Part 16

"Time presses!" cried the branded man. "Woodson may come!"

They closed in upon the three who stood at bay. In their dark faces were a passion and an exaltation--they saw in the woman fallen into their hands, a sacrifice bound to the altar. Trail alone looked uneasy and held back, muttering between his teeth.

Landless stepped in front of Patricia and faced them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand that held the knife drawn back against his breast, Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he saw that it was indeed her life or theirs. On the one hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely the gibbet and the rope; on the other--

He made a gesture of command. "Thou shalt do no murder!" he cried.

"It is not murder; it is sacrifice."

"There must be another way!" cried Havisham.

"Find it!"

Havisham turned to the prisoner. "Madam, will you swear to be silent concerning what you have heard?"

The Muggletonian laughed wildly. "Who trusts a woman's oath!"

"You shall have no need," said the lady of the manor calmly. She paused and her eyes went to the door in an intent and listening gaze, then came back to the faces about her with a strange light in their depths. "Rebel servants," she said in a clear, low voice, "I defy you! And you, false slave, stand from before me. I need not your hateful aid." In the moment of ominous silence that followed, she swayed towards the door, her hand at her throat, her soul in her eyes. Suddenly she cried out, "My father! Charles! help!"

From without came an answering cry, followed by a rush of men through the door, and in an instant the room was filled with struggling forms as the two parties threw themselves upon each other. The newcomers were half a dozen blacks, the two overseers and Sir Charles Carew. The overseers had pistols and Sir Charles his sword. With it he met the rush of the youth with the hectic cheek, who came towards him in long, hound-like leaps, brandishing a piece of wood above his head, and drove the blade deep into the chest of the fanatic. The wretched man staggered and fell, then rose to his knees. Flinging his arms above his head, he turned his worn face towards the flood of sunshine pouring in through the door, and cried in a loud voice, "I see!" A stream of blood gushed from his lips, his arms dropped, and without a groan he fell back, dead.

Landless, wrestling with the slave Regulus, at length succeeded in hurling the powerful figure to the ground, where it lay stunned, and turned to find himself confronted by Woodson's pistol and the point of Sir Charles's rapier. A glance showed him the remaining conspirators, overpowered, and in the act of being bound with the ropes that had lain, coiled for use in packing, in the corners of the tobacco house. The hectic youth lay, a ghastly spectacle, in a pool of blood across the doorway. At his feet was the branded man, a bullet through his brain, and near him the groaning figure of Havisham's mortally wounded companion. The woman who had brought all this to pass stood unharmed, white, with tragic, exultant eyes.

Sir Charles, serene and debonair, lowered his point. "Your hand is played," he said with a fine smile. Landless's stern, despairing gaze passed him and went on to the overseer. "I surrender to you," he said briefly.

Woodson chuckled grimly and stuck his pistol in his belt. He was in high good humor, visions of reward and thanks from the Assembly dancing before his eyes. "I 've had my eye on you for some time, young man," he said almost genially. "I 've suspected that you were up to something, but Lord! to think that a woman's wit should have trapped you at last! Haines, bring that rope over here."

Sir Charles went over to Patricia and offered her his arm. "Dearest and bravest of women!" he said in a caressing whisper. "Come with me from this place, which must be dreadful to you."

She did not answer him at once, but stood looking past him at the picture of laughing water and waving forest framed in the doorway.

"I thought I should never see the sunshine again," she said dreamily. "Did Margery give _you_ the message?"

"Yes, she met me under the mulberries. I would not wait to rouse your father, but calling the overseers and the blacks from the fields, came at once."

"I owe you my life," she said. "You and--"

Her eyes left the summer outside and came back to the shadowy forms within the tobacco house. "I will go with you directly, cousin," she said quietly, "but first I wish to speak to that man."

He shot a swift glance at her face, but drew back with a bow, and she walked with a steady step up to Landless. "Fall back a little," she said with an imperious wave of her hand to the men about him. They obeyed her. Landless, left standing before her, his arms bound to his sides, raised his head and looked her in the face. She met his eyes. "You lied to me," she said in a low, even voice.

"Once, madam, and to save others," he said proudly.

"Not once, but twice. Do you think that now I believe that tale you told me that night, that fairy tale of persecuted innocence? When I think that I ever believed it I hate myself."

"Nevertheless, it is true, madam."

"It is false! Yesterday I thought of you as a gallant gentleman, greatly wronged ... and I pitied you. To-day I am wiser."

He held her eyes with his own for a moment, then let them go. "Some day you will know," he said.

She turned from him and held out her hands to Sir Charles. He hurried to her and she clung to him. "Take me away," she said in a whisper. "Take me home."

