The fellow shrank back, his eyeballs starting from his head.

"It's a tall ship," he gasped, "a very big ship! It hath ten culverins, beside fowlers and murderers, sabers, falcons, and bases!"

I took him by the collar and shook him off his feet.

"There are priests on board!" he managed to say as I set him down. "This time to-morrrow we'll all be on the rack! And next week the galleys will have us!"

"It's the Spaniard at last," I said. "Come on!"

When we reached the river bank before the fort, it was to find confusion worse confounded. The gates of the palisade were open, and through them streamed Councilors, Burgesses, and officers, while the bank itself was thronged with the generality. Ancient planters, Smith's men, Dale's men, tenants and servants, women and children, including the little eyases we imported the year before, negroes, Paspaheghs, French vignerons, Dutch sawmill men, Italian glassworkers,—all seethed to and fro, all talked at once, and all looked down the river. Out of the babel of voices these words came to us over and over: "The Spaniard!" "The Inquisition!" "The galleys!" They were the words oftenest heard at that time, when strange sails hove in sight.

But where was the Spaniard? On the river, hugging the shore, were many small craft, barges, shallops, sloops, and pinnaces, and beyond them the masts of the Truelove, the Due Return, and the Tiger, then in port; on these three, of which the largest, the Due Return, was of but eighty tons burthen, the mariners were running about and the masters bawling orders. But there was no other ship, no bark, galleon, or man-of-war, with three tiers of grinning ordnance, and the hated yellow flag flaunting above.

I sprang from my horse, and, leaving it and Mistress Percy in Sparrow's charge, hastened up to the fort. As I passed through the palisade I heard my name called, and turning waited for Master Pory to come up. He was panting and puffing, his jovial face very red.

"I was across the neck of land when I heard the news," he said. "I ran all the way, and am somewhat scant of breath. Here's the devil to pay!"

"It looks another mare's-nest," I replied. "We have cried 'Spaniard!' pretty often."

"But this time the wolf's here," he answered. "Davies sent a horseman at a gallop from Algernon with the tidings. He passed the ship, and it was a very great one. We may thank this dead calm that it did not catch us unawares."

Within the palisade was noise enough, but more order than without. On the half-moons commanding the river, gunners were busy about our sakers, falcons, and three culverins. In one place, West, the commander, was giving out brigandines, jacks, skulls, muskets, halberds, swords, and longbows; in another, his wife, who was a very Mary Ambree, supervised the boiling of a great caldron of pitch. Each loophole in palisade and fort had already its marksman. Through the west port came a horde of reluctant invaders,—cattle, swine, and poultry,—driven in by yelling boys.

I made my way through the press to where I saw the Governor, surrounded by Councilors and Burgesses, sitting on a keg of powder, and issuing orders at the top of his voice. "Ha, Captain Percy!" he cried, as I came up. "You are in good time, man! You've served your apprenticeship at the wars. You must teach us how to beat the dons."

"To Englishmen, that comes by nature, sir," I said. "Art sure we are to have the pleasure?"

"Not a doubt of it this time," he answered. "The ship slipped in past the Point last night. Davies signaled her to stop, and then sent a ball over her; but she kept on. True, it was too dark to make out much; but if she were friendly, why did she not stop for castle duties? Moreover, they say she was of at least five hundred tons, and no ship of that size hath ever visited these waters. There was no wind, and they sent a man on at once, hoping to outstrip the enemy and warn us. The man changed horses at Basse's Choice, and passed the ship about dawn. All he could tell for the mist was that it was a very great ship, with three tiers of guns."

"The flag?"

"She carried none."

"Humph!" I said. "It hath a suspicious look. At least we do well to be ready. We'll give them a warm welcome."

"There are those here who counsel surrender," continued the Governor. "There's one, at least, who wants the Tiger sent downstream with a white flag and my sword."

"Where?" I cried. "He's no Englishman, I warrant!"

"As much an Englishman as thou, sir!" called out a gentleman whom I had encountered before, to wit, Master Edward Sharpless. "It's well enough for swingebuckler captains, Low Country fire-eaters, to talk of holding out againt a Spanish man-of-war with twice our number of fighting men, and enough ordnance to batter the town out of existence. Wise men know when the odds are too heavy!"

"It's well enough for lily-livered, goose-fleshed lawyers to hold their tongues when men and soldiers talk," I retorted. "We are not making indentures to the devil, and so have no need of such gentry."

There was a roar of laughter from the captains and gunners, but terror of the Spaniard had made Master Edward Sharpless bold to all besides.

"They will wipe us off the face of the earth!" he lamented. "There won't be an Englishman left in America! they'll come close in upon us! they'll batter down the fort with their culverins; they'll turn all their swivels, sakers, and falcons upon us; they'll throw into our midst stinkpots and grenades; they'll mow us down with chain shot! Their gunners never miss!" His voice rose to a scream, and he shook as with an ague. "Are you mad? It's Spain that's to be fought! Spain the rich! Spain the powerful! Spain the lord of the New World!"

"It's England that fights!" I cried. "For very shame, hold thy tongue!"

"If we surrender at once, they'll let us go!" he whined. "We can take the small boats and get to the Bermudas, they'll let us go."

"Into the galleys," muttered West.

The craven tried another feint. "Think of the women and children!"

"We do," I said sternly. "Silence, fool!"

The Governor, a brave and honest man, rose from the keg of powder. "All this is foreign to the matter, Master Sharpless. I think our duty is clear, be the odds what they may. This is our post, and we will hold it or die beside it. We are few in number, but we are England in America, and I think we will remain here. This is the King's fifth kingdom, and we will keep it for him. We will trust in the Lord and fight it out."

"Amen," I said, and "Amen," said the ring of Councilors and Burgesses and the armed men beyond.

The hum of voices now rose into excited cries, and the watchman stationed atop the big culverin called out, "Sail ho!" With one accord we turned our faces downstream. There was the ship, undoubtedly. Moreover, a strong breeze had sprung up, blowing from the sea, filling her white sails, and rapidly lessening the distance between us. As yet we could only tell that she was indeed a large ship with all sail set.

Through the gates of the palisade now came, pellmell, the crowd without. In ten minutes' time the women were in line ready to load the muskets, the children sheltered as best they might be, the men in ranks, the gunners at their guns, and the flag up. I had run it up with my own hand, and as I stood beneath the folds Master Sparrow and my wife came to my side.

"The women are over there," I said to the latter, "where you had best betake yourself."

"I prefer to stay here," she answered. "I am not afraid." Her color was high, and she held her head up. "My father fought the Armada," she said.

"Get me a sword from that man who is giving them out."

From his coign of vantage the watch now called out: "She's a long ship,—five hundred tons, anyhow! Lord! the metal that she carries! She's rasedecked!"

"Then she's Spanish, sure enough!" cried the Governor.

From the crowd of servants, felons, and foreigners rose a great clamor, and presently we made out Sharpless perched on a cask in their midst and wildly gesticulating.

"The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return have swung across channel!" announced the watch. "They 've trained their guns on the Spaniard!"

The Englishmen cheered, but the bastard crew about Sharpless groaned. Extreme fear had made the lawyer shameless. "What guns have those boats?" he screamed. "Two falcons apiece and a handful of muskets, and they go out against a man-of-war! She'll trample them underfoot! She'll sink them with a shot apiece! The Tiger is forty tons, and the Truelove is sixty. You 're all mad!"

"Sometimes quality beats quantity," said West.

"Didst ever hear of the Content?" sang out a gunner.

"Or of the Merchant Royal?" cried another.

"Or of the Revenge?" quoth Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Go hang thyself, coward, or, if you choose, swim out to the Spaniard, and shift from thy wet doublet and hose into a sanbenito. Let the don come, shoot if he can, and land if he will! We'll singe his beard in Virginia as we did at Cales!

