arms, and clasping them
behind her head, gazed at him with soft, bright,
untroubled eyes and smiling lips.  The sunlight, filtering
through the darkened windows in long bright stripes,
laid a shaft of gold athwart her shoulder and lit her
hair into a glory.  From out the distance came the
colonel's voice:—

   |  "In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,
   |  Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.
   |  Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fear
   |  At his wished for return never more shall appear.
   |    Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,
   |    In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."

.. vspace:: 2

Some one outside the door coughed, and then rattled
the latch vigorously.  These precautions taken, the
door was opened and there appeared Mistress Lettice,
gorgeously attired, and with an extra row of ringlets
sweeping her withered neck, and a deeper tinge of
vermilion upon her cheeks,—for she had waked
that morning with a presentiment that Mr. Frederick
Jones would ride over in the course of the day.  Sir
Charles rose to hand her to a chair, but she waved
him back with a thin, beringed hand.

"I thank you, Sir Charles: but I will not trouble
you.  I am going down to the summer-house by the
road, as I think the air there will cure my migraine.
Patricia, love, I am looking for my 'Clelie,'—the
fourth volume.  Have you seen it?"

"No, Aunt Lettice."

"It is very strange," said Mrs. Lettice plaintively.
"I am sure that I left it in this room.  'T is that
careless slut of a Chloe who deserves a whipping.
She hides things away like a magpie."

"Look in the window; you may have left it there,"
said Patricia.

Mrs. Lettice approached the window, laid a hand
upon the curtain, and started back with a scream.

"What is it, madam?" cried the baronet.

"'T is a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there,
waiting to cut all our throats in the dead of night as
the Redemptioner did to the family at Martin-Brandon!
Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her
apron over her head, and sank into the nearest chair.
Patricia started up.  Sir Charles, striding hastily
towards the window, his hand upon his sword, was
met by the emerging figure of Landless.

The two gazed at each other, Sir Charles' first
haughty surprise fast deepening into passion as he
remembered that the man before him had assisted at
the scene of a while before, had witnessed his discomfiture,
had seen him upon his knees, baffled, repulsed,
even laughed at!

He was the first to speak.  "Well, sirrah," he said
between his teeth, "what have you to say for yourself?"

"That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily.
"I should have made known my presence in the
room.  But at first I thought you aware of it; and
when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed
best to remain silent.  I was wrong.  I should have
made some sign even then.  Again, I beg your
pardon."  He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight,
and coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she
had risen.  "Madam," he said in a voice that faltered,
despite himself, "I crave your forgiveness."

She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from
under veiled eyelids.  It was a cruel look, very
expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and perhaps of fear.

"My father hath many unmannerly servants," she
said coldly and clearly, "who often provoke me.  But
I pardon them because they know no better.  It seems
that like allowance cannot be made for you.
However," she smiled icily, "I shall not complain of you
to my father, which assurance will doubtless content
you."

Landless turned from burning red to deadly white.
His eyes, fixed upon the floor, caught the rich shimmer
of her skirts as she moved towards the door; a
moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing
each other.

Between them there existed a subtle but strong
antagonism.  Sir Charles Carew, courtier in a coarse and
shameless court masquerading under a glittering show
of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping
quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them.
This amusement had beguiled the tedium of the
Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them together
upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in
one long, placid lack of variety, the sport became
doubly prized.  It had to be pursued at longer
intervals, but pursued it was.  Heretofore the amusement
had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a
chagrined suspicion that it was he who had afforded
the entertainment.  Simultaneously with arriving at
this conclusion he arrived at a point where he was
coldly furious.

Landless returned his look coolly and boldly.  He
considered that he had made quite sufficient apology
for an offense which was largely involuntary, and he
was in no mood for further abasement.

"You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.

Landless smiled.  "Sir Charles Carew should be a
good judge of insolence."

Sir Charles took a leisurely pinch of snuff, shook
the fallen grains from his ruffles, snapped the lid of
the box, looked languishingly at the miniature that
adorned it, replaced the box in his pocket, and
remarked, "Well, I am waiting!"

"And for what?"

"To hear your petition that I forbear to bring this
matter to the notice of your master.  The lady
mercifully gave you her promise.  I suppose I must follow
so fair an example."

"Sir Charles Carew may wait till doomsday to hear
that or any other request made by me to him or to the
lady—who does not seem always mercifully inclined—"
he broke off with a slight and expressive smile.

Sir Charles took another pinch of snuff.  "May
the Lard blast me," he drawled, "if they do not teach
repartee at Newgate!  But I forget that the tongue is
the only weapon of women and slaves."

"Some day I hope to teach you otherwise."

The other laughed.  "So the slave thinks he can
use a sword?  Where did he learn?  In Newgate,
from some broken captain, as payment for imparting
the trick of stealing by the Book?"

Landless forced himself to stand quiet, his arms
folded, his fingers tightly clenching the sleeves of his
coarse shirt.  "Shall I tell Sir Charles Carew where
I first used my sword with good effect?" he said in
an ominously quiet voice.  "At Worcester I was but
a stripling, but I fought by the side of my father.  I
remember that, young as I was, I disabled a very
pretty perfumed and ringleted Cavalier.  I think he
was afterwards sold to the Barbadoes.  And my father
praised my sword play."

"Your father," said the other, bringing his strong
white teeth together with a click.  "Like father, like
son.  The latter a detected rogue, gaol-bird, and
slave; the former a d—d canting, sniveling Roundhead
hypocrite and traitor, with a text ever at hand
to excuse parricide and sacrilege."

Landless sprang forward and struck him in the face.

He staggered beneath the weight of the blow; then,
recovering himself, he whipped out his rapier, but
presently slapped it home again.  "I am a gentleman,"
he said, with an airy laugh.  "I cannot fight
you."  And stood, slightly smiling, and pressing his
laced handkerchief to his cheek whence had started a
few drops of blood.

Mrs. Lettice, whom curiosity or the search for the
fourth volume of "Clelie" had detained in the room,
screamed loudly as the blow fell; and Colonel
Verney, appearing at the door, stopped short, and stared
from one to the other of the two men.





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.. _`LANDLESS PAYS THE PIPER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   LANDLESS PAYS THE PIPER

.. vspace:: 2

The hut of the mender of nets stood upon a
narrow isthmus connecting two large tracts of marsh.
That to the eastward was partially submerged at high
tide; that to the west, being higher ground, waved its
long grass triumphantly above the reaching waters.
Upon this side the marsh was separated from the
mainland of forest and field by a creek so narrow that
the great pines upon one margin cast their shadows
across to the other, and one fallen giant quite spanned
the sluggish waters.

The grass of this marsh was annually cut for hay;
for though the great herds of cattle belonging to the
different plantations roamed at large through all
seasons of the year, seeking their sustenance from forest
or marsh, the more provident of the planters were
accustomed to make some slight provision against the
winter, which might prove a severe one with snow and ice.

It was late afternoon, and the hay was cut.  The
half dozen mowers threw themselves down upon the
stubble, stretching out tired limbs and pillowing
heated foreheads upon their arms.  They had been
given until sunset to do the work.  Having no
taskmaster over them, and being hid from the tobacco-fields
by a convenient coppice of pine and cedar, they
had set to work in a fury of diligence, had cut and
stacked the grass in a race with time, and now found
themselves possessed of a precious hour in which to
dawdle, and swap opinions and tobacco before the
sunset horn should call them to quarters.

Three were indented servants, lumbering, honest-visaged
youths whose aims in life were simple and
well defined.  Their creed had but four articles: "Do
as little as you can consistently with keeping out of
the overseer's black books; get your full share of
loblolly and bacon, and some one else's if you are clever
enough; embrace every opportunity for reasonable
mischief that is offered you; honor Church and King,
or say you do, and Colonel Verney will overlook most
pranks."  Of the others, one was the Muggletonian,
one the mulatto, Luiz Sebastian, and one a convict,
not Trail, but the red-haired, pock-marked, sullen
wretch who had come to the plantation with Trail and
Landless, and whose name was Roach.

One of the rustics, who seemed more intelligent
than his fellows, and who had a good-humored deviltry
in his young face and big blue eyes, began an excellent
imitation of Dr. Nash's exhortation to submission
and obedience delivered upon the last instruction day
for servants, and soon had his audience of two
guffawing with laughter.  The mulatto and the convict
edged by imperceptible degrees farther and farther
away from the others, until, within the shadow of a
stack of grass, they lay side by side and commenced a
muttered conversation.  The countenance of the white
man, atrocious villainy written large in every
lineament, became horribly intent as his amber-hued
companion talked in fluent low tones, emphasizing what
he had to say by a restless, peculiar, and sinister
motion of his long, yellow fingers.  At a little distance
lay the Muggletonian, his elbows on the ground, his
ghastly face in his hands, and his eyes riveted upon
the Geneva Bible which he had drawn from his bosom.

When he had brought his entertainment to a finish,
the blue-eyed youth rolled himself over and over the
stubble to where the Muggletonian lay, intent upon a
chapter of invective.  The youth covered the page
with one enormous paw and playfully attempted to
insert the little finger of the other into the hole in
Porringer's ear.  "What now, old Runaway," he
said, lazily, "hunting up fresh curses to pour on our
unfort'net heads?"

"Cursed be he who makes a mock of age," said
the Muggletonian, grimly.  "May he be even as the
wicked children who cried to the prophet, 'Go up,
thou baldhead!'"

The boy laughed.  "Tell me when you see brown
bear a-coming," quoth he.  "Losh! a bear steak
would taste mighty good after eternal bacon!"

Porringer closed his book and restored it to his
bosom.  "Tell me," he said, abruptly, "have you
seen aught of the young man called Landless?"

"'The young man called Landless,'" answered the
other, petulantly, "has a d—d easy berth of it!
Yesterday evening I carried water from the spring to the
great house to water Mistress Patricia's posies, and
every time I passes the window of the master's room
I see that fellow a-sitting at his ease in a fine chair
before a fine table, writing away as big as all out of
doors.  And every time I says to him, says I, 'I
reckon you think yourself as fine as the Lord Mayor
of London?  A pretty sec'tary you make!'"

"Have you seen him to-day?"

"No, I have n't seen him to-day,—but I see
someone else.  Mates," he exclaimed, "Witch Margery's
coming down t' other side of creek.  I 'll call her
over."

Scrambling to his feet he gave a low halloo through
his hands, "Margery!  Margery!  Come and find the
road to Paradise!"

Margery waved her hand to signify that she heard
and understood, and presently stepped upon the fallen
tree that spanned the stream.  It was a narrow and a
slippery bridge, but she flitted across it with the secure
grace of some woodland thing, and, staff in hand,
advanced towards the men.  Between them and the
western sun she stood still, a dark figure against a
halo of gold light, and threw an intent and searching
glance over the unbroken green of the marsh and the
blue of the waters beyond.  Then with a wild laugh
she came up to them and cast her staff wreathed with
dark ivy upon the ground.

"The road is not here," she cried.  "Here is all
green grass, and beyond is the weary, weary, weary
sea!  There is no long, bright, shining road to
Paradise."  She sat down beside her staff, and taking her
chin into her hand, stared fixedly at the ground.

The men gathered around her, with the exception
of the Muggletonian, who, after audibly comparing
her to the Witch of Endor, turned on his side and
drew his cap over his eyes as if to shut out the hated
sight.  The convict took up the staff and began to
pull from it the strings of ivy.

"Put it down!" she said quickly.

The man continued to strip it of its leafy mantle.

"Put it down, can't you?" said the youth.  "She
never lets any one touch it.  She says an angel gave
it to her to help her on her way."

With a snarling laugh the convict threw it from
him with all his force.  Whirling through the air it
struck the water midway from shore to shore.
Margery sprang to her feet with a loud cry.  The boy
rose also.

"D—n you!" he said, wrathfully.  "I'd like to
break it over your misshapen back!  Here, Margery,
don't fret.  I 'll get it for you."

He ran to the bank, dived into the water, and in
three minutes was back with the dripping mass in his
arms.  He gave it into Margery's hands, saying
kindly while he shook himself like a large spaniel;
"There! it is n't hurt a mite!"

With a cry of delight Margery seized the "angel's
gift" and kissed the hand that restored it.  Then she
turned upon the convict.

"When I go back to my cabin in the woods," she
said, solemnly, and with her finger up, "I shall whistle
all the fairy folk into a ring, all the elves and the
pixies, and the little brown gnomes who burrow in the
leaves and look for all the world like pine cones, and
I shall tell them what you did, and to-night they will
come to your cabin, and will pinch you black and
blue, and stick thorns into you, and rub you with the
poison leaf until you are blotched and swelled like the
great bull frog that croaks, croaks, in these marshes."

There was an uneasy ring in the convict's laugh,
full of bravado as he meant it to be.  Margery
continued with an ominously extended forefinger.  "And
then they will fly to the great house where the master
lies sleeping, and they will whisper to him that you
took away the angel's gift from poor, lost Margery,
and he will be angry, for he is good to Margery, and
to-morrow he will make Woodson do to you what he
did to-day to the Breaking Heart."

"To the Breaking Heart!" exclaimed her auditors.

Margery nodded.  "Yes, the Breaking Heart.  You
call him Landless."

The Muggletonian sat up.  "What dost thou mean,
wretched woman! fit descendant of the mother of all
evil?"

Margery, offended by his tone, only pursed up her
lips and looked wise.

"What did the master have done to Landless,
Margery?" asked the youth.

Margery threw her worn figure into a singular posture.
Standing perfectly straight, she raised her arms
from her sides and spread them stiffly out, the hands
turned inward in a peculiar fashion.  Then, still with
extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she
appeared to lean against, or to be fastened to, some
support.  Next she threw her head back and to one
side, so that her face might be seen in three quarter
over her shoulder.  Her mobile features wreathed
themselves in an expression of pain and rage.  Her
brows drew downward, her thin lips curled themselves
away from the gleaming teeth, and, at intervals of half
a minute or more, her eyelids quivered, she shuddered,
and her whole frame appeared to shrink together.

The pantomime was too expressive to be misunderstood
by men each of whom had probably his own
reasons for recognizing some one or all of its features.
The convict broke into a yelling laugh, in which he
was joined, though in a subdued and sinister fashion,
by Luiz Sebastian.  The rustics looked at each other
with slow grins of comprehension, and the blue-eyed
youth uttered a long shrill whistle.  The great letter
upon the cheek of the Muggletonian turned a deeper
red, and his eyes burned.  The youth was curious.

"Tell us all about it, Margery," he said, coaxingly,
"and when the millons are ripe, I 'll steal you one
every night."

Margery was nothing loth.  She had attained the
reputation of an accomplished *raconteuse*, and she was
proud of it.  Her crazed imagination peopled the
forest with weird uncanny things, and fearful tales
she told of fays and bugaboos, of spectres and awful
voices speaking from out the dank stillness of twilight
hollows.  Often she sent quaking to their pallets men
who would have heard the war-whoop with scarcely
quickened pulses.  And she could tell of every-day
domestic happenings as well as of the doings of the
powers of darkness.

Her audience listened greedily to the instance of
plantation economy which she proceeded to relate.

"When was this, woman?" demanded the Muggletonian,
when she had finished.

Margery pointed to the declining sun and then
upwards to a spot a little past the zenith.

"Just after the nooning," said the Muggletonian,
and began to curse.

Margery stood up, her staff in her hand, and said
airily, "Margery must be going.  The sun is growing
large and red, and when he has slipped away behind
the woods, the voices will begin to call to Margery
from the hollow where the brook falls into the black
pool.  She must be there to answer them."  She
moved away with a rapid and gliding step, flitted
across the fallen tree, and was lost to sight in the
shadow of the pines beyond.

As the last flutter of her light robe vanished, a figure
appeared, walking rapidly along the opposite margin
of the creek.  The youth's sight was keen.  He sent
a piercing glance across the intervening distance and
broke into an astonished laugh.  "Lord in Heaven! it's
the man himself!" he cried in an awed tone.
"Ecod! he must be made of iron!"

Landless crossed the bridge and came towards the
staring group.  His face was white and set, and there
were dark circles beneath his eyes, which had the wide
unseeing stare of a sleep-walker.  He walked lightly
and quickly, with a free, lithe swing of his body.  The
men looked at one another in rough wonder, knowing
what was hidden by the coarse shirt.  He passed
them without a word, apparently without knowing
that they were there, and went on towards the hut of
the mender of nets.  Presently they saw him enter
and shut the door.

The rustics and the convict, after one long stare of
amazement at the distant hut, began to comment
freely and with much recondite blasphemy upon the
transaction recorded by Margery.  Luiz Sebastian
only smiled amiably, like a lazy and well-disposed
catamount, and the boy whistled long and thoughtfully.
But the countenance of Master Win-Grace Porringer
wore an expression of secret satisfaction.





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.. _`LANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   LANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR

.. vspace:: 2

As Landless entered the hut Godwyn looked up
with a pleased smile from the net he was mending.
The two men had not seen each other since the night
upon which Landless had been brought to the hut by
the Muggletonian.  Twice had Landless laid his
plans for a second visit, only to be circumvented each
time by the watchfulness of the overseer.

The smile died from Godwyn's face as he observed
his visitor more closely.

"What is it?" he asked quickly.

Landless came up to him and held out his hand.
"I am with you, Robert Godwyn, heart and soul,"
he said steadily.

The mender of nets grasped the hand.  "I knew
you would come," he said, drawing a long breath.
"I have needed you sorely, lad."

"I could not come before."

"I know: Porringer told me you were prevented.
I—"  He still held Landless' hand in both his own,
and as he spoke his slender fingers encircled the
young man's wrist.

"What is the matter with your pulse?" he demanded.
"And your eyes!  They are glazing!  Sit down!"

"It is nothing," said Landless, speaking with
effort.

"I have been a physician, young man," retorted
the other.  "Sit down, or you will fall."

He forced him down upon a settle from which he
had himself risen, and stood looking at him, his hand
upon his shoulder.  Presently his glance fell to the
shoulder, and he saw upon the white cloth where his
hand pressed it against the flesh, a faint red stain
grow and spread.

The face of the mender of nets grew very dark.
"So!" he said beneath his breath.

He limped across the hut and drew from some
secret receptacle above the fireplace a flask, from
which he poured a crimson liquid into an earthen
cup; then hobbled back to Landless, sitting with
closed eyes and head bowed upon the table.

"Drink, lad," he said with grave tenderness.  "'T is
a cordial of mine own invention, and in the strength
it gave me I fled from Cropredy Bridge though
woefully hacked and spent.  Drink!"

He held the cup to the young man's lips.  Landless
drained it and felt the blood gush back to his
heart and the ringing in his ears to cease.  Presently
he raised his head.  "Thank you," he said.  "I am
a man again."

"How is it that you are here?"

Landless smiled grimly.  "I imagine it's because
Woodson thinks me effectually laid by the heels.
When he goes the rounds at supper time he will be
surprised to find my pallet empty."

"You must be in quarters before then.  You must
not get into further trouble."

"Very well," was the indifferent reply.

They were silent for a few moments, and then
Landless spoke.

"I am come to tell you, Master Godwyn, that I
will join in any plan, however desperate, that may
bring me release from an intolerable and degrading
slavery.  You may use me as you please.  I will work
for you with hands and head, ay, and with my heart
also, for you have been kind to me, and I am grateful."

The mender of nets touched him softly upon the
hand.  "Lad," he said, "I once had a son who was
my pride and my hope.  In his young manhood he
fell at the storming of Tredah.  But the other night
when I talked with you, I seemed to see him again,
and my heart yearned over him."

Landless held out his hand.  "I have no father,"
he said simply.

"Now," at length said Godwyn, "to business!  I
must not keep you now, but come to me to-morrow
night if you can manage it.  You may speak to
Win-Grace Porringer, and he will help you.  I will then
tell you all my arrangements, give you figures and
names, possess you, in short, with all that I, and I
alone, know of this matter.  And my heart is glad
within me, for though my broken body is tied to my
bench here, I shall now have a lieutenant indeed.  I
have conceived; you shall execute.  The son of
Warham Landless, if he have a tithe of his father's
powers, will do much, very much.  For more than a year
I have longed for such an one."

"Tell me but one thing," said Landless, "and I am
content.  You have so planned this business that there
shall be no wanton bloodshed?  You intend no harm,
for instance, to the family yonder?" with a motion
of his head towards the great house.

"God forbid!" said the other quickly.  "I tell
you that not one woman or innocent soul shall suffer.
Nor do I wish harm to the master of this plantation,
who is, after the lights of a Malignant, a true and
kindly man, and a gentleman.  This is what will
happen.  Upon an appointed day the servants, Oliverian,
indented and convict, upon all the plantations seated
upon the bay, the creeks, the three rivers, and over
in Accomac, will rise.  They will overpower their
overseers and those of their fellows who may remain
faithful to the masters, will call upon the slaves to
follow them, and will march (the force of each
plantation under a captain or captains appointed by me),
to an appointed place in this county.  All going well,
there should be mustered at that place within the
space of a day and a night a force of some two
thousand men—such an army as this colony hath never
seen, an army composed in large measure of honest
folk, and officered by four hundred men who, bold and
experienced, and strong in righteous wrath, should
in themselves be sufficient to utterly deject the
adversary.  We will make of that force, motley as it is, a
second New Model, as well disciplined and as irresistible
as the first; and who should be its general but
the son of that Warham Landless whom Cromwell
loved, and whose old regiment is well represented
here?  Then will we fight in honest daylight with
those who come against us—and conquer.  And we
will not stain our victory.  Your nightmare vision
of midnight butchery is naught.  There will be no
such thing."

Through the quiet of the evening came to them the
clear, sweet, and distant winding of a horn.

"'Tis the call to quarters," said Godwyn.  "You
must go, lad."

Landless rose.  "I will come to-morrow night if I
can.  Till then, farewell,—father."  He ended with
a smile on his dark, stern face that turned it into a
boy's again.

"May the Lord bless thee, my son," said the other
in his gravely tender voice.  "May he cause His face
to shine upon thee, and bring thee out of all thy
troubles."

As Landless turned to leave the hut the mender of
nets had a sudden thought.  "Come hither," he said,
"and let me show you my treasure house.  Should
aught happen to me, it were well that you should know
of it."

He took up the precious flask from the table, and
followed by Landless, limped across the hut to the
fireplace.  The logs above it appeared as solid, gnarled
and stained by time as any of the others constituting
the walls of the hut, but upon the pressure of
Godwyn's finger upon some secret spring, a section of the
wood fell outwards like the lid of a box, disclosing a
hollow within.

From this hollow came the dull gleam of gold, and
by the side of the little heap of coin lay several folded
papers and a pair of handsomely mounted pistols.

Godwyn touched the papers.  "The names or the
signs of the Oliverians are here," he said, "together
with those of the leaders of the indented servants
concerned with us.  It is our solemn League and
Covenant—and our death warrant if discovered.  The
gold I had with me, hidden upon my person, when I
was brought to Virginia.  The pistols were the gift
of a friend.  Both may be useful some day."

"Hide them!  Quick!" said Landless in a low
voice, and wheeled to face a man who stood in the
doorway, blinking into the semi-darkness of the
room.

The lid of the hollow swung to with a click, the log
assumed its wonted appearance, and the mender of
nets, too, turned upon the intruder.

It was the convict Roach who had pushed the door
open and now stood with his swollen body and bestial
face darkening the glory of the sunset without.  There
was no added expression of greed or of awakened
curiosity upon his sullenly ferocious countenance.
He might have seen or he might not.  They could not
tell.

"What do you want?" asked Landless sternly.

"Thought as you might not have heard the horn,
comrade, and so might get into more trouble.  So I
thought I 'd come over and warn you."  All this in a
low, hoarse and dogged voice.

"Don't call me comrade.  Yes: I heard the horn.
You had best hasten or you may get into trouble
yourself."

The man received this intimation with a malevolent
grin.  "Talking big eases the smart, don't it?" and
he broke into his yelling laugh.

"Get out of this," said Landless, a dangerous light
in his eyes.

The man stopped laughing and began to curse.
But he went his way, and Landless, too, after waiting
to give him a start, left the hut and turned his steps
towards the quarters.

Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a
big sweet gum, and whittling away at a piece of stick
weed, he found the boy who, the day before, had accused
him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London.
He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and
cheerfully remarking that their paths were the same,
strode on side by side with him.

"I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness,
"I asks your pardon for what I said to you
yesterday.  I dessay you make a very good Sec'tary, and
Losh! the Lord Mayor himself might n't have dared
to strike that d—d fine Court spark.  They say he
has fought twenty duels."

"You have my full forgiveness," said Landless,
smiling.

"That's right!" cried the other, relieved.  "I
hates for a man to bear malice."'

"I have seen you before yesterday.  I forget how
they call you."

"Dick Whittington."

"Dick Whittington!"

"Ay.  Leastways the parish over yonder," a jerk
of his thumb towards England, "called me Dick, and
I names myself Whittington.  And why?  Because
like that other Dick I runs away to make my fortune.
Because like him I 've little besides empty pockets
and a hopeful heart.  And because I means to go
back some fine day, jingling money, and wearing gold
lace, and become the mayor of Banbury.  Or maybe
I 'll stop in Virginia, and become a trader and
Burgess.  I could send for Joyce Witbread, and marry
her here as well as in Banbury."

Landless laughed.  "So you ran away?"

"Yes; some four years ago, just after I came to
man's estate."  (He was about nineteen.)  "Stowed
myself away on board the Mary Hart at Plymouth.
Made the Virginny voyage for my health, and on
landing was sold by the captain for my passage money.
Time 's out in three years, but I may begin to make
my fortune before then, for—"  He stopped speaking
to give Landless a sidelong glance from out his
blue eyes, and then went on.

"A voice speaks through the land, from the Potomac
to the James, and from the falls of the Far West
to the great bay.  What says the voice?"

Landless answered, "The voice saith, 'Comfort ye,
my people, for the hour of deliverance is at hand.'"

"It 's all right!" cried the boy gleefully.  "I
thought you was one of us.  We are all in the fun
together!"

"We are in for a desperate enterprise that may
hang every man of us," said Landless sternly.  "I do
not see the 'fun,' and I think you talk something
loudly for a conspirator."

The boy was nothing abashed.  "There's none to
hear us," he said.  "I can be as mum as t' other Dick's
cat when there are ears around.  As for fun,
Losh! what better fun than fighting!"

"You seem to have a pretty good time as it is."

"Lord, yes!  Life 's jolly enough, but you see
there 's mighty little variety in it."

"I have found variety enough," said Landless.

"Oh, you 've been here only a few weeks.  Wait
until you've spent years, and have gone through your
experience of to-day half a dozen times, and you will
find it tame enough."

"I shall not wait to see."

"Then a man gets tired of working for another
man, and hankers for the time when he can set up for
himself, especially if there 's a pretty girl waiting for
him."  A tremendous sigh.  "And then there 's the
fun of the rising.  Losh! a man must break loose
now and then!"

"For all of which good reasons you have become a
conspirator?"

"Ay, it does n't pay to run away.  You are hunted
to death in the first place, and well nigh whipped to
death if you are caught, as you always are.  And then
they double your time.  This promises better."

"If it succeeds."

"Oh, it will succeed!  Why should n't it with old
Godwyn, who is more cunning than a red fox or a
Nansemond medicine-man, at its head?  Besides, if it
fails, hanging is the worst that can happen, and we
will have had the fun of the rising."

"You are a philosopher."

"What's that?"

"A wise man.  Tell me: If this plot remains
undiscovered, and the rising actually takes place, there
will be upon each plantation before we can get away
an interval of confusion and perhaps violence.  'T is
then that the greatest danger will threaten the planters
and their families.  You yourself have no ill feeling
towards your master or his family?  You would
do them no unprovoked mischief?"

The boy opened his big blue eyes, and shook his
head in a vehement negative.

"Lord bless your soul, no!" he cried.  "I would n't
hurt a hair of Mistress Patricia's pretty head, nor of
Mistress Lettice's wig, neither.  As for the master,
if he lets us go peaceably, we 'll go with three cheers
for him!  Bless you! they 're safe enough!"

The sanguine youth next announced that he smelt
bacon frying, and that his stomach cried "Trencher!" and
started off in a lope for the quarters, now only a
few yards distant.  Landless followed more sedately,
and reached his cabin without being observed by the
overseer.





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.. _`A DARK DEED`:

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   CHAPTER XII


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   A DARK DEED

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Three weeks passed, weeks in which Landless saw
the mender of nets some eight times in all, making
each visit at night, stealthily and under constant
danger of detection.  Thrice he had assisted at
conferences of the Oliverians from the neighboring
plantations, who now, by virtue of his descent, his intimacy
with Godwyn, and his very apparent powers, accepted
him as a leader.  Upon the first of these occasions he
had set his case before them in a few plain, straightforward
words, and they believed him as Godwyn had
done, and he became in their eyes, not a convict, but,
as he in truth was, an Oliverian like themselves, and
a sufferer for the same cause.  The remaining
interviews had been between him and Godwyn alone.  In
the lonely hut on the marsh, beneath starlight or
moonlight, the two had held much converse, and had grown
to love each other.  The mender of nets, though
possessed of a calm and high serenity of nature that
defied trials beneath which a weaker soul had sunk,
was a man of many sorrows; he had the wisdom, too,
of years and experience, and he sympathized with,
soothed, and counseled his younger yoke-fellow with
a parental tenderness that was very grateful to the
other's more ardent, undisciplined, and deeply wounded
spirit.

Upon the night of their eighth meeting they held
a long and serious consultation.  Affairs were in
such train that little remained to be done, but to set
the day for the rising, and to send notice by many
devious and underground ways to the Oliverian
captains scattered throughout the Colony.  Landless
counseled immediate action, the firing of the fuse at
once by starting the secret intelligence which would
spread like wildfire from plantation to plantation.
Then would the mine be sprung within the week.
There was nothing so dangerous as delay, when any
hour, any moment might bring discovery and ruin.

Godwyn was of a different opinion.  It was then
August, the busiest and most unhealthy season of the
year, when the servants and slaves, weakened by
unremitting toil, were succumbing by scores to the fever.
It was the time when the masters looked for disaffection,
when the overseers were most alert, when a general
watchfulness pervaded the Colony.  The planters
stayed at home and attended to their business, the
trainbands were vigilant, the servant and slave laws
were construed with a harshness unknown at other
seasons of the year.  There were few ships in harbor
compared with the number which would assemble for
their fall lading a month later, and Godwyn counted
largely upon the seizure of the ships.  In a month's
time the tobacco would be largely in,—a weighty
consideration, for tobacco was money, and the infant
republic must have funds.  The ships would be in
harbor, and their sailors ready for anything that would
rid them of their captains; the heat and sickness of
the summer would be abated; the work slackened,
and discipline relaxed.  The danger of discovery was
no greater now than it had been all along, and the
good to be won by biding their time might be
inestimable.  The danger was there, but they would face it,
and wait,—say until the second week in September.

Landless acquiesced, scarcely convinced, but willing
to believe that the other knew whereof he spoke, and
conscious, too, that his own impatience of the yoke
which galled his spirit almost past endurance might
incline him to a reckless and disastrous haste.

It was past midnight when he rose to leave the
hut on the marsh.  Godwyn took up his stick.  "I
will walk with you to the banks of the creek," he
said.  "'T is a feverish night, and I have an aching
head.  The air will do me good, and I will then
sleep."

The young man gave him his arm with a quiet,
protecting tenderness that was very dear to the mender
of nets, and leaning upon it, he limped through the
fifty feet of long grass to the border of the creek.

"Shall I not wait to help you back?" asked Landless.

"No," said the other, with his peculiarly sweet and
touching smile.  "I will sit here awhile beneath the
stars and say my hymn of praise to the Creator of
Night.  You need not fear for me; my trusty stick
will carry me safely back.  Go, lad, thou lookest
weary enough thyself, and should be sleeping after
thy long day of toil."

"I am loth to leave you to-night," said Landless.

Godwyn smiled.  "And I am always loth to see
you go, but it were selfish to keep you listening to a
garrulous, wakeful old man, when your young frame
is in sore need of rest.  Good-night, dear lad."

Landless gave him his hands.  "Good-night," he said.

He stood below the other at the foot of the low
bank to which was moored his stolen boat.  Godwyn
stooped and kissed him upon the forehead.  "My
heart is tender to-night, lad," he said.  "I see in thee
my Robert.  Last night I dreamed of him and of his
mother, my dearly loved and long-lost Eunice, and
ah!  I sorrowed to awake!"

Landless pressed his hand in silence, and in a
moment the water widened between them as Landless
bent to his oars and the crazy little bark shot out into
the middle of the stream.  At the entrance of the
first labyrinthine winding he turned and looked back
to see Godwyn standing upon the bank, the moonlight
silvering his thin hair and high serene brow.  In the
mystic white light, against the expanse of solemn
heaven, he looked a vision, a seer or prophet risen
from beneath the sighing grass.  He waved his hand
to Landless, saying in his quiet voice, "Until
to-morrow!"  The boat made the turn, and the lonely
figure and the hut beyond it vanished, leaving only
the moonlight, the wash and lap of water, and the
desolate sighing of the marsh grass.

There were many little channels and threadlike
streams debouching from the main creek, and
separated from it by clumps and lines of partially
submerged grass, growing in places to the height of
reeds.  While passing one of these clumps it occurred
to Landless that the grass quivered and rustled in an
unusual fashion.  He rested upon his oars and gazed
at it curiously, then stood up, and parting the reeds,
looked through into the tiny channel upon the other
side.  There was nothing to be seen, and the rustling
had ceased.  "A heron has its nest there, or a turtle
plunged, shaking the reeds," said Landless to himself,
and went his way.

Some three hours later he was roused from the
heavy sleep of utter fatigue by the voice of the
overseer.  Bewildered, he raised himself upon his elbow
to stare at Woodson's grim face, framed in the
doorway and lit by the torch held by Win-Grace
Porringer, who stood behind him.  "You there, you
Landless!" cried the overseer, impatiently.  "You sleep
like the dead.  Tumble out!  You and Porringer are
to go to Godwyn's after that new sail for the Nancy.
Sir Charles Carew has taken it into his head to run
over to Accomac, and he 's got to have a spick and
span white rag to sail under.  Hurry up, now!  He
wants to start by sun up, and I clean forgot to send
for it last night.  You 're to be back within the hour,
d'ye hear?  Take the four-oared shallop.  There's
the key," and the overseer strode away, muttering
something about patched sails being good enough for
Accomac folk.

Landless and the Muggletonian stumbled through
the darkness to the wharf behind the quarters, where
they loosed the shallop, and in it shot across the inlet
towards the mouth of the creek.

"I will row," said the Muggletonian with grim
kindness; "you look worn out.  I suppose you were
out last night?"

Landless nodded, and the other bent to the oars
with a will that sent them rapidly across the sheet
of water.  A cold and uncertain light began to stream
from the ashen east, and the air was dank and heavy
with the thick mist that wrapped earth and water
like a shroud.  It swallowed up the land behind
them, and through it the nearer marshes gloomed
indistinctly, dark patches upon the gray surface of the
water.  The narrow creek was hard to find amidst the
universal dimness.  The Muggletonian rowed slowly,
peering about him with small, keen eyes.  At length
with a grunt of satisfaction he pointed to a pale streak
dividing two masses of gray, and had turned the
boat's head towards it, when through the stillness they
caught the sound of oars.  The next moment a boat
glided from the creek and began to skirt the shores
of the inlet, hugging the banks and moving slowly
and stealthily.  It was still so dark that they could
tell nothing more than that it held one man.

"Now, who is that?" said the Muggletonian.
"And what has he been doing up that creek?"

"Hail him," Landless replied.

Porringer sent a low halloo across the water, but if
the man heard he made no sign.  The boat, one of
the crazy dugouts of which every plantation had store,
held on its stealthy way, but being over close to the
bank presently ran upon a sand bar.  Its occupant
was forced to rise to his feet in order to shove it off.
He stood upright but a moment, but in that moment,
and despite the partial darkness, Landless recognized
the misshapen figure.

"It is the convict, Roach!" he exclaimed.

"Ay," said the Muggletonian, "and an ill-omened
night bird he is!  May he be cursed from the sole of
his foot to the crown of his head!  May there be no
soundness in him!  May—  What are you about,
friend?" he cried, interrupting himself.  "There 's no
need of two pair of oars.  We have plenty of time."

Landless bent to the second pair of oars.  "He
came down the creek," he said in a voice that sounded
strained and unnatural.

The other stared at him.  "What do you mean?"
he demanded.

"Nothing: but let us hasten."

Porringer stared, but fell in with the humor of his
companion, and the shallop, impelled by strong arms,
shot into the creek and along its mazy windings with
the swiftness of a bird.

Landless rowed with compressed lips and stony face,
a great fear tugging at his heart.  Porringer too was
silent.  The vapor hung so heavily upon the plains
of marsh level with their heads that they seemed to
be piercing a dense, low cloud.  The light was growing
stronger, but the earth still lay like a corpse, livid,
dumb, cold and still.  There was a chill stagnant
smell in the air.

Arriving at the stake in the bank below the hut,
they fastened the boat to it, and stepping out, moved
through the dense mist to where the hut loomed
indistinctly before them, looking in the blank and awful
stillness like a forlorn wreck drifting upon an infinite
sea of soundless foam.

"The door is open," said Landless.

"Ay, I see," answered Porringer.  "Does he wish
to die before his time of the fever, that he lets this
graveyard mist and stench creep in upon him in his
sleep?"

They spoke in low tones as though they feared to
waken the sleeper whom they had come to waken.
When they reached the hut, they knocked upon the
lintel of the door and called Godwyn by name, once,
twice, thrice.  There was no answer.

"Come on!" said Landless hoarsely, and entered
the hut, followed by the other.  The cold twilight,
filtering through the low and narrow doorway, was
powerless to dispel the darkness within.  Landless
groped his way to the pallet and stooped down.

"He is not here," he said.

The Muggletonian stumbled over a sheaf of oars,
sending them to the floor with a noise that in the
utter stillness, and to their strained ears, sounded
appalling.

"It's the darkness of Tophet," muttered Porringer.
"If I could find his flint and steel; there are pine
knots, I know, in the corner—God in Heaven!"

"What is it?  What is the matter?" cried Landless,
as he staggered against him.

"It's his face!" gasped the other.  "There upon
the table!  I put my hand upon it.  It's cold!"

Landless rushed to the fireplace where he knew the
tinder-box to be kept, and then groped for and found
the heap of pine knots.  A moment more and the fat
wood was burning brightly, casting its red light
throughout the hut, and choking back the pale daylight.

The familiar room with its familiar furnishing of
chest and settle and pallet, of hanging nets and piles
of dingy sail, sprung into sight, but with it sprung
into sight something unfamiliar, strange, and dreadful.

It was the body of the mender of nets, flung face
upwards across the rude table, the head hanging over
the edge, and the face, which but a few short hours
before had looked upon Landless with such a bright
and patient serenity, blackened and distorted.  Upon
the throat were dark marks, the print of ten
murderous fingers.

With a bitter cry Landless fell upon his knees
beside the table, and pressed his face against the cold
hand flung backwards over the head of the murdered
man.  Porringer began to curse.  With white lips
and burning eyes he hurled anathemas at the
murderer.  He cursed him by the powers of light and
darkness, by the earth, the sea, and the air: by all
the plagues of the two Testaments.  Landless broke
the torrent of his maledictions.

"Silence!" he said sternly.  "*He* would have
forgiven."  Presently he rose from the ground, and
taking the body in his arms, placed it upon the pallet,
and reverently composed the limbs.  Then he turned
to the fireplace.  It was easy to see that the
hiding-place had been visited.  The spring was broken, and
the lid had been struck and jammed into place by a
powerful and hasty hand.  Landless wrenched it off.
Before him lay the pistols; but the gold and papers
were gone.  He turned to the Muggletonian, standing
beside him with staring eyes.

"Listen!" he said.  "There was gold here.  The
wretch whom we passed but now knew of it—never
mind how—and for it he has murdered the only
friend I had on earth.  There will come a day when
I will avenge him.  There were papers here, lists with
the signatures of Oliverians, Redemptioners, sailors,—of
all classes concerned in this undertaking, save
only the slaves and the convicts.  There were letters
from Maryland and New England, and a correspondence
which would provide whipping-post and pillory
for other Nonconformists than the Quakers.  All
these, the actual proofs of this conspiracy, are in
his—that murderer's—hands,—where they must
not stay."

"What wilt thou do, friend?" said the Muggletonian
eagerly.  "Wilt thou take the murderer aside
in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smite him
under the fifth rib, as did Joab to Abner the son of
Ner, who slew his brother Asahel?"

"God forbid," said Landless.  "But I will take
them from him before he knows their contents.  One
moment, and we will go."

He crossed to the pallet and stood beside it, looking
down on the shell that lay upon it with a stern and
quiet grief.  One of the cold white hands was clenched
upon something.  He stooped, and with difficulty
unclasped the rigid fingers.  The something was a
ragged lock of coarse red hair.

"You see," he said.

"Ay," said the Muggletonian grimly.  "It's evidence
enough.  There 's but one man in this county
with hair like that.  Leave that lock where it is, and
that dead man holds the rope that will hang his murderer."

"It shall be left where it is," said Landless, and
reclosed the fingers upon it.

He took a piece of sail-cloth from the floor, and
with it covered the dead man from sight.  Next he
turned to the hollow above the fireplace, and took
from it the pistols, concealing them in his bosom.
"I may need them," he said.  "Come."

They left the hut and its dead guardian, and rowed
back through the summer dawn.  The sky was barred
with crimson and gold, the fiery rim of the sun just
lifting above the eastern waters, the mist, a bridal
veil of silver and pearl drawn across the face of a
virgin earth.

They rowed in silence until they neared the wharf,
when Porringer said, "You are leader now."

The other raised his haggard eyes.  "It is a trust.
I will go through with it, God helping me.  But I
would I were lying dead beside him in yonder hut."

They left the boat at the wharf, and went towards
the quarters.  Meeting one of the blowzed and
slatternly female servants, Landless asked where they
might find the overseer.  He had gone to the three-mile
field half an hour ago, after bestowing upon the
two dilatory servants a hearty cursing, and promising
to reckon with them at dinner-time.  "Where was
the master?"  He had gone to the mouth of the inlet
with Sir Charles Carew, who had grown impatient,
and had sailed away under the Nancy's patched sail.
The under overseer was in the far corn-field, two
miles off.

"Are all the men in the fields, Barb?" asked Landless.

Barb informed him that they were, "as he might
very well know, seeing that the sun was half an hour
high."

"Have you seen the man called Roach?"

No: Barb had not seen him; but she had heard
the overseer tell Luiz Sebastian to take two men and
go to the strip of Orenoko between the inlet and the
third tobacco house, and Luiz Sebastian, had been
calling for Roach and Trail.

Landless thanked her, and moved away without
offering to bestow upon her that which Barb probably
thought her information merited.

"Do you find Woodson," he said to the Muggletonian,
"and report this murder, saying nothing, however,
of what we know.  I myself will go to the
tobacco house."

"Had I not best come with thee to hold up thy
hands?" said Porringer.  "I would take up my text
from the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and from Revelation,
twenty-second, thirteen, and deal mightily with
the murderer."

"No," answered Landless.  "Woodson must be
seen at once, or we ourselves will fall under suspicion.
And, friend, ask that thou and I may be the ones to
bury *him*."





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.. _`IN THE TOBACCO HOUSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE TOBACCO HOUSE

.. vspace:: 2

The third tobacco house was built upon a point of
land jutting into the larger inlet, and screened off
from the wide expanse of fields by a belt of cedars.
It was a lonely, retired spot, and the high, dark,
windowless structure with its heavy, low-browed door had
a menacing aspect.  Landless expected to find the
men within the building, instead of outside attending
to their work, and he was not disappointed.  As he
walked through the doorway into the pungent gloom
the three started up from the débris of casks, sticks,
and pegs, amidst which they had been squatting, with
their heads ominously close together.

Landless strode up to Roach.  "You murderer!" he said.

The convict recoiled; then with a bestial sound, half
snarl, half bellow of rage, he gathered himself for a
rush.  Landless awaited him with bent body and
sinewy, outstretched arms; but the mulatto interposed.
Laying his long, beautifully shaped, yellow hands
upon Roach, he forced him back against a cask, and,
pinning him there, whispered in his ear.  The face of
the wretch gradually resumed its usual expression of
low brutality, though an ugly sweat broke out upon
it, and the mouth opened and shut as though he had
been running.  He turned upon Landless with a half
threatening, half cringing air.

"So you 've found out what I was about last night,
eh, pardner?  But you 'll keep a still tongue.  You 're
not one to peach on your comrade as was in hell or
Newgate with you, and as crossed the ocean with you
to this d—d Virginia, and as has always liked you,
and has the same spite as you have against the man
what bought us.  You say naught, comrade, and
you 'll not stand to lose by it."

"I go from here to give you up to Colonel Verney,"
said Landless.

The wretch gave a snarl of rage and fear.  Luiz
Sebastian laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder.

"If I thought that," snarled the convict, "you 'd
never live to reach that door."

"I shall live to see you hanged," said the other
coolly.

Here the mulatto slipped something into Roach's
hand.  "So you 'll give me up?" said the latter in a
peculiar voice.

"I have said so."

"Then, by the Lord!  I 'll be even with you!"
Roach cried with savage triumph.  "Do you see this,
and this, and this?" fluttering a mass of folded papers
before the other's eyes.  "Ah!  I was wise, I was,
when I could n't hide everything about me, to take
the papers, and leave the weapons.  I 've got you
now.  Here 's the lists that the old fool who is dead
and gone to hell had hidden behind the gold!  Here 's
enough to hang you and your d—d Cromwellians
higher than Haman.  There will be more than one
giving up, I 'm thinking!  I 've got you under my
thumb, and I 'll squeeze you!"

"You cannot read; you do not know what those
papers contain," said Landless steadily.

"But I can," put in Trail smoothly.  "I was but
just running them over to our friend whose education
has been so sadly neglected, when you came in."

Landless drew a pistol from his bosom, cocked it,
and leveled it at the murderer.  "You see," he said
with an ominously quiet eye and voice, "you were not
altogether wise to leave the weapons.  Now, give me
those lists."

"Damnation!" cried the convict, and Luiz Sebastian
glided towards the door.

Landless, quick of eye and active of body, saw the
movement, and sprang backwards to the opening
before the other could reach it.  He covered the three
with his pistol.

