CHAPTER XIIIIN THE TOBACCO HOUSE
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 debris 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 couldn'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 of 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 doorpost,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 asteady 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.[1]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."
"I'm off," said Roach, breaking from the detaining grasp.
"Wait," said Luiz Sebastian. "There is 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."
[1]The modern York.
[1]The modern York.
CHAPTER XIVA MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION
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 Godwyn. 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-uttered, 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 paleface 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 thedogs 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 warpath. 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 featuresworking 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 Carringtonmustspeak 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 night-cap, 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 agreat 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."
"'Tis 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 livingthat 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, whenyour 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."
"'Tis 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, afterreading 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 rodof 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."
"'Tis 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 theother, 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.
CHAPTER XVTHE WATERS OF CHESAPEAKE
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 iswrong, 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 wouldn't want two men. You might go on a pillion behind old Abraham. I could sparehim."
"I shall not go a-horseback. 'Tis 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."
"'Tis 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 ofshell 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 isn'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 isn'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 of 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 downthe 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 handmaiden, 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 Alpinerange 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 areafraidof a Virginiasquall? 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 up 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 whereRegulus 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. "'Tis 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 splinteredwood 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, Landlessseized 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.