'The great St. Philip, the pride of the Spaniards,

Was burnt to the bottom and sunk in the sea.

the St. Andrew and eke the St. Matthew

We took in fight manfully and brought away.'

And so we'll do with this one, my masters! We'll sink her, or we'll take her and send her against her own galleons and galleasses!

'Dub-a-dub, dub-a-dub, thus strike their drums,

Tantara, tantara, the Englishman comes!'"

His great voice and great presence seized and held the attention of all. Over his doublet of rusty black he had clapped a yet rustier back and breast; on his bushy hair rode a headpiece many sizes too small; by his side was an old broadsword, and over his shoulder a pike. Suddenly, from gay hardihood his countenance changed to an expression more befitting his calling. "Our cause is just, my masters!" he cried. "We stand here not for England alone; we stand for the love of law, for the love of liberty, for the fear of God, who will not desert his servants and his cause, nor give over to Anti-Christ this virgin world. This plantation is the leaven which is to leaven the whole lump, and surely he will hide it in the hollow of his hand and in the shadow of his wing. God of battles, hear us! God of England, God of America, aid the children of the one, the saviors of the other!"

He had dropped the pike to raise his clasped hands to the blue heavens, but now he lifted it again, threw back his shoulders, and flung up his head. He laid his hand on the flagstaff, and looked up to the banner streaming in the breeze. "It looks well so high against the blue, does n't it, friends?" he cried genially. "Suppose we keep it there forever and a day!"

A cheer arose, so loud that it silenced, if it did not convince, the craven few. As for Master Edward Sharpless, he disappeared behind the line of women.

The great ship came steadily on, her white sails growing larger and larger, moment by moment, her tiers of guns more distinct and menacing, her whole aspect more defiant. Her waist seemed packed with men. But no streamers, no flag.

A puff of smoke floated up from the deck of the Tiger, and a ball from one of her two tiny falcons passed through the stranger's rigging. A cheer for the brave little cockboat arose from the English. "David and his pebble!" exclaimed Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Now for Goliath's twenty-pounders!"

But no flame and thunder issued from the guns aboard the stranger. Instead, from her deck there came to us what sounded mightily like a roar of laughter. Suddenly, from each masthead and yard shot out streamers of red and blue, up from the poop rose and flaunted in the wind the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, and with a crash trumpet, drum, and fife rushed into

"Here's to jolly good ale and old!"

"By the Lord, she's English!" shouted the Governor.

On she came, banners flying, music playing, and inextinguishable laughter rising from her decks. The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return sent no more hailstones against her; they turned and resolved themselves into her consort. The watch, a grim old sea dog that had come in with Dale, swung himself down from his post, and came toward the Governor at a run. "I know her now, sir!" he shouted. "I was at the winning of Cales, and she's the Santa Teresa, that we took and sent home to the Queen. She was Spanish once, sir, but she's English now."

The gates were flung open, and the excited people poured out again upon the river bank. I found myself beside the Governor, whose honest countenance wore an expression of profound bewilderment.

"What d' ye make of her, Percy?" he said. "The Company does n't send servants, felons, 'prentices, or maids in such craft; no, nor officers or governors, either. It's the King's ship, sure enough, but what is she doing here?—that 's the question. What does she want, and whom does she bring?"

"We'll soon know," I answered, "for there goes her anchor."

Five minutes later a boat was lowered from the ship, and came swiftly toward us. The boat had four rowers, and in the stern sat a tall man, black-bearded, high-colored, and magnificently dressed. It touched the sand some two hundred feet from the spot where Governor, Councilors, officers, and a sprinkling of other sorts stood staring at it, and at the great ship beyond. The man in the stern leaped out, looked around him, and then walked toward us. As he walked slowly, we had leisure to note the richness of his doublet and cloak,—the one slashed, the other lined with scarlet taffeta,—the arrogance of his mien and gait, and the superb full-blooded beauty of his face.

"The handsomest man that ever I saw!" ejaculated the Governor.

Master Pory, standing beside him, drew in his breath, then puffed it out again. "Handsome enough, your Honor," he said, "unless handsome is as handsome does. That, gentlemen, is my Lord Carnal,—that is the King's latest favorite."



CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH ENTERS MY LORD CARNAL

I FELT a touch upon my shoulder, and turned to find Mistress Percy beside me. Her cheeks were white, her eyes aflame, her whole frame tense. The passion that dominated her was so clearly anger at white heat that I stared at her in amazement. Her hand slid from my shoulder to the bend of my arm and rested there. "Remember that I am your wife, sir," she said in a low, fierce voice,—"your kind and loving wife. You said that your sword was mine; now bring your wit to the same service!"

There was not time to question her meaning. The man whose position in the realm had just been announced by the Secretary, and of whom we had all heard as one not unlikely to supplant even Buckingham himself, was close at hand. The Governor, headpiece in hand, stepped forward; the other swept off his Spanish hat; both bowed profoundly.

"I speak to his Honor the Governor of Virginia?" inquired the newcomer. His tone was offhand, his hat already back upon his head.

"I am George Yeardley, at my Lord Carnal's service," answered the Governor.

The favorite raised his eyebrows. "I don't need to introduce myself, it seems," he said. "You've found that I am not the devil, after all,—at least not the Spanish Apollyon. Zooks! a hawk above a poultry yard could n't have caused a greater commotion than did my poor little ship and my few poor birding pieces! Does every strange sail so put you through your paces?"

The Governor's color mounted. "We are not at home," he answered stiffly. "Here we are few and weak and surrounded by many dangers, and have need to be vigilant, being planted, as it were, in the very grasp of that Spain who holds Europe in awe, and who claims this land as her own. That we are here at all is proof enough of our courage, my lord."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "I don't doubt your mettle," he said negligently. "I dare say it matches your armor."

His glance had rested for a moment upon the battered headpiece and ancient rusty breastplate with which Master Jeremy Sparrow was bedight.

"It is something antique, truly, something out of fashion," remarked that worthy,—"almost as out of fashion as courtesy from guests, or respect for dignities from my-face-is-my-fortune minions and lords on carpet considerations."

The hush of consternation following this audacious speech was broken by a roar of laughter from the favorite himself. "Zounds!" he cried, "your courage is worn on your sleeve, good giant! I'll uphold you to face Spaniards, strappado, rack, galleys, and all!"

The bravado with which he spoke, the insolence of his bold glance and curled lip, the arrogance with which he flaunted that King's favor which should be a brand more infamous than the hangman's, his beauty, the pomp of his dress,—all were alike hateful. I hated him then, scarce knowing why, as I hated him afterward with reason.

He now pulled from the breast of his doublet a packet, which he proffered the Governor. "From the King, sir," he announced, in the half-fierce, half—mocking tone he had made his own. "You may read it at your leisure. He wishes you to further me in a quest upon which I have come."

The Governor took the packet with reverence. "His Majesty's will is our law," he said. "Anything that lies in our power, sir; though if you come for gold"—

The favorite laughed again. "I've come for a thing a deal more precious, Sir Governor,—a thing worth more to me than all the treasure of the Indies with Manoa and El Dorado thrown in,—to wit, the thing upon which I've set my mind. That which I determine to do, I do, sir, and the thing I determine to have, why, sooner or later, by hook or by crook, fair means or foul, I have it! I am not one to be crossed or defied with impunity."

"I do not take your meaning, my lord," said the Governor, puzzled, but courteous. "There are none here who would care to thwart, in any honorable enterprise, a nobleman so high in the King's favor. I trust that my Lord Carnal will make my poor house his own during his stay in Virginia—What's the matter, my lord?"

My lord's face was dark red, his black eyes afire, his mustaches working up and down. His white teeth had closed with a click on the loud oath which had interrupted the Governor's speech. Honest Sir George and his circle stared at this unaccountable guest in amazement not unmixed with dismay. As for myself, I knew before he spoke what had caused the oath and the fierce triumph in that handsome face. Master Jeremy Sparrow had moved a little to one side, thus exposing to view that which his great body had before screened from observation,—namely, Mistress Jocelyn Percy.

