"They have found this pass too formidable," said Landless. "They will try now to force an entrance from the side. Do you watch the front, my queen, while I face them, coming over the rocks."

"I looked only at the mulatto," she said. "The others are shadows to me."

"His time is come," said Landless. "Do not fear him, sweetheart."

"I fear not," she answered. "I have the perfect love."

Along the top of a tall boulder to their right appeared a dark red line—the arm of a savage, with clutching fingers. Above it, very slowly and cautiously, there rose first an eagle's feather, then a coarse black scalp lock, then a high forehead and fierce eyes. The echo of Landless's shot reverberated through the cliffs, and when the smoke cleared only the bare gray boulder faced him. But from behind it came a derisive yell.

"Thou wilt think me a poor marksman, my dear," he said, smiling, as he reloaded his musket. "I have missed again."

"It is because you are wounded," she said. "I would I had thy wounds."

"I had a wounded heart, but you have healed it," he said, and looked at her with shining eyes.

The sun sank and the long twilight of the hills set in. The evening star was brightening through the pale amethyst of the sky when Landless said quietly: "The last charge," and emptied it into an arm which for one incautious moment had waved above the rocks.

"It is the end, then," said Patricia.

"Yes, it is the end. We have beaten them back for the moment, but presently they will find that all we could do we have done, and then—"

She left her post beside the gap in the front, and came and knelt beside him, and he took her in his arms.

"It is not Death before us, but Life," she said in a low voice.

"It is God and Love, naught else," he answered. "But the river between will be bitter for you to cross, sweetheart."

"We cross it together," she said, "and so—" She raised her head that he might see her radiant smile, and their lips met.

"Hark!" she said directly with her hand on his. "What is that sound?"

He shook his head. "The wind has risen, and the forest rustles and sighs. There is nothing more."

"It is far off," she answered, "but it is like the dip of oars. Ah!"

Over against them, framed in the narrow opening between the rocks, his lithe, half-nude figure dark against the crimson west, and with a smile upon his evil lips and in his evil eyes, stood Luiz Sebastian. In the dead silence that succeeded he looked with a smiling; countenance from the musket, now useless and thrown aside, to his enemy, wounded and unarmed save for a knife, and to the woman in that enemy's arms; then, without turning, he said a few words in an Indian tongue. From the dusky mass behind him came one short, wild cry of savage triumph, followed by another dead silence.

Still holding Patricia in one arm, Landless rose from his knee, and stood confronting him.

"We are met again, Senor Landless," said Luiz Sebastian smoothly. Receiving no answer, he spoke again with a tigerish expansion of his thick lips. "You have had an accident, I see. Mother of God! that foot must pain you! But you will forget it presently in the pleasure of the pine splinters."

"I will forget it in the pleasure of this," said Landless, releasing Patricia, and springing upon the mulatto with a suddenness and violence that sent them both staggering through the opening between the rocks, out upon the narrow plateau and into the ring of Ricahecrians. Luiz Sebastian was strong, with the easy masked strength of the panther, but Landless had the strength of despair. The mulatto, thrown heavily to the ground, and pinned there by his adversary's knee, saw the gleam of the lifted knife, and would have seen nothing more in this life, but that a woman's cry rang out and saved him. Landless heard, turned, saw Patricia dragged from the shelter of the rocks, leaped to his feet, leaving his work undone, and rushed upon the knot of savages with whom she was struggling. A moment saw him beside her with the Indian who had held her dead at his feet. Behind them was the great boulder which had formed the front wall of their chamber of defense. He put his arm around her, and drew her back with him until they stood against this rock, then faced the advancing savages with uplifted knife.

So determined was his attitude, so terribly had they proved his power, so certain it was that before he should be taken one at least of their number would taste that knife, that the Ricahecrians paused, swaying to and fro, yelling, working themselves into a fury that should send them on like maddened brutes, blind and deaf to all things but their lust for blood.

"I hear a sound of footsteps over the leaves," said Patricia.

"The wind rustles in them, or the deer pass," answered Landless. "Oh, my life! are you content?"

She answered with a low, clear laugh. "I hold happiness fast," she said. "It cannot escape us now."

"They are coming," he said. "The last kiss, heart of my heart."