He put his arm about her. "You are faint," he said tenderly. "Come! the air will revive you."

Supporting her on his arm, he guided her from the house. As they passed the body stretched across the threshold, the skirt of her robe touched the blood in which it was lying. She saw it and shuddered.

"Blood is upon me!" she said. "It is an omen!"

"A good one, then," said her companion coolly, "for it is the blood of a fanatic traitor. Think not of it." He turned at the threshold and cast a careless glance back into the tobacco house. "Woodson, get rid of this carrion, and bring these men quietly to the great house, where your master will deal with them."

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*THE QUESTION*

"We know all but two things, but those are the most important of all," said the Governor, tapping his jeweled fingers against the table.

"It is much to be regretted," said the Surveyor-General, "that the presence of the young lady was so soon discovered. Otherwise--"

"Otherwise we might have had further information on more than one subject," said the Governor dryly.

"We must make the best of what we have," continued Carrington calmly. "After all, it is enough."

The Governor rose and began to pace the floor, his head thoughtfully bent, his unwounded hand tugging at the curls of his periwig. "It is not enough," he said at length, pausing before the great table around which the company were seated. "Thanks to the gallant daughter of the gallant Verneys,"--a bow and smile to Patricia, sitting enthroned in the great chair in their midst,--"we know much, but it is not enough. These rogues have set a day upon which to rise; they have appointed a place to which they are to resort. That day may be to-morrow, that place any point in any one of a dozen counties."

"I apprehend that the cockatrice was to be hatched near by," said Sir Charles.

"It is the likeliest thing," answered the Governor, "seeing that their ringleader belongs to this plantation. But we do not know. And there may not be time to reach the planters, to give them warning, to arrest these d--d traitors, scattered as they are from the James to Rappahannock, and from Henricus to the Chesapeake. It might be best to assemble the trainbands at this cursed spot if it can be found, and to await their coming in force. But to know neither time nor place--to start a hue and cry and have the storm burst before it reaches ten plantations--to guard one point and see fire rise at another a dozen leagues away--impossible! Gentlemen, we must come at the heart of this matter!"

"It is most advisable," said Colonel Verney gravely. "Examine the prisoners again," suggested Sir Charles.

"One of them is no wiser than we. You are certain as to this, Mistress Patricia?"

"Yes, your Excellency."

"Humph! one does not know; three are dead, there remain, then, that shaven and branded runaway and the two convicts."

"You will learn naught from the runaway, your Excellency!" called out the overseer from where he stood at a respectful distance from the company. "He 's one of them crazy fanatics that wild horses could n't draw truth from. No Indian torture stake could make him speak if he did n't want to,--nor keep him from it if he did."

"I know that kind," said the Governor, with a short laugh, "and we will not waste time upon him, but will try if the convict--he who seems to have been their leader--be not more amenable. Bring him in, Woodson."

When the overseer had gone, a silence fell upon the company gathered in the master's room. The Governor paced to and fro, perplexity in his face; the Colonel knit his grizzled brows and studied the floor; Dr. Anthony Nash brought the writing materials displayed upon the table, closer to him, and held a quill ready poised for dipping into the ink horn, while the Surveyor-General with a carefully composed countenance toyed with a pink which he took from the bowl of flowers before him. Sir Charles leaned back in his seat and looked at Patricia who, seated between him and her father, stared before her with hard, bright eyes. Her lips were like a scarlet flower against the absolute pallor of her face; her hair was a crown of pale gold. In the great chair, her white arms resting upon the dark wood, her feet upon a carved footstool, she looked a queen, and the knot of brilliantly dressed gentlemen her attendant council.

The door opened and the two overseers appeared with Landless, who advanced and stood, silent and collected, before the ring of hostile faces.

"What is your name, sirrah?" said the Governor, throwing himself into his chair and frowning heavily.

"Godfrey Landless."

"I am told that you are son to one Warham Landless, a so-called colonel in the rebel army and hand in glove with the usurper himself."

"I am the son of Colonel Warham Landless of the forces of the Commonwealth, and friend to his Highness the Lord Protector."

"Humph! And did you fight in these same forces yourself?"

"At Worcester, yes."

"Humph! the son of a traitor and rebel--traitor and rebel yourself--and convict to boot! A pretty record! On what day was this rising to occur?"

No answer. The Governor repeated the question. "On what day was this precious mine to be sprung? And to what place were you to resort?"

Landless remaining silent, the Governor's face began to flush and the veins in his forehead to swell. "Have you lost your tongue?" he said fiercely. "If so, we will find a way to recover it."

"I shall not answer those questions," said Landless firmly.

"It is your one chance for life," said the Governor sternly. "Answer me truly, and you may escape the gallows. Refuse, and you hang, so surely as I sit here."