In a moment the favorite was before her, hat in hand, bowing to the ground.

"My quest hath ended where I feared it but begun!" he cried, flushed and exultant. "I have found my Manoa sooner than I thought for. Have you no welcome for me, lady?"

She withdrew her arm from mine and curtsied to him profoundly; then stood erect, indignant and defiant, her eyes angry stars, her cheeks carnation, scorn on her smiling lips.

"I cannot welcome you as you should be welcomed, my lord," she said in a clear voice. "I have but my bare hands. Manoa, my lord, lies far to the southward. This land is quite out of your course, and you will find here but your travail for your pains. My lord, permit me to present to you my husband, Captain Ralph Percy. I think that you know his cousin, my Lord of Northumberland."

The red left the favorite's cheeks, and he moved as though a blow had been dealt him by some invisible hand. Recovering himself he bowed to me, and I to him, which done we looked each other in the eyes long enough for each to see the thrown gauntlet.

"I raise it," I said.

"And I raise it," he answered.

"A l'outrance, I think, sir?" I continued.

"A l'outrance," he assented.

"And between us two alone," I suggested.

His answering smile was not good to see, nor was the tone in which he spoke to the Governor good to hear.

"It is now some weeks, sir," he said, "since there disappeared from court a jewel, a diamond of most inestimable worth. It in some sort belonged to the King, and his Majesty, in the goodness of his heart, had promised it to a certain one,—nay, had sworn by his kingdom that it should be his. Well, sir, that man put forth his hand to claim his own—when lo! the jewel vanished! Where it went no man could tell. There was, as you may believe, a mighty running up and down and looking into dark corners, all for naught,—it was clean gone. But the man to whom that bright gem had been promised was not one easily hoodwinked or baffled. He swore to trace it, follow it, find it, and wear it."

His bold eyes left the Governor, to rest upon the woman beside me; had he pointed to her with his hand, he could not have more surely drawn upon her the regard of that motley throng. By degrees the crowd had fallen back, leaving us three—the King's minion, the masquerading lady, and myself—the centre of a ring of staring faces; but now she became the sole target at which all eyes were directed.

In Virginia, at this time, the women of our own race were held in high esteem. During the first years of our planting they were a greater rarity than the mocking-birds and flying squirrels, or than that weed the eating of which made fools of men. The man whose wife was loving and daring enough, or jealous enough of Indian maids, to follow him into the wilderness counted his friends by the score and never lacked for company. The first marriage in Virginia was between a laborer and a waiting maid, and yet there was as great a deal of candy stuff as if it had been the nuptials of a lieutenant of the shire. The brother of my Lord de la Warre stood up with the groom, the brother of my Lord of Northumberland gave away the bride and was the first to kiss her, and the President himself held the caudle to their lips that night. Since that wedding there had been others. Gentlewomen made the Virginia voyage with husband or father; women signed as servants and came over, to marry in three weeks' time, the husband paying good tobacco for the wife's freedom; in the cargoes of children sent for apprentices there were many girls. And last, but not least, had come Sir Edwyn's doves. Things had changed since that day—at the memory of which men still held their sides—when Madam West, then the only woman in the town with youth and beauty, had marched down the street to the pillory, mounted it, called to her the drummer, and ordered him to summon to the square by tuck of drum every man in the place. Which done, and the amazed population at hand, gaping at the spectacle of the wife of their commander (then absent from home) pilloried before them, she gave command, through the crier, that they should take their fill of gazing, whispering, and nudging then and there, forever and a day, and then should go about their business and give her leave to mind her own.

That day was gone, but men still dropped their work to see a woman pass, still cheered when a farthingale appeared over a ship's side, and at church still devoted their eyes to other service than staring at the minister. In our short but crowded history few things had made a greater stir than the coming in of Sir Edwyn's maids. They were married now, but they were still the observed of all observers; to be pointed out to strangers, run after by children, gaped at by the vulgar, bowed to with broad smiles by Burgess, Councilor, and commander, and openly contemned by those dames who had attained to a husband in somewhat more regular fashion. Of the ninety who had arrived two weeks before, the greater number had found husbands in the town itself or in the neighboring hundreds, so that in the crowd that had gathered to withstand the Spaniard, and had stayed to welcome the King's favorite, there were farthingales not a few.

But there were none like the woman whose hand I had kissed in the courting meadow. In the throng, that day, in her Puritan dress and amid the crowd of meaner beauties, she had passed without overmuch comment, and since that day none had seen her save Rolfe and the minister, my servants and myself; and when "The Spaniard!" was cried, men thought of other things than the beauty of women; so that until this moment she had escaped any special notice. Now all that was changed. The Governor, following the pointing of those insolent eyes, fixed his own upon her in a stare of sheer amazement; the gold-laced quality about him craned necks, lifted eyebrows, and whispered; and the rabble behind followed their betters' example with an emphasis quite their own.

"Where do you suppose that jewel went, Sir Governor," said the favorite,—"that jewel which was overnice to shine at court, which set up its will against the King's, which would have none of that one to whom it had been given?"

"I am a plain man, my lord," replied the Governor bluntly. "An it please you, give me plain words."

My lord laughed, his eyes traveling round the ring of greedily intent faces. "So be it, sir," he assented. "May I ask who is this lady?"

"She came in the Bonaventure," answered the Governor. "She was one of the treasurer's poor maids."

"With whom I trod a measure at court not long ago," said the favorite. "I had to wait for the honor until the prince had been gratified."

The Governor's round eyes grew rounder. Young Hamor, a-tiptoe behind him, drew a long, low whistle.

"In so small a community," went on my lord, "sure you must all know one another. There can be no masks worn, no false colors displayed. Everything must be as open as daylight. But we all have a past as well as a present. Now, for instance"—

I interrupted him. "In Virginia, my lord, we live in the present. At present, my lord, I like not the color of your lordship's cloak."

He stared at me, with his black brows drawn together. "It is not of your choosing nor for your wearing, sir," he rejoined haughtily.

"And your sword knot is villainously tied," I continued. "And I like not such a fire-new, bejeweled scabbard. Mine, you see, is out at heel."

"I see," he said dryly.

"The pinking of your doublet suits me not, either," I declared. "I could make it more to my liking," and I touched his Genoa three-pile with the point of my rapier.

A loud murmur arose from the crowd, and the Governor started forward, crying out, "Captain Percy! Are you mad?"

"I was never saner in my life, sir," I answered. "French fashions like me not,—that is all,—nor Englishmen that wear them. To my thinking such are scarcely true-born."

That thrust went home. All the world knew the story of my late Lord Carnal and the waiting woman in the service of the French ambassador's wife. A gasp of admiration went up from the crowd. My lord's rapier was out, the hand that held it shaking with passion. I had my blade in my hand, but the point was upon the ground. "I'll lesson you, you madman!" he said thickly. Suddenly, without any warning, he thrust at me; had he been less blind with rage, the long score which each was to run up against the other might have ended where it began. I swerved, and the next instant with my own point sent his rapier whirling. It fell at the Governor's feet.

"Your lordship may pick it up," I remarked. "Your grasp is as firm as your honor, my lord."

He glared at me, foam upon his lips. Men were between us now,—the Governor, Francis West, Master Pory, Hamor, Wynne,—and a babel of excited voices arose. The diversion I had aimed to make had been made with a vengeance. West had me by the arm. "What a murrain is all this coil about, Ralph Percy? If you hurt hair of his head, you are lost!"

The favorite broke from the Governor's detaining hand and conciliatory speech.

"You'll fight, sir?" he cried hoarsely.

"You know that I need not now, my lord," I answered.