Their lips met, and their eyes with a smile in them met, and then he put her gently behind him, and turned to again face Luiz Sebastian.

With his eyes fixed upon the yellow face, he had raised his hand to strike at the yellow breast, spotted and barred with the black of the war paint, when an Indian, gliding between, struck up his arm, and sent the knife tinkling down upon the rocks. With a yell of triumph the savage snatched up the weapon, and brandished it, showing it to his fellows, who, seeing their work accomplished, and the two whom they had tracked so far actually in their hands, made the forest ring with their exultant shouts. A few closed in around the devoted pair, directing at them fiendish cries and no less fiendish laughter, and menacing them with knife and tomahawk, but the majority streamed down the steep and into the forest at its base.

"They go to gather wood," said the still smiling Luiz Sebastian. "By and by we are to have a bonfire. Senor Landless has often carried wood, I think, in those old times when he was a slave, and when the pretty mistress behind him there treated him as such—unless she gave him favors in secret. But, Mother of God! now that she has made him master, we must carry the wood for him!"

Landless, standing with folded arms, looked at him with quiet scorn. "It is the nature of the viper to use his venom," he said calmly. "Such a thing cannot anger me."

"At the same time it is as well to crush the viper," said a voice at his elbow.

The speaker, who was Sir Charles Carew, had come from behind the boulders which ran in a straggling line down the hillside toward the river. He had his drawn sword in his hand, and as he spoke, he ran the mulatto through the body. The wretch, his oath of rage and astonishment still upon his lips, fell to the ground without a groan, writhed there a moment or two, and then lay still forever.

From the forest below rose a loud confusion of shouts and cries, followed by a volley of musketry. At the sound the half dozen savages upon the plateau turned and plunged down the hillside, to be met before they reached the bottom by the upward rush of a portion of the rescuing party. For a short while the twilight glades, low hills and frowning crags rang to the sound of a miniature battle, to the quick crack of muskets, the clear shouts of the whites, and the whoops of the savages. But by degrees these latter became fainter, further between, died away—a short ten minutes, and there were no warriors left to return to the village in the Blue Mountains. Fierce shedders of blood, they were paid in their own coin.

On the hilltop Sir Charles shot his rapier into its scabbard, and strode over to Patricia, standing white and still against the rock. "I was in time," he said. "Thank God!"

She made no motion to meet his extended hands, but stood looking past him at Landless. Her face was like marble, her eyes one dumb question. Landless met their gaze, and in his own she read despair, renunciation, strong resolve—and a long farewell.

"You are come in time, Sir Charles Carew," he said. "A little more, and we should have been beyond your reach. You will find the lady safe and well, though shaken, as you see, by this last alarm. She will speak for me, I trust, will tell you that I have used her with all respect, that I have done for her all that I could do.... Madam, all danger is past. Will you not collect yourself and speak to your kinsman and savior?"

He spoke with a certain calm stateliness of voice and manner, as of one who has passed beyond all emotion, whether of hope or fear, and in his eyes which he kept fixed upon her there was a command.

"Speak to me, my cousin; tell me that I am welcome," said Sir Charles, flinging himself upon his knee before her.

With a strong shudder she looked away from the still, white, and sternly composed face opposite to the darkening river and the evening star shining calmly down upon a waste world.

At length she spoke. "I was all but beyond this world, cousin, so pardon me if I seem to come back to it somewhat tardily. You have my thanks, of course—my dear thanks—for saving my life—my life which is so precious to me."

She gave him her hand with a strange smile, and he pressed his lips upon it. "Your father is below, dearest cousin. Shall we descend to meet him? As to this—gentleman," turning with a smile that was like a frown to Landless, "I regret that circumstances combine to prevent our rewarding him as the guardian (a trusty one, I am sure) of so precious a jewel should be rewarded. But Colonel Verney will do—I will do—all that is possible. In the mean time I observe with regret that he is wounded. If he will allow me, I will send him my valet, who is below, and is the best barber surgeon in the three kingdoms. Come, dearest madam."

He bowed low and ceremoniously to Landless, who returned the salute with grave courtesy, and gave his hand to Patricia. For one moment she looked at Landless with wide, dark eyes, then, her spirit obedient to his spirit, she turned and went from him without one word or backward look.

