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

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

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

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

"A Quaker?"

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

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

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

"You are a Muggletonian?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I fought at Worcester."

"Upon which side?"

"The Commonwealth's."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Shall you try to escape?" he whispered.

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

Win-Grace Porringer shook his head.

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

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

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

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

The man gave him another sidelong look.

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

"A better way!"

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

"Go with you! Where?"

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

"Many can do that, friend."

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

"Who is he?"

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

"If we are caught—"

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

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



CHAPTER VI

THE HUT ON THE MARSH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You did not come as an indented servant?"

Landless reddened. "No."

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

"No."

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

"No."

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

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

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

"Who would believe me if I did?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Godfrey Landless."

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

"He was my father."

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

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

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

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

"No," said Landless grimly.

"You were heart and hand for the Commonwealth?"

"Yes."

"You mean to escape from this bondage?"

"Yes."

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

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

The man brought his serene, white face nearer.

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

"My life," said Landless.

"Would you give it still?"

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

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

There was a pause broken by the mender of nets.

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

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

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

"What way?"

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

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

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

"Of Virginia!"

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

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

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

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

"Robert Godwyn is my name."

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

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

"Any one else?"

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

"And these all desire a republic?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Then you are concerned with the Nonconformists?"

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

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

"Not we alone."

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

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

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

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

"A slave insurrection," he said.



CHAPTER VII

A MENDER OF NETS

"A slave insurrection!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And the royalists?"

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

"The servants and slaves?"

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

"This insurrection is actually in train?"

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

"And you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"They are Oliverians?"

"All but two or three."

"I secured the mulatto," interrupted the Muggletonian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Faith, it is so!" said the other, then turned to Landless with a stern smile. "You will understand, young man, that Miles Carrington never attended, nor will attend, a meeting wherein the peace of the realm is conspired against by servants. If Miles Carrington ever visits Robert Godwyn, servant to Colonel Verney, 'tis simply to employ him (with his master's consent) in the mending of nets, or to pass an idle hour reading Plato, Robert Godwyn having been a scholar of note at home."

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

"Precisely," said Carrington with a smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VIII

THE NEW SECRETARY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IX

AN INTERRUPTED WOOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I will teach you to do so."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, Aunt Lettice."

"It is very strange," said Mrs. Lettice plaintively. "I am sure that I left it in this room. 'Tis that careless slut of a Chloe who deserves a whipping. She hides things away like a magpie."

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

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

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

"'Tis a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there, waiting to cut all our throats in the dead of night as the Redemptioner did to the family at Martin-Brandon! Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her apron over her head, and sank into the nearest chair.

Patricia started up. Sir Charles, striding hastily towards the window, his hand upon his sword, was met by the emerging figure of Landless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And for what?"

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

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

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

"Some day I hope to teach you otherwise."

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

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

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

Landless sprang forward and struck him in the face.

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

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



CHAPTER X

LANDLESS PAYS THE PIPER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have you seen him to-day?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Put it down!" she said quickly.

The man continued to strip it of its leafy mantle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To the Breaking Heart!" exclaimed her auditors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XI

LANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR

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

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

"What is it?" he asked quickly.

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

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

"I could not come before."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Drink, lad," he said with grave tenderness. "'Tis 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.