He stamped upon the ground with rage and shame; not true shame for that foul thrust, but shame for the sword upon the grass, for that which could be read in men's eyes, strive to hide it as they might, for the open scorn upon one face. Then, during the minute or more in which we faced each other in silence, he exerted to some effect that will of which he had boasted. The scarlet faded from his face, his frame steadied, and he forced a smile. Also he called to his aid a certain soldierly, honest-seeming frankness of speech and manner which he could assume at will.

"Your Virginian sunshine dazzleth the eyes, sir," he said. "Of a verity it made me think you on guard. Forgive me my mistake."

I bowed. "Your lordship will find me at your service. I lodge at the minister's house, where your lordship's messenger will find me. I am going there now with my wife, who hath ridden a score of miles this morning and is weary. We give you good-day, my lord."

I bowed to him again and to the Governor, then gave my hand to Mistress Percy. The crowd opening before us, we passed through it, and crossed the parade by the west bulwark. At the further end was a bit of rising ground. This we mounted; then, before descending the other side into the lane leading to the minister's house, we turned as by one impulse and looked back. Life is like one of those endless Italian corridors, painted, picture after picture, by a master hand; and man is the traveler through it, taking his eyes from one scene but to rest them upon another. Some remain a blur in his mind; some he remembers not; for some he has but to close his eyes and he sees them again, line for line, tint for tint, the whole spirit of the piece. I close my eyes, and I see the sunshine hot and bright, the blue of the skies, the sheen of the river. The sails are white again upon boats long lost; the Santa Teresa, sunk in a fight with an Algerine rover two years afterward, rides at anchor there forever in the James, her crew in the waist and the rigging, her master and his mates on the poop, above them the flag. I see the plain at our feet and the crowd beyond, all staring with upturned faces; and standing out from the group of perplexed and wondering dignitaries a man in black and scarlet, one hand busy at his mouth, the other clenched upon the newly restored and unsheathed sword. And I see, standing on the green hillock, hand in hand, us two, myself and the woman so near to me, and yet so far away that a common enemy seemed our only tie.

We turned and descended to the green lane and the deserted houses. When we were quite hidden from those we had left on the bank below the fort, she dropped my hand and moved to the other side of the lane; and thus, with never a word to spare, we walked sedately on until we reached the minister's house.



CHAPTER IX IN WHICH TWO DRINK OF ONE CUP

WAITING for us in the doorway we found Master Jeremy Sparrow, relieved of his battered armor, his face wreathed with hospitable smiles, and a posy in his hand.

"When the Spaniard turned out to be only the King's minion, I slipped away to see that all was in order," he said genially. "Here are roses, madam, that you are not to treat as you did those others."

She took them from him with a smile, and we went into the house to find three fair large rooms, something bare of furnishing, but clean and sweet, with here and there a bow pot of newly gathered flowers, a dish of wardens on the table, and a cool air laden with the fragrance of the pine blowing through the open window.

"This is your demesne," quoth the minister. "I have worthy Master Bucke's own chamber upstairs. Ah, good man, I wish he may quickly recover his strength and come back to his own, and so relieve me of the burden of all this luxury. I, whom nature meant for an eremite, have no business in kings' chambers such as these."

His devout faith in his own distaste for soft living and his longings after a hermit's cell was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with which he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and a flagon of wine.

"It is a fast day with me," he said. "I may neither eat nor drink until the sun goes down. The flesh is a strong giant, very full of pride and lust of living, and the spirit must needs keep watch and ward, seizing every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary. Goodwife Allen is still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your man and maid have not yet come, but I shall be overhead if you need aught. Mistress Percy must want rest after her ride."

He was gone, leaving us two alone together. She stood opposite me, beside the window, from which she had not moved since entering the room. The color was still in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, and she still held the roses with which Sparrow had heaped her arms. I was moving to the table.

"Wait!" she said, and I turned toward her again.

"Have you no questions to ask?" she demanded.

I shook my head. "None, madam."

"I was the King's ward!" she cried.

I bowed, but spoke no word, though she waited for me.

"If you will listen," she said at last, proudly, and yet with a pleading sweetness,—"if you will listen, I will tell you how it was that I—that I came to wrong you so."

"I am listening, madam," I replied.

She stood against the light, the roses pressed to her bosom, her dark eyes upon me, her head held high. "My mother died when I was born; my father, years ago. I was the King's ward. While the Queen lived she kept me with her,—she loved me, I think; and the King too was kind,—would have me sing to him, and would talk to me about witchcraft and the Scriptures, and how rebellion to a king is rebellion to God. When I was sixteen, and he tendered me marriage with a Scotch lord, I, who loved the gentleman not, never having seen him, prayed the King to take the value of my marriage and leave me my freedom. He was so good to me then that the Scotch lord was wed elsewhere, and I danced at the wedding with a mind at ease. Time passed, and the King was still my very good lord. Then, one black day, my Lord Carnal came to court, and the King looked at him oftener than at his Grace of Buckingham. A few months, and my lord's wish was the King's will. To do this new favorite pleasure he forgot his ancient kindness of heart; yea, and he made the law of no account. I was his kinswoman, and under my full age; he would give my hand to whom he chose. He chose to give it to my Lord Carnal."

She broke off, and turned her face from me toward the slant sunshine without the window. Thus far she had spoken quietly, with a certain proud patience of voice and bearing; but as she stood there in a silence which I did not break, the memory of her wrongs brought the crimson to her cheeks and the anger to her eyes. Suddenly she burst forth passionately: "The King is the King! What is a subject's will to clash with his? What weighs a woman's heart against his whim? Little cared he that my hand held back, grew cold at the touch of that other hand in which he would have put it. What matter if my will was against that marriage? It was but the will of a girl, and must be broken. All my world was with the King; I, who stood alone, was but a woman, young and untaught. Oh, they pressed me sore, they angered me to the very heart! There was not one to fight my battle, to help me in that strait, to show me a better path than that I took. With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my might, I hate that man which that ship brought here to-day! You know what I did to escape them all, to escape that man. I fled from England in the dress of my waiting maid and under her name. I came to Virginia in that guise. I let myself be put up, appraised, cried for sale, in that meadow yonder, as if I had been indeed the piece of merchandise I professed myself. The one man who approached me with respect I gulled and cheated. I let him, a stranger, give me his name. I shelter myself now behind his name. I have foisted on him my quarrel. I have—Oh, despise me, if you will! You cannot despise me more than I despise myself!"

I stood with my hand upon the table and my eyes studying the shadow of the vines upon the floor. All that she said was perfectly true, and yet—I had a vision of a scarlet and black figure and a dark and beautiful face. I too hated my Lord Carnal.

"I do not despise you, madam," I said at last. "What was done two weeks ago in the meadow yonder is past recall. Let it rest. What is mine is yours: it's little beside my sword and my name. The one is naturally at my wife's service; for the other, I have had some pride in keeping it untarnished. It is now in your keeping as well as my own. I do not fear to leave it there, madam."

I had spoken with my eyes upon the garden outside the window, but now I looked at her, to see that she was trembling in every limb,—trembling so that I thought she would fall. I hastened to her. "The roses," she said,—"the roses are too heavy. Oh, I am tired—and the room goes round."

I caught her as she fell, and laid her gently upon the floor. There was water on the table, and I dashed some in her face and moistened her lips; then turned to the door to get woman's help, and ran against Diccon.

"I got that bag of bones here at last, sir," he began. "If ever I"—His eyes traveled past me, and he broke off.

"Don't stand there staring," I ordered. "Go bring the first woman you meet."

"Is she dead?" he asked under his breath. "Have you killed her?"

"Killed her, fool!" I cried. "Have you never seen a woman swoon?"

"She looks like death," he muttered. "I thought"—

"You thought!" I exclaimed. "You have too many thoughts. Begone, and call for help!"

