Part 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How is it that you are here?"

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

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

"Very well," was the indifferent reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you want?" asked Landless sternly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Dick Whittington."

"Dick Whittington!"

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

Landless laughed. "So you ran away?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I have found variety enough," said Landless.

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

"I shall not wait to see."

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

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

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

"If it succeeds."

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

"You are a philosopher."

"What's that?"

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

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

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

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

*CHAPTER XII*

*A DARK DEED*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hail him," Landless replied.

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

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

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

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

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

"Nothing: but let us hasten."

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

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

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

"The door is open," said Landless.

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

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

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

"He is not here," he said.

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

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

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