"I will shoot the first of you that stirs," he said
sternly.  "You, Roach, lay those papers upon that
bit of board, and push them towards me with your
foot."

"I 'll go to hell first," was the sullen reply.

"As you please.  I will give you until I count
twenty.  If those papers are not in my hands, then I
will shoot you like the dog you are."

The murderer uttered a dreadful curse.  Landless
began to count.  Roach made an irresolute motion or
the hand that held the lists.  Landless counted on,
"fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—"  With
another oath and a grin of rage Roach dropped the
papers upon the board at his feet.  "Now push it
towards me," said Landless.

With a brow like midnight the other did as he was
bid.  Still covering his men, Landless stooped quickly,
and took up the precious papers, assured himself that
they were all there, and placed them in his bosom.

"Now," he said, leaning his back against the
door-post, and regarding the three baffled rogues with a
grim eye, "I have a few words to say to you.  I
speak first to you, Trail, and to you, Luiz Sebastian.
These papers have told you little that you did not
know before.  It was not the information that you
gained from them that made them so valuable; it was
the possession of them, the possession of actual proofs
of this conspiracy which you might hold over our
heads, or, if the notion took you, might sell to Colonel
Verney?"

"Señor Landless sees the thing as it is," said Luiz
Sebastian.

"Well, you no longer possess these proofs, and are
therefore just where you were yesterday."

"Listen, Señor Landless," said Luiz Sebastian
gloomily.  "This plot does not please us.  It is too
much in the hands of those who call themselves
soldiers and martyrs, whom our master calls fanatic
Oliverians, and whom I, Luiz Sebastian, call accursed
heretics.  The servants have no say in the matter;
they are to follow like sheep where these others lead.
The slaves are not even to know of it until the last
moment.  A handful of us who have white blood in
our veins are let into the secret, that we may incite the
blacks when the time is come; but are we consulted?
Are our opinions asked, our wishes deferred to?  I,
Luiz Sebastian, who have been through three
insurrections in the Indies, and who know how such things
should be managed; has my advice been craved as to
this or that?  You make us promises.  Mother of
God! how do we know that those promises will be
kept?  By St. Jago! the insurrection may arrive, and
the planters be put down, and next year may find us
slaves still, with but a change of masters!"

"It is too late now for such questions," said
Landless steadily.  "You must accept the conspiracy as it
is.  In liberating themselves, these men will of necessity
free you even as they will free me, who am not, as
you know, of their class.  I shall take my chance, as
I think you will take yours."

The mulatto played with a tobacco peg, striking it
against his great, white teeth.  At length he said
slowly and with a sinister upward glance at the figure
by the door, "Certainly, Señor Landless, it seems our
best, our only chance, for freedom."

And with this Landless had perforce to be content.
He turned to the murderer, saying sternly, "Now for
my word with you.  I hold your life in my hands, for
I heard you last night in the marsh, and Porringer
and I saw you stealing from the creek this morning,
and I can swear that you knew of the gold hidden in
the hut.  You have it on you at this moment.  I could
hold you here with this pistol until the overseer should
come and search you.  But I let you go, choosing
rather your safety than the endangerment of that
which was dearer than life to the man you murdered.
The unsupported assertion of a murderer as to the
contents of papers which he had not got to show, might
not go for much, but I prefer that you should not
make it.  I have warned you;—you had best make
your escape at once."

"If you hold your tongue, there 's no reason why I
should run."

"Oh, yes, there is!  There is a reason in the hut
on the marsh."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that clasped in the hand of the man you
murdered is the missing half of that torn lock upon
your forehead."

With a yell Roach sprang to the door only to be
confronted by the muzzle of Landless' pistol.

"Wait a moment," he said composedly.  "Oh, you
need not be afraid!  I intend to let you go.  But you
don't leave this tobacco house until after I have left
it myself."

"Curse you!" cried the other, foaming at the lips.

"You are ungrateful.  I not only promise not to
witness against you, but I aid you to escape."

"For reasons of your own," suggested Trail.

"Precisely: for reasons of my own.  If you are
taken, I will hold my tongue just so long as you hold
yours.  If you escape now, I will pray that my day
of reckoning will yet come.  And it will be a heavy
reckoning."

"Ay, that it will!" cried the murderer with brutal
fury.  "You 've got the upper hand now: but wait!
Every dog has his day, and I 'll have mine! and when
it comes, I 'll do for you!  I 'll smash your beauty!
I 'll draw more blood from you than ever the whip of
the overseer did!  I 'll use you worse than I used
that old man last night, who writhed and struggled,
and tried to pray!  I 'll—"

With white lips and blazing eyes Landless sprang
forward, and clapped the mouth of the pistol to the
ruffian's temple.  Roach recoiled, then sunk upon his
knees with an abject whine for mercy.

Landless let his hand drop, and moved slowly back
to the door.  "You had need to cry for mercy," he
said in a low, distinct voice, "for you were never so
near to death before.  I let you go now, but one day
I shall kill you.  Until which day—take care of
yourself!"  Still with his face upon them he passed
out of the door, then turned and walked away with a
steady step, but with a heart bleeding for the loss of
his friend, and heavy with forebodings for the future.

In the tobacco house the murderer, the forger, and
the mulatto sat stricken into silence until the last crisp
footfall had died away.  Then amidst a torrent of
curses Roach made for the door.  Trail plucked him
back.  "Where are you going?" he cried.

"I don't know!  To the devil!"

"The bloodhounds will be upon your trail before noon."

The wretch cried out and struck his hand against
the wall with a force that laid the knuckles bare and
bleeding.

"There is a way," said Luiz Sebastian slowly, "a
way that only I know.  You must take to the inlet
here, and swim up it until you come to the mouth of
the brook yonder in the forest.  You must wade up
that brook until you come to a second, and up that
until you come to a third.  When you have gone a
mile up that one, leave it, and strike through the
woods, going towards the north.  Another mile will
bring you to a village of the Chickahominies upon
the Pamunkey.[#]  They are at odds with Governor and
Council, and they will hide you.  Moreover, I once
did their sachem a service, and they are my friends."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The modern York.

.. vspace:: 2

"I 'm off," said Roach, breaking from the detaining
grasp.

"Wait," said Luiz Sebastian.  "There as time
enough.  Woodson will not come for a long while.
When he does, he shall find Señor Trail and myself
busily at work there outside, and we will say that you
left us, and went down the inlet a long time before.
But now we want to talk to you."

"Be quick then," growled the other, "I 've no mind
to swing for this job."

Luiz Sebastian brought his handsomely malevolent
face close to the other's hideous countenance.

"Would you not like to ruin that devil who but
now robbed you of your hard-earned property?"

"Would I not?" cried the murderer with a
tremendous oath.  "I 'd give everything but life and
gold to do it, as that cunning devil well knew.  I 'd
give my soul!"

"Would you like to be shown how to get more gold
than old Godwyn's store, twenty times told?  To get
your freedom?  To have some black, sweet hours in
which to work your will on them at the house yonder?
To plunge your arms to the elbow in the master's
money chest, to become drunken with his wine; to
strike him down, and that smiling imp his cousin, and
that other devil, Woodson; to hear the women cry for
mercy—and cry in vain?  You would like all this?"

"Show me the way!" cried the brute with a ferocious
light in his bloodshot eyes.  "Show me the way
to do it safely, and I 'll—"  He broke off and
threatened the air with malignant fists.

"Go to the village on the Pamunkey," said Luiz
Sebastian with his most feline expression.  "I will
come to you there the first night I can slip away, I
and our friend, the Señor Trail.  There we will have
our little conference.  Mother of God!  Señor
Landless may find that others can plot as well as he and
his accursed heretics."





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.. _`A MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION

.. vspace:: 2

Four nights later, the hour before midnight found
Landless walking steadily through the forest, bound
upon a mission which he had had in his mind since
the night after the murder of Godwyn.  This was
the first night since that event upon which he had
deemed it advisable to leave the quarters, having no
mind to be captured as a runaway by one of the many
search parties which were scouring the peninsula
between the two great rivers for the murderer of Robert
Godwin.  But the search was now trending northward
towards Maryland, to which colony runaways
usually turned their steps, and he felt that he might
venture.

There was little undergrowth in the primeval forest,
and the rows of vast and stately trees were as easy to
thread as the pillared aisles of a cathedral.  When he
came to one of the innumerable streamlets that caught
the land in a net of silver, he removed his coarse
shoes and stockings, and waded it.  The great branches
overhead shut in a night that was breathlessly hot
and still.  He could see the stars only when he crossed
the streams or emerged into one of the many little
open glades.  He walked warily, making no sound,
and now and then stopping to listen for the distant
halloo, or bark of a dog, which might denote that he
was followed, or that there was a search party abroad,
but he heard nothing save the usual forest sounds,—the
dropping of acorns, the sighing leaves, the cry of
some night bird,—sounds that seemed to make the
night more still than silence.

He was nearing his destination when from out a
shadowy clump of alders, standing upon the bank of
the stream which he had just crossed, there shot a
long arm, and the next moment he was wrestling with
a dark and powerful figure whose naked body slipped
from his hold as though it had been greased.  But
Landless, too, was strong and determined, and the two
swayed and strained backwards and forwards through
the darkness, wary and resolute, neither giving his
antagonist advantage.  The hand of the unknown
writhed itself from the other's clasp and stole
downwards towards his waist.  Landless felt the motion
and intercepted it.  Then the figure, with an angry
guttural sound, began to put forth its full strength.
The arms encircled Landless with a slowly tightening
iron band; the great dark shoulder came forward
with the force of a battering-ram; the limbs twined
like boa-constrictors around the limbs of the other.
Locked together, the two reeled into a little fairy
glade, where the short grass, pearled with dew, lay
open to the moon.  Here, borne backwards by the
overwhelming force of his assailant, Landless fell
heavily to the ground.  The figure falling with him,
pinned him to the earth with its knee upon his breast.
In the moonlight he saw the gleam of the lifted knife.

He had had but time for a half-tittered, half-thought
prayer when the pressure upon his breast
relaxed; the knife fell, indeed, but harmlessly upon
the grass, and the figure rose to its height with an
astonished "Ugh!"

Landless, rising also, began to think that he
recognized the gigantic form towering through the pale
moonlight.

"Ugh!" said the figure again.  "The great Spirit
threw us into the light in time.  Monakatocka had
been forever shamed had his knife drunk the life of
his friend."

"Why did you set upon me?" demanded Landless,
still breathless from the struggle, while the
Indian was as calmly composed as upon the day of their
first meeting.

"Monakatocka took you for the man for whom they
hunt with dogs through the forest, scaring the deer
from the licks and the partridge from the fern.  Two
nights ago Major Carrington said to Monakatocka,
'Find me that man and kill him, and to the twenty
arms' length of roanoke which the county will pay to
Monakatocka, I will add a gun with store of powder,
and with a bullet for every stag between Werowocomico
and Machot.'  When he heard you a long way
off, moving over the leaves, trying to make no sound,
Monakatocka thought he held the gun of the
pale-face Major in his hand.  But now—" he waved his
hand with a gesture eloquent of resignation.

"I am sorry to disappoint you," said Landless,
amused at his air of calm regret.

"I am glad to have proved the strength of my
brother," was the sententious reply.  "Where goes
my brother through the woods, which are full of
danger to him to-night?  Or has he a pass?"

"I have business at Rosemead," answered
Landless.  "I am close to the house, I think?"

The Indian pointed through the trees.  "It lies
twelve bowshots before you.  The overseer with the
dogs has gone to the great swamp to look for the man
with the red hair."

"Thanks for the information, friend," said Landless.
"I ask you, moreover, to say nothing of this
encounter.  I have no pass."

"I have but one friend," answered the Indian.
"His secret is my secret."

"Are you, too, then, so lonely?" asked Landless,
touched by his tone.

"Listen," said the Indian, leaning his back against
a great oak.  "I will tell my brother who I am....
Many years ago the Conestogas, they whom the
palefaces call the Susquehannocks, came down the great
bay and fought with the palefaces.  Monakatocka was
then but a lad on his first war-path.  Agreskoi was
angry: he hid his face behind a cloud.  With their
guns the palefaces beat the Conestogas like fleeing
women back to their village on the banks of a great
river, and themselves returned in triumph to their
board wigwams, bearing with them many captives.
Monakatocka, son to a great chief, was one.  The
palefaces made him to work like a squaw in their
fields of tobacco and maize.  When he ran away they
put forth a long arm and plucked him back and beat
him.  Agreskoi was angry, for Monakatocka had not
any offering to make him.  One by one his fellow
captives have dropped away like the leaves that fall
in the moon of Taquetock, until, behold! he is left
alone.  The palefaces are his enemies.  He thinks of
the village beside the pleasant stream, and he hates
them.  A warrior of the long house takes no friend
from the wigwam of an Algonquin.  Monakatocka is
alone."

He spoke with a wild pathos, his high, stern
features working in the moonlight, and his bold glance
softened into an exquisite melancholy.

"I too am friendless," said Landless, "and bound
to a far more degrading captivity than that you suffer.
Our fate is the same."

The Indian took his hand in his, and raising it,
pressed the forefinger against a certain spot upon his
shoulder.  "You have a friend," he said.

"You make too much of a very slight service,"
said Landless.  "But I embrace your offer of
friendship—there 's my hand upon it.  And now I must
be going upon my way.  Good-night!"

The Indian gave a guttural "Good-night," and
Landless strode on through the thinning woods.
Shortly he emerged from the forest and saw before
him tobacco fields and a house, and beyond the house
the vast sheet of the Chesapeake slumbering beneath
the moon.  There was a beaten path leading to the
house.  Landless struck into it and followed it until
it led him beneath a window which (having been once
sent with a message to the Surveyor-General), he
knew to belong to the sleeping-chamber of Major
Carrington.  Stopping beneath this window he
listened for any sound that might warn him of aught
stirring within or without the mansion,—all was
silent, the house and its inmates locked in slumber.

He took a handful of pebbles from the path and
threw them, one by one, against the wooden shutter,
the thud of the last pebble being answered by a slight
noise from within the room.  Presently the shutter
was opened and an authoritative voice demanded:—

"Who is it?  What do you want?"

Landless came closer beneath the window.  "Major
Carrington," he said in a low voice, "It is I,
Godfrey Landless.  I must have speech with you."

There was a moment's silence, and then the other
said coldly, "'Must' is a word that becomes neither
your lips nor my ears.  I know no reason why Miles
Carrington *must* speak with the servant of Colonel
Verney."

"As you please: Godfrey Landless craves the
honor of a word with Major Carrington."

"And what if Major Carrington refuses?" said
the other sharply.

"I do not think he will do so."

The Surveyor-General hesitated a moment, then
said:—

"Go to the great door.  I will open to you in a
moment.  But make no noise."

Landless nodded, and proceeded to follow his
directions.  Presently the door swung noiselessly inward,
and Carrington, appearing in the opening, beckoned
Landless within, and led the way, still in profound
silence, across the hall to the great room.  Here, after
softly closing the door, he lighted candles, saw to it
that the heavy wooden shutters were securely drawn
across the windows, and turned to face his visitor in
a somewhat different guise than the riding suit and
jack boots, the mask and broad flapping beaver, in
which he had appeared in their encounter in the hut
on the marsh.  His stately figure was now wrapped in
a night-gown of dark velvet, his bare feet were thrust
into velvet slippers, and a silken nightcap, half on
and half off, imparted a rakish air to his gravely
handsome countenance.  He threw himself into a
great armchair and tapped impatiently upon the table.

"Well!" he said dryly.

Landless standing before him began to speak with
dignity and to the point.  Godwyn, the head of a
great conspiracy, was dead, leaving him, Landless, in
some sort his successor.  In a conference of the
leading conspirators held but a few nights before the
murder, Godwyn had announced that not only had he given
to the son of Warham Landless his complete confidence,
but that in case aught should happen to himself
before the time for action, he would wish the young
man to succeed him in the leadership of the revolt.
There had been some demur, but Godwyn's influence
was boundless, and on his advancing reason after
reason for his preference, the Oliverians had acquiesced
in his judgment and had given their solemn promise
to respect his wishes.  Three nights later, Godwyn
was murdered.  Since that dreadful blow, Landless
had seen only such of the conspirators as were in his
immediate neighborhood.  Confounded at the turn
affairs had taken, and utterly at a loss, they had
turned eagerly to him as to one having authority.
For his own freedom, for the sake of his promise to
the dead man, he would do his utmost.  He had come
to-night to discover, if possible, Major Carrington's
intentions—

Carrington, who had listened thus far with grave
attention, frowned heavily.

"If my memory serves me, sirrah, I told you once
before that Miles Carrington stirs not hand or foot in
this matter.  I may wish you well, but that is all."

"'T is a poor friend that cries 'Godspeed!' to one
who struggles in a bog, and gives not his hand to help
him out."

"Your figure does not hold," said the other, dryly.
"I have not cried 'Godspeed!'  I have said nothing
at all, either good or bad.  I have nothing to do with
this conspiracy.  You are the only man now living
that knows that I am aware that such a thing exists.
And I hope, sir, that you will remember how you
gained that knowledge."

"I am in no danger of forgetting."

"Very well.  Your journey here to-night was a
useless as well as a dangerous one.  I have nothing
to say to you."

"Will you tell me one thing?" said Landless,
patiently.  "What will Major Carrington have to say to
me upon the day when I speak to him as a free man
with free men behind me?"

"Upon that day," said the other, composedly,
"Miles Carrington will submit to the inevitable with
a good grace, having been, as is well known, a friend
to the Commonwealth, and having always, even when
there was danger in so doing, spoken against the
cruel and iniquitous enslavement of men whose only
offense was non-conformity, or the having served
under the banners of Cromwell."

"If he should be offered Cromwell's position in the
new Commonwealth, what then?"

"Pshaw! no such offer will be made."

"We must have weight and respectability, must
identify ourselves with that Virginia in which we are
strangers, if we are to endure," said Landless, with a
smile.  "A fact that we perfectly recognize—as does
Major Carrington.  He probably knows who is of,
and yet head and shoulders above, that party in the
state upon whose support we must ultimately rely,
who alone could lead that party; who alone might
reconcile Royalist and Puritan;—and to whom alone
the offer I speak of will be made."

Carrington smiled despite himself.  "Well, then,
if the offer is made, I will accept it.  In short, when
your man is out of the bog I will lend my aid to
cleanse him of the stains incurred in the transit.  But
he must pull himself out of the mire.  I am safe upon
the bank, I will not be drawn with him into a
bottomless ruin.  Do I make myself plain?"

"Perfectly," said Landless, dryly.

The other flushed beneath the tone.  "You think
perhaps that I play but a craven part in this game.
I do not.  God knows I run a tremendous risk as it
is, without madly pledging life and honor to this
desperate enterprise!"

"I fail to see the risk," said Landless, coldly.

The other struck his hand against the table.  "I
risk a slave insurrection!" he said.

A noise outside the door made them start like
guilty things.  The door opened softly and a charming
vision appeared, to wit, Mistress Betty Carrington,
rosy from sleep and hastily clad in a dressing-gown of
sombre silk.  Her little white feet were bare, and her
dark hair had escaped from its prim, white night coif.
She started when she saw a visitor, and her feet drew
demurely back under the hem of her gown, while her
hands went up to her disheveled hair: but a second
glance showing her his quality, she recovered her
composure and spoke to her father in her soft, serious
voice.

"I heard a noise, my father, and looking into your
room, found it empty, so I came down to see what
made you wakeful to-night."

"'T is but a message from Verney Manor, child,"
said her father.  "Get back to bed."

"From Verney Manor!" exclaimed Betty.  "Then
I can send back to-night the song book and book of
plays lent me by Sir Charles Carew, and which, after
reading the first page, I e'en restored to their
wrappings and laid aside with a good book a-top to put
me in better thoughts if ever I was tempted to touch
them again.  I will get them, good fellow, and you
shall carry them back to their owner with my thanks,
if it so be that I can find words that are both
courteous and truthful."

"Stop, child!" said her father as she turned to
leave the room.  "The volumes, which you were very
right not to read, may rest awhile beneath the good
book.  This is a secret mission upon which this young
man has come.  It is about a—a matter of state
upon which his master and I have been engaged.  No
one here or at Verney Manor must know that he has
been at Rosemead."

"Very well, my father," said Betty, meekly, "the
books can wait some other opportunity."

"And," with some sternness, "you will be careful
to hold your tongue as to this man's presence here
to-night."

"Very well, father."

"You are not to speak of it to Mistress Patricia
or to any one."

"I will be silent, my father."

"Very well," said the Major.  "You are not like
the majority of women.  I know that your word is as
good as an oath.  Now run away to bed, sweetheart,
and forget that you have seen this messenger."

"I am going now, father," said Betty, obediently.
"Is Mistress Patricia well, good fellow?"

"Quite well, I believe, madam."

"She spake of crossing to Accomac with Mistress
Lettice and Sir Charles Carew, when the latter should
go to visit Colonel Scarborough.  Know you if she
went?"

"I think not, madam.  I think that Sir Charles
Carew went alone."

"Ah!  They have fallen out then," said Betty, half
to herself, and with a demure satisfaction in her wild
flower face.  "I am glad of it, for I like him not.
Thanks, good fellow, for your answering my idle
questions."

Landless bowed gravely.  Betty bent her pretty
head, and with a hasty, "I am going, father!" in
answer to an impatient movement on the part of the
Major, vanished from the room.

Carrington waited until the last light footfall had
died away, and then said, "Our interview is over.
Are you satisfied?"

"At least, I understand your position."

"Yes," said Carrington, thoughtfully, "it is as well
that you should understand it.  It is simple.  I wish
you well.  I am in heart a Commonwealth's man.  I
love not the Stuarts.  I would fain see this fair land
freed from their rule and returned to the good days of
the Commonwealth.  And I may as well acknowledge,
since you have found it out for yourself,"—a haughty
smile,—"that I have my ambitions.  What man has
not?"  He rose and began to pace the room, his
hands clasped behind him, his handsome head bent,
his rich robe trailing upon the ground behind him.

"I could rule this land more acceptably to the
people than can William Berkeley with his parrot
phrases, 'divine right,' and 'passive obedience.'  I
know the people and am popular with them, with
Royalist and Churchman as well as with Nonconformist
and Oliverian.  I know the needs of the colony—home
rule, self taxation, free trade, a more liberal
encouragement to emigrants, religious tolerance, a rod
of iron, for the Indians, the establishment of a direct
slave trade with Africa and the Indies.  I could so
rule this colony that in a twelvemonth's time, Richard
Verney or Stephen Ludlow, hot Royalists though
they be, would be forced to acknowledge that never,
since the day Smith sailed up the James, had Virginia
enjoyed a tithe of her present prosperity."

"''T is a consummation devoutly to be desired,'" said
Landless, dryly.  "In the mean time, like the cat i'
the adage—"

"You are insolent, sirrah!"

"When a stripling I served under one who took
the bitter with the sweet, the danger as well as the
reward, who led the soldiers from whom he took his
throne."

"Cromwell, sirrah," said Carrington sternly, "led
soldiers.  You would require Miles Carrington to lead
servants, to place himself, a gentleman and a master,
at the head of a rebellion which, if it failed, would
plunge him into a depth of ignominy and ruin
proportionate to the height from which he fell.  He
declines the position.  When you have won your freedom
he will treat with you.  Not before."

"Then," said Landless slowly, "upon the day on
which the flag of the Commonwealth floats over the
Assembly hall at Jamestown, then—"

"Then I will join myself to you as I have said, and
I will bring with me those without whom your
revolution would be but short-lived—the Puritan and
Nonconformist element in the colony, gentle and
simple."

"That is sufficiently explicit," said Landless, "and
I thank you."

"I have trusted you fully, young man," said the
other, stopping before him, "not only because you
cannot betray me if you would, seeing that not one
scrap of writing exists to inculpate me in this matter,
and that your word would scarce be taken before
mine, but because I believe you to be trustworthy.  I
believe also"—graciously—"that Robert Godwyn
(whose death I sincerely mourn) showed his usual
wisdom and knowledge of mankind when he chose you as
his confidant and co-worker.  I wish you well through
with a dangerous and delicate piece of work and in
enjoyment of your reward, namely, your freedom, and
the esteem of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I will
myself see to it that any past offenses which you are
supposed to have committed (for myself, I believe you
to have been harshly used), shall not stand in your
light."

"Major Carrington is very good," said Landless,
calmly.  "I shall study to deserve his commendation."

The other took a restless turn or two through the
room, stopping at length before the younger man.

"You may tell me one thing," he said in a voice
scarcely above a whisper, and with his eyes bent
watchfully upon the other's composed face.  "Had
Godwyn set the day?"

"Yes."

"And you will adhere to it?"

"Yes."

"What day?"

"The thirteenth of September."

"Humph!  Two weeks off!  Well, my tobacco will
be largely in, and I shall send my daughter upon a
visit to her Huguenot kindred upon the Potomac.
Good night."

"Good night," answered Landless.





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.. _`THE WATERS OF CHESAPEAKE`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   THE WATERS OF CHESAPEAKE

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Patricia was ennuyée to the last degree.  That
morning Sir Charles had ridden to Green Spring with
her father; Mistress Lettice was in the still room
decocting a face wash from rose leaves, dew and honey;
young Shaw on his knees in the master's room,
disconsolately poring over piles of musty papers in search
of a misplaced deed which the colonel had ordered
him to find against his return.  It was a hot and
listless afternoon.  Patricia read a page of "The Rival
Ladies," tried her spinet, had a languid romp with
her spaniels, and finally sauntered into the porch, and
leaning her white arms upon the railing, looked
towards the dazzling blue waters of the Chesapeake.
Presently an idea came to her.  She went swiftly into
the hall, and called for Darkeih.  When that
handmaiden appeared:—

"Darkeih, go down to the quarters, and tell the
first man you meet to find Woodson, and send him to me."

Darkeih departed, and in half an hour's time the
overseer appeared at the foot of the porch steps, red
and heated from his rapid walk from the Three-Mile
field.

"What's wrong, Mistress Patricia?" he asked quickly.

Patricia opened her lovely eyes.

"Nothing is wrong, Woodson.  What should be?  I sent for you,
because I want to go to Rosemead."

"To Rosemead!" exclaimed the overseer.

"Yes, to Rosemead, and I want a couple of men to
take me."

The overseer gave a short, vexed laugh.  "I can't
spare the men, Mistress Patricia.  You ought to have
known that every man jack on the plantation is busy
cutting.  If I had a known this was all that was
wanted!  Fegs!  I thought something dreadful was
the matter."

"Something dreadful is the matter," said the young
lady calmly.  "I am bored to death."

"Sorry for ye, missy, but I can't spare the men."

"Oh, yes, you can!" said Patricia with unruffled
composure.

The overseer, knowing his lady, began to weaken.

"Anyhow, you would n't want two men.  You might
go on a pillion behind old Abraham.  I could spare
*him*."

"I shall not go a-horseback.  'T is too hot and
dusty.  I shall go in one of the sail-boats—the
Bluebird, I think."

"Now, in the name of all that's contrary, what do
you want to do that for, Mistress Patricia?" cried
the harassed overseer.  "It's twice as far by water."

"I 'll reach Rosemead before dark.  The men can
bring the boat back to-night, and Major Carrington
will send me home on a pillion to-morrow."

"Have you forgotten that to-morrow is Sunday?"
said the overseer severely, and with a new-born
anxiety for the proper observance of the holy day.
"Will you have the Colonel pay a fine for you?"

"I will go to service with the Carringtons then, and
come home on Monday," said the lady serenely.

"There 's a squall coming up this afternoon."

"There isn't a cloud in the sky," said his mistress
with calm conviction, looking straight before her at a
low, tumbled line of creamy peaks along the horizon.

"If the Colonel were here—"

"He would say, 'Woodson, do exactly as Mistress
Patricia tells you.'"  This with great sweetness.

The overseer gave it up.  "I reckon he would,
missy," he said with a grin.  "You wind him and all
of us around your finger."

"'T is all for your good, Woodson," with a soft,
bright laugh.  Then, coaxingly, "Am I to have the
Bluebird?"

"I reckon so, Mistress Patricia, seeing that you
have set your heart upon it," said the still reluctant
overseer.

"That's a good Woodson.  I want Regulus to be
one of the boatmen.  You can send any other you
choose.  I shall take Darkeih with me."

"You can't have Regulus, Mistress Patricia," answered
the overseer positively.  "He 's worth any two
men in the field.  I can't let him go."

"Let him be at the wharf in half an hour.  I will
be ready by then."

"You can't have him, Missy."

Patricia stamped her pretty foot.  "Am I mistress
of this plantation, or am I not, Woodson?"

"Lord knows you are!" groaned the overseer.

"Then when I say I want Regulus, I will have
Regulus and no other."

The overseer sighed resignedly.  "Very well,
Mistress Patricia, I 'll send for him."

Patricia danced away, and the overseer strode down
the path, viciously crunching the pebbles and bits of
shell beneath his feet.  At the wharf he found a
detachment of the infant population of the quarters
busily crabbing; all of whom, save two little Indians who
fished stoically on, scrambled to their feet, and pulled
a forelock.  The overseer touched one urchin upon
the shoulder with the butt end of his whip.

"You, Piccaninny, run as fast as your legs will
carry you to the field by the swamp, and tell Regulus
to leave his work, and come to the big wharf.
Mistress Patricia wants to go a pleasuring."

Piccaninny's black shanks and pink heels flew up
and out, and he was away like a flash.  The overseer
kept on to the end of the wharf, where were clustered
the boats, some tied to the piles, some anchored a
little way out.  "Haines was to send a man to caulk a
seam in the Nancy," he muttered.  "Whoever he is,
he 'll have to go in the Bluebird.  I 'm not going to
take another man from the tobacco.  What fools
women are!  But they get their way,—the pretty
ones at least."  He leaned over the railing, and
called,—

"You there, in the Nancy!"

Godfrey Landless looked up from his work.  "What is it?"

The overseer chuckled grimly.  "It's that fellow
Landless who angered her once before," he said to
himself with a malicious grin.  "Well, 't is n't my
business to know which of all the servants on this
plantation she most dislikes to come near her.  She 'll
have to put up with him to-day.  There is n't a better
boatman on the place anyhow."

To Landless he said, "Bring the Bluebird up to
the wharf, and see that she is sweet and clean inside.
Mistress Patricia starts for Rosemead in half an hour,
and you and Regulus are to take her.  You 'll bring
the boat back to-night.  Step lively now!"

Landless brought the Bluebird, a sixteen-foot open
boat, up to the wharf, made the inside, and especially
the seat in the stern, spotlessly clean, put up the sail,
and sat down to wait.  Presently Regulus appeared
above him, and swung himself down into the boat
with a grin of delight, for he much preferred
sailing with "'lil missy" to cutting tobacco.  He had
a great burly form and a broad, ebony face, and he
was the devoted slave of Patricia, and or Patricia's
maid, Darkeih.  Moreover, he enjoyed the distinction
of being the first negro born in the Colony, his parents
having been landed from the Dutch privateer which
in 1619 introduced the slave into Virginia.  Viewed
through a vista of nigh three hundred years, he
appears a portent, a tremendous omen, a sign from the
Eumenides.  Upon that tranquil summer afternoon
in the Virginia of long ago he was simply a
good-humored, docile, happy-go-lucky, harmless animal.

"'Lil Missy 's comin'," he remarked, with
bonhommie, to his fellow boatman.

Darkeih, laden with cushions, appeared at the edge
of the wharf.  Landless, standing in the bow below
her, relieved her of her burdens, and taking her by
the hands, swung her down into the boat.  She
thanked him with a smile that showed every tooth in
her comely brown countenance, and tripped aft, where,
with the assistance of Regulus, she proceeded to
arrange a cushioned seat for her mistress.

Landless waited for the lady of the manor to come
forward.  In the act of extending her hands to the
boatman, she glanced at him, crimsoned, and drew
back.  Landless, interpreting color and action aright,
buckled his armor of studied quiet more closely over
a hurt and angry heart.

"I was ordered to attend you, madam," he said
proudly.  "But if you so desire, I will find the
overseer and tell him that you wish for some one else in
my place."

"There is not time," was the cold reply.  "And
as well you as any other.  Let us be going."

Landless held out his arms again.  She measured
with her eyes the distance between her and the boat.
"I do not need any help," she said.  "If you will
stand aside, I can spring from here to the prow.

"And strike the water instead, madam," said Landless,
grimly, "when I would have to touch more than
your hand in order to pull you out."

She colored angrily, but held out her hands.
Landless lifted her down and steadied her to her seat in
the stern.  She thanked him coldly, and began at
once to talk to Regulus with the playful familiarity
of a child.  Regulus grinned delight; he had been
"'lil Missy's" slave from her childhood.  Landless
untied the boat from the piles and pushed her off;
Regulus, who was to steer, pulled the tiller towards him,
and the little Bluebird glided from the wharf, made
a wide and graceful sweep, and proceeded leisurely
down the inlet towards the waters of the great bay.

Landless seated himself in the bow, and turned his
face away from the group in the stern.  Patricia
leaned back amidst her cushions, and opened a book;
Darkeih, upon the other side of the rudder, held a
whispered flirtation with Regulus, squatting at her
feet, the tiller in his hand.  There was but little
wind, but what there was came from the land, and
the Bluebird moved steadily though listlessly down
the inlet, between the velvet marshes.  The water
broke against the sides of the boat with a languid
murmur.  It was very hot, and the sky above was of
a steely, unclouded blue that hurt the eyes.  Only in
the southwest the line of cloud hills was erecting itself
into an Alpine range.  The glare of the sun upon the
white pages of her book dazzled Patricia's eyes; the
heat and the lazy swaying motion made her drowsy;
With a sigh of oppression she closed her book, and
taking her fan from Darkeih, laid it across her face,
and curled herself among her cushions.

"I will sleep awhile," she said to her hand-maiden,
and serenely glided into slumberland.

She was in a balcony with Sir Charles Carew,
looking down upon a fantastic procession that wound
endlessly on, with flaunting banners, and to the sound of
kettle-drums and trumpets, when she was aroused by
Landless' voice.  She opened her eyes and looked up
from her nest of cushions to see him standing above
her.

"What is it?" she asked frigidly.

"I grieve to waken you, madam, but there is a
heavy squall coming up."

She sat up and looked about her.  The Bluebird
had left the inlet and was rising and falling
with the long oily swell of the vast sheet of water
that stretched before them to a horizon of vivid blue.
North and east the water met the sky; a mile to the
westward was the low wooded shore which they were
skirting.

"The sun is shining," said Patricia, bewildered.
"The sky is blue."

"Look behind you."

She turned and uttered an exclamation.  The Alpine
range had vanished, and a monstrous pall of
gray-black cloud was being slowly drawn upward and across
the smiling heaven.  Even as she looked, it blotted
out the sun.

"We had better make for the shore at once," said
Landless.  "We can reach it before the storm breaks
and can find shelter for you until it is over."

Patricia exclaimed: "Why, we cannot be more
than three miles from Rosemead!  Surely we can
reach it before that cloud overtakes us!"

"I think not, madam."

"Regulus!" cried his mistress imperiously.  "We
can reach Rosemead before that storm breaks, can we
not?"

Among other amiable qualities, Regulus numbered
a happy willingness to please, even at the expense of
truth.

"Sho-ly, 'lil Missy," he said with emphasis.

"And it will not be much of a squall, besides, will
it, Regulus?"

"No, 'lil Missy, not much ob squall," answered the
obliging Regulus.

"There is much wind in it," said Landless.  "Look
at those white clouds scudding across the black; and
these squalls strike with suddenness and fury.  I may
put the boat about, madam?"

"Certainly not.  Regulus, who must know the
Chesapeake and its squalls much better than you
possibly can, says there is no danger.  I have no mind
to be set ashore in these woods with night coming on
and Indians or wolves prowling around."

"I beg that you will be advised by me, madam."

She looked at him as she had done that day in the
master's room.  "Is it that you are *afraid* of a
Virginia squall?  If so, you will have to conquer your
tremor.  Regulus, keep the boat as it is."

Landless went back to his seat in the bow, with
tightened lips.  The wind freshened, coming in hot
little puffs, and the Bluebird slid more swiftly over
the low hills.  The water turned to a livid green
and the air slowly darkened.  Across the black pall,
looming higher and higher, shot a jagged streak of
fierce gold, followed by a low rumble of thunder.  A
mass of gray-white, fantastically piled clouds whirled
lip from the eastern horizon to meet the vast blank
sullen sheet overhead.  There came a more vivid flash
and a louder roll of thunder.

Landless walked aft and took the tiller from
Regulus' hand, motioning him forward to the place he had
himself occupied.  The negro stared, but went with
his accustomed docility.  Patricia sat upright in
indignant surprise.

"What are you doing?"

"I am about to head the boat for the shore,"
suiting the action to the word.

Her eyes blazed.  "Did you not hear me say that
I wished to proceed to Rosemead?"

"Yes, madam, I did."

"I order you, sir—"

"And I choose to disobey."

"I shall report you to Colonel Verney."

"As you please, madam."

From the prow, where he had been taking observations,
Regulus cried in a startled voice: "De win's
comin'!  De win 's comin' mighty quick!"

Landless thrust the tiller into Patricia's hands.
"Keep it there, just where it is, for your life!" he
cried authoritatively, and bounded forward to where
Regulus was already struggling with the sail.  They
got it in and lashed to the mast just in time, for, with
the shriek of a thousand demons, the squall whirled
itself upon them.  In an instant they were enveloped
in a blinding horror of furious wind and rain, glare of
lightning and incessant, ear-splitting thunder.  A
leaden darkness, illuminated only by the lightning,
settled around them, and the air grew suddenly cold.
Beneath the whip of the wind the Chesapeake woke
from slumber, stirred, and rose in fury.  The
Bluebird danced dizzily upon white crests or swooped
into black and yawning chasms.  Steadying himself
by the thwarts, Landless went back to Patricia,
sitting pale and with clasped hands, but making no
sound.  Darkeih, with a moan of fear, had thrown
herself down at her mistress' feet, and was hiding
her face in her skirts.  Landless took a scarf from
among the pile of cushions, and wrapped it around
Patricia.  "'T is a poor protection against wet and
cold," he said, "but it is better than nothing."

"Thank you," she said then, with an effort.  "Do
you think this squall will last long?"

"I cannot tell, madam.  It is rather a hurricane
than a squall.  But we must do the best we can."

As he spoke there came a fresh access of wind with
a glare of intolerable light.  The mast bent like a
reed, snapped off clear to the foot and fell inward,
the loosened beam striking Regulus upon the head,
and bearing him down with it.  The boat careened
violently, and half filled with water.  Darkeih
screamed, and Patricia sprang to her feet, but sat
down again at Landless' stern command, "Sit still!
She will right in a moment."

He lifted and flung overboard the mass of
splintered wood and flapping cloth, then fell to bailing with
all his might, for the danger of swamping was imminent.
Presently Patricia touched him upon the arm.
"I will bail if you will see to Regulus," she said, in
a low, strained voice.  "I think he is dead."

Landless resigned the pail into her hands and lifted
the negro's head and shoulders from the water in
which he was lying, pillowing them upon the stern
seat.  He was unconscious, and bleeding from a cut
on the forehead.

"He is not dead nor like to die," Landless said.
"He will revive before long."

The girl gave a long, quivering sigh of relief.
Landless finished the bailing and sat down at her
feet.

Some time later she asked faintly: "Do you not
think the worst is over now?"

"I am afraid not," he answered gently.  "There
is a lull now, but I am afraid the storm is but
gathering its forces.  But we will hope for the best—"

Another flash and crash cut him short.  It was
followed by rain that fell, not in drops, but in sheets.
The wind, which had been blowing a heavy gale, rose
suddenly into a tornado.  With it rose the sea.  The
masses of water, hissing and smoking under the
furious pelting of the rain, flung themselves upon
the hapless Bluebird, laboring heavily in the trough
of the waves, or staggering over their summits.  A
constant glare lit the heaving, tossing world of waters,
and the air became one roar of wind, rain, and thunder.

Darkeih crouched moaning at her mistress' feet
Regulus lay unconscious, breathing heavily.
Suddenly, with a quick intake of his breath, Landless
seized Patricia, pulled her down into the bottom of
the boat, and held her there.

"I see," she said in a low, awed voice.  "It is
Death!"

Through the glare a long green wall bore down
upon them.  The Bluebird leaped to meet it.  It lifted
her up, up to meet the lightning, then hurled her into
black depths, and passed on, leaving her staggering
in the trough, water-logged and helpless.





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.. _`THE FACE IN THE DARK`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


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   THE FACE IN THE DARK

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Patricia lifted her white face from her hands.
"We rode that dreadful wave?" she cried incredulously.

"By God's mercy, yes," said Landless gravely.

"Is there any hope for us?"

Landless hesitated.  "Tell me the truth," she said
imperiously.

"We are in desperate case, madam.  The boat is
half filled with water.  Another such sea will sink us."

"Why do you not bail the boat?"

"The bucket is gone; the tiller also."

She shivered, and Darkeih began to wail aloud.
Landless laid a heavy hand upon the latter's shoulder.
"Silence!" he said sternly.  "Here!  I shall lay
Regulus' head in your lap, and you are to watch over
him and not to think of yourself.  There 's a brave
wench!"

Darkeih's lamentations subsided into a low sobbing,
and Landless turned to her mistress.

"Try to keep up your courage, madam," he said.
"Our peril is great; but while there is life there is
hope."

"I am not afraid," she said.  "I—"  The pitching
of the boat threw her against Landless, and he
put his arm about her.  "You must let me hold you,
madam," he said quietly.  She shrank away from his
touch, saying breathlessly, "No, oh no!  See!  I can
hold quite well by the gunwale."  He acquiesced in
silence, only lifting her into a more secure position.
"I thank you," she said humbly.

The storm continued to rage with unabated fury.
Flash and detonation succeeded flash and detonation;
the rain poured in torrents: and the wind whooped
on the angry sea like a demon of destruction.  The
Bluebird pitched and tossed at the mercy of the
great waves that combed above her.  Time passed,
and to the darkness of the storm was added the darkness
of the night.  The occupants of the boat, drenched
by the rain and the seas she had shipped, shivered
with cold.  Regulus began to stir and mutter.  "He
is coming to himself," Landless cried to Darkeih.
"When you see that he is conscious, make him lie
still.  He must not move about."

"Do you know where we are?" asked Patricia.

"No, madam; but I fear that the wind is driving
us out into the bay."

"Ah!"

She said it with a sob, for a sudden vision of home
flashed across the cold and darkness; and presently
Landless could hear that she was weeping.

The sound went to his heart.  "I would God
could help you, madam," he said gently.  "Take
comfort!  You are in the hands of One who holds the sea
in the hollow of His hand."

In a little while she was quiet.  There passed
another long interval of silent endurance, broken by
Patricia's saying piteously, "My hands are so numbed
with cold that I cannot hold to the side of the boat
And my arms are bruised with striking against it."

Without a word Landless put his arm around her,
and held her steady amidst the tossings of the boat.
"You are shivering with cold!" he said.  "If I had
but something to wrap you in!"

She drooped against him, and the lightning showed
him her face, still and white, with parted lips, and
long lashes sweeping her marble cheek.

"Madam, madam!" he cried roughly.  "You
must not swoon!  You must not!"

With a strong effort she rallied.  "I will try to be
brave," she said plaintively.  "I am not frightened,—not
very much.  But oh!  I am cold and tired!"

He drew her head down upon his knee.  "Let it
lie there," he said, speaking as to a tired child.  "I
will hold you quite steady.  Now shut your eyes and
try to sleep.  The storm is no worse than it was;
and since the boat has lived this long in this sea, she
may live through the night.  And with morning may
come many chances of safety.  Try to rest in that
hope."

Faint and exhausted from cold and terror, she submitted
like a child, and lay with closed eyes in a sort
of stupor within his arms.

There was less lightning now, and the thunder
sounded in long booming peals, instead of short, sharp
cannon cracks.  The rain, too, had ceased; but the
wind blew furiously, and the sea ran in tremendous
waves.  Regulus stirred, groaned, and struggled into
a sitting posture.  "Lie down again!" ordered Darkeih.
"We 's all on de way to Heaben, but if nigger
shake de boat, we 'll get dere befo' de Lawd ready for
us.  Lie down!"  Regulus, muttering to himself,
looked stupidly about him, then dropped his head
back into her lap.  In three minutes he was snoring.
Darkeih's whimpering died away, and her turbaned
head sank lower and lower, until it rested upon that
of Regulus, and she, too, slept.

Landless sat very still, holding his burden lightly
and tenderly, and staring into the darkness.  Against
the steep slope of the sea, a picture framed itself,
melted away, and was followed by others in long
procession.  He saw a ruinous, ivy-grown hall, and an
old, grave, formal garden, where, between long box
hedges broken by fantastic yews, there walked a boy,
book in hand.  A man with a stately figure and a
stern, careworn face met the boy, and they leaned
upon a broken dial, and the father reasoned with the
son of Right and Truth and Liberty, and something
touched upon the Tyrannicides of old.  The yew trees
drooped their sombre boughs about the figures, and
they were gone, and in their place roared and swelled
the Chesapeake....  The sound of the storm became
the sound of a battle-cry.  He saw a clanging fight
where sword clashed upon armor, and artillery belched
fire and thunder, and horse and man went down in
the melée, and were trampled under foot amidst
shrieks and oaths and stern prayers.  The boy who
had leaned upon the dial fought coolly, desperately,
drunk with the joy of battle, stung to fierce effort by
his father's eyes.  The great banner, blazoned with
the Cross of Saint George, streamed in crimson and
azure between the battle and the lonely watcher in
the storm-tossed boat, and the vision was gone....
The spires of a great city, where men walked with
long faces and church bells made the only music, rose
through the gloom, and he saw a dingy chamber in a
dingy stack of buildings, and within it, bending over
great tomes of law, a man, impoverished and orphaned,
but young, strong, and full of hope,—a man well
spoken of and allowed to be on the road to high
preferment.  The chamber wavered into darkness;
but the city spires flashed light, and the slow ringing
changed to mad peals from joy bells.  Some one had
been restored—to drop balm upon the bleeding heart
of a nation, to bring light to them that sit in
darkness,—so said the joy bells....  He saw a loathsome
prison, and the man who had sat in the dingy
chamber lying therein under accusation of a crime which
he had not committed.  He saw him pining there,
week after week, month after month, untried, forgotten,
at the mercy of an enemy to his house whose day
had come with the Restored One....  The prison
vanished, and the waves that tossed around him were
the waves of the Atlantic.  A ship ploughed her way
through them.  He saw into her hold,—a horrible
place of stench and filth and darkness,—a place where
hounds would not have kenneled.  Men and women
were there who cursed and fought for the scanty,
worm-eaten food that was thrown them.  Some wore
gyves: they were heavy upon the wrists and ankles
of the man of his vision.  He saw a face looking
down upon this man, a handsome supercilious face,
with insolent amusement in the languid eyes and in
the curves of the lips.  The hatches were battened
down upon the cargo of misery, and the ship with its
brutal captain and its handful of gold-laced, dicing,
swearing passengers vanished....  He saw a sandy,
grass-grown street, and a row of mean houses, and a
low, brick building with barred windows.  There was
a crowd before this building, and a man standing
upon the platform of a pillory was selling human
flesh and blood.  He saw the boy who had stood
beneath the yews of the old Hull, who had fought at
Worcester beneath his father's eye; the man who had
lain in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship,
put up and sold to the highest bidder.  He saw him
carried away with other merchandise to the home of
his purchaser.  He saw a Virginia plantation lying
fair and serene beneath a Virginia heaven; and a wide
porch, and standing therein an angelic vision, all
grace and beauty, vivid youth and splendor.