"Here is Angela," he said sullenly and without offering to move, as, light of foot, soft of voice, ox-eyed and docile, the black woman entered the room. When I saw her upon her knees beside the motionless figure, the head pillowed on her arm, her hand busy with the fastenings about throat and bosom, her dark face as womanly tender as any English mother's bending over her nursling; and when I saw my wife, with a little moan, creep further into the encircling arms, I was satisfied.

"Come away!" I said, and, followed by Diccon, went out and shut the door.

My Lord Carnal was never one to let the grass grow beneath his feet. An hour later came his cartel, borne by no less a personage than the Secretary of the colony.

I took it from the point of that worthy's rapier. It ran thus: "SIR,—At what hour to-morrow and at what place do you prefer to die? And with what weapon shall I kill you?"

"Captain Percy will give me credit for the profound reluctance with which I act in this affair against a gentleman and an officer so high in the esteem of the colony," said Master Pory, with his hand upon his heart. "When I tell him that I once fought at Paris in a duel of six on the same side with my late Lord Carnal, and that when I was last at court my Lord Warwick did me the honor to present me to the present lord, he will see that I could not well refuse when the latter requested my aid."

"Master Pory's disinterestedness is perfectly well known," I said, without a smile. "If he ever chooses the stronger side, sure he has strong reasons for so doing. He will oblige me by telling his principal that I ever thought sunrise a pleasant hour for dying, and that there could be no fitter place than the field behind the church, convenient as it is to the graveyard. As for weapons, I have heard that he is a good swordsman, but I have some little reputation that way myself. If he prefers pistols or daggers, so be it."

"I think we may assume the sword," said Master Pory.

I bowed.

"You'll bring a friend?" he asked.

"I do not despair of finding one," I answered, "though my second, Master Secretary, will put himself in some jeopardy."

"It is combat... outrance, I believe?"

"I understand it so."

"Then we'd better have Bohun. The survivor may need his services."

"As you please," I replied, "though my man Diccon dresses my scratches well enough."

He bit his lip, but could not hide the twinkle in his eye.

"You are cocksure," he said. "Curiously enough, so is my lord. There are no further formalities to adjust, I believe? To-morrow at sunrise, behind the church, and with rapiers?"

"Precisely."

He slapped his blade back into its sheath. "Then that's over and done with, for the nonce at least! Sufficient unto the day, etcetera. 'S life! I'm hot and dry! You've sacked cities, Ralph Percy; now sack me the minister's closet and bring out his sherris I'll be at charges for the next communion."

We sat us down upon the doorstep with a tankard of sack between us, and Master Pory drank, and drank, and drank again.

"How's the crop?" he asked. "Martin reports it poorer in quality than ever, but Sir George will have it that it is very Varinas."

"It's every whit as good as the Spanish," I answered. "You may tell my Lord Warwick so, when next you write."

He laughed. If he was a timeserver and leagued with my Lord Warwick's faction in the Company, he was a jovial sinner. Traveler and student, much of a philosopher, more of a wit, and boon companion to any beggar with a pottle of ale,—while the drink lasted,—we might look askance at his dealings, but we liked his company passing well. If he took half a poor rustic's crop for his fee, he was ready enough to toss him sixpence for drink money; and if he made the tenants of the lands allotted to his office leave their tobacco uncared for whilst they rowed him on his innumerable roving expeditions up creeks and rivers, he at least lightened their labors with most side-splitting tales, and with bottle songs learned in a thousand taverns.

"After to-morrow there'll be more interesting news to write," he announced. "You're a bold man, Captain Percy."

He looked at me out of the corners of his little twinkling eyes. I sat and smoked in silence.

"The King begins to dote upon him," he said; "leans on his arm, plays with his hand, touches his cheek. Buckingham stands by, biting his lip, his brow like a thundercloud. You'll find in to-morrow's antagonist, Ralph Percy, as potent a conjurer as your cousin Hotspur found in Glendower. He'll conjure you up the Tower, and a hanging, drawing, and quartering. Who touches the King's favorite had safer touch the King. It's lese-majeste, you contemplate."

He lit his pipe and blew out a great cloud of smoke, then burst into a roar of laughter. "My Lord High Admiral may see you through. Zooks! there'll be a raree-show worth the penny, behind the church to-morrow, a Percy striving with all his might and main to serve a Villiers! Eureka! There is something new under the sun, despite the Preacher!" He blew out another cloud of smoke. By this the tankard was empty, and his cheeks were red, his eyes moist, and his laughter very ready.

"Where's the Lady Jocelyn Leigh?" he asked. "May I not have the honor to kiss her hand before I go?"

I stared at him. "I do not understand you," I said coldly. "There 's none within but Mistress Percy. She is weary, and rests after her journey. We came from Weyanoke this morning."

He shook with laughter. "Ay, ay, brave it out!" he cried. "It's what every man Jack of us said you would do! But all's known, man! The Governor read the King's letters in full Council an hour ago. She's the Lady Jocelyn Leigh; she 's a ward of the King's; she and her lands are to wed my Lord Carnal!"

"She was all that," I replied. "Now she 's my wife."

"You'll find that the Court of High Commission will not agree with you."

My rapier lay across my knees, and I ran my hand down its worn scabbard. "Here 's one that agrees with me," I said. "And up there is Another," and I lifted my hat.

He stared. "God and my good sword!" he cried. "A very knightly dependence, but not to be mentioned nowadays in the same breath with gold and the King's favor. Better bend to the storm, man; sing low while it roars past. You can swear that you did n't know her to be of finer weave than dowlas. Oh, they'll call it in some sort a marriage, for the lady's own sake; but they'll find flaws enough to crack a thousand such mad matches. The divorce is the thing! There's precedent, you know. A fair lady was parted from a brave man not a thousand years ago, because a favorite wanted her. True, Frances Howard wanted the favorite, whilst this beauty of yours"—

"You will please not couple the name of my wife with the name of that adulteress!" I interrupted fiercely.

He started; then cried out somewhat hurriedly: "No offense, no offense! I meant no comparisons; comparisons are odorous, saith Dogberry. All at court know the Lady Jocelyn Leigh for a very Britomart, a maid as cold as Dian!"

I rose, and began to pace up and down the bit of green before the door. "Master Pory," I said at last, coming to a stop before him, "if, without breach of faith, you can tell me what was said or done at the Council to-day anent this matter, you will lay me under an obligation that I shall not forget."

He studied the lace on his sleeve in silence for a while; then glanced up at me out of those small, sly, merry eyes. "Why," he answered, "the King demands that the lady be sent home forthwith, on the ship that gave us such a turn to-day, in fact, with a couple of women to attend her, and under the protection of the only other passenger of quality, to wit, my Lord Carnal. His Majesty cannot conceive it possible that she hath so far forgotten her birth, rank, and duty as to have maintained in Virginia this mad masquerade, throwing herself into the arms of any petty planter or broken adventurer who hath chanced to have an hundred and twenty pounds of filthy tobacco with which to buy him a wife. If she hath been so mad, she is to be sent home none the less, where she will be tenderly dealt with as one surely in this sole matter under the spell of witchcraft. The ship is to bring home also—and in irons—the man who married her. If he swears to have been ignorant of her quality, and places no straws in the way of the King's Commissioners, then shall he be sent honorably back to Virginia with enough in his hand to get him another wife. Per contra, if he erred with open eyes, and if he remain contumacious, he will have to deal with the King and with the Court of High Commission, to say nothing of the King's favorite. That's the sum and substance, Ralph Percy."

"Why was my Lord Carnal sent?" I asked.

"Probably because my Lord Carnal would come. He hath a will, hath my Lord, and the King is more indulgent than Eli to those upon whom he dotes. Doubtless, my Lord High Admiral sped him on his way, gave him the King's best ship, wished him a favorable wind—to hell."