"I shall not answer them."

"Sink me if I ever knew a Roundhead so careless of his own interests," drawled Sir Charles. The Governor whispered to the master of the plantation, then turned again to the prisoner.

"I give you one more chance," he said harshly. "When is this day? Where is this place?"

"I shall not tell you."

"We will see about that," said his Excellency with compressed lips. "Verney, send your daughter from the room. Woodson, you understand this gear, having been in the Indies. This man is to tell us all that he knows of this business. Call in a trustworthy slave or two to help you."

Patricia uttered a low cry, and the Surveyor-General crushed the flower between his fingers and turned upon the Governor. "Your Excellency! I protest! This that you would do is not lawful! Surely such harsh measures are not needed."

The Governor's fury exploded. "Not needful!" he exclaimed in a high voice. "Not needful, when upon these questions hang the fortunes of the Colony! when if we fail, to-morrow may usher in a blacker forty-four! And not lawful! I am the law in this State, Major Carrington; I am the King's representative, and this is my prerogative! and I say that by fair means or foul this information must be gained. This is no time to prate of humanity. We are to show humanity to ourselves; we are to stamp out this lit fuse. Or does Major Carrington wish it to burn on?"

"No," said Carrington coldly. "I spoke hastily. You are right, of course, and I will interfere no further."

An hour later Patricia stood before the hall window looking out upon the dazzling water and the green velvet of the marshes with wide, unseeing eyes. Her hands were clenched at her sides and upon each cheek burned a crimson spot. Beside her crouched Betty Carrington who, upon the first rumor of trouble at Verney Manor, had ridden over from Rosemead. Their strained ears caught no sound from the room opposite other than the occasional sound of the Governor's voice, raised in interrogation. There came no answering voice. Patricia stood motionless, with eyes that never wandered from the rich scene without, and with lips pressed together, but Betty hid her face in the other's skirts and shivered. The door of the master's room opened and both started violently. The overseer strode down the hall and had laid his hand upon the latch of the door leading to the offices, when his mistress called him to her. "Do they know? Has the man told?" she asked with an effort.

Woodson shook his head. "He 's as dumb as an oyster. Might as well try to get anything from an Indian. They 're going to try t' other--Trail."

He left the hall, but was back in five minutes' time with the forger. They entered the master's room, and Patricia, seized by a sudden impulse, followed them, leaving Betty trembling in the window scat.

Unnoted by all but one of the company, she slipt to a seat in the shadow of her father's burly shoulders. He was leaning forward, talking to the Governor, who sat very erect, his features fixed in an expression of dogged determination. The Surveyor-General sat well behind the table, and upon the polished wood before him lay a little heap of torn petals and broken stems. At the far end of the room and leaning heavily against the wall was the prisoner whose examination was just finished.

Sir Charles had seen the entrance of the lady of the manor, and he now rose from his seat and came to her. "Not a syllable," he whispered in answer to the question in her eyes. "Roundhead obstinacy! But I think that this fellow will prove more malleable."

His prediction was verified. Ten minutes later the Governor rose to his feet triumphant. "So!" he said, drawing a long breath. "We are, I think, gentlemen, at the very core at last. The time, day after to-morrow; the place, Poplar Spring in this county. And now to work! Those of these d--d Oliverians whom we can reach must be arrested at once. Swift messengers must be sent to all plantations far and near. The trainbands must be called out. Time presses, gentlemen!"

"And these men?" said the Colonel.

"Must go to Jamestown gaol, where the one shall hang as surely as my name is William Berkeley. For the other--"

"Your Excellency has promised me my life," said Trail cringingly, but with an inscrutable something that was not fear in his sinister green eyes.

"An escort must be gotten together," said the Colonel, "and the day is far advanced. I advise keeping them here until the morning."

"See that you keep them straitly then," said the Governor.

"Trust me for that, your Excellency," said the overseer grimly.

"Then to work, gentlemen," cried the Governor, "for there is much to do and but little time to do it in. Major Carrington, you with Mr. Peyton will ride with me to Jamestown. Colonel Verney, you will know what measures to take for the safety of your shire. Woodson, have the horses brought around at once."

The Council broke up in haste and confusion, and its members, talking eagerly, streamed into the hall. Carrington was the last in line, and he paused before Landless. The under overseer and the slave Regulus were at a little distance replacing the cords about Trail's arms. The Surveyor-General cast a quick glance towards the door, saw that the last retreating figure was that of Mr. Peyton, and approached his lips close to Landless's ear.

"You are a brave man," he said in a low and troubled voice. "From my soul I honor you! I would have saved you, would save you now if I could. But I am cruelly placed."

"I have no hope for this life--and no fear," said Landless calmly.