The picture vanished into the night that raved
about him, and with a long shaken sigh he let his eyes
fall from the watery steeps to the face of the woman
who lay within his arms.  He had not looked at her
before, conceiving that she might be awake and feel
his glance upon her.  Now he could tell from her
breathing that she slept.  He gazed upon the pure
pale face with the golden hair falling about it, in a
passion of pity and tenderness.  She moaned now and
then in her sleep, or turned uneasily in his arms.
Once she spoke a few words, and he bent eagerly to
catch them, thinking that she had awakened and was
speaking to him.  They were:—

"Ah, your Excellency! where I reign there shall
be only good Churchmen and loyal Cavaliers—no
Roundheads, no rebel or convict servants!" and she
laughed in her sleep.

Landless shrank as from a mortal blow, then broke
into a bitter laugh, and said to himself, "Thou art a
fool, Godfrey Landless.  It were but too easy to
forget to-night what thou art and what thou must seem
to her.  Thou art answered according to thy folly."  He
sighed impatiently, and withdrawing his gaze
from the sleeping face, fell into a sombre reverie.

He was roused to active consciousness by a sudden
and death-like pause in the gale.  The lightning
showed the pall of cloud hanging low, black, and
unbroken; but the wind had sunk into an ominous calm.
He looked anxiously around him, then softly disengaging
himself from Patricia, leaned across her, and
shook Regulus awake.  The negro started up, stupid
from sleep and from his wound.

"What is it, massa?" he queried.  "Wake mighty
early at Rosemead....  Lawd hab mercy! we 's still
on de Chesapeake!"

"We will be in the Chesapeake in a moment," said
Landless sternly, "if you stagger about in that way.
Sit down and pull your wits together.  You are like
to need them all directly."  He touched Darkeih and
said, as her eyes, wide with alarm, opened upon him,
"Listen, my wench!  Whatever happens, you are to
trust yourself to Regulus.  He is a strong swimmer
and he will take care of you.  You hear, Regulus!"

"What is it?" exclaimed Patricia, as he bent over
her.  "Why have you waked Regulus?  And oh! has
not that dreadful wind died away?"

"It has stopped, madam, stopped suddenly and
utterly," he said gravely.  "But it will come upon
us from another quarter, and it will bring the sea
with it."  He raised her, and held her with his arm.
"Trust yourself to me when it comes," he said gently.
"If I can save you, I will."

There was no time for more.  Above them broke a
new and more terrible storm.  A ball of fire shot
from the cloud into the sea; it was followed by a
crash that seemed to shake the earth.  A cataract of
rain descended.  From the northeast there swooped
upon them a wind to which the gale of an hour before
seemed a zephyr.  It drove the boat before it as if she
had been the bird from which she took her name.  It
piled wave on wave until the sea ran in mountains.
Athwart the storm came a dull booming roar, and
above the great hills of water appeared a long ridge
crested with white.

"It is coming," said Landless.

Patricia looked up at him with great, despairing,
courageous eyes.  "I have caused your death," she
said.  "Forgive me."

There came a vivid flash, and a loud scream from
Darkeih.  "De lan'! de bressed, bressed, lan'!"

Landless wheeled.  Silhouetted against the lit sky
he saw a fringe of pines, and below it a low, shelving
shore where the waves were breaking in foam and
thunder.  The Bluebird, driven by the wind, was
hurrying towards it in mad bounds.  The great wave
overtook her, bore her onward with it, and sunk her
within fifty feet of the shore.

Ten minutes later Landless, breathless and
exhausted, staggered from out the hell of pounding
waves and blinding, stinging spray on to the shore.
Unlocking Patricia's arms from about his neck he
laid her gently down upon the sand and turned to
look for the other occupants of the hapless Bluebird.
They were close behind him.  In a few minutes the
two men, battling against wind and rain, had borne the
women out of reach of the waves, and had placed them
in the shelter of a low bank of sand.  As Landless
set his burden down he said reverently, "I thank
God, madam."

"And I thank God," she answered, in the same tone.

He tried to shield her from the wind with his body.
"It is frightful," he said, "that you should be
exposed to such a night.  I pray God that you take no
harm."

"Would it not be more sheltered higher up the
shore, under those trees?"

"Perhaps, but I fear to risk you there with the
lightning so near.  Later, when the storm subsides,
we will try it."

He seated himself so as to screen her as much as
possible from wind and rain, and a silence fell upon
the party so suddenly snatched from death.  Regulus
stretched himself upon the sand and pulled Darkeih
down beside him.  Within a few minutes they were
both asleep.  The white man and woman sat side by
side without speaking, watching the storm.

By degrees it raved itself out.  The rain fell in less
and less volume, the lightning became infrequent, the
thunder pealed less loudly, and the wind died from a
hurricane into a breeze.  In two hours' time from the
swamping of the boat the booming of the sea, and a
ragged mass of cloud, lit by an occasional flash and
slowly falling away from a pale and watery moon,
were the only evidences of the tornado which had
raged so lately.

"The storm is over," said Patricia, breaking a
long silence.

"Yes," said Landless.  "You have nothing to fear
now.  Would you not like to walk a little?  You
must be sadly chilled and weary with long sitting."

"Yes, I would," she answered, with a sigh of relief.
"Let us walk towards those trees, and see if forest or
water be beyond them."

He helped her to her feet, and they left the slaves
sleeping upon the ground, and moved slowly, for she
was numbed with cold, towards the fringe of pines.

Landless walked beside her without speaking.  A
while ago she had been simply a woman in danger of
death—something for him to protect and to save.
He had well nigh forgotten: he knew that she had
quite forgotten.  She was safe now, and was become
once more the lady of the manor to whose soil he was
fettered, he had remembered, and she was beginning
to remember, for presently she said timidly and
sweetly, but with condescension in her voice;—

"I am not ungrateful for all that you have done
for me to-night, for saving my life.  And, trust me,
you will not find your mas—my father, ungrateful
either.  We will find some way to reward—"

"I neither merit nor desire reward, madam," said
Landless, proudly and sadly, "for doing but my duty
as a man and as your servant."

"But—" she began kindly, when he interrupted
her with sudden passion.

"Unless you wish to cut me to the heart, to bitterly
humiliate me, you will not speak of payment for any
service I may have done you.  I have been a gentleman,
madam.  For this one night treat me as such."

"I beg your pardon," she said at once.

They reached the belt of trees and entered it.
Outside, the broken clouds had permitted an occasional
gleam of watery moonshine; within the shadow of the
trees it was gross darkness.  Above them the wet
branches, moved by the wind which still blew strongly,
clashed together with a harsh and mournful sound,
showering them with heavy raindrops.  Their feet
sank deeply in cushions of soaked moss and rotting
leaves.

"There is nothing to be done here," said Landless.
"It is better beneath the open sky."

There came a last, vivid flash of lightning that for
a moment lit the wood, showing long colonnades of
glistening tree trunks, with here and there a blasted
and fallen monster.  It showed something more, for
within ten feet of them, from out a tangle of dripping,
rain-beaten vines looked the face of the murderer
of Robert Godwyn.





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.. _`LANDLESS AND PATRICIA`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   LANDLESS AND PATRICIA

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For one moment the parties to this midnight
encounter stared at each other with starting eyeballs;
the next, down came the curtain of darkness between
them.

With a cry of terror Patricia seized and clung to
Landless's arm, trembling violently, and with her
breath coming in long, gasping sobs.  Exhausted by
the previous terrors of the night, this last experience
completely unnerved her—she seemed upon the point
of swooning.  Divining what would soonest calm her,
Landless hurried her out of the wood and down the
shore to the bank, beneath which lay the sleeping
slaves.  Here she sank upon the sand, her frame
quivering like an aspen.  "That dreadful face!" she
said in a low, shaken voice.  "It is burned upon my
eyeballs.  How came it there?  Was it—dead?"

"No, no, madam," Landless said soothingly.
"'Tis simple enough.  The murderer is in hiding
within these woods, and we stumbled upon his lair."

She gazed fearfully around her.  "I see it
everywhere.  And may he not follow us down here?  Oh,
horrible!"

"He is not likely to do that," said Landless, with a
smile.  "You may rest assured that he is far from
this by now."

She drew a long breath of relief.  "Oh!  I hope he
is!" she cried fervently.  "It was dreadful!  No
storm could frighten me as did that face!" and she
shuddered again.

"Try not to think of it," he said.  "It is gone
now; try to forget it."

"I will try," she said doubtfully.

Landless did not answer, and the two sat in silence,
watching out the dreary night.  But not for long,
for presently Patricia said humbly:—

"Will you talk to me?  I am frightened.  It is so
still, and I cannot see you, nor the slaves, only that
horrid, horrid face.  I see it everywhere."

Landless came nearer to her, and laid one hand
upon the skirt of her wet robe.  "I am here, close to
you, madam," he said; "there can nothing harm you."

He began to speak quietly and naturally of this and
that, of what they should do when the day broke, of
Regulus's wound, of the storm, of the great sea and
its perils.  He told her something of these latter, for
he knew the sea; piteous tales of forlorn wrecks,
brave tales of dangers faced and overcome, of heroic
endurance and heroic rescue.  He told her tales of a
wild, rockbound Devonshire coast with its scattered
fisher villages; of a hidden cave, the resort of a band
of desperadoes, half smugglers, half pirates, wholly
villains; of how this cave had been long and vainly
searched for by the authorities; of how, one night,
a boy climbed down a great precipice, scaring the
sea-fowl from their nests, and lighted upon this cavern
with the smugglers in it, and in their midst a
defenseless prisoner whom they were about to murder.  How
he had shouted and made wailing, outlandish noises,
and had sent rocks hurtling down the cliffs, until the
wretches thought that all the goblins of land and sea
were upon them, and rushed from the cavern, leaving
their work undone.  Whereupon, the boy reclimbed
the cliff, and hastening to the nearest village, roused
the inhabitants, who hurried to their boats, and
descending upon the long-sought-for cave, surprised the
smugglers, cut them down to a man, and rescued the
prisoner.

The man who told these things told them well.
The wild tales ran like a strain of sombre music
through the night.  His audience of one forgot her
terror and weariness, and listened with eager interest.

"Well—" she said, as he paused.

"That is all.  The ruffians were all killed and the
prisoner rescued."

"And the boy?"

"Oh, the boy!  He went back to his books."

"Did you know him?"

"Yes, I knew him.  See, madam, it has quite
cleared.  How the moon whitens those leaping waves!"

"Yes, it is beautiful.  I am glad the prisoner
escaped.  Was he a fisherman?"

"No; an officer of the Excise—a gallant man,
with a wife and many children.  Yes, I suppose he
prized life."

"And I am glad that the smugglers were all killed."

Landless smiled.  "Life to them was sweet, too, perhaps."

"I do not care.  They were wicked men who
deserved to die.  They had murdered and robbed.
They were criminals—"

She stopped short, and her face turned from white
to red and then to white again, and her eyes sought
the ground.

"I had forgotten," she muttered.

The hot color rose to Landless's cheek, but he said
quietly:—

"You had forgotten what, madam?"

She flashed a look upon him.  "You know," she
said icily.

"Yes, I know," he answered.  "I know that the
perils of this night had driven from your mind several
things.  For a little while you have thought of, and
treated me, as an equal, have you not?  You could
not have been more gracious to,—let us say, to Sir
Charles Carew.  But now you have remembered what
I am, a man degraded and enslaved, a felon,—in
short, the criminal who, as you very justly say, should
not be let to live."

She made no answer, and he rose to his feet.

"It is almost day, and the moon is shining brightly.
You no longer fear the face in the dark?  I will first
waken the slaves, and then will push along the shore,
and strive to discover where we are."

She looked at him with tears in her eyes.  "Wait,"
she said, putting out a trembling hand.  "I have hurt
you.  I am sorry.  Who am I to judge you?  And
whatever you may have done, however wicked you
may have been, to-night you have borne yourself
towards a defenseless maiden as truly and as
courteously as could have done the best gentleman in the
land.  And she begs you to forget her thoughtless
words."

Landless fell upon his knee before her.  "Madam!"
he cried, "I have thought you the fairest piece of
work in God's creation, but harder than marble
towards suffering such as may you never understand!
But now you are a pitying angel!  If I swear to you
by the honor of a gentleman, by the God above us,
that I am no criminal, that I did not do the thing for
which I suffer, will you believe me?"

"You mean that you are an innocent man?" she
said breathlessly.

"As God lives, yes, madam."

"Then why are you here?"

"I am here, madam," he said bitterly, "because
Justice is not blind.  She is only painted so.  Led by
the gleam of gold she can see well enough—in one
direction.  I could not prove my innocence.  I shall
never be able to do so.  And any one—Sir William
Berkeley, your father, your kinsman—would tell you
that you are now listening to one who differs from the
rest of the Newgate contingent, from the coiners and
cheats, the cut-throats and highway robbers in whose
company he is numbered, only in being hypocrite as
well as knave.  And yet I ask you to believe me.  I
am innocent of that wrong."

The moonlight struck full upon his face as he knelt
before her.  She looked at him long and intently, with
large, calm eyes, then said softly and sweetly:—

"I believe you, and pity you, sir.  You have suffered much."

He bowed his head, and pressed the hem of her
skirt to his lips.

"I thank you," he said brokenly.

"Is there nothing?" she said after a pause,
"nothing that I can do?"

He shook his head.  "Nothing, madam.  You have
given me your belief and your divine compassion.  It
is all that I ask, more than I dared dream of asking
an hour ago.  You cannot help me.  I must dree my
weird.  I would even ask of your goodness that you
say nothing of what I have told you to Colonel
Verney or to any one."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully.  "If I cannot help
you, it were wiser not to speak.  I might but make
your hard lot harder."

"Again I thank you."  He kissed the hem of her
robe once more, and rose to his feet with a heart that
sat lightly on its throne.

The day began to break.  With the first faint flush
Landless woke the slaves, who at length yawned and
shivered themselves into consciousness of their
surroundings.  "What are we to do now?" demanded
Patricia.

"We had best strike through that belt of woods
until we come to some house, whence we may get
conveyance for you to Verney Manor."

"Very well.  But oh! do not let us enter the forest
here where we saw that fearful face.  Let us walk
along the shore until the light grows stronger.  It is
still night within the woods."

Landless acquiesced with a smile, and the four—he
and Patricia in front, the negroes straying in the
rear—set out along the shore.  The air was chill
and heavy, but there was no wind, and the unclouded
sky gave promise of a hot day.  In the east the rosy
flush spread and deepened, and a pink path stretched
itself across the fast subsiding waters.  The wet sand
dragged at their feet, and made walking difficult,
moreover Patricia was chilled and weary, so their
progress was slow.  There were dark circles beneath her
eyes, and her lips had a weary, downward curve; her
golden hair, broken from its fastenings, hung in damp,
rich masses against her white throat and blue-veined
temples, and amidst the enshrouding glory her perfect
face looked very small and white and childlike.  The
magnificent eyes carried in their clear, brown depths
an expression new to Landless.  Heretofore he had
seen in them scorn and dislike; now they looked at
him with a grave and wondering pity.

As the sun rose, the shipwrecked party left the
shore, and entered the forest.  A purple light filled
its vast aisles.  Far overhead bits of azure gleamed
through the rifts in the foliage, but around them was
the constant patter and splash of rain drops, falling
slow and heavy from every leaf and twig.  There was
a dank, rich smell of wet mould and rotting leaves,
and rain-bruised fern.  The denizens of the woodland
were all astir.  Birds sang, squirrels chattered, the
insect world whirred around the yellow autumn blooms
and the purpling clusters of the wild grape; from out
the distance came the barking of a fox.  The sunlight
began to fall in shafts of pale gold through openings
in the green and leafy world, and to warm the chilled
bodies of the wayfarers.

"It is like a bad dream," said Patricia gayly, as
Landless held back a great, wet branch of cedar from
her path.  "All the storm and darkness, and the
great hungry waves and the danger of death!  Ah! how
happy we are to have waked!"

Her glance fell upon Landless's face, and there came
to her a sudden realization that there were those in
the world, to whom life was not one sweet, bright
gala day.  She gazed at him with troubled eyes.

"I hope you care to live," she said.  "Death is
very dreadful."

"I do not think so," he answered.  "At least it
would be forgetfulness."

She shuddered.  "Ah! but to leave the world, the
warm, bright, beautiful world!  To die on your bed,
when you are old—that is different.  But to go
young! to go in storm and terror, or in horror and
struggling as did that man who was murdered!  Oh,
horrible!"

The thought of the murdered man brought another
thought into her mind.

"Do you think," she said, "that we had better tell
that we saw the murderer at the first house to which
we come, or had we best wait until we reach Verney
Manor?"

Landless gave a great start.  "You will tell Colonel
Verney that?"

She opened her eyes widely.  "Why, of course!
What else should we do?  Is not the country being
scoured for him?  My father is most anxious that he
should be captured.  Justice and the weal of the State
demand that such a wretch should be punished."  She
paused and looked at him gravely as he walked beside
her with a clouded face.  "You say nothing!  This
man is guilty, guilty of a dreadful crime.  Surely you
do not wish to shield him, to let him escape?"

"Not so, madam," said Landless in desperation.
"But—but—"

"But what?" she asked as he stopped in confusion.

He recovered himself.  "Nothing, madam.  You
are right, of course.  But I would not speak before
reaching Verney Manor."

"Very well."

Landless walked on, bitterly perplexed and chagrined.
The strife and danger of the night, the intoxicating
sweetness of the morning hours when he knew
himself believed in and pitied by the woman beside
him, had driven certain things into oblivion.  He had
been dreaming, and now he had been plucked from a
fool's paradise, and dashed rudely to the ground.
Yesterday and the life and thoughts of yesterday, which
had but now seemed so far away, pressed upon him
remorselessly.  And to-morrow!  He did not want Roach
to be taken.  Always there would have been danger
to himself and his associates in the capture of the
murderer, but now when the vindictive wretch would
assuredly attribute his disaster to the man to whom
the lightning flash had revealed his presence on the
shores of the bay, the danger was trebled.  And it
was imminent.  He had little doubt that another night
would see Roach in custody, and he had no doubt at
all that the scoundrel would make a desperate effort
to save his neck by betraying what he knew of the
conspiracy—and thanks to Godwyn's lists he knew a
great deal—to Governor and Council.

Patricia began to speak again.  "It imports much
that men should see that there is no weakness in the
arm the law stretches out to seize and punish
offenders.  My father and the Governor and Colonel
Ludlow believe that there is afoot an Oliverian
plot—  What is the matter?"

"Nothing, madam."

"You stood still and caught your breath.  Are you
ill, faint?"

"It is nothing, madam, believe me?  You were saying?"

"Oh! the Oliverians!  Nothing definite has been
discovered as yet, but there is thunder in the air, my
father says, and I know that he and the Governor and
the rest of the council are very watchful just now.
But yesterday my father said that those few hundred
men form a greater menace to the Colony than do all
the Indians between this and the South Sea."

They walked on in silence for a few moments, and
then she broke out.  "They are horrible, those grim,
frowning men!  They are rebels and traitors, one and
all, and yet they stand by and shake curses on the
heads of true men.  They slew the best man, the most
gracious sovereign; they trampled the Church under
foot, they made the blood of the noble and the good
to flow like water, and now when they receive a
portion of their deserts, they call themselves martyrs!
They, martyrs!  Roundhead traitors!"

"Madam," interrupted Landless with a curious
smile upon his lips, "did you not know that I was,
that I am, what you call a Roundhead?"

"No," she said, "I did not know," and stood perfectly
still, looking straight before her down the long
vista of trees.  He saw her face change and harden
into the old expression of aversion.  The slaves came
up to them, and Regulus asked if 'lil Missy wanted
anything.  "No, nothing at all," she answered, and
walked quietly onward.

Landless, an angry pain tugging at his heart, kept
beside her, for they were passing through a deep
hollow in the wood where the gnarled and protruding
roots of cypress and juniper made walking difficult,
and where a strong hand was needed to push aside the
wet and pendent masses of vine.  Regulus, fifty yards
behind them, began to sing a familiar broadside
ballad, torturing the words out of all resemblance to
English.  The rich notes rang sweetly through the
forest.  Down from the far summit of a pine flashed
a cardinal bird, piercing the gloom of the hollow like
a fire ball thrown into a cavern.  Landless held aside
a curtain of glistening leaves that, mingled with
purple clusters of fruit, hung across their path.  Patricia
passed him, then turned impulsively.  "You think me
hard!" she said.  "Many people think me so, but I
am not so, indeed....  And there are good Puritans.
Major Carrington, they say, is Puritan at heart, and
he is a good man and a gentleman....  And you
saved my life....  At least you are not like those
men of whom I spoke.  You would not plot against
the good peace which we enjoy!  You would not try
to array servant against master?"

It was a direct question asked with large, straight-forward
eyes fixed upon his.  He tried to evade it,
but she asked again with insistence, and with a faint
doubt lurking in her eyes, "If these men are plotting,
which God forbid! you know nothing of it?  You
have great wrongs, but you would take no such
dastard way to right them?"

Landless's soul writhed within him, but he told the
inevitable lie that was none the less a lie that it was
also the truth.  He said in a low voice, "I trust,
madam, that I will do naught that may misbecome a
gentleman."

She was quite satisfied.  He saw that he had regained
the ground lost by his avowal of a few minutes
before, and he cursed himself and cursed his fate.

Soon afterwards they emerged from the forest upon
a tobacco patch, from the midst of which rose a rude
cabin, in whose doorway stood a woman serving out
bowls of loblolly to half a dozen tow-headed children.

Half an hour later, Patricia, rested and refreshed,
took her seat behind the oxen, which the owner of the
cabin had harnessed up, with much protestation of his
eagerness to serve the daughter of Colonel Verney,
emptied her purse in the midst of the open-mouthed
children, and bade kindly adieu to the good wife.
Darkeih curled herself up in the bottom of the cart,
and Landless and Regulus walked beside it.

In two hours' time they were at Verney Manor,
where they found none but women to greet them.
Rendered uneasy by the storm, Woodson had
despatched a messenger to Rosemead, who had returned
with the tidings that no boat from Verney Manor had
reached that plantation.  The overseer had ill news
with which to greet the Colonel and Sir Charles when
at midnight they arrived unexpectedly from Green
Spring.  Since then every able-bodied man had
deserted the plantation.  There were no boats at the
wharf, no horses in the stables.  The master and Sir
Charles were gone in the Nancy, the two overseers
on horseback.  A Sabbath stillness brooded over the
plantation, until a negro woman recognized the
occupants of the ox-cart lumbering up the road.  Then
there was noise enough of an exclamatory, feminine
kind.  The shrill sounds penetrated to the great
room, where, behind drawn curtains, surrounded by
essences, and an odor of burnt feathers, with Chloe to
fan her, and Mr. Frederick Jones to murmur consolation,
reclined Mistress Lettice.  As Patricia stepped
upon the porch, Betty Carrington flew down the stairs
and through the hall, and the two met with a little
inarticulate burst of cries and kisses.  Mistress
Lettice in the great room went into hysterics for the
fifth time that morning.





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.. _`A CAPTURE`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CAPTURE

.. vspace:: 2

At noon the next day returned the search party,
dispatched by the Colonel on receipt of his daughter's
information, and headed by Woodson and Sir Charles
Carew.  In their midst, bound with ropes, and seated
behind one of the mounted men, was Roach.  His
clothing hung from him in tatters, and witnessed,
moreover, to the quagmires and mantled pools through
which he had struggled; his arm had been injured, and
was tied with a bloody rag; blood was caked upon
his villainous face, scratched and torn in his breathless
bursting through thickets; his red hair fell over
his eyes in matted elf-locks; his lips were drawn back
in a snarl over discolored fangs; he panted like a dog,
his thick red tongue hanging out.  He looked hardly
human.  The man behind whom he rode was Luiz
Sebastian.

The party dismounted in the small square, in the
midst of the quarters.  It being the noon rest, the
entire servant population was on hand, and leaving its
cabins and smoking messes of bacon and succotash,
it hastened to a man to the square, where, beneath
the dead tree and its sinister appendage, stood the
master, listening to Woodson's account of the capture,
and to Sir Charles's airy interpolations.  Roach,
dragged from the horse by a dozen officious hands,
staggered with exhaustion.  Luiz Sebastian caught
him by the arm and so held him during the ensuing
interview.

When the unusual bustle, the neighing of the
horses, and the excited voices of the crowd brought
the news of the capture to Landless, sitting, sunk in
anxious thought, within his cabin, he rose and began
to pace to and fro in the narrow room.  Past his door
hurried men, women and children on their way to the
square.  One or two beckoned him to follow, but he
shook his head.  "If he betray me," he thought,
"my fate will come to me soon enough.  I will not
go to meet it."

In his restless pacing to and fro, he stopped before
a shelf where, beside some coarse eating utensils and
the heap of tobacco pegs, the cutting of which
occupied his spare moments, lay a little worn book.  It
had been Godwyn's.  He opened it at random, and
read a few verses.  With a heavy sigh he laid his
arm along the shelf and rested his burning forehead
upon it.  "'Let not your heart be troubled,'" he
said beneath his breath; and again, "'Let not your
heart be troubled.'"  He recommenced his pacing up
and down the room.  "'Peace I leave with you, My
peace I give unto you.'"  Going to the doorway he
leaned against it and looked out into a world of
sunshine, and up to where the topmost branches of a
pine slept against the blue.  "There may be peace
beyond," he said.  "I have not found it here."

Down the lane came a murmur of voices; then the
overseer's harsh tones; then a light and mocking
laugh.  Seized by an uncontrollable impulse he left
the cabin and directed his steps towards the square.
As he passed a cabin some doors from his own, a
gaunt figure arose from the doorstep and joined itself
to him.

"The murderer is here," said the sepulchral voice
of Master Win-Grace Porringer.  "Verily the blood
hath been taken out of his mouth, and his abominations
from between his teeth.  Cursed be the shedder
of innocent blood!"

"Amen," said Landless, then.  "This capture is
like to be our ruin.  This wretch will not keep
silence."

"But he has no proofs.  Since you destroyed those
lists there exists not a scrap of writing about this
affair.  And we have covered our tracks as carefully
as if we were the cursed heathen of the land upon the
war-path.  Let him say what he will.  The Malignants,
besotted fools! will think he lies to save his neck."

"A week ago they might have thought so," said
Landless.  "But not now.  Something has gotten
abroad.  Already Governor and Council think they
smell a plot."

The Muggletonian caught his breath.  "How do
you know this?"

"No matter how: I know it."

Porringer raised his scarred face to heaven.  "God,"
he said, "we are thy people!  Save us!  Let
destruction come upon them unawares; let them go down a
dark and slippery way to death; make them to be
as blind and deaf adders that see not the foot of the
destroyer!  Yea, shake thy hand upon these Malignants
and make them a spoil to their servants!"  He
turned his ghastly face and burning eyes upon Landless.
"Curse them with me!" he cried.

Landless shook his head.  "Thou and I look not
alike at things, friend," he said.

"Thou art a Laodicean!" cried the other wildly.
"Thou hast not an eye single to the Lord's work as
had thy father before thee.  Thou wouldst not smite
the Amalekites hip and thigh, root and branch!  One
damsel would thou save alive, and for her sake thy
heart is soft towards the whole accursed brood!  Look
to it lest the Lord spew thee out of His mouth!  Woe,
woe, to him that putteth his hand to the plough and
looketh back!"  He laughed wildly and tossed out
his arms.

"I think thou hast eaten of the Jamestown weed!"
said Landless fiercely.  "Collect thy senses, man!
And speak something less loudly, or Roach's betrayal
will be superfluous.  As to myself, if I curse not, I
act; and as for my motives for what you call
lukewarmness, and I call common humanity, you will
please to let them alone!"

The excitement faded from the fanatic's face, and
he said more quietly, "You are right, friend.  I was
mad for a moment, mad to see that freedom which is
so near us so imperiled.  I meant not to quarrel
with you who have shown in the conduct of this work
the discernment of a young Daniel, yea, who have so
borne yourself, that I have grown to care for you as
I never thought to care again for human being.  I
have prayed much that you should be brought from
the twilight of Calvinism into the pure light wherein
walk the disciples of the blessed Ludovick."

They reached the square and mingled with the
motly crowd that lined its sides, leaving the centre
occupied only by the murderer, his captors, and the
master.  Followed by the Muggletonian, Landless
made his way to where the yellow locks of young
Dick Whittington towered above the crowd.  The boy
saw him coming, and edging past a knot of blacks,
met him in a little open space, whose only occupants
were two or three women, and an Indian squatting
upon the ground.  Leaning against a pine, and fixing
his gaze and, to all appearance, his attention upon the
central group where the overseer was just finishing
a circumstantial account of the chase, Landless said
quietly:—

"You were of the party that took him?"

"That I was!" answered the boy gleefully.
"Losh! but it was fun!"  His blue eyes danced with
impish delight; a noiseless laugh showed all his strong
white teeth.  "We went straight to the spot where
you and Mistress Patricia saw him by the lightning.
There the dogs struck his trail and the fun
commenced.  Over streams and fallen trees, and
chinquepin ridges; through bogs and myrtle thickets and
miles of grape vines—swounds! but it was hot work!
Just look at the scratches on my face and hands!
Joyce Whitbread would n't know me!  The Court
spark, he wore a mask and saved his beauty.  He's
a well-plucked one, though, took the lead and kept
it, and when it was over, treated us to usquebaugh
at Luckey Doughty's store.  Well, we run the fox to
earth in a Chickahominy village.  Lord!  I 'm sorry
for the half king of the Chickahominies!  He'll have
to answer to Governor and Council for letting red
fox burrow in his village.  Found him squatted in a
sassafras patch.  Snarled and fought and tried to bite
like the beast he is.  Woodson and the Court spark
took him."

"Do you know what will be done with him now?"

"He 'll be taken on to the gaol at the court-house."

"That is five miles from here," said Landless.

"Yes, near to the village where we took him.  He 'll
be kept there until they can try him.  And they'll
make short work of him.  He 'll be food for crows
directly."

The throng pressed upon them, forcing them nearer
to the group beneath the dead tree.  The overseer
had finished his account, and the master was clearing
his throat to speak.  Landless found himself upon the
inner verge of the mass of spectators, directly opposite
the murderer, and confronted by him with a look so
dark, wild and malignant, that he could not doubt the
intention that lay behind those scowling eyes.  Luiz
Sebastian, still with the murderer's arm in his grasp,
gave him a peculiar look which he could not translate.
In the background he saw Trail's sinister face peering
over the shoulder of an Indian.

"You dog!" said the planter, addressing himself
directly to Roach.  "What have you to say for yourself?"

The murderer made an uncertain sound with his
dry lips, and his bloodshot eyes roamed around the
circle from one staring face to another, until they
returned to rest upon the watchful, amber-hued
countenance beside him.

"Speak!" said his master sternly.

"I 'll say nothing," was the dogged reply, "until
I stands my trial.  I demands a fair trial."

"Remember that this is your last chance to speak
to me, to speak to any one in authority before you are
tried.  Of course you will hang for this.  Have you
anything to say?  Do you wish to speak to me in
private?"

The murderer raised his head, and shaking the
tangled hair from about his face, cast at Landless,
standing ten paces beyond the planter, such a look of
deadly and blasting hatred, that for a moment the
blood ran cold in the young man's veins.  He set his
teeth and braced himself to meet the blow at plans
and hopes and life that should follow such a look.

To his astonishment the blow did not fall.  Roach
changed the basilisk gaze with which he had regarded
him to a vacant stare.

"I 've naught to say," he whined, "except that I
hopes your honor will see that I has a fair trial—no
d—d Tyburn or Newgate hocus-pocussing."

The master beckoned to the overseer.  "Take him
away," he said.  "Take two or three men and carry
him on to the gaol."

He turned on his heel and walked to where Sir
Charles Carew leaned against a tree, idly flicking the
mud from his boots with his riding cane.  Landless
standing near and listening with strained ears heard
the master say in answer to the other's lifted brows:—

"Nothing to be learnt in that quarter.  If there 's
rebellion brewing, he knows nothing of it."

Fresh horses were brought from the stables.  "You,
Luiz Sebastian, Taylor, and Mathew," said the
overseer, swinging himself into the saddle.  The men
designated mounted, and Roach, bound and scowling,
was hoisted to his former seat behind Luiz Sebastian.
The cavalcade started.  As the horse that bore the
double load passed Landless, the murderer twisted
himself about in his seat, and, with a venomous look,
spat at him.  Luiz Sebastian smiled evilly.

The shaven head and fleshless face of Win-Grace
Porringer protruded themselves over Landless's
shoulder.

"What does it mean?" he muttered.

"God knows," answered the other.  "Come to
the trysting place to-night.  We must act, and act
quickly."

That night ten men met in the deserted hut on the
marsh, having stolen with the caution of Indians from
their respective plantations.  Five were men who had
fought at Edgehill and Naseby and Worcester, or had
followed Cromwell through the breach at Drogheda.
Four were victims of the Act of Uniformity; darker,
sterner, more determined if possible, than the veterans
of the New Model.  The tenth man was Landless.
When, late at night, he and Porringer crept stealthily
back to the quarters, it was with the conviction that
this was the last time they should so steal through the
darkness.  The date of the rising had been fixed for
the thirteenth of September; this night, by Landless's
advice, it was brought forward to the tenth—and it
was now the sixth.

Groping his way past the slumbering forms of the
three other occupants of his cabin, Landless threw
himself down upon his pallet with a heavy sigh.

"Liberty!" he said beneath his breath.  "Goddess,
whom I and mine have sought through long
years, whom once we thought we held, and waked to
find thee gone,—once I thought thee fairer than
aught beside; thought no price too great to pay for
thee.  But now!"

He hid his face in his hands with a stifled groan,
When at length he fell into a troubled sleep, it was
to see again a storm-tossed boat, and a woman's face,
set like a star against the blackness of the night.





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.. _`THE LIBRARY OF THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LIBRARY OF THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL

.. vspace:: 2

At a long, low table stood Mistress Betty Carrington,
her slender figure enveloped in an apron of blue
dowlas, her sleeves of fine holland rolled above her
elbows, and her white and rounded arms plunged deep
into a great bowl filled with the purple globes of the
wild grape.  A row of children knelt on the brick
floor at her feet, busily stripping the fruit from the
stems, and negresses, hard by, strained with sinewy
hands the crimson juice from the pulpy mass into jars
of earthenware.  To this group suddenly entered a
breathless urchin.

"Ohé, mistis! de Gov'nor an' Massa Peyton comin'
up de road!"

Betty suspended her operations with a little cry.
"The Governor!" she exclaimed in dismay.  "And
my father is gone a-processioning;—and my gown is
not seemly;—and he cannot be kept waiting!"  She
threw off her apron, dipped her hands into the water
the slaves poured for her, and was at the hall door in
time to courtesy to the Governor, as, followed by a
groom, and attended by Mr. Peyton, he rode up to
the house.

With the agility of youth his Excellency sprung
from his horse, threw the reins to the groom, and
advanced to greet the lady.  A richly laced riding-suit
became his still slight and elegant figure to a
marvel; his gilt-spurred, Spanish leather boots were
of the newest, most approved cut; his periwig was
fresh curled, and framed with distinction a handsome,
if somewhat withered, countenance.  He doffed his
Spanish hat with a bow and flourish: Betty courtesied
profoundly.

"Welcome to Rosemead, your Excellency."

"I greet you well, pretty Mistress Betty," said the
Governor, and took a governor's privilege.  Mr. Peyton
looked as though he would have liked to follow
his Excellency's example, but was fain to content
himself with the lady's hand, resigned to the respectful
pressure of his lips with a charming blush and a
dropping of long-fringed eyelids.

"Where is your father, sweetheart?" demanded
the Governor.

"Ah! your Excellency, he is unfortunate.  The
vestry hath appointed this day for the examination of
boundaries in this parish, and as his Majesty's
Surveyor-General he leads the procession.  But will not
your Excellency await his return?  He will be here
anon, and with him Colonel Verney."

"Then will I wait, pretty one; for I have weighty
matters to discuss both with him and with Dick
Verney."

Betty ushered them into the great room, cool, dark,
and fragrant of roses.

"If your Excellency will permit me to withdraw, I
will order some refreshment for you after your long
ride."

The Governor sank into an armchair, and smiled
graciously.

"Faith! a bit of pasty comes not amiss after a
morning canter.  And prithee see to the sack thyself,
Mistress Betty.  And a dish of pippins and cheese,"
continued the Governor, meditatively, "and a rasher
of bacon."

"There was a fine comb taken from the hive this
morning.  Will your Excellency choose a bit?  And
there are dates, sent my father by the captain of the
Barbary vessel, and a quince tart—"

"We will taste of it all," said his Excellency,
graciously, "and afterwards a pipe and a saucer of sweet
scented, and your company, my love.  Mr. Peyton, the
lady may find the honeycomb too heavy for her
lifting.  We will excuse you to her assistance."

"I am your Excellency's most obedient servant,"
quoth Mr. Peyton with due submission, and hastened
after his blushing mistress.

The Governor, left alone, strolled to the window
and looked out upon the Chesapeake, lying blue and
unruffled beneath the dazzling sunshine; to the
mantel-piece, and smelt of the roses in the blue china
bowl; to the spinet, and picked out "Here 's to Royal
Charles" with one finger;—and finally brought up
before a corner cupboard, found the key in the door,
turned it, and came upon the Surveyor-General's
library.

"H'm, what has he here?" soliloquized his
Excellency.  "'Purchas; His Pilgrimes,' of course;
'General History of Virginia, New England and the
Summer Isles,' well and good; 'Good News from
Virginia,' humph! that must have been before my
time; 'Public Good without Private Interest,' humph!
What's this?  'Areopagitica,' John Milton!  John
Hypocrite and Parricide!  A pretty author, and a
pretty cause he advocates,—I thank God there are
no schools and no printing presses in this colony, nor
are like to be,—and a courageous Surveyor-General
to keep by him such pestilent stuff in the present year
of grace.  'Abuses Stript and Whipt,' 'Anglia
Rediva,' 'Diary of Nehemiah Wallington,' 'Bastwick's
Litany!'  Miles Carrington, Miles Carrington!
I have my eye on thee!  Thou hadst need to
walk warily!  'Zion's Plea against Prelacy,'
damnation!  'Speech of Mr. Hampden,' death and hell!
'Eikonoklastes,' may the foul fiend fly away with my
soul!"

And the Governor closed the cupboard door with a
bang, and, with a very red and frowning face, went
back to his seat, and there sank into a reverie, which
lasted until the entrance of Mistress Betty and
Mr. Peyton, followed by two slaves bearing an ample
repast.

An hour later came home the Surveyor-General,
bringing with him Colonel Verney, Sir Charles Carew,
and Captain Laramore.

The Surveyor-General made stately apologies to his
Excellency for his unavoidable absence: his Excellency,
holding himself very erect, heard him out, and
then said coldly, "Major Carrington may rest at ease.
I was sufficiently amused."

"Truly the county knows Mr. Peyton's powers of
entertainment," said the Surveyor-General with a bow
and smile for that young gentleman.

"Mr. Peyton had other occupation," said the Governor
dryly.  "And I fear that his is too cavalier a
wit, and that his sonnets and madrigals savor too
much of loyalty to the Anointed of the Lord and to
His Church to have proved acceptable to the
worshipful company with whom I have been engaged.  I
have to congratulate his Majesty's Surveyor-General
on the possession of such a library as, I dare swear,
is to be found in no other house in this, his Majesty's
*loyal* dominion of Virginia."

Carrington glanced towards the cupboard, and bit
his lip.

"I am pleased," he said stiffly, "that your Excellency
hath found wherewithal to pass an idle hour."

"It is, indeed, a choice collection," said the
Governor, with a smooth tongue, but with an angry light
in his eyes.  "May I ask by whom it was chosen;
who it was that so carefully culled nightshade and
poison oak?"

"*I* choose my own reading," said Carrington
haughtily.  "And I see not why Sir William
Berkeley should concern himself—"

"This passes!" exclaimed the Governor, giving
rein to his fury and striking his hand against the
table.  "It doth concern me much, Major Carrington,
both as a true man, and as the Governor of this
Colony, the representative of his blessed Majesty,
King Charles the Second, may all whose enemies,
private and open, be confounded! that a gentleman who
holds a high office in this Colony should have in his
possession—ay! and read, too, for 't is a well-thumbed
copy—that foul emanation from a fouler mind, that
malicious, outrageous, damnable, proscribed book,
called 'Eikonoklastes!'"

"If Sir William Berkeley doubts my loyalty—"
began Carrington fiercely.

"Major Carrington, you are too popular a man!"
broke in the Governor as fiercely.  "When, upon
that black day, ten years ago, the usurper's frigates
entered the Chesapeake, and taking us unprepared,
compelled (God forgive me!) my submission, who
but Miles Carrington welcomed and entertained the
four commissioners (commissioners from a Roundhead
Parliament to a King's Governor!)?  Who but
Miles Carrington was hand in glove with the
shopkeeper Bennett and the renegade Matthews?
Oh! they used their power mildly, I deny it not!  They
were gracious and long-suffering; they left to the
loyal gentlemen, their sometime friends, life and
lands; they contented themselves with banishing a
loyal Governor to his own manor-house, and not, as
they might have done, to the wilderness, to perish
amongst the savages.  O, they were exemplary despots!
What, when a turn of Fortune's wheel brought them
up, could grateful, loyal gentlemen, could a
grateful King's Governor do, but follow the example set
them and be civil to the officers of the late
Commonwealth, and something more than civil to the
gentleman who so gracefully avowed that he had but
bowed to the times, and that the restored sovereign
had no more faithful subject than he?  When his
Majesty was graciously pleased to continue that
gentleman (at the solicitation of his loyal kindred at
home) in the office of Surveyor-General to this colony,
sure, we all rejoiced.  It is not with the past of Major
Carrington that I quarrel; it is with the present.  In
his case, that which should speak loudest for his
recovered loyalty is wanting.  Others there are who
have that witness.  Let Mr. Digges ride abroad, and
from his cabin-door some prick-eared cur cried out,
'Renegade!'  (Pardon me, the word is not mine.)
The Oliverian and schismatic servants spit at him.
Is it so with Major Carrington?  By G—d, no!
These people uncover to him as though he were the
arch rebel himself.  Speak of his Majesty's Surveyor-General
before an Oliverian, and the fellow pricks up
his ears like a charger that scents the battle.  Nay, I
am told that in their conventicles the schismatics pray
for him, that he may be brought back into the fold,
and may become a second Moses, and lead them out
of Egypt!  Even the Quakers have a good word for
him.  Major Carrington asks me if I question his
loyalty.  I answer that I know not, but I do know
that the discontented and mutinous of the land do
look upon him with too favorable a regard.  And his
loyalty is of that tender age that it may well be
susceptible to the influence of the evil eye."  The
Governor, who was now in a white heat of passion, stopped
for breath.

"Sir William Berkeley, you shall answer to me for
this!" said the Surveyor-General, with white lips.

"With all the pleasure in life," said the Governor,
clapping his hand to his rapier.

Carrington folded his arms.  "Not now," he said,
with stern courtesy.  "I believe your Excellency sleeps
at Verney Manor?  I, too, am invited thither.
There, and it please you, we will adjust our little
difference.  For the present, you are my guest."

The Governor choked down his passion, though with
difficulty.  "Till to-night then—" he began, when
Colonel Verney interposed.

"Neither to-night, nor at any other time," he said
sturdily.  "Gadzooks! have not his Majesty's servants
enough on hand without employing their time in
pinking one another?  Here are the Chickahominies
restive, and those plaguy Ricahecrians amongst us, and
the Nansemond Independents prophesying the end of
the world, and the witches' trial coming on, and the
Quakers to be routed out, and on top of it all this
story that Ludlow brings of a redemptioner's
assertion that there is afoot an Oliverian plot.  And his
Majesty's Governor, and his Majesty's Surveyor-General
with drawn rapiers!  For shame, gentlemen!
Major Carrington, my good friend and neighbor, for
whose loyalty to our present gracious sovereign I
would answer for as I would for my own, forget the
hasty words which I am sure Sir William Berkeley
already regrets.  Come, Sir William, acknowledge
that you were over-choleric."

"I 'll be d—d if I do!" cried the Governor.

"We meet to-night," said the Surveyor-General.

The Colonel turned to Sir Charles Carew, who had
been a highly amused spectator of this little scene.

"Charles," he said impressively, "report hath it
that you have figured in more affairs of honor than
any man of your age at court.  You should be a nice
judge of such gear.  Join me in assuring these
gentlemen that they may be reconciled, and their honor
receive not the least taint; and so avert a duel which
would be a scandal to the community, and a menace
to the state."

Sir Charles glanced from the pacific Colonel to the
sternly collected Surveyor-General, and thence to the
fiery Governor, whose white, jeweled fingers twitched
with impatience.

"Certainly, sir," he said lazily, "you are welcome
to my poor opinion, which is that, considering the
nature of the provocation, and the standing of the
parties, there is one way out of the affair with honor."

"Exactly!" said the Colonel eagerly.