The color had quite faded from the west, and the stars were thickening when Landless became conscious that the overseer was standing beside him. "You are the hardest one to hold that ever I saw," said that worthy grimly, and yet with a certain appreciation of the qualities that made the man at his feet hard to hold showing in his tone, "but I fancy we've got you at last. You've gone and put yourself in bilboes."

Landless smiled. "This time you may keep me. I shall not interfere. But tell me how you come here. You were sent back to the Plantations."

"Ay," said the other, "and there was the devil to pay, I can tell you, when I had to report you missing to Sir William. But Major Carrington stood my friend, and I got off with a tongue-drubbing. Well, after about three weeks or so, during which time the dogs and the searchers brought back most all of the runaway niggers, and Mistress Lettice had hysterics every day, back comes the Colonel and Sir Charles with ten of the twenty men who had rowed them up the Pamunkey. The rest had fallen in a brush with the Monacans. They hadn't come up with the Ricahecrians, hadn't seen hair nor hide of them, had but one report from the Indian villages along the river, and that was that no Ricahecrians had passed that way. So after a while they were forced to believe that they were upon a false scent, and back they comes post haste to the Plantations to get more men, and go up the Rappahannock. Well, they went up the Rappahannock, and found nothing to their purpose, so back they came again to try the James and the country above the Falls. This time they found the Settlements, which had been before like an overturned hive, pretty quiet, the ringleaders of your precious plot having all been strung up, and the rest made as mild as sheep with branding and whipping and doubling of times. So, the tobacco being in and the plantation quiet, things were left to Haines, and I came along with the Colonel. Major Carrington, too, who they say is in the Governor's black books, though Lord knows he was active enough in stamping out this insurrection, asked to be allowed to join in the search for his old friend's daughter, and so he's down in the woods yonder. And Mr. Cary is there, and Mr. Peyton (Mistress Betty Carrington made him come) and Mr. Jaclyn Carter. Fegs! half the young gentry in the colony pressed their services on the Colonel. It got to be the fashion to volunteer to run their heads into the wolf's mouth for Mistress Patricia. But Sir Charles choked most of them off. 'Gentlemen,' he says, says he, 'despite the saying that there cannot be too much of a good thing, I beg to remind you that the disastrous fortunes of those who first struggled with the forest and the Indians in this western paradise are attributed to the fact that they were two thirds gentlemen. Wherefore let us shun the rock upon which they split'—"

"How many of my fellow conspirators were put to death?" interrupted Landless.

"All the principal ones—them that Trail denounced as leaders. The rest we pardoned after giving them a lesson they won't soon forget. We let bygones be bygones with the redemptioners and slaves—all but those devils who got away that night at Verney Manor, and with Trail at their head, made for Captain Laramore's ship which was going to turn pirate. Well, they got to the boats, and one lot got off safe to the ship which hoisted the black flag, and sailed away to the Indies, and is sailing there, murdering and ruining, to this day, I reckon. But the other boat was over full, and the steersman was drunken, and she capsized before she got to the middle of the channel. Some were drowned, and those that got ashore we hung next morning. But Trail was in the first boat."

"When do you—do we—start down the river?"

"At midnight. And it's the Colonel's orders that until then you stay here among the rocks and not show yourself to the men below. He'll see you before we start. In the mean time I'll keep you company." And the overseer took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, filled the former, lighted it, and leaning back against the rock fell to smoking in contented silence.

Landless too sat in silence, with his head thrown back against the rock and his face uplifted to the growing splendor of the skies. The night wind, blowing mournfully around the bare hill and the broken crag, struck upon his brow with a hint of winter in its touch. With it came the tide of forest sounds—the sough of the leaves, the dull creaking of branch against branch, the wash of the water in the reeds, the whirr of wings, the cries of night birds—all the low and stealthy notes of the earth chant which had become to him as old and tenderly familiar as the lullabies of his childhood. Below him, at the foot of the hill, a square of dark and stately pines was irradiated by a great fire which burnt redly, casting flickering shadows far across the smooth brown earth, and around which sat or moved many figures. Laughter and jest, oaths and scraps of song floated up to the lonely watcher upon the hilltop. He heeded them not—he was above that world—and no sound came from that other and smaller fire blazing at some distance from the first—and the tree trunks between were so many and so thick that he could see naught but the light.