"I was not ignorant that she was other than she seemed, and I remain contumacious."

"Then," he said shamelessly, "you'll forgive me if in public, at least, I forswear your company? You're plague-spotted, Captain Percy, and your friends may wish you well, but they must stay at home and burn juniper before their own doors."

"I'll forgive you," I said, "when you 've told me what the Governor will do."

"Why, there's the rub," he answered. "Yeardley is the most obstinate man of my acquaintance. He who at his first coming, beside a great deal of worth in his person, brought only his sword hath grown to be as very a Sir Oracle among us as ever I saw. It's 'Sir George says this,' and 'Sir George says that,' and so there's an end on't. It's all because of that leave to cut your own throats in your own way that he brought you last year. Sir George and Sir Edwyn! Zooks! you had better dub them St. George and St. Edwyn at once, and be done with it. Well, on this occasion Sir George stands up and says roundly, with a good round oath to boot: 'The King's commands have always come to us through the Company. The Company obeys the King; we obey the Company. His Majesty's demand (with reverence I speak it) is out of all order. Let the Company, through the treasurer, command us to send Captain Percy home in irons to answer for this passing strange offense, or to return, willy nilly, the lady who is now surely his wife, and we will have no choice but to obey. Until the Company commands us we will do nothing; nay we can do nothing.' And every one of my fellow Councilors (for myself, I was busy with my pens) saith, 'My opinion, Sir George.' The upshot of it all is that the Due Return is to sail in two days with our humble representation to his Majesty that though we bow to his lightest word as the leaf bows to the zephyr, yet we are, in this sole matter, handfast, compelled by his Majesty's own gracious charter to refer our slightest official doing to that noble Company which owes its very being to its rigid adherence to the terms of said charter. Wherefore, if his Majesty will be graciously pleased to command us as usual through the said Company—and so on. Of course, not a soul in the Council, or in Jamestown, or in Virginia dreams of a duel behind the church at sunrise to-morrow." He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and by degrees got his fat body up from the doorstep. "So there's a reprieve for you, Ralph Percy, unless you kill or are killed to-morrow morning. In the latter case, the problem's solved; in the former, the best service you can do yourself, and maybe the Company, is to walk out of the world of your own accord, and that as quickly as possible. Better a cross-roads and a stake through a dead heart than a hangman's hands upon a live one."

"One moment," I said. "Doth my Lord Carnal know of this decision of the Governor's?"

"Ay, and a fine passion it put him into. Stormed and swore and threatened, and put the Governor's back up finely. It seems that he thought to 'bout ship to-morrow, lady and all. He refuseth to go without the lady, and so remaineth in Virginia until he can have his will. Lord! but Buckingham would be a happy man if he were kept here forever and a day! My lord knows what he risks, and he's in as black a humor as ever you saw. But I have striven to drop oil on the troubled waters. 'My lord,' I told him, 'you have but to posses your soul with patience for a few short weeks, just until the ship the Governor sends can return. Then all must needs be as your lordship wishes. In the meantime, you may find existence in these wilds and away from that good company which is the soul of life endurable, and perhaps pleasant. You may have daily sight of the lady who is to become your wife, and that should count for much with so ardent and determined a lover as your lordship hath shown yourself to be. You may have the pleasure of contemplating your rival's grave, if you kill him. If he kills you, you will care the less about the date of the Santa Teresa's sailing. The land, too, hath inducements to offer to a philosophical and contemplative mind such as one whom his Majesty delighteth to honor must needs possess. Beside these crystal rivers and among these odoriferous woods, my lord, one escapes much expense, envy, contempt, vanity, and vexation of mind.'"

The hoary sinner laughed and laughed. When he had gone away, still in huge enjoyment of his own mirth, I, who had seen small cause for mirth, went slowly indoors. Not a yard from the door, in the shadow of the vines that draped the window, stood the woman who was bringing this fate upon me.

"I thought that you were in your own room," I said harshly, after a moment of dead silence.

"I came to the window," she replied. "I listened. I heard all." She spoke haltingly, through dry lips. Her face was as white as her ruff, but a strange light burned in her eyes, and there was no trembling. "This morning you said that all that you had—your name and your sword—were at my service. You may take them both again, sir. I refuse the aid you offer. Swear what you will, tell them what you please, make your peace whilst you may. I will not have your blood upon my soul."

There was yet wine upon the table. I filled a cup and brought it to her. "Drink!" I commanded.

"I have much of forbearance, much of courtesy, to thank you for," she said. "I will remember it when—Do not think that I shall blame you"—

I held the cup to her lips. "Drink!" I repeated. She touched the red wine with her lips. I took it from her and put it to my own. "We drink of the same cup," I said, with my eyes upon hers, and drained it to the bottom. "I am weary of swords and courts and kings. Let us go into the garden and watch the minister's bees."



CHAPTER X IN WHICH MASTER PORY GAINS TIME TO SOME PURPOSE

ROLFE coming down by boat from Varina, had reached the town in the dusk of that day which had seen the arrival of the Santa Teresa, and I had gone to him before I slept that night. Early morning found us together again in the field behind the church. We had not long to wait in the chill air and dew-drenched grass. When the red rim of the sun showed like a fire between the trunks of the pines came my Lord Carnal, and with him Master Pory and Dr. Lawrence Bohun.

My lord and I bowed to each other profoundly. Rolfe with my sword and Master Pory with my lord's stepped aside to measure the blades. Dr. Bohun, muttering something about the feverishness of the early air, wrapped his cloak about him, and huddled in among the roots of a gigantic cedar. I stood with my back to the church, and my face to the red water between us and the illimitable forest; my lord opposite me, six feet away. He was dressed again splendidly in black and scarlet, colors he much affected, and, with the dark beauty of his face and the arrogant grace with which he stood there waiting for his sword, made a picture worth looking upon.

Rolfe and the Secretary came back to us. "If you kill him, Ralph," said the former in a low voice, as he took my doublet from me, "you are to put yourself in my hands and do as you are bid."

"Which means that you will try to smuggle me north to the Dutch. Thanks, friend, but I'll see the play out here."

"You were ever obstinate, self-willed, reckless—and the man most to my heart," he continued. "Have your way, in God's name, but I wish not to see what will come of it! All's ready, Master Secretary."

Very slowly that worthy stooped down and examined the ground, narrowly and quite at his leisure. "I like it not, Master Rolfe," he declared at length. "Here is a molehill, and there a fairy ring."

"I see neither," said Rolfe. "It looks as smooth as a table. But we can easily shift under the cedars where there is no grass."

"Here's a projecting root," announced the Secretary, when the new ground had been reached.

Rolfe shrugged his shoulders, but we moved again.

"The light comes jaggedly through the branches," objected my lord's second. "Better try the open again."

Rolfe uttered an exclamation of impatience, and my lord stamped his foot on the ground. "What is this foolery, sir?" the latter cried fiercely. "The ground's well enough, and there 's sufficient light to die by."

"Let the light pass, then," said his second resignedly. "Gentlemen, are you read—Ods blood! my lord, I had not noticed the roses upon your lordship's shoes! They are so large and have such a fall that they sweep the ground on either side your foot; you might stumble in all that dangling ribbon and lace. Allow me to remove them."

He unsheathed his knife, and, sinking upon his knees, began leisurely to sever the threads that held the roses to the leather. As he worked, he looked neither at the roses nor at my lord's angry face, but beneath his own bent arm toward the church and the town beyond.

How long he would have sawed away at the threads there is no telling; for my lord, amongst whose virtues patience was not one, broke from him, and with an oath stooped and tore away the offending roses with his own hand, then straightened himself and gripped his sword more closely. "I've learned one thing in this d——d land," he snarled, "and that is where not to choose a second. You, sir," to Rolfe, "give the word."