Sir Charles locked his hands behind his head.
"There 's a very pretty piece of ground behind your
orchard, sir," he said, dreamily regarding the ceiling.
"I noticed it the other day, and sink me! if I did not
wish for Harry Bellasses with whom I have fought
three times.  'T is ever a word and a blow with
Harry!  The light just at sunset is excellent, though
your twilight cometh over soon.  May I venture to
suggest to your Excellency that your *riposte* is more
brilliant than safe?  Major Carrington, your parade
is somewhat out of fashion.  I could teach you the
newest French mode in five minutes.

"I am obliged for your offer, sir," said the
Surveyor-General dryly.  "The other has served my turn,
and must do so again."

"Sir Charles Carew will do me the honor to be my
second?" asked the Governor of that gentleman, who
answered with a low bow, and a "The honor is mine."

"Captain Laramore?" said the Surveyor-General.

"At your service, Major," cried the Captain, a dashing,
black-a-vised personage, with large gold rings in
his ears, a plume a yard long in his castor, and a
general Draweansir air.

"Will Captain Laramore fight?" inquired Sir
Charles.  "I have had the honor of changing the
date for sailing for several gentlemen of his profession."

"Even so accomplished a swordsman as Sir Charles
Carew is allowed to be, hath yet a lesson to learn,"
said the doughty captain.

"And that is—"

"Pride shall have a fall—to-night."

Sir Charles smiled politely.  "The ship that is
anchored off yonder point is yours, is it not?  Would
you not like to take a last look at her?  Or to leave
instructions for your lieutenant and successor?  There
is time for you to gallop to the point and back."

"Am I to have the honor of crossing swords with
you, Colonel Verney?" asked Mr. Peyton.

"No, sir!" exclaimed the vexed Colonel.  "You
are not!  I wash my hands of this foolish fray.
William Berkeley, I have never scrupled to tell thee
when I thought thee in the wrong.  I think so now.
Charles, thou art an impudent fellow!  I have it in
my mind to wish that the Captain may give thee the
lesson he talks of."

"Thank you, sir," drawled the gentleman addressed.
"Mr. Peyton looks quite disconsolate.  Sink me! if
it's not a shame to leave him out in the cold.  If he
will wait his turn I will be happy to oblige him when
I have disposed of the Captain."

"You will do no such thing!" retorted his kinsman.
"Mr. Peyton, take your hand off your sword!  At
least there shall be two sane men at this meeting.  I
suppose, gentlemen, you agree with me that this affair
cannot be kept too private?  To that end you had best
ride with me to Verney Manor, and there have it out
on this plot of ground Charles talks of.  It is at least
retired."

"'T is a most sweet spot," said Sir Charles.

"Good!" quoth the Governor.  "And now that
this little matter is settled, I am once more, and for
the present, sir, simply your obliged guest and
servant," and he bowed to the Surveyor-General.

Carrington returned the bow.  "We will drink to
our better acquaintance to-night.  Pompey! the sack
and the aqua vitae.  And, Pompey! a handful of mint."

The company fell to drinking, and then to tobacco.
The Governor, whose fits of passion were as short as
they were violent, arrived by rapid degrees at a pitch
of high good humor.  The company listened gravely
for the fiftieth time to stories of the court of the
first James; of Buckingham's amours, of the beauty
of Henrietta Maria, of a visit to Paris, an interview
with Richelieu, a duel with a captain of Mousquetaires,
a kiss imprinted upon the fair hand of Anne
of Austria.  The charmed stream of the old courtier's
reminiscences flowed on—he stopped for breath, and
Sir Charles took the word and proceeded to unfold
before their dazzled eyes a gorgeous phantasmagoria.
The King, the Duke, Sedley and Buckingham,
Mesdames Castlemaine, Stuart and Gwynne, Dryden and
Waller and Lely, the King's house, the Queen's chapel,
the Queen's duennas, the Tityre Tus, Paul's Walk, the
Russian Ambassador, astrologers, orange girls, balls,
masques, pageants, duels, the court of Louis le Grand,
the King's hunting parties, Madame d'Orleans, Olympe
di Mancini.

The Governor listened with dilating nostrils and
sparkling eyes; Colonel Verney's vexed countenance
smoothed itself; Captain Laramore, sitting with
outstretched legs, and head hidden in clouds of tobacco
smoke, rumbled from out that obscurity laughter and
strange oaths.  Even Mr. Peyton, after vainly trying
to fix his attention upon the construction of a sonnet
to his mistress's eyebrow, succumbed to the enchantment,
and sat with parted lips, drinking in wonders;
but the Surveyor-General, though he listened
courteously, listened with forced smiles and with an
attention which was hard to preserve from wandering.

In the midst of a brilliant account of the nuptials
of the Chevalier de Grammont came an interruption.

"De horses am fed an' brought roun', massa."

The Governor started up.  "Rat me, if good sack
and good stories make not a man forget all else
beside!  Colonel Verney, I wish you, as lieutenant of
this shire, to ride with me to this Chickahominy
village where I have promised an audience to the half
king of the tribe.  Plague on the unreasonable
vermin!  Why can they not give way peaceably?  If the
colony needs and takes their lands, it leaves them a
plenty elsewhere.  Let them fall back towards the
South Sea.  Sir Charles, I grieve for the necessity,
but we must leave the court and come back to the
wilderness.  Gentlemen, will you ride with Verney
and me, or shall we part now to meet at sunset in his
orchard?"

"We had best ride with your Excellency," said
Carrington gravely.  "I like not the temper of the
Chickahominies, who ever mean most when they say
least.  And these roving Ricahecrians, their guests,
are of a strange and fierce aspect.  It is as well to go
in force."

"Those vagrants from the Blue Mountains have
been here overlong," said the Governor.  "I shall
send them packing!  Well, gentlemen, since we are
to have the pleasure of your company, boot and saddle
is the word!"





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.. _`WHEREIN THE PEACE PIPE IS SMOKED`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   WHEREIN THE PEACE PIPE IS SMOKED

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The sun had some time passed the meridian when
the party saw through the widening glades of the
forest the gleam of a great river, and upon its bank
an Indian village of perhaps fifty wigwams, set in
fields of maize and tobacco, groves of mulberries, and
tangles of wild grape.  The titanic laughter of
Laramore and the drinking catch which Sir Charles trolled
forth at the top of a high, sweet voice had announced
their approach long before they pushed their horses
into the open; and the population of the village was
come forth to meet them with song and dance and in
gala attire.  The soft and musical voices of the young
women raised a kind of recitative wherein was lauded
to the skies the virtue, wisdom and power of the white
father who had come from the banks of the Powhatan
to those of the Pamunkey to visit his faithful
Chickahominies, bringing (beyond doubt) justice in his
hand.  The deeper tones of the men chimed in, and
the mob of naked children, bringing up the rear of the
procession, added their shrill voices to the clamor,
which, upon the booming in of a drum and the furious
shaking of the conjurer's rattle, became deafening.

The chant came to an end, but the orchestra
persevered.  Ten girls left the throng, formed themselves
into line, and advancing one after the other with a
slow and measured motion, laid at the feet of the
Governor (who had dismounted) platters of parched
maize, beans and chinquapins, with thin maize cakes.
They were succeeded by two stalwart youths bearing,
slung upon a pole between them, a large buck which
they deposited upon the ground before the white men.
There came a tremendous crash from the drum, and a
discordant scream from a long pipe made of a reed.
The crowd opened, and from out their midst stalked a
venerable Indian.

"My fathers are welcome," he said gravely.

"Where is the half king?" demanded the Governor
sharply.  "I have no time for these fooleries.
Make them stop that infernal racket, and lead us to
your chiefs at once."

The Indian frowned at this cavalier reception of
the village civilities, but he waved his arm for the
music to cease, and proceeded to conduct the visitors
through a lane made by two rows of dusky bodies
and staring faces, to a large wigwam in the centre of
the village.  Before this hut stood a mulberry tree
of enormous size, and seated upon billets of wood in
the shade of its spreading branches were the half king
of the tribe and the principal men of the village.

Their faces and the upper portions of their bodies
were painted red—the color of peace.  They wore
mantles of otter skins, and from their ears depended
strings of pearl and bits of copper.  To the earring
of the half king were attached two small, green
snakes that twisted and writhed about his neck; his
body had been oiled and then plastered with small
feathers of a brilliant blue, and upon his head was
fastened a stuffed hawk with extended wings.

To one side of this group stood a band of Indians,
two score or more in number, who differed in
appearance and attire from the Chickahominies.  The iron
had entered the soul of the latter; they had the
bearing of a subject race.  Not so with the former.  They
were men of great size and strength, with keen, fierce
faces; their clothing was of the scantiest possible
description; ornaments they had, but of a peculiar
kind—necklaces and armlets of human bones, belts
in which long tufts of silk grass were interwoven with
a more sinister fibre.  They leaned on great bows,
and each sternly motionless figure looked a bronze
Murder.

The chief of the Chickahominies raised his eyes
from the ground as the Governor and his party
entered the circle.  "My white fathers are welcome,"
he said.  "Let them be seated," and looked at the
ground again.  The "white fathers" took possession
of half a dozen billets, and waited in silence the next
move of the game.  After a while, the half king lifted
from the log beside him a pipe with a stem a yard
long and a bowl in which an orange might have
rested.  An Indian, rising, went to where a fire
burned beneath a tripod, and returning with a live
coal between his fingers, calmly and leisurely lighted
the pipe.  The half king, still in dead silence, lifted
it to his lips, smoked for five minutes, and handed it
to the Indian, who bore it to the Governor.  The
Governor drew two or three tremendous whiffs and
passed it on to Colonel Verney, who in his turn
transferred it to the Surveyor-General.  When the
monster pipe had been smoked by each of the white men,
it went the round of the savages.  An Indian summer
haze began to settle around the company.  Through
it the patient gazing throng on the outskirts of the
circle became shadowy, impalpable; the face of the
half king, now hidden in shifting smoke wreaths, now
darkly visible, like that of an eastern idol before
whom incense is burned.  There was no sound save
the wash of the waters below them, the sighing of the
wind, the drone of the cicadas in the trees.  The
Indians sat like statues, but the white men were more
restive.  The elders managed to restrain their
impatience, but Laramore began to whistle, and when
checked by a look from the Governor, turned to Sir
Charles with a comically disconsolate face and a shrug
of the shoulders.  Whereupon the latter drew from his
pocket, dice and a handful of gold pieces.  Laramore's
face brightened, and the two, screened from observation
by the Colonel's shoulders, which were of the
broadest, fell to playing noiselessly, cursing beneath
their breath.  Mr. Peyton leaned his elbow on his
knee, and his chin upon his hand, and allowed the
dreamy beauty of the afternoon to overflow a poetic
soul.

At length, and when the patience of the whites was
well-nigh exhausted, the pipe came back to where the
half king sat with lowered eyes and impassive face.
He laid it down beside him and rose to his feet,
gathering his mantle around him.

"My white fathers are welcome," he said in a
sonorous voice.  "Very welcome to the Chickahominies
is the face of the white father, who rules in the
place of the great white father across the sea.  Their
corn feast is not yet, and yet my people rejoice.  Our
hearts were glad when my father sent word that he
would this day visit his faithful Chickahominies.
Our ears are open: let my father speak."

"I thank Harquip and his people for their welcome,"
said the Governor coldly.  "I have ever found
them full of words.  They profess loyalty to the great
white father beyond the seas, but they forget his good
laws and disobey his officers.  I am weary of their
words."

"Tell me," said Harquip, with a sombre face, "are
they good laws which drive us from our hunting
grounds?  Are they good laws which take from us
our maize fields?  Does the great white father love
to hear our women cry for food? or is his heart
Indian and longs for the sound of the war whoop?"

"That is a threat," the Governor said sternly.

The Indian waved his hands.  "Have we not
smoked the peace pipe?" he said coldly.

"Humph!" said the Governor then, "I am not
come to listen to idle complaints.  Your grievances as
to the land shall be laid before the next Assembly, and
it will pass judgment upon them—justly and
righteously, of course."

"Ugh!" said the Indian.

"I am here," continued the Governor, "to ask
certain questions of the Chickahominies, and to lay
certain commands upon them which they will do well
to obey."

"Let my father speak," said the Indian calmly.

"Why did you shelter in your village the man with
the red hair?  Word was sent to all the tribes, to the
Nansemonds, the Wyanokes, the Cheskiacks, the
Paspaheghs, the Pamunkeys, the Chickahominies, that he
should be delivered up if they found him among
them.  Why did the Chickahominies hide him?"

"In the night time, the red fox came to the village
of the Chickahominies and burrowed there.  The
eyes of my people were closed: they saw him not."

"Humph!  Why did you not carry your guns to the
Court House when the tribes were ordered to do so, a
fortnight ago, and leave them there, taking in exchange
roanoke and fire-water?"

"My fathers asked much," said the half king
gloomily.  "My young men love their sticks-that-speak.
They love to see the deer go down before
them like maize before the hail storm.  My fathers
asked much."

"How many guns has your village?"

"Five," was the prompt reply.

"Humph!  To-morrow you will deliver ten guns to
the captain of the trainband at the court-house.  When
do these men," pointing to the stranger band, "return
to their tribe?"

"They are our friends.  They wait to dance the
corn dance with us.  Then will they return to the
Blue Mountains, and will tell the Ricahecrians of the
great things they have seen, and of the wisdom and
power of my white fathers."

"When is your corn feast?"

"Seven suns hence."

"They must be gone to-morrow."

The face of the half king darkened, and there was
a slight, instantly repressed movement among the
circle of braves.

"My father asks very much," said the half king
with emphasis.

"Not more than I can, and will, enforce," said the
Governor sternly, and getting to his feet as he spoke.
"You, Harquip, shall be answerable to me and to the
Council for these men's departure to-morrow.  If by
sunrise of the next morning their canoes are far up
the river, headed for the Blue Mountains, if by the
same hour the guns which you have retained in
defiance of the express decree of the Assembly, be given
up to those at the Court House, then will I overlook
your hiding the man with the red hair, and the
Assembly will listen to your complaints as to your
hunting grounds.  Disobey, and my warriors shall
come, each with a stick-that-speaks in his hand.  I
have spoken," and the Governor beckoned to the
servants who held the horses.

The half king rose also.  "My white father shall
be obeyed," he said with gloomy dignity.  "He is
stronger than we.  Otee has been angry with the real
men for many years.  He is gone over to the palefaces
and helps their god against the real men.  My
young men shall take their guns back to the palefaces
to-morrow, and shall bring back fire-water, and we will
drink, and forget that the days of Powhatan are past
and that Otee fights against us.  Also when the
Pamunkey is red with to-morrow's sunset, my brothers
from the Blue Mountains shall turn their faces
homewards.  My father is content?"

"I am content," said the Governor.

"There is a thing which my brothers have to say to
my white fathers," continued the half king.  "Will
they hear the great chief, Black Wolf?"

The Governor pulled out a great watch, glanced at
it, and sighed resignedly.  "Gentlemen, have patience
a moment longer.  Harquip, I will listen to the
Ricahecrian until the shadow of that tree reaches the
fire.  What says he?"

The half king spoke to the strangers in their own
tongue—their ranks broke, and an Indian stalked
forward to the centre of the circle.  His tall, powerful,
nearly nude figure was thickly tatooed with
representations of birds and beasts; he wore an armlet of
a dull, yellow metal ("Gold! by the Eternal!"
ejaculated the Governor to Colonel Verney); over his
naked, deeply scarred breast hung three strings of
hideous mementoes of torture stakes; the belt that
held tomahawk and scalping knife was fringed with
human hair; beside his streaming scalplock was stuck
the dried hand of an enemy.  The face beneath was
cunning, relentless, formidable.  He spoke in his own
language, and the half king translated.

"Black Wolf is a great chief.  In his village in
the Blue Mountains are fifty wigwams—the largest is
his.  There are a hundred braves—he leads the war
parties.  The Monacans run like deer, the hearts of
the Tuscaroras become soft, they hide behind their
squaws!  Black Wolf is a great chief.  Seven moons
of cohonks have passed since the Ricahecrians
sharpened their hatchets and came down from the
mountains to where the waters of Powhatan fall over many
rocks.  There they met the palefaces.  The One above
all was angry with his Ricahecrians.  They saw for the
first time the guns of the palefaces.  They thought
they were gods who spat fire at them and slew them
with thunder.  Their hearts became soft, and they fled
before the strange gods.  Some the palefaces slew, and
some they took prisoner.  Black Wolf saw his brother,
the great chief Grey Wolf, fall.  The Ricahecrians
went back to the Blue Mountains, and their women
raised the death chant for those whom they left
stretched out on the bank of the great river....
Seven times had the maize ripened, when Black Wolf
led a war party against a tribe that dwelt on the
banks of the Pamunkey where a fallen pine might
span it.  The waters ran red with blood.  When
there were no more Monacans to kill, when the fires
had burnt low, Black Wolf looked down the waters of
the Pamunkey.  He had heard that it ran into a great
water that was salt, whose further bank a man could
not see.  He had heard that the palefaces rode in
canoes that had wings, great and white.  He thought
he would like to know if these things were true, or if
they were but tales of the singing birds.  To find out,
Black Wolf and his young men dipped their oars
into the water of the Pamunkey, and rowed towards
the moonrise.  In the morning they met twenty men
of the Pamunkeys in three canoes.  The Pamunkeys
lie deep in the slime of the river; the eels eat them;
their scalps shall hang before the wigwams of Black
Wolf and his young men.  In the afternoon, they
drove their canoes into the reeds and went into the
forest to find meat.  Black Wolf's arrow brought
down a buck and they feasted.  Afterwards they
caught a hunter who saw only the deer he was
chasing.  They tied him to a tree and made merry
with him.  When he was dead, they drew their boats
from out the reeds, and rowed on down the broadening
river.  The next day, at the time of the full
sun-power, they came to this village.  Many years before
the palefaces came, the Chickahominies were a great
nation, reaching to the foot of the Blue Mountains,
and then were they and the Ricahecrians friends and
allies.  When Black Wolf showed them the totem of
his tribe upon his breast, they welcomed him and his
young men.  That was ten suns ago.  Black Wolf
and his young men have seen many things.  When
they go back to the Blue Mountains, the Ricahecrians
will think they listen to singing birds.  They will tell
of the great salt water, of the boats with wings, of the
palefaces, of their fields of maize and tobacco, of the
black men who serve them, of their temples, werowanees
and women.  They will tell of the great white
father who rules, of his power, his wisdom, his open
hand—"

"I thought it would come at last," quoth the
Governor.  "What does he want, Harquip?"

"The Ricahecrian starts for his wigwam in the
Blue Mountains to-morrow as my father commands.
He says: 'Shall I not return to my people with a
gift from the great white father in my hand?'"

The Governor laughed.  "Let one of your young
men go to the court-house.  I will give him an order
for beads, for a piece of red cloth, and yes, rat
me! he shall have a mirror!  I hope he is satisfied!"

The half king's eyes gleamed covetously.  "My
father gives large gifts.  He has indeed an open hand.
But the Ricahecrian desires another thing.  He says:
'Seven years ago, at the falls of the Powhatan,
Black Wolf saw his brother fall before the
stick-that-speaks of the palefaces.  Grey Wolf was a great
chief.  The village in the Blue Mountains mourned
very much.  Nicotee, his squaw, went wailing into
the land of shadows.  His son hath seen but seven
moons of corn, but he dreams of the day when he
shall sharpen the hatchet against the slayers of his
father....  The Chickahominies have told Black
Wolf that his brother was wounded and not slain by
the palefaces.  They brought him captive to their
great board wigwams.  There they tied him not to the
torture stake; they knew that a Ricahecrian laughs
at the pine splinters.  They tortured his spirit.  They
made him a woman.  The great chief of the
Ricahecrians no longer throws the tomahawk—the guns
of the palefaces are about him.  He dances the corn
dance no more—his back is bowed with burdens.
His arrow brings not down the fleeing deer, he tracks
not the bear to his den—he toils like a squaw in the
fields of the palefaces.  Black Wolf says to the white
father: 'Give back the Sagamore to the Ricahecrians,
to his son, to the village by the falling stream in
the Blue Mountains.  Then will the Ricahecrians be
friends with the palefaces forever.  To-morrow Black
Wolf and his young men row towards the sunset; let
the captive chief be in their midst.  This is the gift
which Black Wolf asks of his white fathers.  He has
spoken.'"

In the midst of a dead silence the half king took
his seat and studied the ground.  The Chickahominies,
squatted round the circle, stirred not a finger, and
the outer row of spectators, motionless against a
background of interlacing branches patched with vivid blue,
seemed a procession in tapestry.  The Ricahecrians
and their formidable chief maintained a stony gloom.
Whatever interest they felt in the fate of their captive
chief was carefully concealed.  The sun, now hanging,
broad and red, low in the heavens might have been
the Gorgon's head and the whole village staring at it.

The Governor began to laugh.  Sir Charles chimed
in musically and Laramore followed suit.  The
Surveyor-General frowned, but the Colonel, after one or
two attempts at sobriety of demeanor, succumbed, and
the trio became a quartette.  The glades of the forest
rang to the jovial sound—it was as though there
were enchantment in the golden afternoon, or in the
ring of dark and frowning countenances before them,
for they laughed as though they would never stop.
Even the servants at the horses' heads were infected,
and laughed at they knew not what.

The Surveyor-General lost patience.  "I think the
Jamestown weed groweth in these woods," he said
dryly.

The Governor pulled himself together.  "Faith!  I
believe you are right!" he said airily.  "But rat me! if
the impudence of the varlets be not the most amusing
thing since the Quaker's plea for toleration!"

"The amusement seems to be on our side," said the
Surveyor-General.

The Governor cast a careless glance in the direction
indicated by the other.  "Pshaw! a fit of the sulks!
They will get over it.  Is this precious captive the
giant whom I have seen at Rosemead, Major Carrington?"

"Not so, your Excellency.  My man is a Susquehannock."

"I believe I may lay claim to the fellow, Sir William,"
said the Colonel, wiping his eyes.

"Is he the Indian who was whipt the other day?"
asked Sir Charles, taking snuff.

"For stealing fire-water—yes."

The Governor began to laugh again.  "Of course
you will release the rascal, Colonel?  The Blue
Mountains threaten war if you do not.  Fling yourself into
the breach, and so prevent a 'scandal to the
community and a menace to the State,' to quote your
words of this morning.  Consistency is a jewel, Dick
the Peacemaker.  Wherefore let the savage go."

"I 'll be d—d if I do!" cried the Colonel.

The Governor, shaking with laughter, got to his
feet.  At a signal his groom brought up his horse
and held the stirrup for him to mount.  His Excellency
swung himself into the saddle and gathered the
reins into his gauntleted hands; the remainder of the
company, too, got to horse.  The Governor's steed, a
fiery, coal black Arabian, danced with impatience.

"Selim scents a fray!" cried his Excellency.
"Come on, gentlemen!  'Twill be sunset before we
reach that sweet piece of earth behind Verney's
orchard."

The half king rose from his scat, took three
measured strides, and stood side by side with the
Ricahecrian chief.

"My white father will give to the Ricahecrian the
gift he asks?"

A gust of passion took the Governor.  "No!" he
thundered, turning in his saddle.  "The Ricahecrian
may go to the devil and the Blue Mountains alone!"  He
struck spurs into his horse's sides.  "Gentlemen,
we waste time!"

The Arabian dashed down one of the winding
glades of the forest; the remainder of the party
spurred their horses into the mad gallop known as
the "planter's pace," and in an instant the whole
cavalcade had whirled out of sight.  A burst of
laughter, made elfin by distance, came back to the village
on the banks of the Pamunkey, then all was quiet
again.  The gold-laced, audacious company had
vanished like a troop of powerful enchanters, leaving
behind them a sullen throng of native genii, kept down
by a Solomon's Seal which is *not* always unbreakable.

Something stirred in the midst of the great mulberry
tree, a tree so vast and leafy that it, might have
hidden many things.  A man swung himself down
with a lithe grace from limb to limb, and finally
dropped into the circle of Indians who stood or sat in
a sombre stillness which might mean much or little.
Only on the outskirts the crowd of women, children
and youths, had commenced a low, monotonous,
undefined noise which had in it something sinister,
ominous.  It was like the sound, dull and heavy, of the
ground swell that precedes the storm.  The man who
dropped from the tree was Luiz Sebastian, and his
appearance seemed in no degree to surprise the
Indians.  There followed a short and sententious
conversation between the mulatto, the half king and the
Ricahecrian chief.  Beside the half king lay the still
smoking peace pipe.  When the colloquy was ended,
he raised it.  At a signal an Indian brought water in
a gourd, and into it the half king plunged the glowing
bowl.  The fire went out in a cloud of hissing steam.
The sound of the ground swell became louder and
more threatening.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DUEL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE DUEL

.. vspace:: 2

The trees of the orchard stood out black against a
crimson sky.  "Faith! it is a color we shall see more
of presently," said Laramore, divesting himself of his
doublet.

His antagonist, passing a laced handkerchief along
a gleaming blade, smiled politely.  "A pretty tint.
Wine, the lips of women, Captain Laramore's
blood—Lard! 't is a color I adore!"

"Gentlemen!" cried Colonel Verney.  "Once more
I beg of you to forego this foolish quarrel.  William
Berkeley, for the first time in your life, be
reasonable!"

The Governor turned sharply, his chest, beneath
his shirt of finest holland, swelling, each closely
cropped hair upon his head, bared for action, stiff
with injured dignity.

"Colonel Richard Verney forgets himself," he
began angrily; then, "Confound you, Dick! keep your
hands out of this.  I don't want to fight you too!  I
say not that this gentleman is disloyal, but I do say,
and I will maintain it with the last drop of my blood,
that he strives to draw to himself a party in the State,
with what intent he best knows.  If he choose to
pocket that assertion and withdraw, I am content."

"On guard, sir," said Carrington, raising his sword.

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders, and returned
to his post beside Mr. Peyton.

"Very well, gentlemen, since you will not be ruled.
Are you ready?"

The rapiers clashed together, and the game began.

The Governor fenced brilliantly, if a trifle wildly;
his antagonist with a cool steadiness of manner and an
iron wrist.  Laramore fought with bull-like ferocity,
striving to beat down his opponent's guard, making
mad lunges, stamping, and keeping up a continuous
rumble of oaths.  Sir Charles, always smiling, and
with an air as if his thoughts were anywhere but at
that particular spot, put aside his thrusts with the
ease with which the toreador avoids the bull.

Mr. Peyton was moved to reluctant admiration.
"When I was in London, sir," he said in an excited
whisper to the Colonel, "I did see Mathews fight with
Westwicke, and thought I had seen fencing indeed,
but your cousin—ah!"

Laramore's sword described a curve in the air, and
lodged in the boughs of an apple-tree, while its owner
staggered forward and fell heavily to the ground.  At
the same instant Carrington wounded the Governor
in the wrist.  Colonel Verney struck up the weapons.
"By the Lord, gentlemen! you shall go no further!
Jack Laramore's down, run through the shoulder!
Major Carrington, you have drawn blood—it is
enough."

"If Sir William Berkeley is content," began
Carrington, bowing to his antagonist.

"Rat me!  I 've no choice," said the Governor
ruefully.  "You've disabled my sword arm, and the
gout has the other."

"I shall be happy to wait until the wound shall
have healed," said the Surveyor-General, with another
bow.

"No, no," said his Excellency, with a laugh.  "We 'll
cry quits.  And rat me! if now that we have had it
out, I do not love thee better, Miles Carrington, than
ever I did before.  In the morning when thou goest
home, burn thy library, burn Milton and Bastwick,
and Withers, and the rest of the rogues, forswear
such rascally company forever, and rat me! if I will
not maintain that thou art the honestest, as well as the
longest-headed, man in the colony.  There 's my hand
on it, and to-night we 'll have a rouse such as would
make old Noll turn in his grave if he had one."

Carrington took the proffered hand courteously, if
coldly.  "I thank your Excellency for your advice.
Your Excellency should have your wound attended to
at once.  You are losing a deal of blood."

"Tut, a trifle!" said the Governor, airily, winding
a handkerchief about the bleeding member.

"Is there ever a chirugeon upon the place?" asked
Sir Charles in his most dulcet tones.  "If not, I fear
that Captain Laramore will very shortly make his last
voyage."

"Egad! that will never do!" cried the Colonel,
dropping upon his knees beside the wounded man.
"A bad thrust!  Charles, thou art the very devil!"

"Shall I ride for the doctor?" cried Mr. Peyton.

"No.  Anthony Nash is at the house.  Run, lad,
and fetch him.  He is surgeon as well as divine."

Mr. Peyton disappeared; and presently there stood
in the midst of the group gathered about the unconscious
captain, a man clad in a clerical dress and of a
very dignified and scholarly demeanor.

"Ha, gentlemen!" he said gravely, looking with
bright, dark eyes from one to the other.  "This is a
sorry business.  Shirts, drawn rapiers, trampled turf,
Sir William bleeding, Captain Laramore senseless
upon the ground!  His Excellency the Governor;
Major Carrington, the Surveyor-General; Colonel
Verney, the lieutenant of the shire;—scandalous,
gentlemen!"

"And Anthony Nash who would give his chance of
a mitre to have been one of us," cried the Governor.
"Ha!  Anthony! dost remember the fight behind
Paul's, three to one,—and the baggage that brought
it about?"

The divine, on his knees beside Laramore, looked up
with a twinkle in his eye from his work of tying laced
handkerchiefs into bandages.  "That was in the dark
ages, your Excellency.  My memory goeth not back
so far.  Ha! that is better!  He is coming to
himself.  It is not so bad after all."

Laramore groaned, opened his eyes, and struggled
into a sitting posture.

"Blast me! but I am properly spitted.  Sir Charles
Carew, my compliments to you.  You are a man after
my own heart.  Ha, your Excellency!  I find myself
in good company.  Dr. Anthony Nash, I shall have
you out!  You have torn the handkerchief Mistress
Lettice Verney gave me."

The Doctor laughed.  "You must be got to the
house at once, and to bed, where Mistress Lettice,
who is as skillful in healing as in making wounds,
shall help me to properly dress this one."

Laramore staggered to his feet.  "Give me an
arm, Doctor; and Peyton, clap my periwig upon my
head, will you? and fetch me my sword from where I
see it, adorning yonder bough.  Sir Charles Carew,
I am your humble servant.  Damme! it's no disgrace
to be worsted by the best sword at Whitehall."  And
the gallant captain, supported by the clergyman
and Mr. Peyton, reeled off the ground; the remainder
of the party waiting only to assume doublets and wigs
before following him to the house.

Two hours later Sir Charles Carew rose from the
supper-table, and leaving the gentlemen at wine,
passed into the great room, and came softly up to
Patricia, sitting at the spinet.

"My heart was not there," he said, answering her
smile and lifted brows.  "I am come in search of it."

She laughed, fingering the keys.  "Did you leave
it on the field of honor?  Fie, sir, for shame!
Doctor Nash says that Captain Laramore will not use his
arm for a fortnight."

"What—" said Sir Charles, dropping his voice and
leaning over her—"what if I had been the wounded
one?"

"I would have made your gruel with great pleasure,
cousin."

She laughed again, and looked at him half tenderly,
half mockingly.  There were silver candlesticks upon
the spinet and the light from the tall wax tapers fell
with a white radiance over the slender figure in
brocade and lace, the gleaming shoulders, the beautiful
face, and the shining hair.  Her eyes were brilliant,
her mouth all elusive, mocking, exquisite curves.

He raised a wandering lock of gold to his lips.
"The King hath written, commanding me home to
England," he said abruptly.

"Yes, my father told me.  He says the King loves
you much."

Sir Charles left her side, twice walked the length
of the room, and came back to her.  "Am I to go as
I came—alone?" he asked, standing before her with
folded arms.

"If you so desire, sir?"

"Will you go with me?"

"Yes."

He caught her in his arms; but she cried out and
freed herself.

"No, no, not yet!" she said breathlessly.  "Listen
to me."

She moved backwards a step or two, and stood
facing him, her hand at her bosom, a color in her cheek,
her eyes like stars.  "I do not know that I love you,
Sir Charles Carew.  At times I have thought that I
did; at times, not.  There is an unrest here," touching
her heart, "which has come to me lately.  I do not
know—it may be the beginning of love.  Last night
my father had much talk with me.  It is his dearest
wish that you and I should wed.  He has been my
very good father always.  If you will take me as I
am, not loving you yet, but with a heart free to learn,
why—"  Her voice broke.

Sir Charles flung himself at her feet, and, taking
possession of her hands, covered them with kisses.  A
voice passed the window, singing through the night:—

   |  "Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
   |    And shake the green leaves from the tree;
   |  O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
   |    For of my life I am weary."

.. vspace:: 2

"Margery again?" said Sir Charles, rising.

"Yes," said Patricia, with a troubled voice.

The voice began the stanza again:—

   |  "Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
   |    And shake the green leaves from the tree?"

.. vspace:: 2

"What is the matter?" cried Sir Charles in alarm.

Patricia stared at him with wide, unseeing eyes.
"Martinmas wind," she said in a low, clear, even
voice.  "Martinmas wind!  The leaves drift in
clouds, yellow and red, red like blood.  Look at the
river flowing in the sunshine!  And the tall gray
crags!  Ah!" and she put her hands before her face.

"What is it?" cried her suitor.  "What is the
matter?  You are ill!"

She dropped her hands.  "I am well now," she
said tremulously.  "I do not know what it was.  I
had a vision—" she broke into wild laughter.

"I am fey, I think," she cried.  "Let me go to my
room; I am better there."

He held the door open, and she passed him quickly
with lowered eyes.  He watched her run up the stairs,
and then threw himself into a chair and stared
thoughtfully at the floor.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE TOBACCO HOUSE AGAIN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE TOBACCO HOUSE AGAIN

.. vspace:: 2

The master of Verney Manor and his guests slept
late, for the carouse of the night before had been
deep and prolonged.  The master's daughter rose with
the sun, and went down into the garden, and thence
through the wicket into the mulberry grove, where
she found Margery sitting on the ground, tieing
goldenrod to her staff.  "Come and walk with me,
Margery," she said.

Margery rose with alacrity.  "Where shall we
go?" she asked in a whisper.  "To the forest?  There
were eyes in the forest last night, not the great, still,
solemn eyes that stare at Margery every night, but
eyes that glowed like coals, and moved from bush to
bush.  Margery was afraid, and she left the forest,
and sat by the water side all night, listening to what
it had to say.  A star shot, and Margery knew that a
soul was on its way to Paradise, where she would fain
go if only she could find the way....  There are
purple flowers growing by the creek between the cedar
wood and the marsh.  Let us go gather them, and
trim Margery's staff very bravely."

"I care not where we go," said her mistress.
"There as well as elsewhere."

"Come, then," said Margery, and took the lead.

When they had entered the strip of cedars which
lay between the wide fields and the point of land on
which stood the third tobacco house, Patricia stopped
beneath a great tree.  "We will go no further,
Margery," she said.

Margery objected.  "The purple flowers grow by
the water side."

"Do you go and gather them then," said Patricia
wearily.  "I will wait for you here."

Margery glided away, and her mistress sat down
upon the dark-red earth at the foot of the tree.  There
was a cold and sombre stillness in the wood.  The air
smelt chill and dank, and the light came through the
low, closely woven roof of foliage, as though it were
filtered through crape, but at the end of the vista of
trees shone a glory of sea and sky and gold-green
marsh.  Patricia gazed with dreamy eyes.  "It is all
fair," she said.  "What was it that Dr.  Nash read?
'My lines are fallen in pleasant places.'  Riches and
honor, and, they say, beauty, and many to love
me.—O Lord God!  I wish for happiness!"  She laid her
cheek against the cool earth, and the splendor before
her wavered into a mist of rose and azure.  "Why
should I weep," she said, "that my lines are laid in
pleasant places?"

Margery with her arms filled with flowers appeared
at her side.  "Here are the purple flowers," she said.
"Here is farewell-summer for me and a passion-flower
for you."  She threw the blooms upon the ground,
and sitting down at her mistress's feet, began to weave
them into garlands.  Presently she took up the
passion-flower.  "This grew beside the tobacco house,
close to the wall.  Margery saw it, and ran to pluck
it.  The door of the tobacco house was closed, but
above the passion-flower was a great crack between
the logs."  She began to laugh.  "Margery heard a
strange thing, while she was plucking the passion-flower.
Shall she tell it to you?"

"If you like, Margery," said Patricia indifferently.

Margery leaned forward, and laid a cold, thin hand
upon her mistress' arm.

"There were seven men in the tobacco house.  One
said, 'When the Malignants are put down, what
then?' and another answered, 'Surely we will
possess their lands and their houses, their silver and their
gold, for is it not written, "The Lord hath given them
a spoil unto their servants."'  Then the first said,
'Shall we not kill the Malignant, Verney?'  Margery
heard no more.  She came away."

Patricia rose to her feet, pale, with brilliant eyes.

"You heard no more?"

"No."

"Margery, show me the place where you listened."

Margery took up her staff, and led the way to the
outskirts of the wood.  "There," she said, pointing
with her staff.  "There, where the elder grows."

Patricia laid her hand on the mad woman's shoulder.
"Listen to me, Margery," she said in a low,
distinct voice.  "Listen very carefully.  Go quickly
to the great house, and to my father, or to Woodson,
or to Sir Charles Carew give the message I am about
to give you.  Do you understand, Margery?"

Margery nodding emphatically, Patricia gave the
message, and watched her flit away through the gloom
of the cedars into the sunlight beyond; then turned
and went swiftly and noiselessly across the strip of
field to the tall, dark, windowless tobacco house.  As
she neared it, there came to her a low and undistinguishable
murmur of voices which rose into distinctness
as she entered the clump of alders.

Within the tobacco house were assembled the
Muggletonian, the man branded upon the forehead, the
youth with the hectic cheek (who acted as Secretary
to the Surveyor-General), two newly purchased
servants of Colonel Verney, Trail and Godfrey Landless.
In the uncertain light which streamed from above
through rents in the roof and crevices between the
upper logs the interior of the tobacco house looked
mysterious, sinister, threatening.  Here and there
tobacco still hung from the poles which crossed from
wall to wall, and in the partial light the long, dusky
masses looked wonderfully like other hanging things.
The great casks beneath had the appearance of shadowy
scaffolds, and the men, sitting or standing against
them, looked larger than life.  All was dusk,
subdued, save where a stray sunbeam, sifting through a
crack in the opposite wall, lit the ghastly face and
shaven crown of the Muggletonian.

Landless, leaning against a cask, addressed a man
of a grave and resolute bearing—one of the newly
acquired servants of Verney Manor.

"Major Havisham, you are a wise and a brave man.
I will gladly listen to any counsel you may have to
give anent this matter."

Havisham shook his head.  "I have nothing to say.
The spirit of the father lives in the son.  Skillful in
planning, bold in action was Warham Landless!"

"I am but the tool of Robert Godwyn," said Landless.
"You approve, then, of our arrangements?"

"Entirely.  It is a daring enterprise, but if it
succeeds—" he drew a long breath.

"And if it fails," said Landless, "there is freedom yet."

The other nodded.  "Yes, death hath few terrors for us."

"What is death?" cried the hectic youth.  "A
short, dim passage from darkness into light; the
antechamber of the white court of God; the curtain that
we lift; the veil that we tear—and SEE!  My soul
longeth for death, yea, even fainteth for the courts of
God!  But He will not call His servants until His
work is done.  Wherefore let us haste to rise up and
slay, to work the Lord's work, and go from hence!"

"Yea!" cried the Muggletonian.  "I fear not
death!  I fear not the Throne and the Judgment seat.
The Two Witnesses will speak for me!  But Death is
not upon us; he passeth by the weak, and seizeth
upon the strong.  The Malignants shall die, for the
word of the Lord has gone out against them.  'Thy
foot shall be dipped in the blood of thy enemies, and
the tongue of thy dogs into the same!  They shall
fall by the sword, they shall be a portion for foxes;
as smoke is drawn away so shall they vanish, as wax
melteth before the fire so shall they perish!  He that
sitteth in the heavens shall have them in derision.
And the righteous shall rejoice in His vengeance!'"

"Amen," drawled Trail through his nose.  "Verily,
we will fatten on the good things of the land, we will
spend our days in ease and pleasantness!  The Malignants
shall work for us.  They shall toil in our tobacco
fields, their women shall be our handmaidens, we will
drink their wines, and wear their rich clothing, and
our pockets shall be filled with their gold and silver—"

"Silence!" cried Landless fiercely.  "Once more
I tell you, mad dreamers that you are, that there shall
be no such devil's work!  Major Havisham, there are
not among us many of this ilk.  Two thirds of our
number are men of the stamp of Robert Godwyn and
yourself.  These men rave."

"I heed them not," said Havisham with a slighting
gesture of the hand; then, "Let us recapitulate.
Upon this appointed day we whom they call Oliverians,
and the great majority of the redemptioners, are
to rise throughout the colony.  We—"

"Are to do no damage to property nor offer any
unnecessary violence to masters and overseers," said
Landless firmly.

"We are simply to arm ourselves, seize horses or
boats, and resort to this appointed place."

"Yes."

"Calling upon the slaves to follow us?"

"Which they will do.  Yes."

"And when all are assembled, to oppose any force
sent against us?"

"Yes."

"And if we conquer, then—"

"Then the Republic,—Commonwealth,—anything
you choose—at any rate, freedom."

"It is a desperate plan."

"We are desperate men."

"Yes," Havisham said thoughtfully: "it is the
best chance for that escape of which we all dream, and
which two of our number, I see, have attempted in
vain.  I had set to-morrow night for my own attempt.
This promises better."

"Yea," said Porringer, "the stars in their courses
fight against the refugee!  Four times have I tried, to
be retaken, and handled, as you see.  Twice has this
man tried and failed.  And the murderer of Robert
Godwyn failed."

"That remains to be seen," said Trail.  "Roach
has broken gaol."

The Muggletonian exclaimed, and Landless turned
upon the forger.  "How do you know?" he asked
sternly.

"I heard," was the smooth reply.

"I am sorry for it," said Landless grimly, and
stood with a sternly thoughtful countenance.

There was a silence in the tobacco house broken by
Havisham.

"And now—for time passes and the overseer may
come and find us not at our tasks—tell me the day
upon which we are to rise, and the place to which all
are to resort."

"Both are close at hand," said Landless slowly.
"The day is—" he broke off and leaned forward,
staring through the dusk.

"What is it?" cried Havisham.

"My eyes met other eyes.  There, behind that great
crack between the logs!"

The Muggletonian rushed to the door, flung it open,
and vanished; the branded man followed.  The
remaining occupants of the tobacco house started to
their feet, and Havisham picked from the floor a pole
and broke from it a stout cudgel.  Godfrey Landless
strode forward into the broad shaft of sunshine that
entered through the opened door and met the
eavesdropper face to face, as, with either arm in the rude
grasp of the fanatics, she crossed the threshold.

The conspirators, recognizing the lady of the manor,
were stricken dumb.  In the three minutes of dead
silence which ensued they saw their plans defeated,
their hopes ruined, their cause vanquished, their lives
lost.  The graceful figure with white scorn in the
beautiful face was death come upon them.  The
shadow fell heavy and cold upon their souls, the very
air seemed to darken and grow chill around them.

The figure of the woman in their midst gathered up
the sunshine, became ethereal, transplendent, a
triumphant white and gold Spirit of Evil.

Landless was the first to speak.  "Unhand her!"
he said in a suppressed voice.

The men obeyed, but the Muggletonian placed himself
between his prisoner and the door.  She saw the
movement and said scornfully, "You need not fear;
I shall not run away."  Upon her bare, white arms,
where they had been clasped too rudely, were fast
darkening marks.  She glanced from them to the
scarred face of the Muggletonian.  "*They* will wear
out," she said.

"Madam," said Landless hoarsely, "how long
were you in that place?"

She flashed upon him a look that was like a blow.
"Liar!  be silent!" she said, then turned to the row
of faces that frowned upon her from out the shadow.
"To you others I address myself.  Traitors, rebellious
servants, base plotters!  I hold your lives in my
hand."

"And your own?" said Trail.

"Cursed daughter of the mother of evil!" cried
the Muggletonian, a baleful light burning in his eyes.
"Scarlet woman, whose vain apparel, whose
uncovered hair and bared bosom, whose light songs and
laughter have long been an offense and a stumbling-block
to the righteous—thy cup of iniquity is full,
thy life is forfeit, thy hour is come!"  He drew a
knife from his bosom and with an unearthly cry
flourished it above his head, then rushed upon her, to be
met by Landless, who hurled himself upon the would-be
murderer with a force that sent them both staggering
against the wall.  A struggle ensued, which ended
in Landless securing the knife.  With it in his hand
he sprang to the side of the girl, who stood unflinching,
a pride that was superb in her still white face
and steadfast eyes.

"Who touches her dies," he said between his teeth.

Havisham came to his aid.  "Men, are you mad?
You cannot murder a defenseless woman!  Moreover
such a deed would prove our utter ruin."

"If her body were found, yes!" cried the hectic
youth.  "But the water is near, and who is to know
that the devil sent her hither?"

"It is her death or ours," cried the branded man.

The Muggletonian tossed his arms into the air.

"The cause! the cause!  Cursed be he that putteth
his hand to the plough and finisheth not the
furrow!  Ride on!  Ride on! though it were over the
bodies of a thousand painted Jezebels such as this!"

"Time presses!" cried the branded man.  "Woodson
may come!"

They closed in upon the three who stood at bay.
In their dark faces were a passion and an
exaltation—they saw in the woman fallen into their hands, a
sacrifice bound to the altar.  Trail alone looked
uneasy and held back, muttering between his teeth.

Landless stepped in front of Patricia and faced
them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand
that held the knife drawn back against his breast,
Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he
saw that it was indeed her life or theirs.  On the one
hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or
perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely
the gibbet and the rope; on the other—

He made a gesture of command.  "Thou shalt do
no murder!" he cried.

"It is not murder; it is sacrifice."

"There must be another way!" cried Havisham.

"Find it!"

Havisham turned to the prisoner.  "Madam, will
you swear to be silent concerning what you have
heard?"

The Muggletonian laughed wildly.  "Who trusts
a woman's oath!"

"You shall have no need," said the lady of the
manor calmly.  She paused and her eyes went to the
door in an intent and listening gaze, then came back
to the faces about her with a strange light in their
depths.  "Rebel servants," she said in a clear, low
voice, "I defy you!  And you, false slave, stand from
before me.  I need not your hateful aid."  In the
moment of ominous silence that followed, she swayed
towards the door, her hand at her throat, her soul in
her eyes.  Suddenly she cried out, "My father!
Charles!  help!"