Carrington paused irresolute, and a flush rose to his face. "I would like to hear you say that you do not blame me," he said at last with an effort.

"I do not blame you," said Landless.

Woodson appeared in the doorway. "The Governor is waiting, Major Carrington."

"If I can do ought to help you, I will," said Carrington hastily, and left the room. A moment later came the jingling of reins and the sound of rapid hoofs quickening into the planter's pace as the Governor and the Surveyor-General whirled away.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*A MESSAGE*

In an unused attic room of the great house lay Godfrey Landless, cords about his ankles, and his arms bound to his sides by cords and by a thick rope, one end of which was fastened to a beam on the wall. He was alone, for the Muggletonian, Havisham and Trail were confined in the overseer's house. Opposite him was a small window framing a square of sky. He had watched light clouds drift across it, and the sun pass slowly and majestically down it, and the sunset turn the clouds into floating blood-red plumes. He had been there since noon. Thick walls kept from him all sound in the house below--it might have been a house of the dead. Through the closed window came the low, incessant hum of the summer world without, but no unusual noise. He had heard the sunset horn, and the song of the slaves coming from the fields, and as dusk began to fall, the cry of a whip-poor-will.

When the door had closed upon the retreating figures of the men who brought him there, he had thrown himself upon the floor where he lay, faint from physical anguish, in a stupor of misery, conscious only of a sick longing for death. This mood had passed and he was himself again.

As he lay with his eyes following the fiery, shifting feathers of cloud, he remembered that the gaol at Jamestown faced the south, and he thought, "This is the last sunset I shall ever see." He had the strong abiding faith of his time and party, and he looked beyond the clouds with an awe and a light in his eyes. Verses learnt at his mother's knee came back to him; he said them over to himself, and the tender, solemn, beneficent words fell like balm upon his troubled heart. He thought of his mother who had died young, and then of scenes and occurrences of his childhood. All earthly hope was past, there could be no more struggling; in a little while he would be dead. Dying, his mind reverted, not to the sordid misery from which death would set him free, but to the long past, to the child at the mother's knee, to the boy who had climbed down great cliffs in search of a smuggler's cave. The unearthly light that rests upon that time so far behind us shone strong for him--he saw every twig in the rooks' nests in the lofty elms, every ivy leaf about a ruined oriel, black against a gold sky; the cool, dark smell of the box alleys filled his nostrils: the sound of the sea came to him; he heard his mother singing on the terrace. He bowed his face with a sudden rain of tender, not sorrowful, tears.

Something crashed in at the window, splintering the coarse glass and falling upon the floor at a little distance from him. It was a large pebble, to which was tied a piece of paper. He started up and made for it, to be brought up within two feet of it by the tug of the rope which bound him to the wall. He thought a moment, then lay down upon the floor and found that he could touch the end of the string that tied the paper to the pebble. He took it between his teeth and slowly drew it towards him, then, rising to his knees, he strained with all his might at the cords that bound his arms. They were tightly drawn, but when at length he desisted, panting, he had so loosened them that he could move one hand a very little way. With it and with his teeth he disengaged the paper from the pebble and spread it upon his knee. There was just light enough to read the sprawling schoolboy hand with which it was covered. It ran thus:--

"I don't know as this will ever reach you. I am doing all I can. Luiz Sebastian has not let me get at arm's length from him since I overheard him and the Turk, and a sailor from Captain Laramore's ship and _Roach_ at the hut on the marsh, two hours ago. They would have killed me there, but I ran, and he did not catch me until I was almost to the quarters. He will kill me though in a little while, I know; he has a knife and he is sitting on the door-step, and the Turk is with him, and I can not pass them. He held his hand over my mouth and the knife to my heart when Woodson went the rounds, and I could n't make no sound--Lord have mercy upon me! I write this with my blood, on a leaf from your Bible, while he sits there whispering to the Turk. He goes to his own cabin directly and he will take me with him and kill me there, I know he will. He goes to the stables first and I must go with him. If we pass close enough, and if I can do it without his seeing me I will throw this in at the window of the room where I know you are, if not--the Lord help us all! ... Landless, for God's sake! before moonrise to-night the Chickahominies and the Ricahecrians from the Blue Mountains will come down on the plantation. With them are leagued Luiz Sebastian, the Turk, Trail, Roach, and most of the slaves.... When all is over, the Indians will take the scalps and Grey Wolf and will make for the Blue Mountains; Luiz Sebastian and the others will seize the boats and put off for the ship at the Point. Her crew will give her up and they will all turn pirate together. The women go with them if they can keep them from the Indians; the men are all to be killed.... I have told you all I heard. For God's sake, save them if you can,--and remember poor Dick Whittington."