Master Pory rose from his knees, unruffled and unabashed, and still with a curiously absent expression upon his fat face and with his ears cocked in the direction of the church. "One moment, gentlemen," he said. "I have just bethought me"—

"On guard!" cried Rolfe, and cut him short.

The King's favorite was no mean antagonist. Once or twice the thought crossed my mind that here, where I least desired it, I had met my match. The apprehension passed. He fought as he lived, with a fierce intensity, a headlong passion, a brute force, bearing down and overwhelming most obstacles. But that I could tire him out I soon knew.

The incessant flash and clash of steel, the quick changes in position, the need to bring all powers of body and mind to aid of eye and wrist, the will to win, the shame of loss, the rage and lust of blood,—there was no sight or sound outside that trampled circle that could force itself upon our brain or make us glance aside. If there was a sudden commotion amongst the three witnesses, if an expression of immense relief and childlike satisfaction reigned in Master Pory's face, we knew it not. We were both bleeding,—I from a pin prick on the shoulder, he from a touch beneath the arm. He made a desperate thrust, which I parried, and the blades clashed. A third came down upon them with such force that the sparks flew.

"In the King's name!" commanded the Governor.

We fell apart, panting, white with rage, staring at the unexpected disturbers of our peace. They were the Governor, the commander, the Cape Merchant, and the watch.

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!" exclaimed Master Pory, and retired to the cedar and Dr. Bohun.

"This ends here, gentlemen," said the Governor firmly. "You are both bleeding. It is enough."

"Out of my way, sir!" cried my lord, foaming at the mouth. He made a mad thrust over the Governor's extended arm at me, who was ready enough to meet him. "Have at thee, thou bridegroom!" he said between his teeth.

The Governor caught him by the wrist. "Put up your sword, my lord, or, as I stand here, you shall give it into the commander's hands!"

"Hell and furies!" ejaculated my lord. "Do you know who I am, sir?"

"Ay," replied the Governor sturdily, "I do know. It is because of that knowledge, my Lord Carnal, that I interfere in this affair. Were you other than you are, you and this gentleman might fight until doomsday, and meet with no hindrance from me. Being what you are, I will prevent any renewal of this duel, by fair means if I may, by foul if I must."

He left my lord, and came over to me. "Since when have you been upon my Lord Warwick's side, Ralph Percy?" he demanded, lowering his voice.

"I am not so," I said.

"Then appearances are mightily deceitful," he retorted.

"I know what you mean, Sir George," I answered. "I know that if the King's darling should meet death or maiming in this fashion, upon Virginian soil, the Company, already so out of favor, might find some difficulty in explaining things to his Majesty's satisfaction. But I think my Lord Southampton and Sir Edwyn Sandys and Sir George Yeardley equal to the task, especially if they are able to deliver to his Majesty the man whom his Majesty will doubtless consider the true and only rebel and murderer. Let us fight it out, sir. You can all retire to a distance and remain in profound ignorance of any such affair. If I fall, you have nothing to fear. If he falls,—why, I shall not run away, and the Due Return sails to-morrow."

He eyed me closely from under frowning brows.

"And when your wife's a widow, what then?" he asked abruptly.

I have not known many better men than this simple, straightforward, soldierly Governor. The manliness of his character begot trust, invited confidence. Men told him of their hidden troubles almost against their will, and afterward felt neither shame nor fear, knowing the simplicity of his thoughts and the reticence of his speech. I looked him in the eyes, and let him read what I would have shown to no other, and felt no shame. "The Lord may raise her up a helper," I said. "At least she won't have to marry him."

He turned on his heel and moved back to his former station between us two. "My Lord Carnal," he said, "and you, Captain Percy, heed what I say; for what I say I will do. You may take your choice: either you will sheathe your swords here in my presence, giving me your word of honor that you will not draw them upon each other before his Majesty shall have made known his will in this matter to the Company, and the Company shall have transmitted it to me, in token of which truce between you you shall touch each other's hands; or you will pass the time between this and the return of the ship with the King's and the Company's will in strict confinement,—you, Captain Percy, in gaol, and you, my Lord Carnal, in my own poor house, where I will use my best endeavors to make the days pass as pleasantly as possible for your lordship. I have spoken, gentlemen."

There was no protest. For my own part, I knew Yeardley too well to attempt any; moreover, had I been in his place, his course should have been mine. For my Lord Carnal,—what black thoughts visited that fierce and sullen brain I know not, but there was acquiescence in his face, haughty, dark, and vengeful though it was. Slowly and as with one motion we sheathed our swords, and more slowly still repeated the few words after the Governor. His Honor's countenance shone with relief. "Take each other by the hand, gentlemen, and then let 's all to breakfast at my own house, where there shall be no feud save with good capon pasty and jolly good ale." In dead silence my lord and I touched each other's finger tips.

The world was now a flood of sunshine, the mist on the river vanishing, the birds singing, the trees waving in the pleasant morning air. From the town came the roll of the drum summoning all to the week-day service. The bells too began to ring, sounding sweetly through the clear air. The Governor took off his hat. "Let's all to church, gentlemen," he said gravely. "Our cheeks are flushed as with a fever and our pulses run high this morning. There be some among us, perhaps, that have in their hearts discontent, anger, and hatred. I know no better place to take such passions, provided we bring them not forth again."

We went in and sat down. Jeremy Sparrow was in the pulpit. Singly or in groups the town folk entered. Down the aisle strode bearded men, old soldiers, adventurers, sailors, scarred body and soul; young men followed, younger sons and younger brothers, prodigals whose portion had been spent, whose souls now ate of the husks; to the servants' benches came dull laborers, dimly comprehending, groping in the twilight; women entered softly and slowly, some with children clinging to their skirts. One came alone and knelt alone, her face shadowed by her mantle. Amongst the servants stood a slave or two, blindly staring, and behind them all one of that felon crew sent us by the King.

Through the open windows streamed the summer sunshine, soft and fragrant, impartial and unquestioning, caressing alike the uplifted face of the minister, the head of the convict, and all between. The minister's voice was grave and tender when he read and prayed, but in the hymn it rose above the people's like the voice of some mighty archangel. That triumphant singing shook the air, and still rang in the heart while we said the Creed.

When the service was over, the congregation waited for the Governor to pass out first. At the door he pressed me to go with him and his party to his own house, and I gave him thanks, but made excuse to stay away. When he and the nobleman who was his guest had left the churchyard, and the townspeople too were gone, I and my wife and the minister walked home together through the dewy meadow, with the splendor of the morning about us, and the birds caroling from every tree and thicket.



CHAPTER XI IN WHICH I MEET AN ITALIAN DOCTOR

THE summer slipped away, and autumn came, with the purple of the grape and the yellowing corn, the nuts within the forest, and the return of the countless wild fowl to the marshes and reedy river banks, and still I stayed in Jamestown, and my wife with me, and still the Santa Teresa rode at anchor in the river below the fort. If the man whom she brought knew that by tarrying in Virginia he risked his ruin with the King, yet, with a courage worthy of a better cause, he tarried.

Now and then ships came in, but they were small, belated craft. The most had left England before the sailing of the Santa Teresa; the rest, private ventures, trading for clapboard or sassafras, knew nothing of court affairs. Only the Sea Flower, sailing from London a fortnight after the Santa Teresa, and much delayed by adverse winds, brought a letter from the deputy treasurer to Yeardley and the Council. From Rolfe I learned its contents. It spoke of the stir that was made by the departure from the realm of the King's favorite. "None know where he hath gone. The King looks dour; 't is hinted that the privy council are as much at sea as the rest of the world; my Lord of Buckingham saith nothing, but his following—which of late hath somewhat decayed—is so increased that his antechambers cannot hold the throngs that come to wait upon him. Some will have it that my Lord Carnal hath fled the kingdom to escape the Tower; others, that the King hath sent him on a mission to the King of Spain about this detested Spanish match; others, that the gadfly hath stung him and he is gone to America,—to search for Raleigh's gold mine, maybe. This last most improbable; but if 't is so, and he should touch at Virginia, receive him with all honor. If indeed he is not out of favor, the Company may find in him a powerful friend; of powerful enemies, God knows, there is no lack!"