CHAPTER XXXVII

VALE

The overseer knocked the ashes from his pipe and stuck it in his belt. "The master," he said curtly, getting to his feet as three cloaked figures, followed by a negro bearing a torch, came up the hillside and into the waste of stones beneath the crags. Advancing to meet them, he took the torch from Regulus's hand and fired a mass of dead and leafless vine depending from the cliff. In the bright light which sprang up, filling the rocky chamber and burnishing the face of the crags into the semblance of a cataract of fire, the parties to the interview gazed at one another in silence.

Colonel Verney was the first to speak. "I am sorry to see that you are wounded," he said gravely.

"I thank you, sir,—it is nothing."

The Colonel walked the length of the plateau twice, then came back to his prisoner's side. "My daughter has told me all," he said somewhat huskily. "That you and the Susquehannock sought for her and found her; that you fought for her bravely more than once; that after the Indian was slain you guided and protected her through the forest; that you have in all things borne yourself towards her faithfully and reverently, not injuring her by word, thought or deed. My daughter is very dear to me—dearer than life, I am not ungrateful. I thank you very heartily."

"Mistress Patricia Verney is dear to me also," said Sir Charles, coming forward to stand beside his kinsman. "I too thank the man who restores her to her friends—to her lover."

"And I would to God," said the third figure, advancing, "that we could save the brave man to whom so much is owed. If I were Governor of Virginia—"

"You could do naught, Carrington," broke in the Colonel impatiently. "The man is convict—outside the pale! A convict, and the head of an Oliverian plot! Scarce the King himself could pardon him! And if he did, how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him from the rabble—and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but his duty. And yet—and yet—"

He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I could save you. I would gladly overlook all that is over and done with, would gladly free you, aid you, help you, so far as might be, to retrieve your past—but I cannot. My hands are tied; it is impossible—you must see for yourself that it is impossible."

"None can see that so clearly as myself, Colonel Verney," Landless said steadily. "I thank you for the will none the less."

"To take you back with me," the other continued, beginning to stride up and down again, "is to take you back, bound, to certain death. And there is but one alternative—to leave you here in the wilderness. Your presence here is known only to those upon whose discretion I can depend. They would hold their tongues, and none need ever be the wiser. But the Settlements will be barred to you forever, and hundreds of leagues stretch between this spot and the Dutch or the New Englanders. Moreover, your description hath been sent to the authorities of each colony. And you are wounded, and winter is at hand. It may be but a choice of deaths! I would to God there were some other way—but there is none! You must choose."

In the dead silence that ensued the Colonel moved back to the side of the Surveyor-General, and the two stood, thoughtfully regardant of the prisoner. The light from the partially consumed vines beginning to wane, the overseer motioned to Regulus to collect and apply his torch to a quantity of the fagots with which the ground was strewn. The negro obeyed, and stood behind the light flame and curling smoke which he had evoked, like the genie of an Arabian tale. Sir Charles, left standing in the centre of the rocky chamber, hesitated a moment, then walked with his usual languid grace over to where Landless leaned against a boulder, his eyes, shaded by his hand, fixed upon the ground.

"Whichever you choose—Scylla or Charybdis—" said Sir Charles in his most dulcet tones, "this is probably the last time you and I will ever speak together. There have been passages between us in the past, which, in the light of after event, I cannot but regret. You have just rendered me an inestimable service. I have learnt, too, that you saved my life the night of the storming of the Manor House. I beg to apologize to you, sir, for any offense I may have given you by word or deed." And he held out his hand with his most courtly smile.

"It becomes a dying man to be in charity with the world he leaves," said Landless, somewhat coldly, but with a smile too, "and so I do that which I never thought to do," and he touched the other's fingers with his own.

Sir Charles looked at him curiously. "You make a good enemy," he said lightly. "Had it not been predestined that we were to hate each other, I could find it in my heart to desire you for a friend. You remain in the forest, I dare swear?"

"Yes," answered Landless, with his eyes upon the light in the glade below. "I choose the easier fate."