From without came an answering cry, followed by a
rush of men through the door, and in an instant the
room was filled with struggling forms as the two
parties threw themselves upon each other.  The
newcomers were half a dozen blacks, the two overseers and
Sir Charles Carew.  The overseers had pistols and Sir
Charles his sword.  With it he met the rush of the
youth with the hectic cheek, who came towards him in
long, hound-like leaps, brandishing a piece of wood
above his head, and drove the blade deep into the
chest of the fanatic.  The wretched man staggered
and fell, then rose to his knees.  Flinging his arms
above his head, he turned his worn face towards the
flood of sunshine pouring in through the door, and
cried in a loud voice, "I see!"  A stream of blood
gushed from his lips, his arms dropped, and without a
groan he fell back, dead.

Landless, wrestling with the slave Regulus, at
length succeeded in hurling the powerful figure to the
ground, where it lay stunned, and turned to find
himself confronted by Woodson's pistol and the point of
Sir Charles's rapier.  A glance showed him the
remaining conspirators, overpowered, and in the act
of being bound with the ropes that had lain, coiled
for use in packing, in the corners of the tobacco
house.  The hectic youth lay, a ghastly spectacle, in
a pool of blood across the doorway.  At his feet was
the branded man, a bullet through his brain, and
near him the groaning figure of Havisham's mortally
wounded companion.  The woman who had brought
all this to pass stood unharmed, white, with tragic,
exultant eyes.

Sir Charles, serene and debonair, lowered his point.
"Your hand is played," he said with a fine smile.
Landless's stern, despairing gaze passed him and went
on to the overseer.  "I surrender to you," he said
briefly.

Woodson chuckled grimly and stuck his pistol in
his belt.  He was in high good humor, visions of
reward and thanks from the Assembly dancing before
his eyes.  "I 've had my eye on you for some time,
young man," he said almost genially.  "I 've
suspected that you were up to something, but Lord!  to
think that a woman's wit should have trapped you at
last!  Haines, bring that rope over here."

Sir Charles went over to Patricia and offered her
his arm.  "Dearest and bravest of women!" he said
in a caressing whisper.  "Come with me from this
place, which must be dreadful to you."

She did not answer him at once, but stood looking
past him at the picture of laughing water and waving
forest framed in the doorway.

"I thought I should never see the sunshine again,"
she said dreamily.  "Did Margery give *you* the message?"

"Yes, she met me under the mulberries.  I would
not wait to rouse your father, but calling the overseers
and the blacks from the fields, came at once."

"I owe you my life," she said.  "You and—"

Her eyes left the summer outside and came back to
the shadowy forms within the tobacco house.  "I will
go with you directly, cousin," she said quietly, "but
first I wish to speak to that man."

He shot a swift glance at her face, but drew back
with a bow, and she walked with a steady step up to
Landless.  "Fall back a little," she said with an
imperious wave of her hand to the men about him.
They obeyed her.  Landless, left standing before her,
his arms bound to his sides, raised his head and looked
her in the face.  She met his eyes.  "You lied to
me," she said in a low, even voice.

"Once, madam, and to save others," he said proudly.

"Not once, but twice.  Do you think that now I
believe that tale you told me that night, that fairy
tale of persecuted innocence?  When I think that I
ever believed it I hate myself."

"Nevertheless, it is true, madam."

"It is false!  Yesterday I thought of you as a
gallant gentleman, greatly wronged ...  and I pitied
you.  To-day I am wiser."

He held her eyes with his own for a moment, then
let them go.  "Some day you will know," he said.

She turned from him and held out her hands to Sir
Charles.  He hurried to her and she clung to him.
"Take me away," she said in a whisper.  "Take me home."

He put his arm about her.  "You are faint," he
said tenderly.  "Come!  the air will revive you."

Supporting her on his arm, he guided her from the
house.  As they passed the body stretched across the
threshold, the skirt of her robe touched the blood in
which it was lying.  She saw it and shuddered.

"Blood is upon me!" she said.  "It is an omen!"

"A good one, then," said her companion coolly,
"for it is the blood of a fanatic traitor.  Think not
of it."  He turned at the threshold and cast a careless
glance back into the tobacco house.  "Woodson, get
rid of this carrion, and bring these men quietly to the
great house, where your master will deal with them."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE QUESTION`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE QUESTION

.. vspace:: 2

"We know all but two things, but those are the
most important of all," said the Governor, tapping his
jeweled fingers against the table.

"It is much to be regretted," said the Surveyor-General,
"that the presence of the young lady was
so soon discovered.  Otherwise—"

"Otherwise we might have had further information
on more than one subject," said the Governor dryly.

"We must make the best of what we have," continued
Carrington calmly.  "After all, it is enough."

The Governor rose and began to pace the floor, his
head thoughtfully bent, his unwounded hand tugging
at the curls of his periwig.  "It is not enough," he
said at length, pausing before the great table around
which the company were seated.  "Thanks to the
gallant daughter of the gallant Verneys,"—a bow and
smile to Patricia, sitting enthroned in the great chair
in their midst,—"we know much, but it is not enough.
These rogues have set a day upon which to rise; they
have appointed a place to which they are to resort.
That day may be to-morrow, that place any point in
any one of a dozen counties."

"I apprehend that the cockatrice was to be hatched
near by," said Sir Charles.

"It is the likeliest thing," answered the Governor,
"seeing that their ringleader belongs to this
plantation.  But we do not know.  And there may not be
time to reach the planters, to give them warning, to
arrest these d—d traitors, scattered as they are from
the James to Rappahannock, and from Henricus to
the Chesapeake.  It might be best to assemble the
trainbands at this cursed spot if it can be found, and
to await their coming in force.  But to know neither
time nor place—to start a hue and cry and have the
storm burst before it reaches ten plantations—to
guard one point and see fire rise at another a dozen
leagues away—impossible!  Gentlemen, we must
come at the heart of this matter!"

"It is most advisable," said Colonel Verney
gravely.  "Examine the prisoners again," suggested
Sir Charles.

"One of them is no wiser than we.  You are
certain as to this, Mistress Patricia?"

"Yes, your Excellency."

"Humph! one does not know; three are dead,
there remain, then, that shaven and branded runaway
and the two convicts."

"You will learn naught from the runaway, your
Excellency!" called out the overseer from where he
stood at a respectful distance from the company.
"He 's one of them crazy fanatics that wild horses
could n't draw truth from.  No Indian torture stake
could make him speak if he did n't want to,—nor
keep him from it if he did."

"I know that kind," said the Governor, with a
short laugh, "and we will not waste time upon him,
but will try if the convict—he who seems to have
been their leader—be not more amenable.  Bring
him in, Woodson."

When the overseer had gone, a silence fell upon
the company gathered in the master's room.  The
Governor paced to and fro, perplexity in his face; the
Colonel knit his grizzled brows and studied the floor;
Dr. Anthony Nash brought the writing materials
displayed upon the table, closer to him, and held a quill
ready poised for dipping into the ink horn, while the
Surveyor-General with a carefully composed countenance
toyed with a pink which he took from the bowl
of flowers before him.  Sir Charles leaned back in
his seat and looked at Patricia who, seated between
him and her father, stared before her with hard,
bright eyes.  Her lips were like a scarlet flower
against the absolute pallor of her face; her hair was
a crown of pale gold.  In the great chair, her white
arms resting upon the dark wood, her feet upon a
carved footstool, she looked a queen, and the knot of
brilliantly dressed gentlemen her attendant council.

The door opened and the two overseers appeared
with Landless, who advanced and stood, silent and
collected, before the ring of hostile faces.

"What is your name, sirrah?" said the Governor,
throwing himself into his chair and frowning heavily.

"Godfrey Landless."

"I am told that you are son to one Warham Landless,
a so-called colonel in the rebel army and hand
in glove with the usurper himself."

"I am the son of Colonel Warham Landless of the
forces of the Commonwealth, and friend to his
Highness the Lord Protector."

"Humph!  And did you fight in these same forces
yourself?"

"At Worcester, yes."

"Humph! the son of a traitor and rebel—traitor
and rebel yourself—and convict to boot!  A pretty
record!  On what day was this rising to occur?"

No answer.  The Governor repeated the question.
"On what day was this precious mine to be sprung?
And to what place were you to resort?"

Landless remaining silent, the Governor's face
began to flush and the veins in his forehead to swell.
"Have you lost your tongue?" he said fiercely.  "If
so, we will find a way to recover it."

"I shall not answer those questions," said Landless firmly.

"It is your one chance for life," said the Governor
sternly.  "Answer me truly, and you may escape the
gallows.  Refuse, and you hang, so surely as I sit here."

"I shall not answer them."

"Sink me if I ever knew a Roundhead so careless
of his own interests," drawled Sir Charles.  The
Governor whispered to the master of the plantation,
then turned again to the prisoner.

"I give you one more chance," he said harshly.
"When is this day?  Where is this place?"

"I shall not tell you."

"We will see about that," said his Excellency with
compressed lips.  "Verney, send your daughter from
the room.  Woodson, you understand this gear,
having been in the Indies.  This man is to tell us all
that he knows of this business.  Call in a trustworthy
slave or two to help you."

Patricia uttered a low cry, and the Surveyor-General
crushed the flower between his fingers and turned
upon the Governor.  "Your Excellency!  I protest!
This that you would do is not lawful!  Surely such
harsh measures are not needed."

The Governor's fury exploded.  "Not needful!"
he exclaimed in a high voice.  "Not needful, when
upon these questions hang the fortunes of the Colony! when
if we fail, to-morrow may usher in a blacker
forty-four!  And not lawful!  I am the law in this
State, Major Carrington; I am the King's representative,
and this is my prerogative! and I say that by
fair means or foul this information must be gained.
This is no time to prate of humanity.  We are to
show humanity to ourselves; we are to stamp out this
lit fuse.  Or does Major Carrington wish it to burn on?"

"No," said Carrington coldly.  "I spoke hastily.
You are right, of course, and I will interfere no
further."

An hour later Patricia stood before the hall window
looking out upon the dazzling water and the green
velvet of the marshes with wide, unseeing eyes.  Her
hands were clenched at her sides and upon each cheek
burned a crimson spot.  Beside her crouched Betty
Carrington who, upon the first rumor of trouble at
Verney Manor, had ridden over from Rosemead.
Their strained ears caught no sound from the room
opposite other than the occasional sound of the
Governor's voice, raised in interrogation.  There came
no answering voice.  Patricia stood motionless, with
eyes that never wandered from the rich scene without,
and with lips pressed together, but Betty hid her face
in the other's skirts and shivered.  The door of the
master's room opened and both started violently.  The
overseer strode down the hall and had laid his hand
upon the latch of the door leading to the offices, when
his mistress called him to her.  "Do they know?
Has the man told?" she asked with an effort.

Woodson shook his head.  "He 's as dumb as an
oyster.  Might as well try to get anything from an
Indian.  They 're going to try t' other—Trail."

He left the hall, but was back in five minutes' time
with the forger.  They entered the master's room,
and Patricia, seized by a sudden impulse, followed
them, leaving Betty trembling in the window scat.

Unnoted by all but one of the company, she slipt to
a seat in the shadow of her father's burly shoulders.
He was leaning forward, talking to the Governor, who
sat very erect, his features fixed in an expression of
dogged determination.  The Surveyor-General sat well
behind the table, and upon the polished wood before
him lay a little heap of torn petals and broken stems.
At the far end of the room and leaning heavily against
the wall was the prisoner whose examination was just
finished.

Sir Charles had seen the entrance of the lady of
the manor, and he now rose from his seat and came
to her.  "Not a syllable," he whispered in answer to
the question in her eyes.  "Roundhead obstinacy!
But I think that this fellow will prove more malleable."

His prediction was verified.  Ten minutes later the
Governor rose to his feet triumphant.  "So!" he
said, drawing a long breath.  "We are, I think,
gentlemen, at the very core at last.  The time, day after
to-morrow; the place, Poplar Spring in this county.
And now to work!  Those of these d—d Oliverians
whom we can reach must be arrested at once.  Swift
messengers must be sent to all plantations far and
near.  The trainbands must be called out.  Time
presses, gentlemen!"

"And these men?" said the Colonel.

"Must go to Jamestown gaol, where the one shall
hang as surely as my name is William Berkeley.  For
the other—"

"Your Excellency has promised me my life," said
Trail cringingly, but with an inscrutable something
that was not fear in his sinister green eyes.

"An escort must be gotten together," said the
Colonel, "and the day is far advanced.  I advise
keeping them here until the morning."

"See that you keep them straitly then," said the
Governor.

"Trust me for that, your Excellency," said the
overseer grimly.

"Then to work, gentlemen," cried the Governor,
"for there is much to do and but little time to do
it in.  Major Carrington, you with Mr. Peyton will
ride with me to Jamestown.  Colonel Verney, you will
know what measures to take for the safety of your
shire.  Woodson, have the horses brought around at
once."

The Council broke up in haste and confusion, and
its members, talking eagerly, streamed into the hall.
Carrington was the last in line, and he paused before
Landless.  The under overseer and the slave Regulus
were at a little distance replacing the cords about
Trail's arms.  The Surveyor-General cast a quick
glance towards the door, saw that the last retreating
figure was that of Mr. Peyton, and approached his
lips close to Landless's ear.

"You are a brave man," he said in a low and
troubled voice.  "From my soul I honor you!  I
would have saved you, would save you now if I could.
But I am cruelly placed."

"I have no hope for this life—and no fear," said
Landless calmly.

Carrington paused irresolute, and a flush rose to his
face.  "I would like to hear you say that you do not
blame me," he said at last with an effort.

"I do not blame you," said Landless.

Woodson appeared in the doorway.  "The
Governor is waiting, Major Carrington."

"If I can do ought to help you, I will," said
Carrington hastily, and left the room.  A moment later
came the jingling of reins and the sound of rapid
hoofs quickening into the planter's pace as the
Governor and the Surveyor-General whirled away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MESSAGE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MESSAGE

.. vspace:: 2

In an unused attic room of the great house lay
Godfrey Landless, cords about his ankles, and his
arms bound to his sides by cords and by a thick rope,
one end of which was fastened to a beam on the wall.
He was alone, for the Muggletonian, Havisham and
Trail were confined in the overseer's house.
Opposite him was a small window framing a square of sky.
He had watched light clouds drift across it, and the
sun pass slowly and majestically down it, and the
sunset turn the clouds into floating blood-red plumes.
He had been there since noon.  Thick walls kept from
him all sound in the house below—it might have
been a house of the dead.  Through the closed
window came the low, incessant hum of the summer
world without, but no unusual noise.  He had heard
the sunset horn, and the song of the slaves coming
from the fields, and as dusk began to fall, the cry of
a whip-poor-will.

When the door had closed upon the retreating
figures of the men who brought him there, he had
thrown himself upon the floor where he lay, faint
from physical anguish, in a stupor of misery,
conscious only of a sick longing for death.  This mood
had passed and he was himself again.

As he lay with his eyes following the fiery, shifting
feathers of cloud, he remembered that the gaol at
Jamestown faced the south, and he thought, "This
is the last sunset I shall ever see."  He had the strong
abiding faith of his time and party, and he looked
beyond the clouds with an awe and a light in his eyes.
Verses learnt at his mother's knee came back to him;
he said them over to himself, and the tender, solemn,
beneficent words fell like balm upon his troubled
heart.  He thought of his mother who had died young,
and then of scenes and occurrences of his childhood.
All earthly hope was past, there could be no more
struggling; in a little while he would be dead.
Dying, his mind reverted, not to the sordid misery from
which death would set him free, but to the long past,
to the child at the mother's knee, to the boy who had
climbed down great cliffs in search of a smuggler's
cave.  The unearthly light that rests upon that time
so far behind us shone strong for him—he saw every
twig in the rooks' nests in the lofty elms, every ivy
leaf about a ruined oriel, black against a gold sky;
the cool, dark smell of the box alleys filled his
nostrils: the sound of the sea came to him; he heard his
mother singing on the terrace.  He bowed his face
with a sudden rain of tender, not sorrowful, tears.

Something crashed in at the window, splintering
the coarse glass and falling upon the floor at a little
distance from him.  It was a large pebble, to which
was tied a piece of paper.  He started up and made
for it, to be brought up within two feet of it by the
tug of the rope which bound him to the wall.  He
thought a moment, then lay down upon the floor and
found that he could touch the end of the string that
tied the paper to the pebble.  He took it between his
teeth and slowly drew it towards him, then, rising to
his knees, he strained with all his might at the cords
that bound his arms.  They were tightly drawn, but
when at length he desisted, panting, he had so
loosened them that he could move one hand a very
little way.  With it and with his teeth he disengaged
the paper from the pebble and spread it upon his
knee.  There was just light enough to read the
sprawling schoolboy hand with which it was covered.
It ran thus:—

"I don't know as this will ever reach you.  I am
doing all I can.  Luiz Sebastian has not let me get at
arm's length from him since I overheard him and the
Turk, and a sailor from Captain Laramore's ship and
*Roach* at the hut on the marsh, two hours ago.  They
would have killed me there, but I ran, and he did not
catch me until I was almost to the quarters.  He
will kill me though in a little while, I know; he has a
knife and he is sitting on the door-step, and the Turk
is with him, and I can not pass them.  He held his
hand over my mouth and the knife to my heart when
Woodson went the rounds, and I could n't make no
sound—Lord have mercy upon me!  I write this
with my blood, on a leaf from your Bible, while he
sits there whispering to the Turk.  He goes to his
own cabin directly and he will take me with him and
kill me there, I know he will.  He goes to the stables
first and I must go with him.  If we pass close
enough, and if I can do it without his seeing me I
will throw this in at the window of the room where
I know you are, if not—the Lord help us
all! ... Landless, for God's sake! before moonrise to-night
the Chickahominies and the Ricahecrians from the
Blue Mountains will come down on the plantation.
With them are leagued Luiz Sebastian, the Turk,
Trail, Roach, and most of the slaves....  When all
is over, the Indians will take the scalps and Grey
Wolf and will make for the Blue Mountains; Luiz
Sebastian and the others will seize the boats and put
off for the ship at the Point.  Her crew will give her
up and they will all turn pirate together.  The women
go with them if they can keep them from the Indians;
the men are all to be killed....  I have told you all
I heard.  For God's sake, save them if you can,—and
remember poor Dick Whittington."

Dropping the paper, Landless strained with all his
might, first at the cords which bound his arms, and
then at the rope which fastened him to the wall.
Again and again he put forth the strength of
despair—his muscles cracked, great beads stood upon his
forehead—but the ropes held.  As well as he could
with his shackled feet he stamped upon the floor; he
called aloud, but there came no answering voice or
sound from below.  He was at the end of the house
over unused chambers, and the walls and flooring
were very thick.  He clenched his teeth and began
again the battle with the cords which held him.  All
in vain.  He shouted until he was hoarse—it was
crying aloud in a desert.  With a groan he leaned
against the wall, gathering strength for another effort.
It was dark now and the moon rose at eleven....
There was a piece of glass upon the floor, one of
the splinters from the shattered window.  He
remembered noticing it—a long narrow piece like the blade
of a knife.  Sinking to his knees he felt for it, and
after a long time found it.  He now had a knife, but
he could not move the hand that held it six inches
from his side.  Stooping, he took the splinter between
his teeth, and making the rope taut, drew the sharp
edge of the glass across it.  Again and again he drew
it across, and at length he perceived that a strand
was severed.  With a thrill of joy he settled to the
slow, laborious and painful task.  Time passed, a
long, long time, and yet the rope was but half severed.
As he worked he counted the moments with feverish
dread, his heart throbbed one passionate prayer:
"Lord, let me save her!"  Now and then he glanced
at the blackness of the night outside with a terrible
fear—though he knew it could not be yet—that he
should see it waver into moonlight.  Another interval
of toil, and he stood erect, gathered his forces, made
one supreme effort—and was free!  There was not
time for the cords about his arms, but he must get
rid of those which fettered his ankles.  An endless
task it seemed, but hand and friendly splinter
accomplished it at last: and he sprang to the door.  It was
locked.  He dashed himself against it, once, twice,
thrice, and it crashed outwards, precipitating him
into a large, bare room.  He crossed this, managed
to open its unlocked door with his free hand,
descended a winding stair and came into the upper
hall.  It was in darkness, but up the wide staircase
streamed the perfumed light of many myrtle candles,
and with it laughter, and the sound of a man's voice
singing to a lute.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ROAD TO PARADISE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ROAD TO PARADISE

.. vspace:: 2

The family and guests of Verney Manor were
assembled in the great room.  The day had been one of
confusion, haste and anxiety; but it was past, and the
stillness and forced inaction of the night was upon
them.  With the readiness of those to whom danger is
no novelty they seized the hour and made the most of
it.  Sufficient unto the morrow was the evil thereof.

The Colonel, weary from hard riding, but well
satisfied with his afternoon's work, had sunk into a great
chair and challenged Dr. Anthony Nash to a game of
chess.  "Everything is in train," he told them, "and
all quiet upon the plantations in this shire at least.  I
believe the danger past.  God be thanked!"  Upon
a settle piled with cushions lay Captain Laramore,
with a bandaged shoulder, a long pipe between his
teeth, and at his elbow a tankard of sack and an
elderly Hebe in the person of Mistress Lettice Verney.
Patricia, sumptuously clad and beautiful as a dream,
sat in the great window with Betty and Sir Charles.
Her eyes shone with a feverish brilliancy, her white
hands were never still, she laughed and jested with
her lover, touching this or that with light wit.  Once
or twice she broke into song, rich, passionate,
throbbing through the night.  The gentle Betty looked at
her in wonder, but Sir Charles was enchanted.

Steps sounded on the stairs and in the hall.  "Who
is that?" cried the master, taking his hand from his
rook.

"The overseer, probably," said Dr. Nash.  "Check
to your king."

A loud scream from Mistress Lettice.  The master
leaped to his feet, knocking over the chess-table and
sending the pieces rattling into corners.  Sir Charles,
drawing his rapier, sprang to his side, the wounded
Captain started up from amidst his pillows and the
divine snatched a brass andiron from the fireplace.

Framed in the doorway, looking larger than life
against the blackness of the space behind him, stood
the arch plotter, the Roundhead, the convict, the
rebellious servant whom the Governor had sworn to
hang.  Blood dropped from his face, cut by the glass
with which he had severed the rope, to meet the blood
upon his arms and chest, lacerated by his savage
straining at his bonds.  For a moment he stood,
blinded by the light, then advanced into the room.
His master seized him.  "Still bound!" he cried
with an oath.  "He is alone then!  How did you get
here?  What are you doing here'?  Speak, scoundrel!"

"I bring you this paper, sir," said Landless
hoarsely.  "Will you take it from me.  I cannot raise
my hands."

The Colonel snatched the paper, glanced at it, read
it with a face from which all the ruddy color had fled,
and held it out to Sir Charles with a shaking hand.
"Read it," he gasped.  "Read it aloud," and sank
into his chair breathing heavily.

Sir Charles read.  "Damnation!" he cried, crushing
the paper in his hand.  Laramore started up
with a roar of "My ship!" and then broke into a
torrent of oaths.  Mistress Lettice's screams filled
the room until her brother roughly silenced her by
clapping his hand over her mouth.  "By the Lord
Harry, Lettice, I will throw you out to them if you
do not hush!  Gentlemen, in God's name, what are
we to do?"

"Barricade door and window and hold the house
against them," said the baronet.

"Send for help to Rosemead and to Fitzhugh and
Ludwell!" cried the divine.

"Five men and three women to hold this house
against a hundred Indians and negroes!  And no
help could come for hours and it is now nearly ten!
Moreover, the messenger would have to pass through
the savages lying in the woods,—he would never
reach Rosemead with his scalp on!"

"I will be your messenger," said Nash rising, "and
as every moment is more precious than rubies, I had
best start at once."

"You, Anthony!  God forbid!" cried the Colonel.
"You would go to certain death."

"I would stay to certain death, would I not?"
retorted the other.  "But my mare, Pixie, and I can
shew clean heels to the red villains, were they as thick
as chinquepins.  Give me the stable-key, Verney.  I
know the way to the jade's stall, and she will follow
her master through fire and water without a whinny.
I don't want a light.  Not a soul on the place must
know that I have left Verney Manor."

"Anthony, Anthony, I am loth to see you go, old
friend!" cried the Colonel.

"Tut, tut, as well leave my scalp in the woods as
in Dick Verney's parlor! but I shall do neither.
Hold the house as long as you can, and look for
Carrington, and Fitzhugh, and Ludwell, and myself with
a hundred men at our heels before the dawn.  Until
then *vale*."

He was gone.  "And now the doors and windows,"
said Sir Charles.

"The windows, save those in this room, are secured
as they always are at night.  The shutters are heavy
and strongly barred, and we have but to draw the
chains across the doors.  They will find it hard work
to fire the house, for the logs are wet from this
morning's shower.  There is ammunition enough, and the
shutters are loopholed.  If we were in force, we might
hold out, but, my God! what can we do?  Even with
the overseers whom we must manage to call to us, if
we can do so without arousing suspicion, we are not
enough to defend one face of the house.'

"Are there no honest servants?"

"How can I tell the true men from the knaves?
To rouse the quarters would be to show that we know,
and to ourselves spring the mine which is to destroy
us.  And if we brought men into the house, who are
leagued with the fiends outside, then would their
work be done for them.  There are a very few whom
I know to be faithful, but how to secure them without
giving the alarm—my God! how helpless we are!"

"Perhaps I can help you, Colonel Verney," said
Landless.

In the midst of a dead silence the eyes of each
occupant of the room,—the master, the courtier, the
wounded captain, the women, trembling in each
other's arms,—were turned upon the speaker who
stood before them, haggard, torn and bleeding, but
with a quiet power in his dark face and steadfast eyes.

"You?" said the master sternly.  "What can you do?"

"I will tell you," said Landless, "but I must be
freed from these bonds first."

Another pause, and then Sir Charles, responding to
a nod from his kinsman, walked over to Landless, and
with his rapier cut the ropes which bound him.

"Now speak!" said the Colonel.

.. vspace:: 2

The quarters lay, to all appearance, wrapt in the
profoundest slumber—no movement in the low-browed
cabins, or in the lane or square; no sound other than
the croak of the frogs in the marshes, the wail of the
whip-poor-wills, and the sighing of the night wind in
the pines.  All was dark save in the east, where the
low stars were beginning to pale.  Below them glowed
a dull red spark, shining dimly across a long expanse
of black marsh and water, and coming from Captain
Laramore's ship, anchored off the Point.

One moment it seemed the only light in the wide
landscape of darkness; the next the flame of a torch,
streaming sidewise in the wind, cast an orange glare
upon the dead tree in the centre of the square and
upon the windowless fronts of the cabins surrounding
it.  The torch was in the hand of the overseer, who
went the rounds, striking upon each door, and
summoning the inmates of the cabin to the square.  "The
master wants a word with you," was all the answer
he vouchsafed to startled, sullen, or suspicious
inquiries.  In five minutes the square was thronged.
White and black, servant and slave, rustic, convict,
Jew, Turk, Indian, mulatto, quadroon, coal black,
untamed African—the motley crowd pressed and jostled
towards that end of the square at which stood the
master, his kinsman, the overseer, and Godfrey
Landless.  Behind them on the steps of the overseer's
house were the Muggletonian, Havisham, and Trail.
They had been unbound.  In the Muggletonian's
scarred face was stolid indifference, but Trail looked
furtively about until he spied Luiz Sebastian, when
he signaled "What is it?" with his eyes.  The
mulatto shook his head, and continued to shoulder his
way through the press until he stood in the front row,
face to face with the party from the great house.  On
one side of him was the Turk, on the other an Indian.

The master stepped a pace or two in front of his
companions, and held up his hand for silence.  When
the excited muttering had sunk into a breathless hush,
he beckoned to Landless, and the young man stepped
to his side.  There were many streaming lights by
now, and men saw each other, now clearly, now darkly,
as the fitful glare rose and fell.

"Now, my man," said the master in a loud, slow
voice, "you will point out to me, as you have agreed
to do, every man concerned in the plot discovered this
morning.  And you whom he designates, I command
you, in the name of the King, to surrender peaceably.
Your hope of pardon depends upon your doing so.
Now, Landless!"

"John Havisham," said Landless.

"Taken redhanded," quoth the master.  "Place him
here, Woodson, in front of us.  When all are in line,
I shall have a word to say to them."

Havisham advanced with quiet dignity, passing
Landless as if unaware of his presence.  "I surrender,"
he said, raising his voice, "because I have no
choice.  And I advise those of our number here
present to do the same.  Our plans known, our friends
taken, betrayed and deserted by the man in whom we
trusted most, whom we called our leader, we have,
indeed, no choice."

"Win-Grace Porringer," said Landless.

The Muggletonian threw up his arms.  "Iscariot!"
he cried wildly.  "Woe, woe to him by whom offenses
come!  Well for thee, son of Warham Landless, hadst
thou never been born!  By the power given to the
Two Witnesses and to their followers I curse thee!
Thou shalt be anathema maranatha!  Famine, thirst,
and a violent death be thy portion in this life, and
in the world to come mayest thou burn forever,
howling!  Amen and amen!"  With a wild laugh he
stalked to the side of Havisham, leaving Trail
standing alone upon the doorstep.  The eyes of the forger
met the eyes of Luiz Sebastian in another puzzled
inquiry, but the latter shook his head with a frown.
Not doubting that his name would be the next called,
Trail had already taken a step forward, but Landless's
eyes passed him over, and rested upon the face of a
man standing near Luiz Sebastian.

"John Robert!" he cried.

The man, a Baptist preacher suffering under the
Act of Uniformity, turned a gentle, reproachful face
upon him, and stepping from the crowd, joined
himself to Havisham and the Muggletonian.

"James Holt!" said Landless.

A rustic, standing behind Luiz Sebastian, uttered a
dreadful imprecation.  "You may hang me and welcome,
your Honor," he cried as he took his place, "if
you 'll just let me see this d—d Judas hung first!"

Luiz Sebastian fixed his great eyes upon Landless.
"If he calls my name," said the wicked brain behind
the blandly smiling face, "shall I, or shall I not—?
It is many minutes to moonrise yet."

But Landless did not call him.  He passed him by
as he had passed Trail, and named another rustic at
some little distance from the mulatto, then a Fifth
Monarchy man, then a veteran of Cromwell's, then
the plantation miller and the carpenter, then two more
Oliverians, then more peasants.  Each man, as his
name was called, stepped forward into the lengthening
line that faced the master and his party, standing with
pistols leveled and cocked; and each man bestowed
upon Godfrey Landless a curse, or a look that was
bitterer than a curse.

"Humfrey Elder!" called Landless.

The old butler shot from out the crowd, as though
impelled from a catapult.  "Your Honor!" he
screamed, "the man as says *I* plot against a Verney,
lies!  I that fought with your Honor at Naseby!  I
that you brought from home with you when Mistress
Patricia was a baby, and that has poured your wine
from that day to this!  I plot with these rapscallions
and Roundheads!  Your Honor, he lies in his
throat!"

"Fall into line, Humfrey," said his master quietly;
"I will hear you out later, but now, obey me."

The watchful eyes of Luiz Sebastian were growing
very watchful indeed.

"Regulus!" cried Landless.

Under cover of a burst of protestation from
Regulus, the Turk whispered to the mulatto, "By
Allah! this is the slave you would not approach!  You said
he would die for his master."

"He is not of them," returned the other.  "St. Jago! if
I understand it!  But what can it matter?
The moon will rise in less than an hour."

"Dick Whittington!" cried Landless.

There was a moment's silence, broken by the
mulatto, who had stepped out of line, and now stood
facing the party from the great house.  "I grieve to
say, señors," he said in his silkiest tone, "that the
poor Dick was but now taken with the fever, and lies
in a stupor within his cabin.  To-morrow, perhaps, he
will be better, and will answer when you call."

"That is your cabin, just beyond you there, is it
not?" demanded Landless.

"Assuredly," with a quick glance.  "And what then?"

Landless raised his voice to a shout.  "Dick Whittington!"

"Mother of God! what do you mean?" exclaimed
the mulatto.  "Your voice cannot reach him, deaf
and dumb from the fever, lying in his cabin at the far
end of the lane."

"Dick Whittington!" again loudly called Landless.

A cry arose from the crowd behind the mulatto and
between him and his cabin.  The next instant there
broke through them the figure, bound and gagged, of
young Dick Whittington.  As he rushed past the
mulatto, the latter, with a snarl of fury, grappled with
him, but animated with, the strength of despair, the
boy, bound as he was, broke from him and rushed to
Landless, at whose feet he dropped in a dead faint.
Upon the crowd fell a silence so intense that nature
herself seemed to have ceased to breathe.  Luiz
Sebastian, darting glances here, there, and everywhere,
from eyes in which doubt was fast growing into
certainty, came upon something which told its own tale.
The women's cabins were at some distance from the
square, and nearer to the great house, and from the
one to the other was passing a hurried line of women
and children with the under overseer at their head.

With the sight vanished the last remnant of doubt
from the mind of the mulatto....  Landless saw that
he saw; saw the intention with which he slipped out
of range of the pistols; saw the wicked light in his
face; saw him beckon to the Indian and point to the
forest; saw the glistening and rolling eyeballs and
the working lips of the throng of slaves who had by
imperceptible degrees separated from the whites, and
were now massing together at one side of the square;
saw the Turk with a knife in his hand; saw Trail
edging away from the group before the overseer's
cabin—and sprang forward, his powerful figure
instinct with determination, the set calm of the face with
which he had met Havisham's quiet disdain and the
imprecations of the other conspirators, broken up into
fire and passion, high and resolved.  Blood was upon
it still, and upon his arms and half naked breast; his
eyes burned; and as he threw up his arm in a gesture
of command, he looked the very genius of war, and
he seized and held every eye and ear.

"Men!" he cried, addressing himself to the line he
had called into being.  "Havisham, Arnold, Allen,
Braxton! we fought in the same cause once, fought
for God and the Commonwealth!  To-night we will
fight again, and together; fight for our lives and for
the honor of women!  Comrades, I am no traitor!  I
have not sold you!  You have cursed me without
cause.  Listen!  Colonel Verney, will you repeat the
oath you swore to me an hour ago?"

The master stepped to his side.  "I swear," he
cried, in his loud, manly voice, "by the faith of a
Christian, by the honor of a gentleman, that not one of
you whose names have been given by this man, shall
in any way suffer by having been privy to this plot.
I will so work with the Governor and Council that
your bodies shall not be touched, nor your time of
service increased.  Bygones shall be bygones between
us.  This applies to all save this man, the head and
front of the conspiracy.  Him I cannot save.  He
must pay the penalty, but he shall be the scapegoat for
the rest of you.  You have my promise, the promise
of a man who never breaks his word for good or evil."

"In the woods yonder are Indians," cried Landless.
"They wait but for moonrise, for the appointed hour,
to fall upon the plantation.  You called me traitor!
It is Luiz Sebastian and Trail who are the traitors,
the betrayers!  They are leagued with the Indians
and with the slaves.  Look at them, and see that I
speak truth!"

The look was sufficient.  The dusky mass of slaves
had swayed forward with one low, deep, bestial growl.
Crouched for the spring, they were yet held in leash
by the menace of the pistols, leveled upon them and
gleaming in the torchlight, and by the restraining
gesture and voice of Luiz Sebastian.  In the crowd of
servants, now quite separated from the slaves, was noise
and confusion, and behind the Turk, standing midway
between the parties, was forming a phalanx of villainous
white faces—the dissolute, the convict, the refuse
of the plantation,—and at his side, suddenly as
though sprung from the earth, appeared the evil face
and red hair of the murderer of Robert Godwyn.

The silence of the Oliverians, stricken dumb by this
new turn of affairs, was broken by Havisham's crying
to Landless,—

"What are we to do, friend?"

"Make for the house and defend it and our lives,"
answered Landless, "but first I call upon all true men
among you yonder to leave those murderers and join
yourselves to us."

"In the name of the King!" cried the Colonel.

"In the name of God!" said Landless.

Some seven or eight broke from the opposite throng
and with lowered heads ran to them across the open
space.  Landless stooped, and lifting the senseless
figure at his feet swung it over his shoulder.

"We are ready, Colonel Verney.  Steady, men!
Follow me!"  He turned to the great house, rising
vast and dark, two hundred yards away.

A gigantic, coal black Ashantee chief broke from
the throng opposite and, uttering his war cry, bounded
across the space between them.  Another instant and
he would have been upon them, and close after him a
yelling pack of hell hounds—the overseer's pistol
cracked, and the black giant fell dead.  A yell arose
from the crowd, but they stood irresolute.  For
firearms, so strictly kept from servants and slaves, so
pre-eminently pertaining to the dominant class, they had
a superstitious dread.  Four pistols meant four lives
picked from the foremost to advance.

"Let them go," cried the mulatto, with a taunting
laugh.  "Let them go!  Let them go cage themselves
in wooden walls where we will take them all together—rats
in a trap.  We will wait for the Chickahominies
who have guns, señors, and for the Ricahecrians
whose scalping knives are very bright.  Until moonrise,
señors from the great house, and you others who
go with them!  Mother of God! look well upon it,
for it is the last you will ever see!"

Fifteen minutes later saw the house of Verney
Manor garrisoned by some thirty desperate men.
They had entered to find a scene of confusion—the
hall and lower rooms filled with frightened women
and crying children.  Patricia with white cheeks and
brilliant eyes had come forward to meet her father,
carrying a three days' child in her arms.  Beyond
her was Betty, bending her sweet, pale face over the
mother, caught up from her pallet and carried to the
house in the arms of the under overseer.  Mistress
Lettice was alternately wailing that they were all
undone and murdered, and wringing her hands over
the obstinacy of Captain Laramore who, rapier in
left hand, would stand guard at the door, instead of
keeping quiet as the Doctor had said he must.  The
master's stern command for silence reduced the
clamor of women and children to an undertone of lamentation.
"We must to work at once," he said, "and apportion
our forces.  There are about thirty men, are there not,
Woodson?  I shall take the front with ten: Charles,
thou shalt have one side, Woodson the other, and
Haines the back.  Laramore, thou must let us fight
for thee, man, though I know thou findest it a bitter
pill.  Do you marshal the men, Woodson, and divide
them into four parties, one for each face, and tell the
women to leave off their whimpering and prepare to
load the muskets.  Haines, have the arms taken down
from the racks and distribute them.  Men and women,
one and all, you are to remember that you are fighting
for your lives and for more than your lives.  You
know what you have to expect if you are taken."

Sir Charles, followed by Landless, the Muggletonian
and some three or four others, entered the
great room, which, with the master's room, occupied
that side of the house allotted to the baronet.  The
wax candles still burned upon the spinet, and upon
the high mantel, and in the middle of the floor lay the
overturned chess table.  Three of the four windows
were closely shuttered, but the fourth was open, and
before it stood a graceful figure, looking out into the
darkness.

Sir Charles strode hurriedly over to it.  "Cousin! this
is madness!  You know not to what danger you
may be exposing yourself.  Come away!"

"I am watching for the moonrise," she said
dreamily.  "It is very near now.  Look at the white
glow above the water, and how pale the stars are!
How beautiful it is, and how cool the wind upon your
forehead!  Listen! that was the cry of a jay,
surely! and yet why should we hear it at night?"

"It is the cry of a jay, sure enough," said the overseer,
pausing in his hurried passage through the room,
"but it was made by Indian lips."

"Come away, for God's sake!" cried the baronet.

"Look! there is the moon!" she answered.

Above the level of marsh and water appeared a thin
line of silver.  It thickened, rounded, became a
glorious orb.  The marshes blanched from black to
gray, and across the water, from the dim land to the
great silver globe, stretched a long, bright, shimmering
path.

A knot of women appeared in the doorway, laden
with powder-flasks and platters filled with bullets.
One, with only a stick wound with faded flowers in
her hand, left them and glided to the open window.

"Margery!" said Patricia softly.

The mad woman, pressing in front of her mistress,
looked out into the night and saw the white shining
road cutting through the darkness and stretching
endlessly away.  She threw up her arms with a cry of
rapture.

"The road to Paradise! the road to Paradise!"

An arrow whistled through the window and struck
into her bosom—into her heart—the staff dropped
from her hand, and she swayed forward and fell at
her mistress's feet.

The night, so placid, still and beautiful, was rent
and in an instant made hideous by a sound so long,
loud, and dreadful, that it might have been the shriek
of a legion of exultant fiends.  It rose to the stars,
sunk to the earth and rose again, unearthly, menacing,
curdling the blood and turning the heart to stone.

"The war-whoop," said Woodson.  "Close the
window, quick."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NIGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

That terrible cadence preluded pandemonium, the
hush of horror that followed it being broken by one
deep and awful roar of voices as the insurgents, red,
white, and black, joined forces and swept down upon
the devoted house.

"They will try the front first," quoth the master
from his loophole.  "Steady, men, until I give the
word!  Now, let them have it with a wannion!"

The muskets cracked and a louder yell arose from
without.

"Two," said the master composedly, receiving a
fresh musket from his daughter's hand.

"They will try to dash in the door, your Honor!"
cried the overseer from his post of observation.
"They have the trunk of a pine with them."

"Let them come," said his master grimly.  "They
will find a warm welcome."

A double line of savages raised the great trunk
from the ground and advanced with it at a run, yelling
as they came.  They had reached the steps leading up
into the porch when from the loopholed door and
window within there poured a deadly fire.  Three
fell, but the battering-ram came on and struck against
the door with tremendous force.  The door held, and
but twelve of the twenty who had entered the porch
returned to their fellows.

"They won't try that again," said the master with
a short laugh.

"They are dividing," cried the overseer.  "They
will surround the house.  Every man to his post!"

Around the corner of the house to the moonlit
sward beneath the great room windows swept a tide of
Indians and negroes with Luiz Sebastian and the two
Ricahecrian brothers at their head.  A few of the
Indians had guns; the slaves were armed with axes,
scythes, knives—the plunder of the tool house—or
with jagged pieces of old iron, or with oars taken from
the boats and broken into dreadful clubs.  They
came on with a din that was terrific, the savages from
the eastern hemisphere howling like the beasts within
their native forests, those from the western uttering at
intervals their sterner, more appalling cry.

Within the great room Sir Charles, languidly
graceful as ever, stood beside the small square opening
in the door that led down into the garden, and fired
again and again into the mob without.  He fought
with an air as became the fine gentleman of the
period, but underneath the elaborate carelessness of
demeanor was a cool precision of action.  The hand
that so nonchalantly brushed away the grains of
powder from his white ruffles, was steady enough at the
trigger; the eye that turned from the red death
without to cast languishing glances at his mistress where
she stood directing the women, was quick to note the
minutest change in savage tactics.  He jested as he
fought—once he drew a tremulous wail of laughter
from Mistress Lettice's lips.

A bullet sung through the aperture and grazed his
arm.  "The first blood," he said, with a laugh.

"There's a man killed in the master's room and
two in the hall!" cried young Whittington, from his
post at the far window.

"And Margery," said Patricia, coming forward
with the kerchief from her neck in her hand.  "Let
me bind up your wound, cousin."

He held out his arm with a smile and a few low,
caressing words, and she wound the lawn that was not
whiter than her face about it; then moved back to
where the women worked, loading and passing the
muskets to the men who kept up an incessant fire
upon the assailants.

The whole house filled with smoke through which
the figures of the besieged loomed large and indistinct,
and the noise—the crack of the muskets, the loud
commands and oaths, the scream of a frightened
woman or child, the groans of the wounded, of whom
there were now many—became deafening.  The
attack was now general, and the men on each face had
their hands full.  Without was horrible clamor, oaths,
shots, yells, crashing blows against door and window;
within was noise and confusion, and fear, stern and
controlled, but blanching the lip of the men and
showing in the agony of the women's eyes.

Sir Charles, turning for a fresh musket, after a
highly successful shot as the yell outside had testified,
found Patricia at his elbow.  "There are very few
bullets left, cousin, and this is all the powder."

The baronet drew in his breath.  "Peste! we are
unfortunate!  One of you men go beg, borrow, or
steal from the others."

Landless left his loophole in charge of the Muggletonian
and went swiftly into the hall, where he found
the master, his wig off, his shirt torn, his face and
hands blackened with powder, now firing with his own
hand, now shouting encouragement to the panting men.

"Powder and shot!" he cried.  "God help us! are
you out?  Not a grain or a bullet can we spare,
for if we keep them not from the great door we are
dead men!"

Landless went to the overseer.  "Two more rounds
and *we* are out," said Woodson coolly, firing as he
spoke.

"There is no sign that they have had enough,"
said Landless, as the clamor outside redoubled, and a
man fell heavily back from his loophole with a bullet
through his brain.

"Enough!  Damn them, no!" said the overseer.
"When they've had our lives they will have had
enough—not before!  They're paying dearly for
their fun though."

Landless went back to the great room with empty hands.

"They are all in like case," he said, in answer to
Sir Charles's lifted eyebrows.

The other shrugged his shoulders.  "What will be,
will be.  If we could have saved our fire—but we
had to keep them from the door!  Get to your post,
and we will hold them back as long as may be.  Then
a short passage to eternal nothingness!

"A short passage!" muttered the Muggletonian at
Landless's ear.  "Well for those who find that at the
hands of the uncircumcised heathen.  Eternal nothingness!
The fool hath said in his heart There is no God—and
he is being dashed headlong upon the judgment
bar of the God who saith, I will repay.  Cursed
be the Atheist!  May he find the passage, fiery though
it be, as nothing to the flames of the avenging God;
may he go to his appointed place where the worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched; may—"

The trunk of a tree was dashed against the door
with a force that shook the room.  "Dey 're comin'!"
shouted Regulus, who stood behind Sir Charles, and
raised the axe with which he was armed above his
head.  Another crash and the wood splintered.
Through the ragged opening was thrust a red hand—the
axe, wielded by Regulus's powerful arms, flashed
downwards, and the hand, severed at the wrist, fell
with a dull thud upon the floor.  A yell from without,
and another blow, widening the opening.  Landless
fired his last bullet into the crowd, and clubbing his
musket sprang to the door, in front of which were
now massed all the defenders of that side of the house.
Sir Charles threw down his useless musket, and drew
his sword.  "Cousin," he said over his shoulder to
Patricia, standing white and erect in the midst of the
cowering women, "you had best betake yourselves to
the hall, and that quickly.  This will be no ladies'
bower presently."

