CHAPTER XVTHE WATERS OF CHESAPEAKEPatricia 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 sparehim.""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 areafraidof 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.CHAPTER XVITHE FACE IN THE DARKPatricia 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.CHAPTER XVIILANDLESS AND PATRICIAFor 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.
CHAPTER XV
THE 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 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 sparehim."
"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 areafraidof 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.
CHAPTER XVI
THE FACE IN THE DARK
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.
CHAPTER XVII
LANDLESS AND PATRICIA
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.