"The easier for all concerned," said the other with a peculiar intonation.

Landless glanced at him keenly, but the courtier face and the inscrutable smile told nothing. "The easier for myself, whom alone it concerneth," said Landless sternly.

Dragging himself up by the rock behind him, he turned to the two elder men. "I have decided, Colonel Verney," he said slowly, "I will stay here, an it please you."

"You shall have all that we can leave you," said the Colonel eagerly and with some emotion. "Ammunition in plenty, food, blankets, an axe—it's little enough I can do, God knows, but I do that little most willingly."

"Again I thank you," said Landless wearily.

Sir Charles caught the inflection. "You stand in need of rest," he said courteously, "and, this matter settled, our farther intrusion upon you is as unnecessary as it must be unwelcome. Had we not best descend, gentlemen?"

"Ay," said the Colonel. "We have done all we could." Then, to Landless, "With the moonrise we drop down the river—from out your sight forever. I have told you frankly there is no hope for you amongst your kind in the world to which we return. I believe there to be none. But have you thought of what we must needs leave you to? Humanly speaking, it is death, and death alone, in the winter forest."

"I have thought," said Landless.

"From my soul I wish that some miracle may occur to save you yet!"

"An ill wish!" said the other, smiling, "with but little chance, however, of its fulfillment."

"I fear not," said the Colonel with something like a groan, "but I wish it, nevertheless. Here is my hand, and with it my heartfelt thanks for your service to my daughter. And I wish you to believe that I deeply deplore your fate, and that I would have saved you if I could."

"I believe it," Landless said simply.

The Colonel took and wrung his hand, then turned sharply away, and beckoning the overseer to follow, strode out of the circle of rocks.

Sir Charles raised his feathered hat. "We have been foes," he said, "but the strife is over—and when all is said, we are both Englishmen. I trust we bear each other no ill will."

"I bear none," said Landless.

Sir Charles, his eyes still fixed upon the pale quiet of the other's face, passed out of the opening between the rocks, and his place was taken by the Surveyor-General.

"I would have saved you if I could," he said in a low and troubled voice. "I bow to a brave man and a gallant gentleman," and he too was gone.

In the glade below, the movement, the laughter and the song sank gradually into silence as the gentlemen adventurers, the rangers, Indian guides, and servants composing the rescuing party threw themselves down, one by one, beside the blazing fires for a short rest before moonrise and the long pull down the river.

Among the crags, high above the twinkling watch-fires and the wash of the dark river, there was the stillness of the stars, of the white frost and the bare cliffs. In the northern heavens played a soft light, and now and then a star shot. The man who marked its trail across the studded skies thought of himself as of one as far withdrawn as it from the world of lower lights in the forest at his feet. Already he felt a prescience of the loneliness of the morrow, and the morrow, and the morrow, of the slow drift of the days in the waning forest, the hopeless nights, the terror of that great solitude—and felt, too, a feverish desire to hasten that approach, to embrace that which was to be henceforth bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He wished for the dash of oars in the dark stream below and for the rise of the moon which was to shine coldly down upon him, companionless, immured in that vast fortress from which he might never hope to escape.

The sound of cautious footsteps among the rocks brought his sick and wandering fancy back to the present. Raising himself upon his elbow and peering intently into the darkness, he made out two figures, one tall and large, the other much slighter, advancing towards him. Presently the larger figure stopped short, and, seating itself upon a flat rock at the brink of the hill, turned its face towards the fires in the woods below. The other came on lightly and hurriedly—another moment, and rising to his knees, he clasped her in his arms and laid his head upon her bosom.

"I never thought to see you again," he said at last.

"I made Regulus bring me," she answered. "The others do not know—they think me asleep."

She spoke in a low, even, monotonous voice, and the hand which she laid upon his forehead was like marble. "My heart is dead, I think," she said. "I wish my body were so too."

He drew her closer to him and covered her face and hands with kisses. "My love, my lady," he said. "My white rose, my woodland dove!"

She clung to him, trembling. "Down there I was going mad," she whispered. "But now—now—I feel as though I could weep." He felt her tears upon his face, but in a moment she was calm again. "Do you remember the bird we found the other day, all numbed with cold?" she said. "It had been gay and free and light of heart, but it had not strength to flutter when I took it in my hands and tried to warm it—and could not. I am like that bird. The world is very gray and cold, and my heart—it will never be warm again."