"Come," said Patricia to the women, and led the way
towards the door leading into the hall.  As she passed
Sir Charles she put out her hand, and he caught it,
sunk to his knee, and pressed his lips upon it.

"I am going to my father," she said steadily, "and
I shall pray him as he loves me to pass his sword
through my heart when they break into the hall.  So
it is farewell, cousin."

She drew her hand away and moved towards the
door, passing Landless so closely that her rich skirts
brushed him, but without a change in the white calm
of her face.  The terrified women had pressed before
her into the hall, only Betty Carrington keeping by
her side.  Her foot was upon the threshold, when with
loud screams they surged back into the great room.
A thundering crash in the hall was followed by a
babel of oaths, screams, triumphant yells.  The voice
of the master made itself heard above all the hubbub,
"Charles, Woodson, Haines, they are upon us!  Defend
the women to the last, as you are men, all of you!"

The splintered plank between them in the great
room and the murderers without was dashed inwards.
An Indian, naked, horribly painted, brandishing a
tomahawk, sprang through the opening, and Sir
Charles ran him through with his sword.  A second
followed, and Landless dashed his brains out with the
butt of his musket.  A third, and the Muggletonian
struck at him through the wildly flaring light and the
drifting smoke wreaths, and missed his aim.  The knife
of the savage gleamed high in air, then, descending,
stuck quivering in the breast of the fanatic.  He sunk
to his knees, flung up his skeleton arms, and raised his
scarred face, into which a light that was not of earth
had come, then cried in a loud voice, "Turn ye, turn
ye to the Stronghold, ye prisoners of Hope!"  His eyes
closed and he fell forward upon his face, his blood
making the ground slippery about the feet of the others.

Landless closed with the Indian, finally slew him,
and turned to behold a stream, impetuous, not to be
withstood, of Indians and negroes pouring through
the doorway.  From the hall came the clash of
weapons and a most terrific din, and presently there
burst into the great room the Colonel, Laramore,
Woodson, and Haines, followed by some fifteen
men—making, with the five in the great room, all that
were left of the defenders of Verney Manor.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MORNING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MORNING

.. vspace:: 2

The women crouched in a far corner of the room
behind a barricade of chairs and tables; the men
stood between them and the thirsters for blood, and
fought coolly, desperately, with such effect that,
fearful as were the odds, a glimmering of hope came to
them.  The ammunition on both sides was exhausted,
and it had become a hand to hand struggle in which
the advantage of position and weapons was with the
assailed.

"Damme, but we will beat them yet!" cried Laramore,
panting, and leaning heavily upon his rapier.
"They 're drawing off; we 've tired them out!"

"They 'll never tire while that hellhound of an
Indian whoops them on, and that yellow devil, Luiz
Sebastian, backs him up," said the overseer.

"They are gathering for a rush," said Landless.

The assailants had fallen back to the opposite wall,
leaving a space, cumbered with the dead and slippery
with blood, between them and the defenders of the
house.  In this space now appeared the lithe figure,
and the watchful, large-eyed, amber countenance of
Luiz Sebastian.

"Ohè!" he cried, "slaves, all of you!  Ashantees,
Popoes, Angolans, Fidas, Malimbe, Ambrice! you
who are all black! think of the jungle and the
village; think of the wives and the children! think
of the slaver and the slave ship!  You from the
Indies, you who are like me, Luiz Sebastian, think
of the blood which is the white man's blood and yet
the blood of a slave—and hate the white man as
I, Luiz Sebastian, hate him!  Kill them and take
the women!"

The swollen figure and dreadful face of Roach
appeared at his side.  "Ay!" cried the murderer, with
a tremendous oath.  "Kill them!  Smash them,
batter them, hear them scream!  In the old man's
pocket is the key of his money chest.  It is filled with
bright yellow gold.  Kill him and get the money, and
away to turn pirate and get more!"

"It grows late!" cried Trail.  "We must up sail,
and away before the dawn!"

The gigantic, horribly painted form of the Ricahecrian
chief stalked into the open space and commenced
a harangue in his own tongue.  It was short, but effective.

"God!" said the Colonel, under his breath, and
grasped his blood-stained sword more closely.

With one shrill and horrible cry Indians, negroes,
mulattoes, and villainous whites were upon them,
breaking their line, forcing them apart into knots of
two and three away from the frail barrier, behind
which cowered the screaming women, striking with
knife and tomahawk, axe and club.  Two of the Colonel's
men fell, one under the knife of the seven-year-captive
Ricahecrian, the other beaten down by the
jagged and knotted club with which Roach, foaming
at the mouth, and swearing horribly, struck madly to
left and right.  The Ricahecrian, drawing the knife
from the heart of his victim, rushed on to where
Landless and Sir Charles still maintained, by dint of
desperate fighting, their position before the women, but
Luiz Sebastian with Roach and half a dozen negroes
swept between him and his prey.  He swerved aside,
and, bounding into the midst of the women, seized the
one who chanced to be in his path,—a young and
beautiful girl, newly come over from Plymouth, and
a favorite with the ladies of Verney Manor.  The
despairing scream which the poor child uttered rang
out above all the tumult.  Landless turned, saw, and
darted to her aid—but too late.  With one hand the
savage gathered up the loosened hair, with the other
he passed the scalping knife around the young
head—when Landless reached them, she who so short time
before had been so fair to see, lay a shocking spectacle,
writhing in her death agony.  With white lips
and burning eyes Landless swung his gun above his
head, and brought it down upon the shaven crown of
Grey Wolf.  It cracked like an egg shell, and the
Indian dropped across the body of his victim.

Landless, springing back to the post he had quitted,
found Sir Charles in desperate case, but as coolly
composed as ever, and with the air of the Court still
about him despite his bared head and torn and blood-stained
clothing, treating those who came against him
to an exhibition of swordsmanship such as the New
World had probably rarely witnessed.  Landless,
striking down a cutpurse from Tyburn, saw him run
the Turk through, and saw behind him the nightmare
visage and the raised club of Roach.  He uttered a
warning cry, but the club descended, and the
handsome, careless face fell backwards, and the slender
debonair figure swayed and fell.  Landless caught
him, saw that he was but stunned, and letting him
drop to the floor at his feet, wrenched the sword from
his hand, and stood over him, facing Roach with a
stern smile.

The murderer raised his club again.

"We've met at last!" he cried with a taunting
laugh.  "Do you remember the tobacco house, and
what I said?  I says: 'Every dog has its day, and
I 'll have mine.'  It 's my day now!

"And I said," rejoined Landless, "'I let you go
now, but one day I will kill you.'  And *that* day has
come.

With an oath Roach brought down the club.  Landless
swerved, and the blow fell harmlessly; before the
arm could be again raised, he caught it, held it with a
grasp of steel, and shortened his sword.  The
miscreant saw his death, and screamed for mercy.
"Remember Robert Godwyn!" said Landless, and drove
the blade home.

The sword was a more effective weapon than the
gun, and with it he kept the enemy at bay, while he
glanced despairingly around.  There were as many
dead as living within the room by this.  The floor was
piled with the slain; they made traps for the living
who in the wild surging to and fro stumbled over
them, and fell, and were slain before they could rise.
Three fourths of the dead belonged to the insurgents,
but the attacked had suffered severely.  Of the thirty
men with whom the defense had commenced there
now remained but twelve, and of that number several
were wounded.  The Colonel was bleeding from a cut
on the head, the under overseer had a ball through his
arm, Sir Charles still lay without movement at
Landless's feet.

Forced, together with almost all of his party, by
the mad rush of the assailants to the farther end of
the room, the master had seen with agony the women
left well-nigh defenseless.  Followed by Woodson,
Havisham, Regulus, and young Whittington, he had
all but cut his way back to them, when a fresh influx
from the hall of slaves and whites who had been
engaged in plundering the house, drove them apart
again.

The newcomers came fresh to the work, maddened,
moreover, by the master's wines.  They advanced
upon the Colonel and his party with drunken shouts,
some brandishing rude weapons, others silver salvers
and tankards, the spoil of the plate chest.  The voice
of Luiz Sebastian rang through the room.  "Quick
work of them, friends; I smell the morning!"  With
a laugh and a scrap of Spanish song upon his lips he
came at Landless with a knife, but a turn of the white
man's wrist sent the weapon hurling through the air.

"Curse you!" cried the mulatto, springing out of
reach of the deadly point, and holding his arm from
which the blood was flowing.  "Mother of God! but
I will have you yet!" and bounded towards his weapon.
Landless, steadily watchful, and pointing that fatal
sword this way or that against all comers, cleared for
himself and the still senseless man at his feet a circle
into which few cared to intrude, for the fame of that
blade had gone through the room.  "Leave him until
we have dealt with the others," said the mulatto
between his teeth.  "Then will we give him reason to
wish that he had never been born."

A touch upon his arm, and Landless turned to find
Patricia standing beside him.  "Go back," he cried.
"Go back!"

"They are murdering them all over there," she said
steadily.  "My father is dead.  I saw him fall."

"Not so, madam.  He did but stumble over the
dead.  See, Woodson fights them back from him.
For God's sake, get back behind the barricade!"

She shook her head.  "He is dead.  They will all
be dead directly, my cousin and all.  My father
cannot help me, and he who lies here cannot help me.  I
will not be taken alive by these devils, and I have no
knife.  Will you kill me?"

"My God!"

"Quick!" she said in the same low, steady tones.
"They are coming; they will beat us down in a
moment.  Kill me!"

For answer Landless raised his voice until it rang
high above the uproar, and arrested the attention of
the combatants on both sides.  "Fight with a will,
men," he cried, "for help is at hand!  Do you not
bear the hoofs of the horses?"

"By God! you are right!" cried the Colonel,
suddenly struggling to his feet.  "Hold out, men!
Anthony Nash reached Rosemead, and has brought us
aid!"

"The dog priest!" the mulatto cried fiercely to
Trail.  "Was he here?  Then they have sent for
help, and Mother of God! it is here!"

"And coming at the planter's pace," answered
Trail.  "They will be upon us before we reach the
boats."

The mulatto glanced at the friend with whom he
had fled the Indies with a sinister smile.  "Ay," he
muttered to himself.  "They will be upon us indeed,
before we reach the boats, wherefore Luiz Sebastian
goes not to turn pirate this time.  He throws in his
lot with the Ricahecrians whose canoes are close at
hand in the inlet that winds into the Pamunkey.
They are very swift, and in the Blue Mountains there
is safety.  But one thing first."

He gave a shrill and peculiar whistle which brought
to him half a dozen Indians.  He pointed to the body
of Grey Wolf and then to Landless.  A yell burst
from the lips of the savages, and they rushed upon
the latter.  He met them, ran his sword through the
heart of the first, of the second: Sir Charles moaned,
stirred, and struggled to his knees.  A third raised
his knife; it would have descended, but Landless
darted between the savage and the half-dazed, utterly
helpless man at whom the blow was aimed, struck up
the arm, and plunged his sword into the dark breast.
A broken oar, snatched from the floor by the mulatto,
descended upon his head, and with a woman's scream
sounding in his ear, he fell heavily to the floor, and
lay as one dead.

When he came to himself, it was to find the great
room still crowded with men, and filled with noise and
confusion, but the thronging figures and the excited
voices were those of friends—of servants from the
neighboring plantations, of small planters and tenants
of Colonels Ludwell and Fitzhugh, the Surveyor-General,
and Dr. Anthony Nash.  He saw the master,
panting, bleeding, but exultant, seize Dr. Nash's hands
in his own.  He saw Sir Charles smile and extend his
box of richly scented snuff to Colonel Ludwell, and
the women leaving their corner of refuge with
hysterical laughter and tears; saw Betty Carrington in her
father's arms, and Mistress Lettice being helped across
a heap of dead by Captain Laramore.  Indians, negroes,
mulatto, scoundrel whites, were gone.

"They got off clear—the d—d villains," said Dick
Whittington, appearing beside him, "just before the
horses came up.  But Woodson has gone after the
slaves and the convicts with a party of Carrington's
men.  He 'll catch them, I 'm thinking, and they 'll
come to a pirate's end—that 's all the pirating they 'll
get.  The Indians will get clean away; they 're most
to the Pamunkey by now, I reckon."

Landless staggered to his feet, and put his hand to
his head, which was bleeding.  "The women are all
safe?" he demanded.

"All but poor Annis," said the boy.  "When I
saw the poor maid fall, I thanked the Lord that Joyce
Whitbread was safe in her mother's cottage at
Banbury.  But none of the others were hurt.  There is
Mistress Lettice and Mistress Betty Carrington—I
do not see Mistress Patricia."

The master of Verney Manor, pouring forth a rapid
account of the late affair to the gentlemen who crowded
around him, was brought to a dead stop by the appearance
of a man who had burst through the throng, and
now stood before him, half naked, bleeding, with white,
drawn face and wild eyes.

"What is it?  Speak!" cried the master, terror of
he knew not what growing in his eyes.

"Your daughter, Colonel Verney!" cried Landless.
"She is not here.  The Ricahecrians have carried
her off."

With a sound between a groan and a scream the
Colonel staggered, and would have fallen had not
Carrington caught him.  "Gone!  Impossible!"
cried Sir Charles vehemently, all his studied
insouciance thrown to the winds.  "She was with the women
behind the barrier that we made.  She is here."

He began to call her by name, loudly, appealingly,
but there came no answering voice.

"She will not answer," said Landless hoarsely.
"She is not here.  She was with the women until just
before the last.  She saw her father fall, and thought
him dead, and you dead, too, Sir Charles Carew, and
she came to me, and prayed me to kill her.  Then we
heard the sound of the horses, and six
Indians—Ricahecrians—with Luiz Sebastian, came against
me.  She stood at my side while I killed three.  Then
I was struck down, and I heard her scream as I fell."

The master freed himself from Carrington's
supporting arm, and raised from his hands a face that
had suddenly become that of an old man.  But the
voice was steady with which he said quietly,—

"Let them search the room thoroughly, for the
child may be laying in a faint beneath these dead,
though my soul doth tell me that it is as this man
says, and that she is gone.  But we will after them at
once, and, please God, we will have her back, safe and
sound.  They have but an hour's start."

"Ay," muttered young Whittington to Havisham.
"Only an hour.  But the Chickahominies build the
swiftest canoes in this corner of the world, and I have
heard that the canoes of the Ricahecrians are to the
canoes of the Chickahominies as swallows are to
cranes."





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.. _`BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII


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   BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS

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Great trees, drooping from the banks of the
Pamunkey, shadowed into inky blackness the water
below them; but between the lines of darkness slept
a charmed sheet, glassy, fiery red from the sunken
sun.  Three boats moved silently and swiftly up the
crimson stream, until, rounding a low point, they
came upon an Indian village, nestling amidst vines
and mulberries, and girt with a green ribbon of
late maize, when they swung round from the middle
stream and made for the bank.  They were rowed
by stalwart servants, and in the foremost sat the
master of Verney Manor and Sir Charles Carew.  In
the second boat was the Surveyor-General and
Dr. Anthony Nash, and in the third the overseer, and
among the rowers of this last was Godfrey Landless.

As they neared the bank their occupants saw that
the usual sleepy evening stillness was not upon the
village above them.  A shrill sound of wailing from
women and children rose and fell through the gathering
dusk, and in the open space round which the bark
wigwams were built, dark figures moved to and fro
in a kind of measured dance, slow and solemn, and
marked at intervals by dismal cries.  As the boats
touched the shore and the white men sprang out, a
boy, stationed as scarecrow upon the usual scaffold in
the midst of the maize fields, raised a shrill whoop of
warning which brought the lamentation of the women
and the dance of the men to a dead stop.  The latter
rushed down to the river side, brandishing their
weapons, and yelling; but there seemed little strength in
the arms that flourished the tomahawk; the voices
sounded cracked and shrill, and the weak fury and
noise died away when a nearer approach showed the
newcomers to be white.  A very aged man, with a
face all wrinkles and a chest all scars, stepped from
out the throng which was now augmented by the
women and children.

"My white fathers are far from the salt water.
Seldom do the Pamunkeys see their faces coming up
the narrowing stream or through the forest.  They are
welcome.  Let my fathers tarry and my women shall
bring them chinquepin cakes and tuckahoe, pohickory
and succotash, and my young men—"

He paused, and a low wailing murmur like the
sound of the wind in the forest rose from the women.

"Where are your young men, your braves?" demanded
the Surveyor-General.  "Here are only the
very old and the very young—they who have not
seen a Huskanawing."

The Indian pointed to the crimson flood below.
"There are my young men; there are my braves.
Among them were a werowance and a sagamore.
They two have strings of pearl thicker than the
stem of the grape vine; they are painted with
puccoon, and the feathers of the bluebird and the
redbird are upon them.  They have hills of hatchets and
of arrow heads, sharp and clean, and very much
tobacco, and they sing and dance in the great wigwam
of Okee, in the home of Kiwassa, in the land beyond
the setting sun.  But the rest—they lie deep in the
slime of the river; it is red with their blood: their
wives wail for them; their village is left desolate....
When the time of the full sun power was past
the smoking of three pipes, came up the Pamunkey,
swift as the swallow that skims its waters, the
Ricahecrian dogs who, passing down towards the salt
water twelve suns ago, slew the young men of a
village that lieth below us.  My young men went out
against them, but a cloud came up and Kiwassa hid
his face behind it.  They came not back, their boats
were sunk, the Ricahecrians laughed and went their
way, swift as swallows."'

"Ask him," said the Colonel huskily.

"Had they a captive with them—a woman, a
paleface woman?" demanded Carrington.

"With hair like the sunshine and a white robe.
And a man, the color of the falling sycamore leaf,
one of those who work in the fields of the white
fathers.  The arms of the woman were bound, but
his were not—he fought with the Ricahecrian dogs."

"Luiz Sebastian!" said the overseer with a
muttered oath.  "I thought as much when we found that
he was not with the drunken scoundrels whom we
took before they reached the Point.  And we had
better have killed him than all the rest put together,
for he is the devil incarnate."

"Let us get on!" Sir Charles cried impatiently.
"We waste time when every moment is precious."

The Colonel, who had been speaking to the
Surveyor-General, came over to him.  All the jovial life
and fire was gone from his face, his eyes were haggard
and bloodshot, he stooped like an old man, but the
voice with which he spoke was steady and
authoritative as ever.

"Ay," he said.  "We must on at once, but not all
of us.  Richard Verney must not forget the danger
of the state, in the danger of his child, nor let his
private quarrel take precedence.  I had hoped when
we left the Manor at dawn to have been up with the
villains ere now, but it was not to be.  This will be
a long chase and a stern one, and how it will end
God only knows.  We go into a wilderness from
which we may never return.  Behind us in the
settlement is turmoil and danger, a conspiracy to be put
down, the Chickahominies to be subdued, the strong
hand needed everywhere.  Every man should be at
his post, and Richard Verney, Lieutenant of his shire,
and Colonel of the trainbands, is many leagues from
the danger which threatens the colony, and with his
face to the west.  He must on, but Major Carrington
must go back to do his duty to the King, and
Anthony Nash must not desert his flock.  And you,
Woodson, I send back to the Manor to do what you
can to repair the havoc there, and to protect
Mistress Lattice.  My kinsman will go on with me; is
it not so, Charles?"

"Assuredly, sir," said the baronet quietly.

"I 'd a sight rather go with your Honor," growled
the overseer, "but I 'll do my best both by the
plantation and by Mistress Lettice, and I look for your
Honor and Mistress Patricia back in no time at all.
We are to take the small boat, I reckon?"

"Yes, with four men to row you.  We will press
a boat and a crew from the next Pamunkey village.
Pick out your men, and let us be gone."

"Humph!  There 's one that I reckon had best go
back with us.  Does your Honor know that you've
got with you the head of all this d—d Oliverian
business, the man that Trail swore was their
general—that they all obeyed as though he were Oliver
himself?"

"No!  How came he here?" cried the master,
staring at Landless, who stood at some distance from
them with folded arms and compressed lips, gazing
steadily up the glowing reaches of the river.

"Found him in the boat when I stepped into it
myself.  I did n't say anything then, for we were in
a mortal hurry and he 's a good rower.  But I reckon
your Honor will send him back with me?  He 'll give
you the slip the first chance he gets."

"Of course he must go back," the master said
peremptorily.  "He should never have been brought
thus far.  A dozen or so of these Oliverians must
swing as an example to the rest, and he, their leader,
and a felon to boot, at their head.  The service he
did us last night can not help him—be fought for
his own life.  The Governor has sworn to hang him,
and I am accountable for his safe delivery at
Jamestown.  Bind him and take him back with you, and
send him at once to Jamestown under a strong
escort."  He turned from the overseer to the two
gentlemen who were to go down the river.  "Carrington,
Anthony Nash, old friends, farewell—it may be
forever.  Anthony, pray that I may find my child safe
and spotless."

They embraced, and he wrung their hands, and,
stepping hastily into the boat, sank down and covered
his face with his cloak.  The Surveyor-General stood
with a pale and troubled face, and Dr. Anthony Nash
prayed aloud.  The rowers took their places and the
boat shot out into the middle stream.

Landless, seeing the second boat filling, and
supposing that the third would receive its load in a
moment, stepped towards it.  As he passed the overseer,
standing a little to one side with two servants belonging
to Colonel Fitzhugh, a tenant of Colonel Verney,
and an Indian from Rosemead, Woodson put forth an
arm and stopped him.

"No, no, my man," he said with a grim smile but
with a watchful eye, and nodding to the men to close
in around them.  "Your way's down, not up."

"What do you mean?" cried Landless, recoiling.

"I mean that the Doctor and the Major and I and
these men go back to the settlements to look after
things there, and that you are going to renew your
acquaintance with Jamestown gaol."

For a moment Landless stood, turned to stone,
within the other's grasp, then with a cry he broke
from him and rushed to the water's edge.  The boat
containing the master had turned her head up stream
and was beyond call; in the second boat the men
held the oars poised while Sir Charles, with one foot
upon the gunwale, gave a gravely courteous farewell
to the Surveyor-General and the divine.

"Sir Charles Carew!" cried Landless.  "I pray
you to take me with you!"

Without moving, Sir Charles looked at him coldly,
a peculiar smile just curling his lip.

"I remember a day," he said, "when you said that
I might wait until doomsday and not hear favor asked
of me by you."

"You are not generous," Landless said slowly,
"but I ask the favor.  I ask it on my knees.  Let
me go with you."

Sir Charles stepped into the boat and took the seat
reserved for him.  "I regret," he said politely, "that
it comports not with my duty as a gentleman and an
officer of the King to assist you in your very natural
endeavors to escape the gibbet.  Push off, men."

The boat shot from the shore and up the darkening
stream, hastening to overtake its consort.  Sir Charles
raised his Spanish hat and fluttered a lace
handkerchief.  "To a happier meeting, gentlemen!"  The
Surveyor-General and the divine returned the salute,
and stood in silence watching the canoe with its
brawny rowers and the slender, elegant figure in the
stern.  It caught up with the Colonel's boat and the
two grow smaller and smaller, until they become
mere black dots and the dusk swallowed them up.

Landless watched them too with a face set like a
stone.  The overseer, backed by two of the servants,
approached him with caution, but there was no
need,—he submitted to be bound without a word, or
struggle, or change in the expression of his face.  He
turned mechanically towards the boat, but the
overseer plucked him back.  "Not yet," he said.  "We
are all dead beat, and we have not the need to hurry
that have those who are gone on.  The Major 's
commander now, and he says sleep here a few hours.  I 'll
fasten you so that you can't get away, I promise ye!
Fegs! it's a pity that a man who can fight as you
fought last night should have to die a dog's death
after all!  But you 've only yourself to thank for it."

The red glow died from the river like the scarlet
from cooling iron, and it lay dark and silent, dimly
reflecting a myriad of stars.  The sloping bank, the
maize fields, tobacco patch and mulberry grove, the
plateau upon which were ranged the wigwams of the
Indians, the dark and endless forest—all the wide,
sombre earth—had their stars also—myriads on
myriads of fire-flies, restlessly sparkling lanterns
swung by legions of fairies.  There was no wind;
the cataracts of wild grape descending from the tops
of the tallest trees stirred not a leaf: the pines were
soundless.  But the whip-poor-wills wailed on, and
once a catamount screamed, and the deer, coming to
a lick close by, made a trampling over the fern.

Landless, tightly bound to a great bay tree with
thongs of deerskin, watched the night grow old with
hard, despairing eyes.  The stars paled and the moon
rose softly above the tree-tops, silvering the world
beneath.  By her light he saw the little glade of which
the tree to which he was bound marked the centre, and
the recumbent forms of those who were to return to
the settlements stretched on Indian mats laid upon the
short grass.  Worn out with the toil of the day and
the storm and stress of the night before, they
slumbered heavily.  The watcher in their midst thought,
"If I could sleep!" and resolutely closed his eyes,
but the vision of a flying canoe and a brightness of
golden hair, which had vexed him, passing up the
reaches of the river over and over and over again,
was with him still, and he opened them and raised
them to the stars, thinking, "She may be above them now."

How still it was! no air, no breath, no sound—the
thongs, that, wound many times around his body,
bound him to the tree, fell at his feet, a figure slipped
from behind the trunk, laid a hand, in which was a
knife that gleamed in the mooonlight, upon his arm,
and whispering, "Follow," glided over the grass, past
the sleepers and into the forest.

Swiftly but cautiously Landless went after it.  The
overseer lay within ten feet of him; he passed him,
passed the unconscious servants, crossed a strip of
moonlight, entered the shadow of a locust, and all but
stumbled over a man lying asleep beneath it.  He
recoiled, and a twig snapped beneath his foot.  The
sleeper stirred, turned upon his side, and opened his
eyes.  The moon, now high in the heavens, shone so
brightly that there was soft light even beneath the
heavy branches of the trees, and by this light his
Majesty's Surveyor-General and his Majesty's
rebellious, convicted, and condemned servant
recognized each other.  For one long minute they stared
each at the other, then, without a word or sign to
denote that he was aware that aught stood between
him and the moonlight, Carrington lay down again,
pillowed his head upon his arm and closed his eyes.
Landless was passing on with a light and steady step
and the ghost of a smile upon his lips when the
apparently slumbering figure put forth an arm and laid
something long and dark across his pathway.  He
glanced quickly around, but the Surveyor-General lay
motionless, with closed eyes.  Stooping, he took up
the object, which proved to be a richly inlaid musket
with flask and pouch.  He paused again, but no sign
coming from the quietly breathing form on the grass
he lightly and silently left it and the tiny encampment
and entered the forest, where he found a dark figure
leaning against a tree, waiting for him.  Without a
word it moved forward into the dense shadow of the
forest, and in the same silence he followed it.  They
were now in thick woods, moving beneath interlocking
branches and a vast canopy of wild grape that,
stretching from the summit of one lofty tree to that
of another, formed a green and undulating roof upon
which beat the moonbeams that could not penetrate
the close darkness of the world below.  They came to
a small and sluggish stream, flowing without noise
between the towering trees, and stepping into the water,
walked up it for a long while with giant blacknesses
on either hand and above them the moon.

All this time the figure had stalked along before
Landless without speaking or turning its head, but
now, the trees thinning, and they coming upon a field
of wild flax that lay fair and white beneath the moon,
it quitted the lazy stream, and turning upon Landless
as he too stepped upon the bank, showed him the bronze
countenance and the gigantic form of the Susquehannock
to whom he had once done a kindness, and with
whom he had fought on such a night as this, in such
a moonlight space.

"Monakatocka, I thought it had been you," said
Landless quietly.

With the never failing "Ugh!" the Indian took
Landless's hand and with it touched his own dark
shoulder.

"I too am grateful, and with far more reason,"
said Landless smiling.  "I will be yet more so if
you will bring me out upon the bank of the river at
some distance above yonder encampment."

"What will my brother do then?"

"I will go up the river."

"After the canoes in which sit the palefaces from
whom my brother flees?"

"After the canoe which those canoes pursue."

"If my brother wishes to take the warpath against
the Algonquin dogs," said the Indian quietly, "he
must not follow the Pamunkey, but the Powhatan."

"They passed this village yesterday, going up the
Pamunkey!" cried Landless.

"A false trail.  Let my brother come a little
further and I will show him."

He stepped in front of the white man, and moving
rapidly across the field of flax, dived into the forest
again.  Following the stream in its windings they
came to where it debouched into a wide and muddy
creek, which, in its turn, flowed into an expanse of
water that lay like molten silver beyond the fringe of
trees.

"The Pamunkey!" exclaimed Landless.

The Indian nodded and led the way to a thicket of
dwarf willow and alder that grew upon the very brink
of the creek.

"While the palefaces slept, Monakatocka was
busy.  Look!" he said, parting the bushes and
pointing.

Within the thicket, drawn up upon the sloping
mud, were two large canoes, quite empty save for a
débris of broken oars.

Landless gasped.  "How do you know them to be
the same?"

The Indian stooped and pointed to dark stains.
"Blood.  They had wounded among them.  And
this."  He put something into the other's hand.
Landless looked at it, then thrust it into his bosom.
"You are right.  It is a ribbon which the lady wore.
But why have they left their boats, and where are
they?"

The Indian pointed to the side of the larger
canoe.  "The hatchets of the Pamunkeys were sharp.
They fought like real men.  This canoe could go no
further.  See, it is wet within—they had to ply the
gourd very fast to keep afloat so far.  One canoe
would not hold them all, so they hid both here.  They
knew the palefaces would follow up the river, so they
cared not to stay upon its banks; the Pamunkeys,
too, are their enemies.  They have gone through the
forest towards the Powhatan.  My brother cannot
see their trail, for the eyes of the palefaces are
clouded, but Monakatocka sees it."

Landless turned upon him.  "Will Monakatocka
go with me against the Ricahecrians?"

"Monakatocka has dreamt of the village on the
pleasant river where he was born.  The arm of the
white men cannot reach him here, in these woods, far
from their wigwams and warriors and guns; it cannot
pluck him back to be beaten.  He toils no more in
their fields.  He is a real man again, a warrior of the
long house, a chief of the Conestogas.  Let my white
brother go with him, across the great rivers, through
the forest, until they come to the Susquehanna and
the village of the Conestogas.  There will the
maidens and the young men welcome Monakatocka with
song and dance, and my brother shall be welcome
also and shall become a great chief and shall take
the warpath against the Algonquin and against the
paleface at the side of Monakatocka.  In the Blue
Mountains is Death.  Let us go to the pleasant river,
to the hunting grounds of the Conestogas."

Landless shook his head.  "My thanks and good
wishes go with you, friend, but my path lies towards
the Blue Mountains.  Farewell."

He put out his hand, but the Indian did not touch
it.  Instead, he stooped and examined the ground
about him with attention, then, beckoning the other
to follow, he moved rapidly and silently along the
border of the creek.  Landless overtook him and
laid his hand upon his arm, "This is my path, but
yours lies across the river, to the north."

"If my brother will not go with me, I will go with
my brother," said the Conestoga.





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.. _`THE BRIDGE OF ROCK`:

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   CHAPTER XXIX


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   THE BRIDGE OF ROCK

.. vspace:: 2

For twenty days they had followed the Ricahecrians.
At times the trail lay before them so plain
that even Landless's unaccustomed eyes could read
it; at times he saw nothing but untrodden ways—no
sign to show that man had been in that wilderness
since the beginning of the world—but the
Susquehannock saw and went steadily onward; at times they
lost it altogether, to find it hours, days afterwards....
It had led them westward, then south to the banks of
the Powhatan, then westward again.  At first they
had to avoid an occasional clearing with the cabin
of a pioneer rising from it, or some frontier post,
or the village of one of the Powhatan tribes, but
that time had long past.  The world of the white
man was far behind them, so far that it might have
been another planet for all it threatened them; the
Indian villages were few and far between and
inhabited by tribes whose tongue the Susquehannock
did not know.  For the most part they gave these
villages a wide berth, but sometimes in the quiet of
the evening they entered one, and were met by the
eldest man and conducted to the stranger's lodging
where slim brown maidens came to them with platters
of maize cakes and nuts and broiled fish, and the
warriors and old men gathered around, marveling
at the color of the one and conversing with the
other in stately gesture.  Sometimes, crouched in a
tangle of vines or behind the giant bole of some fallen
tree they watched a war party file past, noiseless, like
shadows, disappearing in the blue haze that filled the
distant aisles of the forest.  Once a band of five
attacked them, coming upon them in their sleep.  Three
they killed and the others fled.  They dipped into the
next stream that crossed their path and swam up it a
long distance, then emerged and went their way,
tolerably confident that they had covered their trail.
Sometimes they struggled for hours through coverts
of wild grape, thick with fruit: sometimes they
walked for miles down endless colonnades of pine
trees, where the needle-strewn ground was like ice
for slipperiness, and the blue sky gleamed faintly
through the far away tree tops.  The wind in the
pines rose and fell in long, measured cadences.  It
made the only sound there, for the birds forgot to
sing and the insect world kept silence in those vast
and sombre cathedrals.

On the afternoon of the twentieth day they came to
a halt upon the bank of a small stream that fell
purling over a long, smooth slide of limestone into the
river.  Mountains had loomed into existence in the
last few days.  In the distance they made a vast blue
rampart which seemed to prop the western skies.
When the sun sank behind them it was as though
a mighty warrior had entered his fortress.  Nearer
at hand they fell into lofty hills, over which the forest
undulated in unbroken green.  In front the river
made a sudden turn and was lost to sight, disappearing
through a frowning gateway of gray cliffs as
completely as though it had plunged into the bowels of
the earth....  Landless sat down on the bank of the
stream above the fall and, chin in hand, gazed at the
mountain-piled horizon.  The Indian, leaning against
a great sycamore whose branches trailed in the water,
watched him attentively.

"My brother is tired," he said at last.

Landless shook his head.  The Susquehannock
paused, still with his eyes upon the other's face, and
then went on, "We have searched and have found
nothing.  There have been five suns since the great
rains blotted out the trail.  My brother has done
very much.  Let him say so and we will go back to
the falls of the far west and thence to the northward,
to the pleasant river, to Monakatocka's people, to the
graves of his fathers.  And my brother will be
welcome to the Conestogas, and he shall be made one of
them, and become a great warrior, and both he and
Monakatocka will forget the evil days when they
were slaves—until they meet a paleface from the
great water.  My brother has but to speak."

"If these hills in front of us," said Landless with
gloomy emphasis, "were higher than the Alps, I would
climb them.  If behind them there were another range,
and then another, and another, if we looked upon the
nearest wave of an ocean of mountains, I would climb
them all.  If they are before us, sooner or later I
shall find them.  But not to know that they are
before us!  To know that they may be to the north of
us, may be to the south of us! that we may even have
passed them! it is maddening!"

"We have not passed them," said his companion
slowly, "for—" he stopped abruptly, broke off a bough
from a sumach bush beside him, and falling on his
knees, leaned far out over the stream.  There were
many tiny cascades in the brook with little eddies
below them where sticks and leaves circled gaily
around before they were drawn on to the next
miniature fall, and into one of these eddies the Indian
plunged the bough.  The next moment he drew it
carefully towards him, something white clinging to
one of its twigs.  It proved to be a fragment of
lace—not more than an inch or two—and it might have
been torn from a woman's kerchief.  Landless's hand
closed over it convulsively.

"It came down the stream!" he cried.

The other nodded.  "Monakatocka saw it slip over
that fall.  It has not been in the water long."

"Then—my God!—they are close at hand!  They
are up this stream!"

The Indian nodded again with a look of satisfaction
upon his bronze features.  Landless raised his
eyes to the cloudless blue, and his lips moved.  Then,
without a word he turned his face up the mountain
stream, and the Indian followed him.

For an hour they crept warily onward, following
the stream in its capricious wanderings.  A broken
trailer of grapevine, a pine cone that had been crushed
under foot, the print of a moccasin on a bit of muddy
ground told them that they had indeed recovered the
long lost trail.  They moved silently, sometimes
creeping on hands and knees through the long grass where
the bank was barren of bushes, sometimes gliding
swiftly through a friendly covert of alder or sumach.
The hills closed in upon them, and became more
precipitous.  The stream made another bend, and they were
in a ravine where the water flowed over a rocky bed
between banks too steep to afford them secure
foothold.  The Susquehannock swung himself down into
the shallow water, and motioned to his companion
to do likewise.  "Monakatocka smells fire," he whispered.

A moment later they rounded an overhanging, fern-clad
rock, and came full upon that at which Landless
stared with a sharp intake of his breath, and which
even his impassive guide greeted with a long-drawn
"Ugh!" of amazement.

Towards them brawled the impetuous stream
through a wonderful gorge.  The precipitous hillsides,
clothed with a stately growth of oak and chestnut,
changed suddenly into a sheer and awful mass of
rock.  On either side of the stream towered up the
mighty walls until, two hundred feet above the water,
they swept together, spanning the chasm with a
majestic arch.  Great trees crowned it; trailers of grape
and clematis made the span one emerald; below,
through the vast opening, shone the evening sky with
little, rosy clouds floating across it.  A bird, flashing
downwards from the far-off trees, showed black against
the carnation of the heavens.

The Indian uttered another "Ugh!" then stole
forward a pace or two, stood still, and waited for the
other to come up.  "My brother sees," he said simply.

From a covert of arbor-vitæ they looked directly
up the creek and through the archway.  Beneath it,
and for a few yards on the hither side, the water
flowed in a narrower channel, leaving a little strip
of boulder-strewn shore.  With a leap of his heart
Landless saw, rising from this shore, the blue smoke
of a newly kindled fire, and squatting about it, or
flitting from place to place, a dozen or more dark
figures.  At a little distance from the fire, close against
the wall of rock, had been hastily constructed a rude
shed or arbor.  As he gazed at this frail shelter, he
saw the flutter of a white gown pass the opening which
served as door.

"Night soon," said Monakatocka at his ear.  "Then
will my brother see one Iroquois cheat all these
Algonquin dogs."

They drew further back into the dense shade of the
overhanging boughs.  A large flat boulder afforded
them a secure resting-place, and drawing their feet
from the stream, the two curled themselves up side by
side upon its friendly surface.  The Indian took some
slices of venison from his wallet, and they made a
slender meal, then set themselves patiently to await
the night and the time for action.  The tiny
encampment was hidden from them by the thick boughs, but
through the screen of delicate, aromatic leaves they
could see the bridge of rock.  Around them was the
stir and murmur of the summer afternoon—the wind
in the trees, the whir of insects, the song of birds, the
babble of the water—but far above, where the great
arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep.  The trees
dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the
heavens.  The Indian's appreciation of the wonders of
nature was limited—with a grunted, "All safe: wake
before moonrise," he turned upon his side, and was
asleep.

His Anglo-Saxon neighbor watched the pensive
beauty of the evening with a softened heart.  The
glory behind the tremendous rock faded, giving place
to tender tints of pearl and amethyst.  Above the
distant tree tops swam the evening star.  In the half
light the shadowy forest on either hand blended with
the great bridge carved by some mysterious force from
the everlasting hills.  Together they made a mountain
of darkness pierced by a titanic gateway through
which one looked into heavenly spaces.  The chant of
the wind swelled louder.  It was like the moan of
distant breakers.  The night fell, and the stars came
out one by one until the blue vault was thickly studded.
Up and down the sides of the ravine flickered millions
of fireflies.  Their restless glimmer wearied the eyes.
Landless raised his to the one star, large, calm and
beautiful, and prayed, then thought of all that star
shone upon that night—most of the white town of
his boyhood, lying fair and still like a dream town,
above a measureless, slumberous sea.  A great calm
was upon him.  Toil and danger were past; passionate
hope and settled despair were past.  That he would
do what he had come this journey to do, he now had
no doubt,—would not have doubted had there been
encamped between him and the frail shed built against
the rock all the Indians this side of the South Sea.

The stars that shone through the great archway
slowly paled, the stream became dull silver, and down
the towering darkness on either hand fell a soft and
tremulous light like a veil of white gauze.  Landless
put out his hand to waken the sleeping Indian, and
touched bare rock.  A moment later the branches
before him parted.  He had heard no sound, but there,
within three feet of him, were the high features and
the bold eyes of the Susquehannock.

"Monakatocka has been to the great rock," he said
in a guttural whisper.  "The Algonquin dogs sleep
sound, for they do not know that a Conestoga is on
their trail.  They have camped beneath the rock three
days, and they will move on the morrow.  They have
built a shed for the maiden against the rock.  About
it lie the Ricahecrians, the moccasins of one touching
the scalp lock of another.  They keep no watch, hut
they have scattered dried twigs over all the ground.
Tread on them, and the god of the Algonquins will
make them speak very loud.  But a Conestoga is
cunning.  Monakatocka has found a way."

"Then let us go," said Landless, rising.

As they crept from out their leafy covert, the moon
appeared over the tree-tops far above them, flooding
the glen with light, and making a restless shimmer of
diamonds of the rushing brook.  The two men moved
warily up the stream, setting their feet with care upon
the slippery stones.  Once Landless stumbled, but
caught at a huge boulder, and saved himself from
falling, sending, however, a stone splashing down into
the water.  They drew themselves up within the
shadow of the rock, and listened with straining ears,
but there came no answering sound save the cry of a
whip-poor-will, and they went on their way.  When
they were within a hundred feet of the encampment,
the Indian left the stream, crossed the strip of earth
between it and the cliff, and pointed to a broken and
uneven line that ran at a height of some five feet
from the ground along the face of the cliff.  Landless
looked and saw a very narrow ledge, a mere projection
here and there of jagged and broken rock, a pathway
perilous and difficult as might well be imagined.
So narrow and insignificant it looked, such a mere
seam along the vast wall, that a white man passing
through the ravine might never have noticed it.

"It is our path," said the Susquehannock.  "It
leads above the heads of these dogs and their
crackling twigs, straight to where lies the maiden."

Without a word Landless caught at the stem of a
cedar projecting from a fissure in the rock, and swung
himself up to the cleft.  The Indian followed, and
with silence and caution they commenced their
dangerous journey.  Landless was no novice at such work.
When a boy, he had often rounded the face of frowning
white cliffs with the sea breaking in thunder a
hundred feet below.  Then a bird's nest had been the
prize of high daring, death the penalty of dizziness or
a misstep.  Now, although not two yards below him
was the solid earth, a misstep would send him
crashing down to a more fearful doom—but the prize!
A light was in his eyes as he crept nearer and nearer
to the shed built against the rock.

They passed the smouldering embers of a large fire,
and came full upon the circle of sleeping Indians.
They lay in the moonlight like fallen statues, their
bronze limbs motionless, their high, stern features
impassive as death.  From their belts came the glint of
tomahawk and scalping knife, and beside each warrior
lay his bow and quiver of arrows.  Only one man had
a gun.  It lay in the hollow of his arm, its barrel
making a gleaming line against his dark skin.  The
skin was not so dark as was that of the other
recumbent figures, and the face, flung back and pillowed on
the arm, was not the face of an Indian.  It was Luiz
Sebastian.  He lay somewhat nearer to the shed than
did the Ricahecrians, and directly in front of the
doorway; as Landless paused above him, he turned and
laughed in his sleep.

Slowly and cautiously Landless swung himself down
from the ledge, his moccasined feet touching ground
that was clear of pebbles and beyond the line of twigs.
He glanced back to see the gigantic figure of the
Susquehannock, standing upright against the rock, knife
in hand, and watchful eyes roving from one to the
other of the sleeping warriors, then stepped lightly
across the body of the mulatto, and entered the hut.

Within it the darkness was gross.  Pausing a
moment to accustom his eyes to the blackness, there came
to him from without the hoot of an owl.  It was the
signal agreed upon between him and his companion,
and he wheeled to face the danger it announced.

The lithe, yellow figure that had lain in front of
the doorway had waked.  As Landless gazed, it rose
to its knees, then with a quick, cat-like grace to its
feet, stretched itself, cast a listening look around the
sleeping circle, and laid its gun softly down, then
with a noiseless step and a smile upon its evil face, it,
too entered the hut.

Landless waited until the mulatto was well across
the threshold, and then sprang upon him, dragging
him to the ground, where he held him with his knee
against his chest.  He writhed and struggled, but the
white man was the stronger, and held him down: he
tried to cry out, but the other's hands were at his
throat choking the life from him.  Putting all his
strength into one hand, Landless felt with the other
for his knife.  The movement brought his face
forward into the shaft of moonlight that trembled through
the opening.  "You!" said the eyes of the mulatto,
and his clutching hands tore at the hand about his
throat.  The hand pressed closer, and with the other
Landless struck the knife into the yellow bosom.
When the writhing form was quite still, he rose from
his knees, and looked down upon the evil face flung
back to meet the moonlight.  The struggle had lasted
but a minute, and had been without sound—not a
sleeping savage had stirred.  But he now heard
frightened breathing within the hut.  By this his eyes were
accustomed to the darkness, and he made out something
white niched into the corner opposite.  As he
advanced towards it, it started away, and would have
brushed past him, but he seized it.  "Madam!" he
whispered.  "Do not scream.  It is I, Godfrey Landless."

In the darkness he felt the rigor of terror leave the
form which he held.  It swayed against him, and the
head fell back across his arm.  He raised the fainting
figure, and stepping across the body of the mulatto
issued from the shed, to find Monakatocka standing
beside the entrance, knife in hand, and watchfully
regardful of the sleeping Ricahecrians.





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.. _`THE BACKWARD TRACK`:

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   CHAPTER XXX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BACKWARD TRACK

.. vspace:: 2

Landless turned to the pathway by which they
had come, but the Indian shook his head, and pointing
to the stream which, making a sudden turn, brawled
along at their very feet, stepped noiselessly down into
the water, first, however, possessing himself of Luiz
Sebastian's gun, which lay upon the ground beside the
hut.  Landless, following him in silence, would have
turned his face towards the river, but again the
Susquehannock shook his head and began to make his
way slowly and warily up stream.

The other knew how to obey.  Holding with one
arm the unconscious form of the woman he had come
so many leagues to seek, and with the other steadying
himself by boulder and projecting cliff, he followed
his companion past the sleeping Ricahecrians, out of
the shadow of the great arch, into the splendor of the
moonlight beyond.  It was not until they had gone a
long distance, past vast, scarred cliffs, through close,
dark, scented tunnels formed by the overarching
boughs of great arbor-vitæs, up smooth slides where
the water came down upon them in long, unbroken,
glassy green slopes, that Landless said, in a low voice:
"Why do we go up this stream instead of back to
the river?  It is their road we are traveling."

The faint, reluctant smile of the Indian crossed the
Susquehannock's face.  "The white man is very wise
except when he is in the woods.  Then he is as if
every brook ran fire-water and he had drunk of them
all.  A pappoose could trick him.  When these
Algonquin dogs wake and find the fawn fled and the
yellow slave killed, they will cast about for our trail,
and they will find that we came up from the river.
Then, when they find no backward track, but only
that we entered the water there, before the maiden's
hut, they will think that we have gone down the
stream, back to the river.  They will go down to the
river themselves, but when they have reached it they
will not know what to do.  They will think, 'They
who come after the Ricahecrians into the Blue
Mountains must be many, with great hearts and with
guns.'  They will think, 'They came in boats, and one of their
braves and one Iroquois, stealing up this stream, came
upon the Ricahecrians when Kiwassa had closed their
eyes and their ears, and stole away the fawn that the
Ricahecrians had taken, and killed the man who fled
with them from the palefaces.'  And it will take a
long time for them to find that there were no boats
and that but two real men have followed them into
the Blue Mountains, for I covered our trail where this
stream runs into the river very carefully.  After a
while they will find it, and after another while they
will find that the chief of the Conestogas and his
white brother and the maiden have gone up the
stream, and they will come after us.  But that will
not be until after the full sun power, and by then
we must be far from here."

"It is good," said Landless briefly.  "Monakatocka
has the wisdom of the woods."

"Monakatocka is a great chief," was the sententious
reply.

"Do you think they will follow us when they find
how greatly we have the start of them?"

"They will be upon our track, sun after sun, keen-eyed
as the hawk, tireless as the wild horses, hungry
as the wolf, until we reach the tribes that are friendly
to the palefaces.  And that will be many suns from
now.  I told my brother that we followed Death into
the Blue Mountains.  Now Death is upon our trail."

They came to a rivulet that emptied itself into the
larger stream, and the Susquehannock led the way
up its bed.  Presently they reached a gently sloping
mass of bare stone, a low hill running some distance
back from the margin of the stream.

"Good," grunted the Susquehannock.  "The moccasin
will make no mark here that the sun will not
wipe out."

They clambered out upon the rock and stood
looking down the ravine through which they had come.
"My brother is tired," said the Indian.  "Monakatocka
will carry the maiden."

"I am not tired," Landless answered.

The Indian looked at the face, thrown back upon
the other's shoulder.  "She is fair, and whiter than
the flowers the maidens pluck from the bosom of the
pleasant river."

"She is coming to herself," said Landless, and laid
her gently down upon the rock.

Presently she opened her eyes quietly upon him as
he knelt beside her.  "You came," she said dreamily.
"I dreamt that you would.  Where are my father
and my cousin?"

"Seeking you still, madam, I doubt not, though I
have not seen them since the day after you were
taken.  They went up the Pamunkey and so missed
you.  Thanks to this Susquehannock, I am more
fortunate."

She lay and looked at him calmly, no surprise, but
only a great peace in her face.  "The mulatto," she
said, "I feared him more than all the rest.  When I
saw him enter the hut I prayed for death.  Did you
kill him?"

"I trust so," said Landless, "but I am not certain,
I was in too great haste to make sure."

"I do not care," she said.  "You will not let him
hurt me—if he lives—nor let the Indians take me
again?"

"No, madam," Landless said.

She smiled like a child and closed her eyes.  In the
moonlight which blanched her streaming robe and her
loosened hair that, falling to her knees, wrapped her
in a mantle of spun gold, she looked a wraith, a
creature woven of the mist of the stream below, a Lorelei
sleeping upon her rock.  Landless, still upon his knee
beside her, watched her with a beating heart, while
the Susquehannock, leaning upon his gun, bent his
darkly impassive looks upon them both.  At length
the latter said, "We must be far from here before
the dogs behind us awake, and the Gold Hair cannot
travel swiftly.  Let us be going."

"Madam," said Landless.

She opened her eyes and he helped her to her feet.
"We must hasten on," he said gently.  "They will
follow us and we must put as many leagues as possible
between us before they find our trail."

"I did not think of that!" she said, with dilating
eyes.  "I thought it was all past—the terror—the
horror!  Let us go, let us hasten!  I am quite
strong; I have learned how to walk through the
woods.  Come!"

The Indian glided before them and led the way
over the friendly rocks.  They left them and found
themselves upon a carpet of pine needles, and then in
a dell where the fern grew rankly and the rich black
earth gave like a sponge beneath their feet.  Here
the Indian made Landless carry Patricia, and
himself came last, walking backwards in the footprints of
the other, and pausing after each step to do all that
Indian cunning could suggest to cover their trail.
They came to more rocky ledges and walked along
them for a long distance, then found and went up a
wide and shallow stream.  Slowly the pale light of
dawn diffused itself through the forest.  In the
branches overhead myriads of birds began to flutter
and chirp, the squirrels commenced their ceaseless
chattering, and through the white mist, at bends of
the stream, they saw deer coming from the fern of the
forest to drink.  A great hill rose before them, bare
of trees, covered only with a coarse growth of grass
and short blue thistles in which already buzzed a
world of bees; they climbed it and from the summit
watched a ball of fire rise into the cloudless blue.
The morning wind, blowing over that illimitable
forest, fanned their brows, and a tide of woodland
sound and incense swept up to them from the world
below.  Around them were the Blue Mountains—gigantic
masses, cloudy peaks, vast ramparts rising
from a sea of mist—mysterious fastnesses, scarcely
believed in and never seen by the settlers of the level
land—a magic country in which they placed much
gold and the wandering colonists of Roanoke, the
South Sea, and long-gowned Eastern peoples.

"Oh, the mountains!" said Patricia.  "The dreadful,
frowning mountains!  When will we be quit of
them?  When, will we reach the level land and the
blue water?"

"Before many days, I trust," said Landless.  "See,
our faces are set to the east—-towards home."

She stood in silence for a moment, her face lifted,
the color slowly coming back to her cheeks and the
light to her eyes, then said suddenly:—

"Did my father send you after me?"

"No, madam."

"Then how are you here?"

He looked at her with a smile.  "I broke
gaol—and came."

A shadow crossed her face, but it was gone in a
moment.  "I am very grateful," she said.  "You
have saved me from worse than death."

"It is I that am thankful," he answered.

They descended the hill in silence and found the
Susquehannock, who had preceded them, squatted
before a fire which he had kindled upon a flat rock
beside one of the innumerable streamlets that wound
here and there over the land.

"The dogs yonder will need Iroquois eyes to spy
out this trail," he said with grim satisfaction, as they
came up to him.  "Let my brother and the Gold
Hair rest by the fire, and Monakatocka will go into
the forest and get them something to eat."

He was gone, his gigantic figure looking larger
than life as he moved through the mist which still
filled the hollow between the hills, and Landless and
Patricia sat themselves down beside the fire.  Landless
piled upon it the dead wood with which the ground
was strewn, and the flames leaped and crackled,
sending up thin blue smoke against the hillside and
reddening the bosom of the placid stream.  When he
had finished his task and taken his seat, there fell a
silence and constraint upon the man and woman,
brought through so many strange and wayward paths,
through lives so widely differing, to this companionship
in the heart of a waste and savage world.  They
sat opposite each other in the ruddy light of the fire,
and each, looking into the dark or glowing hollows,
saw there the same thing—the tobacco house and
what had there passed.

"I wish to believe in you," said Patricia at last,
lifting appealing eyes to the opposite face.  "But
how can I?  You lied to me!"

Landless raised his head proudly.  "Madam, will
you listen to me—to my defense if you will?  You
are a Royalist: I am a Commonwealth man.  Can
you not see, that as ten years ago, in the estimation
of you and yours, it was all that was just and heroic
for a Cavalier to plot the downfall of the Government
which then was, both here and at home, so they of
the Commonwealth saw no disgrace in laboring for
their cause, a cause as real and as high and as holy
to them, madam, as was that of the Stuart and the
Church to the Cavalier....  And will not the slave
fight for his liberty?  Is it of choice, do you think,
that men lie rotting in prison, in the noisome holds of
ships, are bought and sold like oxen, are chained to
the oar, to the tobacco field, are herded with the refuse
of the earth, are obedient to the finger, to the whip?
We—they who are known as Oliverians, and they
who are felons, and I who am, if you choose, of both
parties, were haled here with ropes.  What allegiance
did we owe to them who had cast us out, or to them
who bought us as they buy dumb beasts?  As God
lives, none!  We were no longer regarded as men,
we were chattels, animals, slaves, caged, and chained.
And as the caged beast will break his bars if he can,
so we strove to break ours.  You have been a captive,
madam.  Is not freedom sweet to you?  We also
longed for it.  We staked our lives upon the
throw—and lost.  That dream is over,—let it
go! ... There is honor among rebels, madam, as among
thieves.  That morning after the storm, I had the
choice of lying to you or of becoming a traitor indeed....
But as to what I had before asked you to believe,
that was the truth, is the truth.  I know that
in your eyes I am still the rebel to the King, well
deserving the doom which awaits me, but if, after what
I say to you, by the faith of a gentleman, before the
God who is above the stillness of these hills, you still
believe me criminal in aught else, you wrong me much,
you wrong yourself!"

He ceased abruptly, and rising, began to heap
more wood upon the fire.  The figure of the Indian,
with something dark upon its shoulder, emerged from
the spectral forest, and came towards them through
the mist.

"Monakatocka has found our breakfast," said
Landless, forcing himself to speak with indifference,
and without looking at his companion.  "I am glad
of it, for you must be faint from hunger."

"I am very thirsty," she said in a low voice.

"If you will come to the water's edge, that at least
can be quickly remedied."

She rose from the rock upon which she had been
seated and followed him down to the brink of the
little stream.  "I would I had a cup of gold," he
said, "and here is not even a great leaf.  Will you
drink from my hands, madam?"

"Yes," she said; then deliberately, after a pause,
"for I well believe them to be clean hands."

Her own hand touched his as she spoke, and he put
it to his lips in silence.  Kneeling upon the turf by
the stream, he raised the water in his hands and she
stooped and drank from them, and then they went
back to the fire and sat beside it without speaking
until the arrival of Monakatocka, laden with a wild
turkey.  An hour later the Susquehannock carefully
extinguished the fire, raked all the embers and ashes
into the stream, hid beneath great rocks the débris
of their morning meal, obliterated all moccasin prints,
and having made the little hollow between the hills to
all appearance precisely as it was a few hours before,
when the foot of man had probably never entered it,
stepped into the stream and announced that they
were ready to pursue their journey.  Before midday,
the stream winding to the south, they left it, and
plunging into the dark heart of the forest pushed
rapidly on with their faces to the east.





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.. _`THE HUT IN THE CLEARING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE HUT IN THE CLEARING

.. vspace:: 2

Five days later saw the wayfarers some thirty
leagues to the eastward of the hollow in the hills.
They had traveled swiftly, sleeping but a few hours
of each night and in the daytime pausing for rest
only when Landless, quietly watchful, saw the
weariness growing in the eyes of the woman beside
him, or noted her lagging footsteps.  They had left
the higher mountains behind them, but still moved
through what seemed an uninhabited territory.  No
Indian village crowned the hills above the streams;
they encountered no roving bauds; no solitary hunter
met them; nowhere was there sign of human life.  If
their enemies were upon their track, they knew it
not—perfect peace, perfect solitude seemed to encompass
them.  Still the Indian was vigilant; covering
their trail with unimaginable ingenuity, taking
advantage of every running stream, every stony hillside,
building a fire only in some hidden hollow or fold of
the hills, using his bow and arrow to bring down the
deer or wild fowl which furnished them food—he
stalked behind them, or sat bolt upright against the
tree or rock beneath which they had made their
resting place, tireless, watchful, the breathing image of
caution.  If he slept, it was a sleep from which the
sound of a falling acorn, the sleepy stir of a partridge
in the fern was sufficient to awaken him.  Sometimes
they rested by fires, for they heard the wolves through
the darkness; upon the nights when this was necessary
the Susquehannock sat with his gun across his
knees, piercing the darkness in every direction with
keen and restless eyes.  Nothing worse than the
wolves—cowardly as yet, for though drawing swiftly
nearer, winter and famine were still distant—threatened
them; no sound other than the forest sounds
disturbed them; through the scant undergrowth or
over the moss and partridge berry brushed nothing
more appalling than bear or badger.  But the Indian
watched on.

Day after day Landless and Patricia walked side by
side through the reddening forest.  His hands
steadied her over crags or down ravines, or broke a way
for her through vast beds of sassafras or mile-long
tangles of wild grape, and when their way lay along
the bed of streams he carried her.  She had no need
to complain of fatigue, for he saw when she was weary,
and called a halt.  At their rustic meals he waited
upon her with grave courtesy, and when they halted
for the night he made her couch of fallen leaves and
wove for it a screen of branches.  They spoke but
little and only of the needs of the hour.  She bore
herself towards him kindly and gently, thanking him
with voice and smile for all that he did for her, and
there was no mistrust in her eyes; but he saw, or
fancied he saw, a shadow in their depths, and
thinking, "She does not forget, and neither must I," he
set a watch upon himself, and bounds, across which
he was not to step.

Upon the afternoon of the sixth day they were
passing through a deep and narrow ravine—a mere
crack between two precipitous, heavily wooded
mountains—when the Indian stopped short in his tracks
and uttered a warning "Ugh!" then bent forward in
a listening attitude.

"What is it?" asked Landless in a low voice.  "I
hear nothing."

"It is a sound," said the other in the same tone.
"I do not know what yet, for it is far off.  But it is
in front of us."

"Shall we go on?" demanded Landless, and the
Indian nodded.

It was late afternoon, and the hills which closed in
behind them as the gorge writhed to left and right
hid the sun.  Great trees, too, pine and chestnut,
walnut and oak, leaned towards each other from the
opposing banks, and together with the overhanging
rocks, mantled with fern, made a twilight of the pass
beneath.  Here and there the silver stem of a birch
stood up tall and straight, and looked a ghostly
sentinel.  "Do you hear it still?" demanded Landless
when they had gone some distance in dead silence.

"Yes."

"And still in front of us?"

"Yes."

"Ah, what can it be?" cried Patricia, turning her
white face upon Landless.

A cold wind, blowing from open spaces beyond,
rushed up the ravine.  "I hear a very faint sound,"
said Landless, "like the tapping of a woodpecker in
the heart of the forest."

"It is the sound of the axe of the white man," said
the Indian.  "Some one is cutting down a tree."

"There can be no ranger or pioneer within many
leagues of us!" exclaimed Landless.  "No white
man hath ever come so far.  It must be an Indian!"

The Susquehannock shook his head.  "Why should
an Indian cut down a tree?  We kill them and let
them stand until they are bare and white like the
bones of a man when the wolves have finished with
him, and they fall of themselves."

"If my father still searches for me," said Patricia
in a low voice, "may it not be his party that we hear?
There may be a stream there.  They may make
canoes."

"With all my heart I pray that it be so, madam,"
said Landless.  "But we will soon know.  See,
Monakatocka has gone on ahead."

She did not answer, and they walked on through
the gloom of the defile.  Presently their path became
rough and broken, blocked with large stones and
heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks
above and draped with vines.  He held out his hands
and she took them, and he helped her across the rough
places.  He felt her hands tremble in his, and he
thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which
inspired her.

"If it is indeed so," she said once in a voice so low
that he had to bend to catch the words, "if it is
indeed my father, then this is the last time you will
help me thus."

"Yes," he answered steadily.  "The last time."

They passed the rocks and came to where the ravine
widened.  The sound that had perplexed them was
now plainly audible; there was no mistaking the
quick, ringing strokes of the axe.  They rounded a
jutting cliff and abruptly emerged from the chill
darkness of the gorge upon a noble landscape of hill and
valley, autumn woods and flowing water, all bathed
in the golden light of the sinking sun and inestimably
bright and precious of aspect after the gloom through
which they had been traveling.  But it was not the
beauty of the scene which drew an exclamation from
them both.  At a little distance rose a knoll, covered
with short grass and fading golden-rod, and with its
base laved by a crystal stream of some width, and
upon the knoll, shaded by a couple of magnificent
maples, and covered with the pale and feathery bloom
of the wild clematis, stood a small, rude hut.  Smoke
rose from its crazy chimney, and upon the strip of
greensward before the door rolled a little, half-naked
child—a white child.  As the travelers stared in
amazement, a woman's voice rang out, freshly and
sweetly, in an English ballad.  The trees had been
cleared away from around the knoll, and in their place
rose the yellowing stalks of Indian corn.  The little
mound, feathered with the gold of the golden-rod and
girt with the gold of the maize, rose like a fairy isle
from the limitless sea of forest, and the apparition of
a troop of veritable elves would have astonished the
wanderers less than did the tiny cabin, the romping
child, and the clear song of the woman.

The Indian glided to their side from behind the
trunk of an oak.  "Ugh," he said with emphasis.
"He is mad and so he has his scalp still."  As he
spoke he pointed to where, at a little distance, a man,
with his back turned to the forest, was busily felling
a tree.

"He dares much," said Landless.  "We did not
think to see the face of a white man—pioneer, ranger,
trapper or trader—for many a league yet.  He has
built his house in the jaws of the wolf."

Patricia gazed at the hut with wistful eyes.  "There
is a woman there," she said, and Landless heard her
voice tremble for the first time in their long, toilsome
and painful journey.  "There is no need to pass them
by, is there?  It looks very fair and peaceful.  May
we not rest here for this one night?"

"Yes," said Landless gently, reading, as he read all
her fancies and desires, her longing for the
companionship of a woman, though for so short a time.  The
Indian, too, nodded assent.  "Good! but Monakatocka
will watch to-night."

They moved through the checkered light and shade
towards the man who worked at the foot of the knoll.
They were quite near him when the woman, whose
voice they had heard, came to the door of the cabin,
shaded her eyes with her hand, looked towards the
ravine, and saw the three figures emerging from it.
With a loud cry she snatched up the child at her feet
and rushed down the knoll towards the man, who at
the sound of her voice dropped his axe, caught up a
musket which leaned against a stump beside him, and
wheeling, presented the gun at the newcomers.

"Give me your kerchief, madam," said Landless,
and advanced with the white lawn in his hand.

"Halt!" cried the man with the gun.

"We are friends," called Landless.  "This lady
and I are from the Settlements.  This Indian is not
Algonquin, but Iroquois—a Susquehannock, as you
may tell by his size.  You need have no fear.  We
are quite alone."

The man slowly lowered his gun.  "What, in the
name of all the fiends, do you here?" he said, wiping
away with the back of his hand the cold sweat that
had sprung to his forehead.  He was a tall man with
a sinewy frame and a dare-devil face, tanned to
well-nigh the hue of the Indian.

"I might ask the same question of you," said
Landless, coming up to him with a smile.  "This
lady was captured and carried off by a band of roving
Ricahecrians who bore her into the Blue Mountains.
We ask your hospitality for to-night.  The lady is
very weary, and she has not seen the face of a woman
for many weeks.  Your good wife will entreat her
kindly, I know."

The woman, who now stood beside the man, smiled,
but doubtfully; the man's face too was clouded, and
there was an uneasy light in his eyes.  Landless,
looking steadily at him, saw upon his forehead a mark
which served to explain his evident perturbation.

"You need not fear me," he said quietly.  "'T is
none of our business how you come to be here in this
wilderness, so far from what has been counted the
furthest outpost."

The man, feeling his gaze upon him, raised his
hand with an involuntary motion to his forehead, then
dropped it, awkwardly enough.

"I see," said Landless.  "I understand.  I have
been—I am—a servant.  A runaway, too, if you like.
I have been in trouble.  I would not betray you if I
could: that I cannot, goes without saying.  Now, will
you shelter us for this night?"

"Yes," said the man, his face clearing.  "As you
say, you could n't do us harm if you would, seeing
that masters, and d—d overseers, and bloodhounds
are at the world's end for us.  We are beyond their
reach.  Bring up the lady.  Joan, here, will see to her."

An hour later the woman and Patricia sat side by
side upon the doorstep in the long mountain twilight.
At their feet the little child crowed and clapped its
hands, and plucked at the golden-rod growing about
the door.  Below them, beside the placid stream, the
owner of the hut and Godfrey Landless paced slowly
up and down, now disappearing into the shadow of the
trees, now dimly seen in the open spaces, while the
Indian lay at full length beneath the maples, with his
eye upon the blackness of the ravine down which they
had come.

"It is fair to look upon, and peaceful," Patricia
said dreamily, "but Danger lives in these dreadful
mountains.  Why did you come here?"

"We came because we loved," the woman said simply.

"But why into the very land of the savages, so far
from safety, so far from the Settlements?"

The woman turned her eyes upon the beautiful face
beside her and studied it in silence.

"I will tell you," she said at last, "for I believe
you are as good as you are beautiful, and you are
as beautiful as an angel.  And, though I can see
that you are a lady, yet you are woman too, as I am,
and you have suffered much, as I have, and have
loved too, I think, as I have loved."

"I have never loved," said Patricia.

The woman smiled, and shook her head.  "There
is a look in the eyes that only comes with that.  I
know it."  She gathered the child to her, and beating
its little hand against her bosom, began her story:—

"It is four years since I signed to come to the
Plantations, to become the servant of an up-river
planter—and to better myself.  It was a hard life,
my lady, a hard life—you cannot guess how hard....
One day a neighboring planter sent a message to my
master, and I (for I served in the house) took it from
the messenger.  The messenger was one that I had
known in the village at home, in England.  He had
left home to make his fortune, and I had not heard
of him for a long time.  They used to call me his
sweetheart.  When I saw him I cried out, and he
caught my hands in his....  After that we met
whenever we could, on Sundays, on Instruction days,
whenever chance offered.  He had tried to run away
twice before we met, but he never tried afterwards.
His master was a hard man—mine was worse ... After
a while we began to meet in secret—at night ... You
are a lady—that is different—you cannot
understand; but I loved him, loved him as well as
any lady in the land could love; better, maybe
... There came a night when I was followed, and taken,
and he with me."  She broke off to smell at the
scentless spear of golden-rod which the child held up, and
to say, "Yes, my darling, pretty, pretty, pretty," then
went on with her eyes following the figures walking
up and down beside the stream.  "The next night
found us in the sheriff's hands, in the gaol at the
courthouse.  Oh that blank, dreadful, heavy night!
I felt the lash already—I did not mind that—but I
saw the platform and the post, and the gaping crowd
beneath.  I thought of him, and my heart was sick;
I thought of my mother, and my tears fell like rain....
There was a noise at the window, and I stood
upon my stool to see what it was.  It was he!  He
had a knife and he worked and wrenched at the bars
until he had wrenched them away, then dragged me
through the window and we stood together beneath
the stars—free!  Another moment and we were down
at the water side and into a boat which was fastened
there.  We loosed it and rowed with all our speed up
the river.  He had killed the gaoler and gotten away,
bringing with him a musket and an axe.  All that
night we rowed, and when morning broke we were
well-nigh past the settlements, for we had been far
up river to begin with.  That day we hid in the reeds,
but when night came we sped up the stream.  We
came to the falls of the far west and left our boat
there.  For many days we walked through the woods,
hurrying on, day after day, for when we lay down at
night, I saw in my dreams the flash of the torches
and heard the baying of the hounds.  After a long
while we came to an Indian village not many leagues
from here, and there we found the mercies of the
savage kinder than the mercies of the white man.  They
may have thought us mad—I do not know—but
they did not harm us.  There we dwelt for a time,
in the stranger's wigwam, and there the child was
born."  She pressed the little hand which she held,
and which she had never ceased to beat against her
bosom, to her lips.  "He would have stayed in the
village, but in sleep I still heard the bloodhounds, and
we left the friendly Indians and pressed on.  We
came upon this knoll on just such an evening as
this—the light in the west, and the stream very still,
with a large white star shining down upon it.  We
lay down beside it, and that night I slept without a
dream....  We have been here ever since, and here
we shall stay until we die."

"It is fair now," said Patricia, "but in a little
while it will be winter and very cold."

"Bitterly cold," said the woman.  "The snow lies
long in these hills, and the wind howls down the
ravine."

"And the wolves are bold in winter."

"Very bold.  This scar upon my arm is from the
teeth of one which I fought here, on the very
threshold."

"The Indians threaten always, summer or winter."

"Ay, sooner or later they will come against us.
We shall die that way at last.  But what does it
matter—so that we die together?"

The lady of the manor turned her pure, pale face
upon the other with wonder, and yet with
comprehension, written upon it.

"You are happy!" she said, almost in a whisper.

"Yes, I am happy," the woman answered, a light
that was not from the faintly crimson west upon her
face.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ATTACK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   ATTACK

.. vspace:: 2

About midnight, Landless, lying upon the dirt
floor of the lean-to attached to the one room of the
cabin, felt a hand upon his shoulder and opened his
eyes upon a shadowy figure, blocking up the starlight
that came faintly in at the open door.

"Hist!" said the figure.  "Ricahecrians!"

Landless sprang to his feet.  "My God!  You are sure?"

"They are coming out of the ravine.  You will
hear the whoop directly."

The owner of the hut, stirred by the Susquehannock's
foot, started up.  Such an alarm being about
the least surprising thing that could happen, he kept
his wits, and after the first intake of the breath and
exclamation of, "Indians!" he went about his
preparations coolly enough.  Rushing into the cabin
where Landless had already waked the women, he
groped for his tinder box, and with a steady hand
struck a light and fired a pine knot which he stuck
into a block of wood pierced to receive it; then
jerked from the wall his musket and powder horn.

"You both have guns," he said coolly.  "Good!
We 'll die fighting."  The woman had flown to the
door, had seen that the heavy wooden bars were
drawn across it, and now stood beside him with a
resolute face, and an axe in her hands.

A moment of silence, and then the quiet night was
cleft by the war whoop—dreadful sound, forerunner
of death and torture, concentrating in its savage
cadence all ideas of terror!  A moment more, and
there came the sound of many moccasined feet and
the hurling of many bodies against the door.  The
door held, and the man put the muzzle of his gun
in one of the cracks between the logs and fired.
The explosion was followed by a yell.  Shot and
cry preluded pandemonium.  Without were demoniacal
cries, quick crashing blows against the door,
stealthy feet, clambering forms; within were smoke
and the noise of the muskets, the crying of the child,
and a red and flickering light which now brought
out each detail of the rude interior, now plunged all
into shadow.

"We are making it hot for them," cried the owner
of the hut, reloading his musket.  "There 's some
shall go to hell before we do.  Joan, my girl—"

An arrow, whistling through a crack, pierced his
brain and he fell to the ground with a crash.  The
shriek that the woman set up was answered from
without by a triumphant yell, and then one voice
was heard speaking.

"It is the mulatto!" cried Patricia, clasping her
hands.

"Yes," answered Landless grimly.  "I thought I
had done for that devil, but it seems not.  May I
have better luck this time!"

"Ugh!" said the Indian, and pointed to the roof,
which was low and thatched with dried grass and
moss.

"I see," said Landless.  "The cabin is on fire.
We must leave it in five minutes, come what may."

"We will never leave it alive," the Indian said
calmly.  "The dogs have us fast.  The Chief of the
Conestogas will die in a strange land; his bones will
be a plaything for the wolves of the mountains; his
scalp will hang before the wigwam of an Algonquin
dog.  He will never see the village and the pleasant
river, never will he smoke the peace pipe, he and his
braves, with the Wyandots and the Lenni Lenape,
sitting beneath the mulberries in front of the lodge.
He will never see the cornfeast.  He will never dance
the war dance again, nor will he lead the war party.
The sagamore dies, and who will tell his tribe?  He
falls like a leaf in the forest, like a pebble that is
cast into the water.  The leaf is not seen: the stream
closes above the pebble—it is gone!"  His voice
rose into a chant, stern and mournful, and his vast
form appeared to expand, to become taller.  He threw
down his gun and drew his long, bright knife.

"They are upon us!" cried Landless, and thrust
Patricia behind him.

The rude door, constructed of the trunks of
saplings, bound together with withes, crashed inwards,
coming to the floor with a tremendous noise, and a
dozen savages precipitated themselves into the cabin.
Landless fired, bringing one to his knee; then clubbed
his musket and swung it over his shoulder.  Between
him and the Susquehannock, standing beside him
with bent body and knife drawn back against his
breast, and the invaders, was a space some few feet
in width, and in this space something dreadful now
happened.

On one side lay the body of the man with the
woman crouched above it, on the other a pile of
skins upon which lay the little child.  It had sobbed
itself into exhaustion and quiet, but terrified afresh
by the savage forms pouring through the doorway,
the increased and awful clamor, the flames which had
now seized upon the walls, and the choking smoke
which filled the hut, it now scrambled from the pallet,
and with a weak cry started across the space towards
its mother.  It crossed the path of the Ricahecrian
chief—he glanced downwards, saw the tiny tottering
figure with its outstretched arms, caught it up, and
holding it by its feet, dashed its head against the
ground.  The cry which the child uttered as he
raised it reached the until then deaf ears of the
mother.  She started up with a shriek that rang
high above the yelling of the savages, and darted
forward, only to receive at her very feet the mangled
form of the baby she had sung to sleep but a few
hours before.  She caught it to her breast and with
another dreadful cry rushed upon the savage.  He
met her, seized her free arm, raised it, and plunged
his knife into her bosom.  Still clasping the child to
her bosom, she fell without a groan, while the Indian
bounded on towards the three who yet remained alive.

The Susquehannock met him.  "A chief for a
chief," he said with a cold smile, and the two locked
together in a deadly embrace.  When the Ricahecrian
was dead, the Susquehannock turned to find
Landless—one Indian dead before him, another writhing
away like a wounded snake—confronting across
the body at his feet the graceful figure and the
amber-hued, evil, smiling face of Luiz Sebastian.  So
strong were the flames by now, and so dense and
stifling the smoke, that of the score or more who had
broken into the cabin but few remained within its
walls, which were fast becoming those of a furnace,
the majority retreating to the fresh air outside,
whence they whooped on to their devil's work the
bolder spirits within.

These now bore down *en masse* upon the devoted
three.  One threw his tomahawk; it whistled within
half an inch of Landless's head, and stuck into the
wall behind him.  Another struck at him with his
knife, but he beat him down with his musket, and
turned again to the mulatto, who, knife in hand,
watched his chance to run in upon him.

"Look to the yellow slave, my brother," cried the
Susquehannock, "I will care for these dogs," and
hurled his gigantic form upon them.  One went down
before his knife; he broke the back of another, bending
him like a reed across his knee; a third fell, cleft
to the brain by his tomahawk—there was a fresh
influx from without, and he was borne down and knives
thrust into him.  Struggling to his feet, with one
last superhuman exertion of his vast strength, he
shook them off as a stag shakes off the dogs, and
stretching out his arm, cried to Landless, dimly seen
through the ever thickening smoke;—

"My brother, farewell!  I said we should find
Death in the Blue Mountains....  The Iroquois
laughs at the Algonquin dogs, laughs at
Death—dies laughing."

He broke into wild, unearthly, choking laughter, his
figure swaying to and fro like a pine in a storm.  The
laughter, an indescribable and most dreadful sound,
became low, choked, a mere rattle in the throat, died
into silence, and the laugher crashed to the ground
like a pine for which the storm has been too much.

Landless drew a breath that was like a moan, but
kept his eyes upon the yellow menace before him.

"The Ricahecrians are my good friends," said Luiz
Sebastian.  "They promise me a wigwam in their
village in the Blue Mountains.  I shall lead to it a
bride, and she shall be no Indian girl."

Landless struck at him over the dead body between
them, but the mulatto, springing back, avoided
the blow.

"It is my hour," he said, still with a smile.

A portion of the roof fell in, making a barrier of
flame between them.  A volume of smoke arose, and
through it Landless and Patricia dimly saw Indians
and mulatto making for the doorway, driven forth by
the intolerable heat and the imminent danger of the
burning walls and the remainder of the roof caving in
upon them.  Beyond Landless was the square opening
leading into the tiny shed in which he had been
sleeping when this midnight visitation came upon them.
Raising Patricia in his arms, he made for it, and they
presently found themselves in temporary security.  It
was but for a moment, he knew, for the flames were
already taking hold upon the shed, but as he set his
burden down he whispered encouraging words.

"I know," she answered.  "We are in God's hands.
I would rather die than to come into that man's power.
But the door to the shed is open and the way seems
clear.  Could we not escape even now?"

"Alas! madam, the flames make it as light as day
around the cabin.  They would certainly see us.  And
yet if we stay, we burn.  When the fire reaches this
straw above our heads we will try it.

"I would rather stay here," said Patricia.

Behind them the flames roared and crackled, the
cabin burning like a torch, and with the flames rose
and fell the triumphant cries of the savages, who,
unaware of the existence of the tiny shed, so covered
with the vines that draped the cabin that it seemed
one with it, congregated in front of the gap in the
wall where had been the door, and waited for their
still living victims to emerge from it.

"Look!" breathed Patricia, grasping Landless's arm.

They stood facing the open door of the shed, and
gazing through it down the lit slope of the knoll.
Into the light, out of the darkness at the foot of the
hill, now glided a man, naked save for the loin cloth,
and painted with horrible devices; in the figure,
noiseless and bent forward, savage cunning; in the
eyes, the lust for blood.  In his footsteps came his
double, then a third, in all points exactly similar,
then a fourth, a fifth—a long line, creeping as
silently as shadows—a nightmare procession—up
through the lurid light.

Landless drew Patricia further into the shadow.

"Wait," he said.  "They may prove our deliverance."

The stealthy line reached the summit of the knoll,
then broadened into a disc, and swept past the frail
shelter in which stood the fugitives.  A moment, and
the war whoop rang out, to be answered by a burst of
yells from the Ricahecrians, and then by prolonged
and awful clamor.

"Now is our time," said Landless.

Hand in hand they ran from the shed that was now
in a light flame, and down the slope up which had
come the band of unconscious Samaritans.

"The stream!" said Landless.  "There is a small
raft upon it if they have not destroyed it."

They made for the water, found the raft hidden in
a clump of reeds and uninjured, and stepped upon it.
In ten minutes' time from the appearance of the new
factor in the sum they were moving steadily, if slowly,
down a stream so wide that in Europe it would have
been called a river.  The glare from the burning cabin
faded, the flaming mass itself shrunk until it looked a
burning bush, then dwindled to a star.  The noise of
the struggle upon the mount was with them longer,
but at length it, too, died away.

"Which will conquer?" said Patricia at last, from
where she crouched at the feet of Landless, who stood
erect, poling.

"The Ricahecrians were the stronger," he answered.
"But they may be so handled that they will not come
at us again.  That must be our hope."

There followed a long silence, broken by Patricia.

"The baby," she said in a quivering voice, "the
poor, pretty, innocent little thing!"

"It is well with it," said Landless.  "It is spared
all toil and suffering.  It is better as it is."

"The man and woman went together," said Patricia,
still with the sob in her voice.  "They would
have chosen it so, I think.  But the poor Indian—"

"He was my friend," said Landless slowly, "and I
brought him death."

"It is I that brought him death!" cried Patricia,
tossing up her arms.  "I that shall bring you death!"

Her voice rose into a cry that echoed drearily from
the hills about them, and she beat her hands against
the raft with a sudden passion.

"You would bring me no unwelcome gift," said
Landless steadily, "provided only that the time when
I could serve you with my life were past."

She did not answer, and they floated on in silence
down the little river, between banks lined with dwarf
willows and sighing reeds.  With the dawn they came
to rapids through which they could not pilot their
frail craft.  Leaving the water, they turned their
faces towards the rising sun, and pursued their
journey through the forest that seemed to stretch to the
end of the world.





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.. _`THE FALL OF THE LEAF`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIII


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   THE FALL OF THE LEAF

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Days passed, and the forest put on a beauty,
austere, yet fantastic, bizarre.  Above it hung a pale
blue sky; within it, a perpetual, pale blue haze, through
which blazed the scarlet and gold of the trees—great
bonfires which did not warm, flaming pyres which
were never consumed.  Morning and evening a shroud
of chill, white mist fell upon them, or they would have
mocked the sunrise and the sunset.  Along the
summit of low hills ran a comb of fire—the scarlet of
the sumach, leaf and berry; underfoot were crimson
vines like trails and splashes of blood; into the streams
from which the wanderers stooped to drink, fell the
gold of the sycamore.  From the hills they looked
down upon a red and yellow world, a gorgeous
bourgeoning and blossoming that put the spring to shame,
a sea of splendor with here and there a dark-green isle
of cedar or of pine.  Day after day saw the same calm
blue sky, the same blue haze, the same slow drifting
of crimson and gold to earth.  The winds did not
blow, and the murmur of the forest was hushed.  All
sound seemed muffled and remote.  The deer passed
noiseless down the long aisles, the beaver and the otter
slipped noiseless into the stream, the bear rolled its
shambling bulk away from human neighborhood like
a shapeless shadow.  At times vast flocks of wild
pigeons darkened the air, but they passed like a cloud.
The singing birds were gone.  Only at night did sound
awake, for then the wolves howled, and the infrequent
scream of the panther chilled the blood, and the
fires which the wanderers must needs build roared
and crackled through the darkness.  In the daytime
beauty, vast and melancholy; in the night, shadows
and mysteries, the voice of wild beasts and the
stillness of the stars; at all times an enemy, they knew
not how far away or how near at hand, behind them.

Through this world which seemed more a phantasm
than a reality, Landless and Patricia fared, and were
happy.  All passion, all fear, all mistrust and anger
slept in that enchanted calm.  They never spoke of
the past, they had well-nigh ceased to think of it.
When they knelt upon the turf beside some crystal
brook, and drank of the water which seemed red wine
or molten gold according to the nature of the trees
above it, it might have been the water of Lethe.

In the illimitable forest, too, in the monotony of
sunshine and shade, of glade and dell, of crystal
streams and tiny valleys, each the counterpart of the
other, in dense woods and grassy savannahs; in the
yesterday so like to-day, and the to-day so like
to-morrow, there was no hint of the future.  It was
enchanted ground, where to-morrow must always be like
to-day.  They kept their faces to the east, and they
walked each day as many leagues as her strength
would permit, and Landless, imitating as best he
could the dead Susquehannock, took all precautions
to cover their trail; but that done all was done, and
they put care behind them.  Landless, walking in a
dream, knew that it was a dream, and said to himself,
"I must awaken, but not yet.  I will dream and be
happy yet a little while."  But Patricia dreamt and
knew it not.  She kept her wonted state, or, rather,
with a quiet insistence he kept it for her.  He never
addressed her save as "Madam," and he cared for her
comfort, and in all things bore himself towards her
with the formal courtesy he would have shown a
queen.  He said to himself, "Godfrey Landless,
Godfrey Landless, thou mayst forget much, perhaps, for a
little while; but not this!  If thou dost, thou art no
honorable man."

Master of himself, he walked beside her, cared for
her, tended her, guarded her, served her as if he had
been a knight-errant out of a romance, and she a
distressed princess.  And she rewarded him with a
delicate kindliness, and a perfectly trustful, childlike
dependence upon his strength, wisdom, and resource.
All her bearing towards him was marked by an
inexpressible charm, half-playful, wholly gracious and
womanly.  The lady of the manor was gone, and in
her place moved the Patricia Verney of the enchanted
forest—a very different creature.

Thus they fared through the dying summer, and
were happy in the present of soft sunshine, tender
haze, fantastic beauty.  Sometimes they walked in
silence, too truly companions to feel the need of words;
at other times they talked, and the hours flew past,
for they both had wit, intelligence, quick fancy, high
imagination.  Sometimes their laughter rang through
the glades of the forest, and set the squirrels in the
oaks to chattering; sometimes in the melancholy grace
of the evening when the purple twilight sank through
the trees, and the large stars came out one by one,
they spoke of grave things, of the mysteries of life
and death, of the soul and its hereafter.  She had
early noticed that he never lay down at night without
having first silently prayed.  There had been a time
when she would have laughed at this as Puritan
hypocrisy, but now, one dark night, when the noises of the
forest were loud about them, and the wind rushed
through the trees, she came close to him and knelt
beside him.  Thenceforward each night, before they
lay down beside their fire, and when from out the
darkness came all weird and mournful sounds, when
the owl hooted, and the catamount screamed, and the
long howl of the wolf was answered by its fellow, he
stood with bared head, and in a few short, simple
words commended them both to God.  "I will both
lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only
makest me to dwell in safety."

There came a day when they sat down to rest upon
the dark, smooth ground in a belt of pines, and looked
between rows of stately columns to where, in the
distance, the arcade was closed by a broken and confused
glory of crimson oak and yellow maple.  Landless told
her that it was like gazing at a rose window down the
long nave of a cathedral.

"I have never seen a cathedral," she said; "I have
dreamed of them, though, of your Milton's 'dim
religious light,' and of the rolling music."

"I have seen many," he answered.  "But none of
them are to me what the abbey at Westminster is.  If
you should ever see it—"

Something in her face stopped him: there was a
silence, and then he said quietly:—

"When you shall see it, is perhaps better, madam?"

"Yes," she answered, gazing before her with wide
fixed eyes.

He did not finish his sentence, and neither spoke
again until they had left the pines and were forcing
their way through the tall grass and reeds of a wide
savannah.  They came to a small, clear stream, dotted
with wild fowl and mirroring the pale blue sky, and
he lifted her in his arms as was his wont and bore
her through the shallow water.  As he set her gently
down upon the other side, she said in a low voice, "I
thought you knew.  Had it not been for that night,
that night which sets us here, you and I,—I should
be now in London, at Whitehall, at some masque or
pageant perhaps.  I should be all clad in brocade and
jewels, not like this—"  She touched her ragged
gown as she spoke, then burst into strange laughter.
"But God disposes!  And you—"

"I should be in a place which is never mentioned
at Court, madam," said Landless grimly.  "The
grave, to wit.  Unless indeed his Excellency proposed
hanging me in chains."

She cried out as though she had been struck.
"Don't!" she said passionately.  "Don't speak to
me so!  I will not bear it!" and ran past him into the
woods beyond the savannah.

When he came up with her he found her lying on a
mossy bank with her face hidden.

"Madam," he said, kneeling beside her, "forgive me."

She lifted a colorless face from her hands.  "How
far are we from the Settlements?" she demanded.

"I do not know, madam.  Some twenty leagues,
probably, from the frontier posts."

"How far from the friendly tribes?"

"Something less than that distance."

"Then when we reach them, sir," she said imperiously,
"you are to leave me with them at one of the
villages above the falls."

"To leave you there!"

"Yes.  You will tell them that I am the daughter
of one of the paleface chiefs, of one whom the great
white chief calls 'brother,' and then they will not
dare to harm me or to detain me.  They will send
me down the river to the nearest post, and the men
there will bring me on to Jamestown, and so home."

"And why may not I bring you on to Jamestown—and
so home?" demanded Landless with a smile.

"Because—because—you know that you are lost
if you return to the Settlements."

"And nevertheless I shall return," he said with
another smile.

She struck her hands together.  "You will be mad—mad!
If you had not been their leader!—but as
it is, there is no hope.  Leave me with the friendly
Indians, then go yourself to the northward.  Make
for New Amsterdam.  God will carry you through
the Indians as he has done so far.  I will pray to
him that he do so.  Ah, promise me that you will go!"

Landless took her hand and kissed it.  "Were you
in absolute safety, madam," he said gently, "and if it
were not for one other thing, I would go, because you
wish it, and because I would save you any pang,
however slight, that you might feel for the fate of one
who was, who is, your servant—your slave.  I would
go from you, and because it else might grieve you, I
would strive to keep my life through the forest,
through the winter—"

"Ah, the winter!" she cried.  "I had forgotten
that winter will come."

"But to do that which you propose," he continued,
"to leave you to the mercy of fierce and treacherous
Indians, but half subdued, friends to the whites only
because they must—it is out of the question.  To
leave you at a frontier post among rude trappers and
traders, or at some half savage pioneer's, is equally
impossible.  What tale would you have to tell
Colonel Verney?  'The Ricahecrians carried me
into the Blue Mountains.  There your servant
Landless found me and brought me a long distance
towards my home.  But at the last, to save his own
neck, forfeit to the State, he left me, still in the
wilderness and in danger, and went his way.'  My
honor, madam, is my own, and I choose not to so stain
it.  Again: I must be the witness to your story.
You have wandered for many weeks in a wilderness,
far beyond the ken of your friends.  To your world,
madam, I am a rebel, traitor and convict, a wretch
capable of any baseness, of any crime.  If I go back
with you, throwing myself into the power of Governor
and Council, at least I shall be credited with having
so borne myself towards my master's daughter as to
fear nothing from their hands on that score.  The
idle and censorious cannot choose but believe when
you say, 'I am come scatheless through weeks of
daily and hourly companionship with this man.
Rebel, and traitor, and gaol-bird, though he be, he
never injured me in word, thought, or deed.' ... For
all these reasons, madam, we must be companions
still."

She had covered her face while he was speaking,
and she kept it hidden when he had finished.  The
slowly lengthening shadows of the trees had barred
the little glade with black when he spoke again.  It
was only to ask in his usual voice if she were rested
and ready to continue their journey.

She raised her head and looked at him with
swimming eyes, then held out two trembling hands.  He
took them, helped her to her feet, and before releasing
them, bent and touched them with his lips.  Then
side by side and in silence they traveled on through
the halcyon calm of the world around them.





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.. _`AN ACCIDENT`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN ACCIDENT

.. vspace:: 2

It was early morning, and the mist lay heavy upon
the forest and on the bosom of the James.  Landless
and Patricia raked together the dying embers of their
fire and heaped fresh wood upon them.  The flames
leaped up, warming their chilled bodies and filling
the hollow that had been their camping place with a
cheerful light, in which the moisture that clothed tree
bole and fallen log and withered fern glistened like
diamonds.  Their breakfast of deer meat and broiled
fish, nuts and a few late clusters of grape, with
coldest water from a spring hard by, was eaten amidst
laughter and pleasant talk.  When they had lingered
through it and when Landless had carefully extinguished
their fire and had seen to the priming of his
gun, they addressed themselves to their journey.

A bowshot away was the river, and Patricia willed
that they walk along its banks that they might see
the white mist lift, and the silver flash of fish rising
from the water, and the swoop of the kingfisher.
Landless agreeing, they went down to the river, and
standing upon a rocky spit of ground which ran far
out into the stream, they looked down the misty
expanse, then turned involuntarily and looked up.  At
that moment the fog lifted.

"Ah!" cried Patricia, and shrunk back, cowering
almost to the ground.