"God comfort you," he said brokenly.

"They have told me that at moonrise we leave this place—and you. They say that it is all they can do for you—to leave you here. All!—Oh, my God!"

"They have done what they could," he said gravely. "I recognize that. And I wish you to do so too, sweetheart."

She looked at him wildly. "I have been silent," she said, pressing her clasped hands against her bosom. "I have not told them. I have obeyed what I read in your eyes. But was it well? Oh, my dear, let me speak!"

He took her hands from her breast and laid them against his own. "No," he said with a smile, "I love you too well for that."

From the woods across the river came the crying of wolves, then a silence as of the grave; then a whisper arose in the long dry grass and the leafless vines, and a cold breeze lifted the hair from their foreheads. The whisper grew into a murmur, prolonged and deep, a sound as of a distant cataract, or of the dash of surf upon a far away shore—the voice of the wind in the world of trees. A star shot, leaving a stream of white fire to fade out of the dark blue sky. From the forest came again the cry of the wolves. In the camp below there seemed some stir, and the figure seated on the rock turned its head towards them and lifted a warning hand.

"You must go," said Landless. "It was madness for you to venture here. See, the light is growing in the east."

With a low, desolate moaning sound she wrung the hands he released and raised her face to his. He kissed her upon the brow, the eyes and the mouth. "Good-by, my life, my love, my heart," he said. "We were happy for an hour. Good-by!"

"I will be brave," she answered. "I will live my life out. I will pray to God. And, Godfrey, I will be ever true to you. I shall never see you again, my dear, never hear of you more, never know till my latest day whether you are of this world still, or whether you have waited for me a long time, up there beyond those lights. If it—if death—should come Boon, wait for me—beyond—in perfect trust, my dear, for I will come to you—I will come to you as I am, Godfrey."

He bowed his face upon her hands.

The breeze freshened, and the sound of the surf became the sound of breakers. In the east the pale light strengthened. The figure below them stood up and beckoned.

"The moon is coming," said Patricia. "Once before I watched for it—in terror, with pride and anger in my heart. Then, when I thought of you, I hated you. It is strange to think of that now. Kiss me good-by."

"I too will be strong," he said. "I will await the pleasure of the Lord. Until His good time, my bride!"

Rising to his feet he held her in his arms, then kissed her upon the lips and put her gently from him. For a moment she stood like a statue, then with a lifted face and hands clasped at her bosom, she turned, and slowly, but without a backward look, left the circle of rocks. Through the opening he saw the slave come up to her, and saw her motion to him to fall behind—another moment, and both dark figures had sunk below the brow of the hill.

Stronger and stronger blew the wind, louder and louder swelled the voice of the forest. Below, the wash of the river in its reeds, the dull groaning of branch grating against branch, the fall of leaf and acorn, the loud sighing of the pines, the cries of the owl, the panther, and the wolf—above, the vast dome of the heavens and the fading stars. An effulgence in the east; a silver crest, like the white rim of a giant wave, upon the eastern hills; a pale splendor mounting slowly and calmly upward—a dead world,—all her passion, all her pain, all toil and strife over and done with,—shining down upon a sadder earth.

From beneath the shadowy banks there shot out into the middle of the broad moonlit stream a long canoe, followed by a second and a third, and turning, went swiftly down that long, bright, shimmering, rippling path.

In the last and smallest of the three boats a man rose from his seat in the stern, and with his eyes upon the line of moon-whitened cliffs above him, raised his plumed hat with a courteous gesture, then bent and spoke to a cloaked and hooded figure sitting, still and silent, between him and a burlier form. This canoe was rowed by negroes, and as they rowed they sang. The wild chant—half dirge, half frenzy—that they raised was suited to that waste which they were leaving.

The black lines upon the silver flood became mere dots, and the wailing notes came up the stream faintly and more faintly still. For a while the echoes rolled among the folded hills and the tall gray crags, but at length they died away forever.

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[Transcriber's note: added omitted word "time" in "By this time his eyes" on line 9427, original page 304, of this text.]

THE END