Landless seized her in his arms and ran with her
across the shingle and up the bank.  Plunging into
the woods he made for the little stream which flowed
past their camping place, and entering the water,
walked rapidly up it.

"Did they see us?" Patricia asked in a low,
strained voice.

"I am afraid so."

"They turned their boats towards the land.  They
are in the forest by now."

"Yes."

"And there is no doubt that they are the same.  I
saw the scarlet handkerchief upon the head of the
mulatto."

"Yes, they are the same."

"They were such a little way from us.  Oh, they
may be upon us at any moment!"

"We are in great danger," he answered gravely,
"but it is not so imminent as that.  They were nearly
a mile above us, and they have to land, to hide their
boats and to find our trail, all of which will take
time.  We may count on having an hour's start of
them, and we will do all in our power to increase it
by breaking our trail as we are doing now.  Then we
cannot be many leagues from the falls, and the post
below them, or we may stumble at any moment upon
some Monacan village which will not need our urging
to fly out against the Ricahecrians.  Please God, we
will win through them yet."

Somewhat comforted, she lay within his arms without
speaking until they left the stream, when he set
her down, and giving her his hand, ran with her
over the fallen leaves down the long aisles of the
forest.

Red gold showers fell upon them; fiery vines
clutched at their feet, or, swinging from the trees,
struck at their faces with vicious tendrils; the pines
made the ground beneath like ice; rotting logs covered
with gorgeous fungi barred their way; dark and
poisonous swamps appeared before them, and had to be
skirted—the forest leagued itself with its children
and did them yeoman service.

The two aliens hastened breathlessly on.  The sun
climbed above the tree tops and looked down upon
them through the half denuded branches.  Midday
came, and the short bright afternoon, and still they
went fast through the woods, and still they heard no
other sound than the rustle and sough of the leaves
and the beating of their own hearts.  They came to
rising ground, and mounting it, found themselves
upon a chinquepin ridge, and before them an abrupt
descent of rain-washed, boulder-strewn earth.  It was
so nearly a precipice that Patricia shrunk back with
an exclamation of dismay.

"I will go first," said Landless.  "Give me your
hands.  So!"

Half way down, the earth began to slip.  Patricia,
looking up and over her shoulder, uttered a cry.  A
great boulder, imbedded in the earth directly above
them, was dislodging itself, was falling!  At her cry
Landless raised his eyes, saw the threatening mass,
caught her around the waist, and with one supreme
effort swung her out of the path of the avalanche
which descended the next moment, bearing him with
it to the ground beneath.

He was recalled to consciousness by the dash of
water against his face, and opened his eyes to behold
Patricia bending over him, very white, with tragic
eyes, and lips pressed closely together.  She had run
to the river, flowing through the sunshine a hundred
yards away, for water, which she had brought back
in his cap, and she had taken the kerchief from her
neck, wet it, and laid it upon his forehead.  Her
hands were torn and bleeding, he saw them and
uttered an exclamation.  "It is nothing," she said;
"I had to move the rock."  Scarcely fully conscious
as yet, his eyes glanced from her to the great rock
which lay upon one side, and upon which there were
bloodstains.  "I have had a bad fall," he said
unsteadily, but with an attempt to speak lightly because
of the trouble in her eyes, "but it is over.
Come! we must hurry on.  We have no time to lose."

As he spoke he strove to rise, but with the effort
came a pang of anguish, and he sank back, faint and
sick, upon the ground.

"Ah! you cannot!" cried Patricia with a great sob
in her voice.  "It is your foot.  The rock fell upon it."

After a moment of lying with closed eyes, he sat up
and with his knife began to cut away the moccasin
from the wounded limb.  Presently he looked up.
"Yes, it is badly crushed.  There is no doing
anything with it."

For many moments they gazed at each other in a
despairing silence, broken by Patricia's low, "What
are we to do now?"

"We must go on," answered Landless.  "It is
death to stay here."

Holding by the bank against which he had leaned,
he dragged himself up and stood for an instant with
eyes dark with pain; then, setting his lips, took a step
forward.  The bronze of his face paled, and beads of
anguish stood upon his brow, but he took another
step.  Patricia, the tears running down her cheeks,
came to him and put his arm around her shoulder.
"I will be your crutch," she said, striving to smile.
"I will carry the gun, too."

Before them was a steeply sloping, grass-grown
ascent rising to a broken line of cliffs, scarred and
gray, crowned with cedars and hung here and there
with crimson creepers, and with a chance medley of
huge gray boulders scattered about their base.  Up
this ascent they labored, so slowly that the crags
seemed like the mountain in the Arabian tale, ever
receding as they advanced.  Twice Landless staggered
and fell to his knee, but when, after what seemed an
eternity of pain and distress, they reached the summit
and Patricia would have had him rest, he shook his
head and motioned with his hand towards the narrow,
boulder-strewn plateau at the foot of the crags.

With her accustomed unquestioning obedience she
turned towards the rocks, and after another interval
of painful toil they found themselves in a sort of rocky
chamber, a natural blockhouse, of which the sheer
cliff formed one wall and boulders of varying height
and shape the others.

Above them gleamed the blue sky; through the gaps
between the rocks they looked down upon the shining
river and the parti-colored woods, and behind them
towered the cliffs.  A strong wind was blowing and it
sent red leaves from the vines that draped the rock
whirling down upon them.

"The tall gray crags," said Patricia in a strange
voice, "and the Martinmas wind.  The river flowing
in the sunshine too."

Landless sank upon the rocky floor.  "I can go no
further," he said.  "God help me!"

"I do not think another man could have come so
far," she answered.  "What are we to do now?"

"You must go on without me."

She cried out angrily, "What do you mean?  I
don't understand you."

"Listen," he said earnestly, dragging himself closer
to her.  "We can be but a very few leagues from the
falls, still fewer from the Indian villages above them.
Reach one of those villages and you are safe from
these devils at least.  We have kept the start of
them.  They may not reach this spot for several
hours, and when they come, I will keep them here,
God helping me, for more hours than one.  This place
is a natural fortress, and they have no guns.  They will
not take me until my ammunition is exhausted, and
you know there is store of bullets and powder.  They
will think that you are with me, hidden behind the
rocks—"

"And I shall be with you!" she cried vehemently.

"No, no.  You must go through this pass in the
cliff to the right of us, and thence down the river with
all your speed.  Please God, to-morrow will find you
in safety.  It is the only way.  To stay here is to fall
into their hands.  And you must not delay.  You
must go at once."

"And you—" she said in a whisper.

"What does it matter if I lose my life to-day
instead of a few weeks hence?  I grieve for this,"
with a glance at his foot, "because it keeps me from
being with you, from guarding you into perfect safety.
Otherwise it does not matter.  You lose time, madam."

She stood with heaving bosom and foot tapping the
ground, an expression that he could not read in her
wonderful eyes.  "I am not going," she said at last.





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.. _`THE BOAT THAT WAS NOT`:

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   CHAPTER XXXV


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   THE BOAT THAT WAS NOT

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"You will not go!" cried Landless.

"No, I will not!" she answered passionately.
"Why should you think such a thing of me?  See! we
have been together, you and I, for long weeks!
You have been my faithful guide, my faithful
protector.  Over and over again you have saved my life.
And now, now when you are the helpless one, when it
is through me that you lie there helpless, when it is
through me that you are in this dreadful forest at all,
you tell me to go! to leave you to the fate I have
brought upon you! to save myself!  I will not save
myself!  But the other day it was dishonor in you to
leave me below the falls—almost in safety.  Mine
the dishonor if I do what you bid me do!"

"Madam, madam, it is not with women as with men!"

"I care not for women!  I care for myself.
Never, never, will I leave, helpless and wounded, the
man who dies for me!"

"Upon my knees I implore you!" Landless cried
in desperation.  "You cannot save me, you cannot
help me.  It is you that would make the bitterness of
my fate.  Let me die believing that you have escaped
these fiends, and then, do what they will to me, I shall
die happy, blessing with my last breath the generous
woman who lets me give—how proudly and gladly
she will never know—my worthless life in exchange
for hers, so young, bright, innocent.  Go, go, before
it is too late!"

He dragged himself a foot nearer, and grasping the
hem of her dress, pressed it to his lips.  "Good-bye,"
he said with a faint smile.  "Keep behind the rocks
for some distance, then follow the river.  Think kindly
of me.  Good-bye."

"It is too late," she said.  "I can see the river
through this crack between the rocks.  One of those
two canoes has just passed, going down the river.  In
it were seven Ricahecrians and the mulatto.  I saw
him quite plainly, for they row close to the bank with
their faces turned to the woods.  They will land at
some point below this and search for our trail.  When
they do not find it, they will know that we are
between them and the rest of the band, and they will
come upon us from behind.  If I go now, it will be to
meet them.  Shall I go?"

"No, no," groaned Landless.  "It is too late.
God help you!  I cannot."

The large tears gathered in her eyes and fell over her
white cheeks.  "Oh, why," she said plaintively, "why
did He let you hurt yourself just now?"  She turned
her face to the rock against which she was standing,
and hiding it in her arm, broke into a low sobbing.  It
went to the heart of the man at her feet to hear her.

Presently the weeping ceased.  She drew a long
tremulous sigh, and dashed the tears from her eyes.
Her hands went up to her disheveled hair in a little
involuntary, feminine gesture, and she looked at him
with a wan smile.

"I did not mean to be so cowardly," she said
simply.  "I will be brave now."

"You are the bravest woman in the world," he answered.

Below them waved the painted forest flaunting
triumphant banners of crimson and gold.  A strong
south wind was blowing, and it brought to them a
sound as of the whispering of many voices.  The
shining river, too, murmured to its reeds and pebbles,
and in the air was the dull whirr of wings as the vast
flocks of wild fowl rose like dark smoke from the
water, or, skimming along its surface, broke it into
myriad diamond sprays.  Around the horizon towered
heaped-up masses of cloud—Ossa piled on
Pelion—fantastic Jack-and-the-Beanstalk castles, built high
above the world, with rampart and turret and bastion
of pearl and coral.  Above rose the sky intensely
blue and calm.

All the wealth, the warmth and loveliness of the
world they were about to leave flowed over the souls
of the doomed pair.  In their hearts they each said
farewell to it forever.  Patricia stood with uplifted
face and clear eyes, looking deep into the azure
heaven.  "I am trying to think," she said, "that
death is not so bitter after all.  To-day is
beautiful—but ours will be a fairer morrow!  After to-day we
will never be tired, or fear, or be in danger any more.
I am not afraid to die; but ah! if it could only come
to us now, swiftly, silently, out of the blue yonder; if
we could go without the blood—the horror—" she
broke off shuddering.  Her eyes closed and she rested
her head against the rock.  Landless watched the
beautiful, pale face, the quivering eyelids, the coral
underlip drawn between the pearly teeth, in a passion
of pity and despair.  Horrid visions of torture flashed
through his brain; he saw the delicate limbs writhing,
heard the agonized screams....  If he killed the
mulatto, it might come to that; if the mulatto lived,
he knew that she would kill herself.  He had given
her the knife that had been Monakatocka's, and she
had it now, hidden in her bosom....  The glory of
the autumn day darkened and went out, the bitter
waters of affliction surged over him, an immeasurable
sea; it seemed to him that until then he had never
suffered.  A cold sweat broke out upon him, and with
an inarticulate cry of rage and despair he struck at
his wounded foot as at a deadly foe.  The girl cried
out at the sound of the blow.

"Oh, don't, don't!  What are you doing?  You
have loosened the bandage, and it is bleeding afresh."

Despite his effort to prevent her she readjusted the
kerchief which she had wound about the torn and
crushed foot, very carefully and tenderly.  "It must
hurt you very much," she said pityingly.

He took the little ministering hands in his and
kissed them.  "Oh, madam, madam!" he groaned.
"God knows I would shed every drop of my blood a
thousand times to save you.  Death to me is nothing,
nor life so fair that I should care to keep it.  The
grave is a less dreadful prison than those on earth,
and I think to find in God a more merciful Judge.
But you—so young and beautiful, with friends,
love—"

She stopped him with a gesture full of dignity and
sweetness.  "That life is gone forever,—it is
thousands of miles and ages on ages away.  It is a world
more distant than the stars, and we are nearer to
Heaven than to it....  It is strange to think how
we have drifted, you and I, to this rock.  A year ago
we had never seen each other's faces, had never heard
each other's names, and yet you were coming to this
rock from prison and over seas, and I was coming to
meet you....  And it is our death place, and we will
die together, and to-morrow maybe the little birds
will cover us with leaves as they did the children in
the story.  They were brother and sister....  When
our time comes I will not be afraid, for I will be with
you ... my brother."

Landless covered his face with his hands.

The shadows grew longer and the cloud castles began
to flush rosily, though the sun still rode above the
tree tops.  A purple light filled the aisles of the forest,
through which a herd of deer, making for some
accustomed lick, passed like a phantom troop.  They
vanished, and from out the stillness of the glades came
the sudden, startled barking of a fox.  A shadow
darted across a sunlit alley from gloom to gloom,
paused on the outskirts of the wood below the crags
while one might count ten, then turned and flitted
back into the darkness from whence it came.  They
beneath the crags did not see it.

Suddenly Landless raised his head.  Upon his face
was the look of one who has come through much doubt
and anguish of spirit to an immutable resolve.  He
looked to the priming of his gun and laid it upon
the rock beside him, together with his powderhorn
and pouch of bullets.  Raising himself to his knees
he gazed long and intently into the forest below.
There was no sign of danger.  On the checkered
ground beneath two mighty oaks squirrels were playing
together like frolicsome kittens, and through the
clear air came the tapping of a woodpecker.  The
forest was silent as to the shadow that had flitted
through it.  It can keep a secret very well.

Landless sank back against the rock.  He had lost
much blood, and that and the pain of his mangled
foot turned him faint and sick for minutes at a time.
He clenched his teeth and forced back the deadly
faintness, then turned to the woman who stood
beside him, her hands clasped before her, her eyes
following the declining sun, her lips sometimes set in
mournful curves, sometimes murmuring broken and
inaudible words of prayer.  He called her twice
before she answered, turning to him with eyes of feverish
splendor which saw and yet saw not.  "What is it?"
she asked dreamily.

"Come back to earth, madam," he said.  "There
is that that I wish to say to you.  Listen to me kindly
and pitifully, as to a dying man."

"I am listening," she answered.  "What is it?"

"It is this, madam: I love you.  For God's sake
don't turn away!  Oh, I know that I should have
been strong to the end, that I should not vex you
thus!  It is the coward's part I play, perhaps, but I
must speak!  I cannot die without.  I love you,
I love you, I love you!"

His voice rose into a cry; in it rang long
repressed passion, hopeless adoration, fierce joy in
having broken the bonds of silence.  He spoke rapidly,
thickly, with a stammering tongue, now throwing out
his hands in passionate appeal, now crushing between
his fingers the dried moss and twigs with which the
ground was strewn.  "I loved you the day I first saw
you.  I have loved you ever since.  I love you now.
My God! how I love you!  Die for you?  I would
die for you ten thousand times!  I would live for
you!  Oh, the day I first saw you!  I was in hell and
I looked at you as lost Dives might have looked at
the angel on the other side of the gulf....  I never
thought to tell you this.  I know that never, never,
never....  But this is the day of our death.  In a
few hours we shall be gone.  Do not leave the world
in anger with me.  Say that you pity, understand,
forgive....  Speak to me, madam!"

The sun sank lower and the shadows lengthened
and deepened, and still Patricia stood silent with
uplifted and averted face, and fingers tightly locked
together.  With a moan of mortal weakness Landless
dragged himself nearer until he touched with his
forehead the low pedestal of rock upon which she stood.
"I understand," he said quietly.  "After all, there is
nothing to be said, is there?  Try to forget
my—madness.  Think of it, if you will, as the raving of
one at death's door.  Let it be as it was between us."

Patricia turned—her beautiful face transfigured.
Roses bloomed in her cheeks, her eyes were fathomless
wells of splendor, an exquisite smile played about
her lips; with her nimbus of golden hair she looked a
rapt mediæval saint.  Her slender figure swayed
towards Landless, and when she spoke her voice was like
the tone of a violin, soft, rich, caressing, tremulous.

"There was no boat," she said.

"No boat!" he cried.  "What do you mean?"

"The canoe going down the river.  I told you that
it held seven Indians and the mulatto.  I lied to you.
There were no Indians, no mulatto, no canoe.  The
shadows of the clouds have been upon the river, and
the wild fowl, and once a fish-hawk plunged.  I have
seen nothing else."

Landless gazed at her with staring eyeballs.  "You
have thrown away your life," he said at last in a voice
that did not seem his own.

"Yes, I have thrown away my life."

"But why—why—"

The rich color surged over her face and neck.  She
swayed towards him with the grace of a wind-bowed
lily, her breath fanning his forehead, and her hand
touching his, softly, flutteringly, like a young bird.

"Can you not guess why?" she said with an enchanting smile.

All the anguish of a little while back, all the terror
of the fate that hung over her, all the white calm of
despair was gone.  The horror that moved nearer and
nearer, moment by moment, through the painted forest,
was forgotten.  She looked at him shyly from under
her long lashes and with another wonderful blush.

Landless gazed at her, comprehension slowly dawning
in his eyes.  For five minutes there was a silence
as of the dead beneath the crags.  Then with a great
cry he caught her hands in his and drew her towards
him.  "Is it?" he cried.

"Yes," she answered with laughter trembling on
her lips.  "Death hath enfranchised us, you and I.
Give me my betrothal kiss, my only love."

For them one moment of Paradise, of bliss ineffable
and supreme.  The next, the crags behind them rang
to the sound of the war whoop.





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.. _`THE LAST FIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVI


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   THE LAST FIGHT

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Out from the forest rushed the remnant of that
band which had smoked the peace pipe with the
Governor one sunny afternoon on the banks of the
Pamunkey.  Tall and large of limb, painted with all
fantastic and ghastly devices, and decorated with
hideous mementoes of nameless deeds; with the lust
of blood written large in every fierce lineament and
dark and rolling eye; with raised hands grasping
knife and tomahawk, and lips uttering cries that
seemed not of earth—a more appalling vision could
not have issued from out the beautiful, treacherous
forest, a more crashing discord have come into the
music of the golden evening.

For the two in their rocky fortress beneath the
crags the apparition had no terrors.  All the pain,
the anguish, the hopelessness of the world was
passing from them—the cry that swelled through the
forest was its knell.  They smiled to hear it, and with
raised faces looked beyond the many-tinted evening
skies into clear spaces where Love was all.  The
intoxication of the moment when hidden and despairing
love became love triumphant and acknowledged abode
with them.  In the very grasp of death ineffable bliss
possessed them.  Their countenances changed; the
lines of care and pain, the marks of tears, were all
gone, and the beauty of the happy soul shone out.
For that brief space of time transcendent youth and
loveliness was theirs.  About them, as about the sun
now sinking behind the low hills, there breathed a
glory, a dying splendor as bright as it was fleeting.
They felt, too, a lightness and gaiety of spirit—they
had drunk of the nectar of the gods, and no leaden
weight of care, no heavy sorrow, could ever touch
them, ever drag them down again to the sad earth.

"You are beautiful," said Landless, gazing at her,
even in the act of raising his gun to his shoulder;
"as beautiful as you were the day I first saw you.
I hear the drone of the bees in the vines at Verney
Manor.  I smell the roses.  I look up and see the
Rose of the World.  My eyes were dazzled then, are
dazzled now, my Rose of the World."

"That day I wore brocade and lace, and there were
pearls around my throat," she said with a laugh of
pure delight.  "There was rouge upon my cheeks,
too, sir, and my eyes were darkened.  To-day I go a
beggar maid, in rags, burnt by the sun—"

"The nut-brown maid," he said.

"Ay," she answered, "the nut-brown maid—'For
in my mind of all mankind'—you may e'en finish it
yourself, sir."

The Ricahecrians had paused at the foot of the
ascent to hold a council.  It was soon over.  With
another burst of cries they rushed up the steep and
upon the rocks, behind which were hidden their
victims.  Landless, kneeling to one side of the gap
between the boulders by which he and Patricia had
entered, fired, and the foremost of the savages threw
up his arms, uttered a dreadful cry, and fell across the
path of his fellows.  For one moment the rush was
checked, the next on they came, yelling furiously
and brandishing their weapons.  Landless fired and
missed, fired again and pierced the thigh of a gigantic
warrior, bringing him crashing to the ground.  The
line wavered, paused, then turning, swept to one side
and so passed out of sight.

"They have found this pass too formidable," said
Landless.  "They will try now to force an entrance
from the side.  Do you watch the front, my queen,
while I face them, coming over the rocks."

"I looked only at the mulatto," she said.  "The
others are shadows to me."

"His time is come," said Landless.  "Do not fear
him, sweetheart."

"I fear not," she answered.  "I have the perfect
love."

Along the top of a tall boulder to their right
appeared a dark red line—the arm of a savage, with
clutching fingers.  Above it, very slowly and
cautiously, there rose first an eagle's feather, then
coarse black scalp lock, then a high forehead and
fierce eyes.  The echo of Landless's shot reverberated
through the cliffs, and when the smoke cleared only
the bare gray boulder faced him.  But from behind it
came a derisive yell.

"Thou wilt think me a poor marksman, my dear,"
he said, smiling, as he reloaded his musket.  "I have
missed again."

"It is because you are wounded," she said.  "I
would I had thy wounds."

"I had a wounded heart, but you have healed it,"
he said, and looked at her with shining eyes.

The sun sank and the long twilight of the hills set
in.  The evening star was brightening through the
pale amethyst of the sky when Landless said quietly:
"The last charge," and emptied it into an arm which
for one incautious moment had waved above the rocks.

"It is the end, then," said Patricia.

"Yes, it is the end.  We have beaten them back
for the moment, but presently they will find that all
we could do we have done, and then—"

She left her post beside the gap in the front, and
came and knelt beside him, and he took her in his
arms.

"It is not Death before us, but Life," she said in a
low voice.

"It is God and Love, naught else," he answered.
"But the river between will be bitter for you to cross,
sweetheart."

"We cross it together," she said, "and so—"  She
raised her head that he might see her radiant smile,
and their lips met.

"Hark!" she said directly with her hand on his.
"What is that sound?"

He shook his head.  "The wind has risen, and the
forest rustles and sighs.  There is nothing more."

"It is far off," she answered, "but it is like the dip
of oars.  Ah!"

Over against them, framed in the narrow opening
between the rocks, his lithe, half-nude figure dark
against the crimson west, and with a smile upon his
evil lips and in his evil eyes, stood Luiz Sebastian.
In the dead silence that succeeded he looked with
a smiling countenance from the musket, now useless
and thrown aside, to his enemy, wounded and unarmed
save for a knife, and to the woman in that enemy's
arms; then, without turning, he said a few words in
an Indian tongue.  From the dusky mass behind him
came one short, wild cry of savage triumph, followed
by another dead silence.

Still holding Patricia in one arm, Landless rose
from his knee, and stood confronting him.

"We are met again, Señor Landless," said Luiz
Sebastian smoothly.  Receiving no answer, he spoke
again with a tigerish expansion of his thick lips.
"You have had an accident, I see.  Mother of God! that
foot must pain you!  But you will forget it
presently in the pleasure of the pine splinters."

"I will forget it in the pleasure of this," said
Landless, releasing Patricia, and springing upon the
mulatto with a suddenness and violence that sent them
both staggering through the opening between the
rocks, out upon the narrow plateau and into the ring
of Ricahecrians.  Luiz Sebastian was strong, with the
easy masked strength of the panther, but Landless
had the strength of despair.  The mulatto, thrown
heavily to the ground, and pinned there by his
adversary's knee, saw the gleam of the lifted knife, and
would have seen nothing more in this life, but that a
woman's cry rang out and saved him.  Landless
heard, turned, saw Patricia dragged from the shelter of
the rocks, leaped to his feet, leaving his work undone,
and rushed upon the knot of savages with whom she
was struggling.  A moment saw him beside her with
the Indian who had held her dead at his feet.  Behind
them was the great boulder which had formed the
front wall of their chamber of defense.  He put his
arm around her, and drew her back with him until
they stood against this rock, then faced the advancing
savages with uplifted knife.

So determined was his attitude, so terribly had
they proved his power, so certain it was that before
he should be taken one at least of their number would
taste that knife, that the Ricahecrians paused, swaying
to and fro, yelling, working themselves into a fury
that should send them on like maddened brutes, blind
and deaf to all things but their lust for blood.

"I hear a sound of footsteps over the leaves," said
Patricia.

"The wind rustles in them, or the deer pass,"
answered Landless.  "Oh, my life! are you content?"

She answered with a low, clear laugh.  "I hold
happiness fast," she said.  "It cannot escape us now."

"They are coming," he said.  "The last kiss, heart
of my heart."

Their lips met, and their eyes with a smile in them
met, and then he put her gently behind him, and
turned to again face Luiz Sebastian.

With his eyes fixed upon the yellow face, he had
raised his hand to strike at the yellow breast, spotted
and barred with the black of the war paint, when an
Indian, gliding between, struck up his arm, and sent
the knife tinkling down upon the rocks.  With a yell
of triumph the savage snatched up the weapon, and
brandished it, showing it to his fellows, who, seeing
their work accomplished, and the two whom they had
tracked so far actually in their hands, made the forest
ring with their exultant shouts.  A few closed in
around the devoted pair, directing at them fiendish
cries and no less fiendish laughter, and menacing them
with knife and tomahawk, but the majority streamed
down the steep and into the forest at its base.

"They go to gather wood," said the still smiling
Luiz Sebastian.  "By and by we are to have a bonfire.
Señor Landless has often carried wood, I think,
in those old times when he was a slave, and when the
pretty mistress behind him there treated him as
such—unless she gave him favors in secret.  But, Mother
of God! now that she has made him master, we must
carry the wood for him!"

Landless, standing with folded arms, looked at him
with quiet scorn.  "It is the nature of the viper to
use his venom," he said calmly.  "Such a thing
cannot anger me."

"At the same time it is as well to crush the viper,"
said a voice at his elbow.

The speaker, who was Sir Charles Carew, had come
from behind the boulders which ran in a straggling
line down the hillside toward the river.  He had his
drawn sword in his hand, and as he spoke, he ran the
mulatto through the body.  The wretch, his oath of
rage and astonishment still upon his lips, fell to the
ground without a groan, writhed there a moment or
two, and then lay still forever.

From the forest below rose a loud confusion of
shouts and cries, followed by a volley of musketry.
At the sound the half dozen savages upon the plateau
turned and plunged down the hillside, to be met before
they reached the bottom by the upward rush of a
portion of the rescuing party.  For a short while the
twilight glades, low hills and frowning crags rang to the
sound of a miniature battle, to the quick crack of
muskets, the clear shouts of the whites, and the whoops
of the savages.  But by degrees these latter became
fainter, further between, died away—a short ten
minutes, and there were no warriors left to return to the
village in the Blue Mountains.  Fierce shedders of
blood, they were paid in their own coin.

On the hill-top Sir Charles shot his rapier into its
scabbard, and strode over to Patricia, standing white
and still against the rock.  "I was in time," he said.
"Thank God!"

She made no motion to meet his extended hands,
but stood looking past him at Landless.  Her face
was like marble, her eyes one dumb question.  Landless
met their gaze, and in his own she read despair,
renunciation, strong resolve—and a long farewell.

"You are come in time, Sir Charles Carew," he
said.  "A little more, and we should have been
beyond your reach.  You will find the lady safe and
well, though shaken, as you see, by this last alarm.
She will speak for me, I trust, will tell you that I
have used her with all respect, that I have done for
her all that I could do....  Madam, all danger is
past.  Will you not collect yourself and speak to your
kinsman and savior?"

He spoke with a certain calm stateliness of voice
and manner, as of one who has passed beyond all
emotion, whether of hope or fear, and in his eyes
which he kept fixed upon her there was a command.

"Speak to me, my cousin; tell me that I am welcome,"
said Sir Charles, flinging himself upon his knee
before her.

With a strong shudder she looked away from the
still, white, and sternly composed face opposite to the
darkening river and the evening star shining calmly
down upon a waste world.

At length she spoke.  "I was all but beyond this
world, cousin, so pardon me if I seem to come back
to it somewhat tardily.  You have my thanks, of
course—my dear thanks—for saving my life—my
life which is so precious to me."

She gave him her hand with a strange smile, and
he pressed his lips upon it.  "Your father is below,
dearest cousin.  Shall we descend to meet him?  As
to this—gentleman," turning with a smile that was
like a frown to Landless, "I regret that circumstances
combine to prevent our rewarding him as the guardian
(a trusty one, I am sure) of so precious a jewel should
be rewarded.  But Colonel Verney will do—I will
do—all that is possible.  In the mean time I observe
with regret that he is wounded.  If he will allow me,
I will send him my valet, who is below, and is the
best barber surgeon in the three kingdoms.  Come,
dearest madam."

He bowed low and ceremoniously to Landless, who
returned the salute with grave courtesy, and gave his
hand to Patricia.  For one moment she looked at
Landless with wide, dark eyes, then, her spirit
obedient to his spirit, she turned and went from him
without one word or backward look.

The color had quite faded from the west, and the
stars were thickening when Landless became conscious
that the overseer was standing beside him.  "You are
the hardest one to hold that ever I saw," said that
worthy grimly, and yet with a certain appreciation of
the qualities that made the man at his feet hard to
hold showing in his tone, "but I fancy we 've got you
at last.  You 've gone and put yourself in bilboes."

Landless smiled.  "This time you may keep me.
I shall not interfere.  But tell me how you come here.
You were sent back to the Plantations."

"Ay," said the other, "and there was the devil to
pay, I can tell you, when I had to report you missing to
Sir William.  But Major Carrington stood my friend,
and I got off with a tongue-drubbing.  Well, after
about three weeks or so, during which time the dogs
and the searchers brought back most all of the run
away niggers, and Mistress Lettice had hysterics every
day, back comes the Colonel and Sir Charles with ten
of the twenty men who had rowed them up the
Pamunkey.  The rest had fallen in a brush with the
Monacans.  They had n't come up with the Ricahecrians,
had n't seen hair nor hide of them, had but one report
from the Indian villages along the river, and that was
that no Ricahecrians had passed that way.  So after
a while they were forced to believe that they were
upon a false scent, and back they comes post haste to
the Plantations to get more men, and go up the
Rappahannock.  Well, they went up the Rappahannock,
and found nothing to their purpose, so back they came
again to try the James and the country above the
Falls.  This time they found the Settlements, which
had been before like an overturned hive, pretty quiet,
the ringleaders of your precious plot having all been
strung up, and the rest made as mild as sheep with
branding and whipping and doubling of times.  So,
the tobacco being in and the plantation quiet, things
were left to Haines, and I came along with the
Colonel.  Major Carrington, too, who they say is in the
Governor's black books, though Lord knows he was
active enough in stamping out this insurrection, asked
to be allowed to join in the search for his old friend's
daughter, and so he's down in the woods yonder.  And
Mr. Cary is there, and Mr. Peyton (Mistress Betty
Carrington made *him* come) and Mr. Jaclyn Carter.
Fegs! half the young gentry in the colony pressed their
services on the Colonel.  It got to be the fashion to
volunteer to run their heads into the wolf's mouth for
Mistress Patricia.  But Sir Charles choked most of
them off.  'Gentlemen,' he says, says he, 'despite
the saying that there cannot be too much of a good
thing, I beg to remind you that the disastrous fortunes
of those who first struggled with the forest and the
Indians in this western paradise are attributed to the
fact that they were two thirds gentlemen.  Wherefore
let us shun the rock upon which they split'—"

"How many of my fellow conspirators were put to
death?" interrupted Landless.

"All the principal ones—them that Trail
denounced as leaders.  The rest we pardoned after
giving them a lesson they won't soon forget.  We let
bygones be bygones with the redemptioners and
slaves—all but those devils who got away that night at
Verney Manor, and with Trail at their head, made for
Captain Laramore's ship which was going to turn
pirate.  Well, they got to the boats, and one lot got
off safe to the ship which hoisted the black flag,
and sailed away to the Indies, and is sailing there,
murdering and ruining, to this day, I reckon.  But
the other boat was over full, and the steersman was
drunken, and she capsized before she got to the
middle of the channel.  Some were drowned, and those
that got ashore we hung next morning.  But Trail
was in the first boat."

"When do you—do we—start down the river?"

"At midnight.  And it's the Colonel's orders that
until then you stay here among the rocks and not
show yourself to the men below.  He 'll see you
before we start.  In the mean time I 'll keep you
company."  And the overseer took out his pipe and
tobacco pouch, filled the former, lighted it, and
leaning back against the rock fell to smoking in contented
silence.

Landless too sat in silence, with his head thrown
back against the rock and his face uplifted to the
growing splendor of the skies.  The night wind,
blowing mournfully around the bare hill and the broken
crag, struck upon his brow with a hint of winter in
its touch.  With it came the tide of forest sounds—the
sough of the leaves, the dull creaking of branch
against branch, the wash of the water in the reeds,
the whirr of wings, the cries of night birds—all the
low and stealthy notes of the earth chant which had
become to him as old and tenderly familiar as the
lullabies of his childhood.  Below him, at the foot of
the hill, a square of dark and stately pines was
irradiated by a great fire which burnt redly, casting
flickering shadows far across the smooth brown earth, and
around which sat or moved many figures.  Laughter
and jest, oaths and scraps of song floated up to the
lonely watcher upon the hilltop.  He heeded them
not—he was above that world—and no sound came
from that other and smaller fire blazing at some
distance from the first—and the tree trunks between
were so many and so thick that he could see naught
but the light.





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   CHAPTER XXXVII


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   VALE

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The overseer knocked the ashes from his pipe
and stuck it in his belt.  "The master," he said
curtly, getting to his feet as three cloaked figures,
followed by a negro bearing a torch, came up the
hillside and into the waste of stones beneath the crags.
Advancing to meet them, he took the torch from
Regulus's hand and fired a mass of dead and leafless vine
depending from the cliff.  In the bright light which
sprang up, filling the rocky chamber and burnishing
the face of the crags into the semblance of a cataract
of fire, the parties to the interview gazed at one
another in silence.

Colonel Verney was the first to speak.  "I am
sorry to see that you are wounded," he said gravely.

"I thank you, sir,—it is nothing."

The Colonel walked the length of the plateau twice,
then came back to his prisoner's side.  "My daughter
has told me all," he said somewhat huskily.  "That
you and the Susquehannock sought for her and found
her; that you fought for her bravely more than once;
that after the Indian was slain you guided and
protected her through the forest; that you have in all
things borne yourself towards her faithfully and
reverently, not injuring her by word, thought or deed.
My daughter is very dear to me—dearer than life.
I am not ungrateful.  I thank you very heartily."

"Mistress Patricia Verney is dear to me also," said
Sir Charles, coming forward to stand beside his
kinsman.  "I too thank the man who restores her to her
friends—to her lover."

"And I would to God," said the third figure,
advancing, "that we could save the brave man to
whom so much is owed.  If I were Governor of Virginia—"

"You could do naught, Carrington," broke in the
Colonel impatiently.  "The man is convict—outside
the pale!  A convict, and the head of an Oliverian
plot!  Scarce the King himself could pardon him!
And if he did, how long d' ye think the walls of the
gaol at Jamestown would keep him from the rabble—and
the nearest tree?  No, no, William Berkeley
does but his duty.  And yet—and yet—"

He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily,
and pulling at the curls of his periwig.  "You are a
brave man," he said at last, stopping before Landless
and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish
I could save you.  I would gladly overlook all that is
over and done with, would gladly free you, aid you,
help you, so far as might be, to retrieve your past—but
I cannot.  My hands are tied; it is impossible—you
must see for yourself that it is impossible."

"None can see that so clearly as myself, Colonel
Verney," Landless said steadily.  "I thank you for
the will none the less."

"To take you back with me," the other continued,
beginning to stride up and down again, "is to take
you back, bound, to certain death.  And there is but
one alternative—to leave you here in the wilderness.
Your presence here is known only to those upon whose
discretion I can depend.  They would hold their
tongues, and none need ever be the wiser.  But the
Settlements will be barred to you forever, and
hundreds of leagues stretch between this spot and the
Dutch or the New Englanders.  Moreover, your
description hath been sent to the authorities of each
colony.  And you are wounded, and winter is at hand.
It may be but a choice of deaths!  I would to God
there were some other way—but there is none!  You
must choose."

In the dead silence that ensued the Colonel moved
back to the side of the Surveyor-General, and the two
stood, thoughtfully regardant of the prisoner.  The
light from the partially consumed vines beginning
to wane, the overseer motioned to Regulus to collect
and apply his torch to a quantity of the fagots with
which the ground was strewn.  The negro obeyed, and
stood behind the light flame and curling smoke which
he had evoked, like the genie of an Arabian tale.
Sir Charles, left standing in the centre of the rocky
chamber, hesitated a moment, then walked with his
usual languid grace over to where Landless leaned
against a boulder, his eyes, shaded by his hand, fixed
upon the ground.

"Whichever you choose—Scylla or Charybdis—"
said Sir Charles in his most dulcet tones, "this is
probably the last time you and I will ever speak
together.  There have been passages between us in the
past, which, in the light of after event, I cannot but
regret.  You have just rendered me an inestimable
service.  I have learnt, too, that you saved my life
the night of the storming of the Manor House.  I
beg to apologize to you, sir, for any offense I may
have given you by word or deed."  And he held out
his hand with his most courtly smile.

"It becomes a dying man to be in charity with the
world he leaves," said Landless, somewhat coldly,
but with a smile too, "and so I do that which I never
thought to do," and he touched the other's fingers
with his own.

Sir Charles looked at him curiously.  "You make
a good enemy," he said lightly.  "Had it not been
predestined that we were to hate each other, I could
find it in my heart to desire you for a friend.  You
remain in the forest, I dare swear?"

"Yes," answered Landless, with his eyes upon the
light in the glade below.  "I choose the easier fate."

"The easier for all concerned," said the other with
a peculiar intonation.

Landless glanced at him keenly, but the courtier
face and the inscrutable smile told nothing.  "The
easier for myself, whom alone it concerneth," said
Landless sternly.

Dragging himself up by the rock behind him, he
turned to the two elder men.  "I have decided,
Colonel Verney," he said slowly, "I will stay here, an it
please you."

"You shall have all that we can leave you," said
the Colonel eagerly and with some emotion.
"Ammunition in plenty, food, blankets, an axe—it's
little enough I can do, God knows, but I do that little
most willingly."

"Again I thank you," said Landless wearily.

Sir Charles caught the inflection.  "You stand in
need of rest," he said courteously, "and, this
matter settled, our farther intrusion upon you is as
unnecessary as it must be unwelcome.  Had we not best
descend, gentlemen?"

"Ay," said the Colonel.  "We have done all we
could."  Then, to Landless, "With the moonrise we
drop down the river—from out your sight forever.
I have told you frankly there is no hope for you
amongst your kind in the world to which we return.
I believe there to be none.  But have you thought of
what we must needs leave you to?  Humanly speaking,
it is death, and death alone, in the winter forest."

"I have thought," said Landless.

"From my soul I wish that some miracle may occur
to save you yet!"

"An ill wish!" said the other, smiling, "with but
little chance, however, of its fulfillment."

"I fear not," said the Colonel with something like
a groan, "but I wish it, nevertheless.  Here is my
hand, and with it my heartfelt thanks for your service
to my daughter.  And I wish you to believe that I
deeply deplore your fate, and that I would have saved
you if I could."

"I believe it," Landless said simply.

The Colonel took and wrung his hand, then turned
sharply away, and beckoning the overseer to follow,
strode out of the circle of rocks.

Sir Charles raised his feathered hat.  "We have
been foes," he said, "but the strife is over—and
when all is said, we are both Englishmen.  I trust we
bear each other no ill will."

"I bear none," said Landless.

Sir Charles, his eyes still fixed upon the pale quiet
of the other's face, passed out of the opening between
the rocks, and his place was taken by the Surveyor-General.

"I would have saved you if I could," he said in a
low and troubled voice.  "I bow to a brave man and
a gallant gentleman," and he too was gone.

In the glade below, the movement, the laughter and
the song sank gradually into silence as the gentlemen
adventurers, the rangers, Indian guides, and servants
composing the rescuing party threw themselves down,
one by one, beside the blazing fires for a short rest
before moonrise and the long pull down the river.

Among the crags, high above the twinkling watch-fires
and the wash of the dark river, there was the
stillness of the stars, of the white frost and the bare
cliffs.  In the northern heavens played a soft light,
and now and then a star shot.  The man who marked
its trail across the studded skies thought of himself as
of one as far withdrawn as it from the world of lower
lights in the forest at his feet.  Already he felt a
prescience of the loneliness of the morrow, and the
morrow, and the morrow, of the slow drift of the days
in the waning forest, the hopeless nights, the terror of
that great solitude—and felt, too, a feverish desire to
hasten that approach, to embrace that which was to be
henceforth bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
He wished for the clash of oars in the dark stream
below and for the rise of the moon which was to shine
coldly down upon him, companionless, immerged in
that vast fortress from which he might never hope to
emerge.

The sound of cautious footsteps among the rocks
brought his sick and wandering fancy back to the
present.  Raising himself upon his elbow and peering
intently into the darkness, he made out two figures,
one tall and large, the other much slighter, advancing
towards him.  Presently the larger figure stopped
short, and, seating itself upon a flat rock at the brink
of the hill, turned its face towards the fires in the
woods below.  The other came on lightly and
hurriedly—another moment, and rising to his knees,
he clasped her in his arms and laid his head upon her
bosom.

"I never thought to see you again," he said at last.

"I made Regulus bring me," she answered.  "The
others do not know—they think me asleep."

She spoke in a low, even, monotonous voice, and
the hand which she laid upon his forehead was like
marble.  "My heart is dead, I think," she said.  "I
wish my body were so too."

He drew her closer to him and covered her face and
hands with kisses.  "My love, my lady," he said.
"My white rose, my woodland dove!"

She clung to him, trembling.  "Down there I
was going mad," she whispered.  "But now—now—I
feel as though I could weep."  He felt her tears
upon his face, but in a moment she was calm again.
"Do you remember the bird we found the other day,
all numbed with cold?" she said.  "It had been gay
and free and light of heart, but it had not strength to
flutter when I took it in my hands and tried to warm
it—and could not.  I am like that bird.  The world
is very gray and cold, and my heart—it will never
be warm again."

"God comfort you," he said brokenly.

"They have told me that at moonrise we leave this
place—and you.  They say that it is all they can do
for you—to leave you here.  All!—Oh, my God!"

"They have done what they could," he said gravely.
"I recognize that.  And I wish you to do so too,
sweetheart."

She looked at him wildly.  "I have been silent,"
she said, pressing her clasped hands against her bosom.
"I have not told them.  I have obeyed what I read
in your eyes.  But was it well?  Oh, my dear, let me
speak!"

He took her hands from her breast and laid them
against his own.  "No," he said with a smile, "I
love you too well for that."

From the woods across the river came the crying of
wolves, then a silence as of the grave; then a whisper
arose in the long dry grass and the leafless vines,
and a cold breeze lifted the hair from their foreheads.
The whisper grew into a murmur, prolonged and
deep, a sound as of a distant cataract, or of the dash
of surf upon a far away shore—the voice of the wind
in the world of trees.  A star shot, leaving a stream
of white fire to fade out of the dark blue sky.  From
the forest came again the cry of the wolves.  In the
camp below there seemed some stir, and the figure
seated on the rock turned its head towards them and
lifted a warning hand.

"You must go," said Landless.  "It was madness
for you to venture here.  See, the light is growing
in the east."

With a low, desolate moaning sound she wrung the
hands he released and raised her face to his.  He
kissed her upon the brow, the eyes and the mouth.
"Good-by, my life, my love, my heart," he said.
"We were happy for an hour.  Good-by!"

"I will be brave," she answered.  "I will live my
life out.  I will pray to God.  And, Godfrey, I will
be ever true to you.  I shall never see you again,
my dear, never hear of you more, never know till my
latest day whether you are of this world still, or
whether you have waited for me a long time, up there
beyond those lights.  If it—if death—should come
soon, wait for me—beyond—in perfect trust, my
dear, for I will come to you—I will come to you
as I am, Godfrey."

He bowed his face upon her hands.

The breeze freshened, and the sound of the surf
became the sound of breakers.  In the east the pale
light strengthened.  The figure below them stood up
and beckoned.

"The moon is coming," said Patricia.  "Once
before I watched for it—in terror, with pride and
anger in my heart.  Then, when I thought of you, I
hated you.  It is strange to think of that now.  Kiss
me good-by."

"I too will be strong," he said.  "I will await the
pleasure of the Lord.  Until His good time, my
bride!"

Rising to his feet he held her in his arms, then
kissed her upon the lips and put her gently from
him.  For a moment she stood like a statue, then
with a lifted face and hands clasped at her bosom, she
turned, and slowly, but without a backward look, left
the circle of rocks.  Through the opening he saw the
slave come up to her, and saw her motion to him to
fall behind—another moment, and both dark figures
had sunk below the brow of the hill.

Stronger and stronger blew the wind, louder and
louder swelled the voice of the forest.  Below, the
wash of the river in its reeds, the dull groaning of
branch grating against branch, the fall of leaf and
acorn, the loud sighing of the pines, the cry of the
owl, the panther and the wolf—above, the vast dome
of the heavens and the fading stars.  An effulgence
in the oast: a silver crest, like the white rim of a
giant wave, upon the eastern hills; a pale splendor
mounting slowly and calmly upward—a dead
world,—all her passion, all her pain, all toil and strife over
and done with,—shining down upon a sadder earth.

From beneath the shadowy banks there shot out
into the middle of the broad moonlit stream a long
canoe, followed by a second and a third, and turning,
went swiftly down that long, bright, shimmering,
rippling path.

In the last and smallest of the three boats a man
rose from his seat in the stern, and with his eyes upon
the line of moon-whitened cliffs above him, raised his
plumed hat with a courteous gesture, then bent and
spoke to a cloaked and hooded figure sitting, still and
silent, between him and a burlier form.  This canoe
was rowed by negroes, and as they rowed they sang.
The wild chant—half dirge, half frenzy—that they
raised was suited to that waste which they were
leaving.

The black lines upon the silver flood became mere
dots, and the wailing notes came up the stream faintly
and more faintly still.  For a while the echoes rolled
among the folded hills and the tall gray crags, but at
length they died away forever.

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   Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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