Thus the worthy Master Ferrar. And at the bottom of the letter, among other news of city and court, mention was made of the disappearance of a ward of the King's, the Lady Jocelyn Leigh. Strict search had been made, but the unfortunate lady had not been found. "'T is whispered that she hath killed herself; also, that his Majesty had meant to give her in marriage to my Lord Carnal. But that all true love and virtue and constancy have gone from the age, one might conceive that the said lord had but fled the court for a while, to indulge his grief in some solitude of hill and stream and shady vale,—the lost lady being right worthy of such dole."

In sooth she was, but my lord was not given to such fashion of mourning.

The summer passed, and I did nothing. What was there I could do? I had written by the Due Return to Sir Edwyn, and to my cousin, the Earl of Northumberland. The King hated Sir Edwyn as he hated tobacco and witchcraft. "Choose the devil, but not Sir Edwyn Sandys!" had been his passionate words to the Company the year before. A certain fifth of November had despoiled my Lord of Northumberland of wealth, fame, and influence. Small hope there was in those two. That the Governor and Council, remembering old dangers shared, wished me well I did not doubt, but that was all. Yeardley had done all he could do, more than most men would have dared to do, in procuring this delay. There was no further help in him; nor would I have asked it. Already out of favor with the Warwick faction, he had risked enough for me and mine. I could not flee with my wife to the Indians, exposing her, perhaps, to a death by fierce tortures; moreover, Opechancanough had of late strangely taken to returning to the settlements those runaway servants and fugitives from justice which before we had demanded from him in vain. If even it had been possible to run the gauntlet of the Indian villages, war parties, and hunting bands, what would have been before us but endless forest and a winter which for us would have had no spring? I could not see her die of hunger and cold, or by the teeth of the wolves. I could not do what I should have liked to do,—take, single-handed, that King's ship with its sturdy crew and sail with her south and ever southwards, before us nothing more formidable than Spanish ships, and beyond them blue waters, spice winds, new lands, strange islands of the blest.

There seemed naught that I could do, naught that she could do. Our Fate had us by the hands, and held us fast. We stood still, and the days came and went like dreams.

While the Assembly was in session I had my part to act as Burgess from my hundred. Each day I sat with my fellows in the church, facing the Governor in his great velvet chair, the Council on either hand, and listened to the droning of old Twine, the clerk, like the droning of the bees without the window; to the chant of the sergeant-at-arms; to long and windy discourses from men who planted better than they spoke; to remarks by the Secretary, witty, crammed with Latin and traveled talk; to the Governor's slow, weighty words. At Weyanoke we had had trouble with the Indians. I was one who loved them not and had fought them well, for which reason the hundred chose me its representative. In the Assembly it was my part to urge a greater severity toward those our natural enemies, a greater watchfulness on our part, the need for palisades and sentinels, the danger that lay in their acquisition of firearms, which, in defiance of the law, men gave them in exchange for worthless Indian commodities. This Indian business was the chief matter before the Assembly. I spoke when I thought speech was needed, and spoke strongly; for my heart foreboded that which was to come upon us too soon and too surely. The Governor listened gravely, nodding his head; Master Pory, too, the Cape Merchant, and West were of my mind; but the remainder were besotted by their own conceit, esteeming the very name of Englishman sentinel and palisade enough, or trusting in the smooth words and vows of brotherhood poured forth so plentifully by that red Apollyon, Opechancanough.

When the day's work was done, and we streamed out of the church,—the Governor and Council first, the rest of us in order,—it was to find as often as not a red and black figure waiting for us among the graves. Sometimes it joined itself to the Governor, sometimes to Master Pory; sometimes the whole party, save one, went off with it to the guest house, there to eat, drink, and make merry.

If Virginia and all that it contained, save only that jewel of which it had robbed the court, were out of favor with the King's minion, he showed it not. Perhaps he had accepted the inevitable with a good grace; perhaps it was but his mode of biding his time; but he had shifted into that soldierly frankness of speech and manner, that genial, hail-fellow-well-met air, behind which most safely hides a villain's mind. Two days after that morning behind the church, he had removed himself, his French valets, and his Italian physician from the Governor's house to the newly finished guest house. Here he lived, cock of the walk, taking his ease in his inn, elbowing out all guests save those of his own inviting. If, what with his open face and his open hand, his dinners and bear-baitings and hunting parties, his tales of the court and the wars, his half hints as to the good he might do Virginia with the King, extending even to the lightening of the tax upon our tobacco and the prohibition of the Spanish import, his known riches and power, and the unknown height to which they might attain if his star at court were indeed in the ascendant,—if with these things he slowly, but surely, won to his following all save a very few of those I had thought my fast friends, it was not a thing marvelous or without precedent. Upon his side was good that might be seen and handled; on mine was only a dubious right and a not at all dubious danger. I do not think it plagued me much. The going of those who had it in their heart to wish to go left me content, and for those who fawned upon him from the first, or for the rabble multitude who flung up their caps and ran at his heels, I cared not a doit. There were still Rolfe and West and the Governor, Jeremy Sparrow and Diccon.

My lord and I met, perforce, in the street, at the Governor's house, in church, on the river, in the saddle. If we met in the presence of others, we spoke the necessary formal words of greeting or leave-taking, and he kept his countenance; if none were by, off went the mask. The man himself and I looked each other in the eyes and passed on. Once we encountered on a late evening among the graves, and I was not alone. Mistress Percy had been restless, and had gone, despite the minister's protests, to sit upon the river bank. When I returned from the assembly and found her gone, I went to fetch her. A storm was rolling slowly up. Returning the long way through the churchyard, we came upon him sitting beside a sunken grave, his knees drawn up to meet his chin, his eyes gloomily regardful of the dark broad river, the unseen ocean, and the ship that could not return for weeks to come. We passed him in silence,—I with a slight bow, she with a slighter curtsy. An hour later, going down the street in the dusk of the storm, I ran against Dr. Lawrence Bohun. "Don't stop me!" he panted. "The Italian doctor is away in the woods gathering simples, and they found my Lord Carnal in a fit among the graves, half an hour agone." My lord was bled, and the next morning went hunting.

The lady whom I had married abode with me in the minister's house, held her head high, and looked the world in the face. She seldom went from home, but when she did take the air it was with pomp and circumstance. When that slender figure and exquisite face, set off by as rich apparel as could be bought from a store of finery brought in by the Southampton, and attended by a turbaned negress and a serving man who had been to the wars, and had escaped the wheel by the skin of his teeth, appeared in the street, small wonder if a greater commotion arose than had been since the days of the Princess Pocahontas and her train of dusky beauties. To this fairer, more imperial dame gold lace doffed its hat and made its courtliest bow, and young planters bent to their saddlebows, while the common folk nudged and stared and had their say. The beauty, the grace, the pride, that deigned small response to well-meant words,—all that would have been intolerable in plain Mistress Percy, once a waiting maid, then a piece of merchandise to be sold for one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, then the wife of a poor gentleman, was pardoned readily enough to the Lady Jocelyn Leigh, the ward of the King, the bride to be (so soon as the King's Court of High Commission should have snapped in twain an inconvenient and ill-welded fetter) of the King's minion.

So she passed like a splendid vision through the street perhaps once a week. On Sundays she went with me to church, and the people looked at her instead of at the minister, who rebuked them not, because his eyes were upon the same errand.

The early autumn passed and the leaves began to turn, and still all things were as they had been, save that the Assembly sat no longer. My fellow Burgesses went back to their hundreds, but my house at Weyanoke knew me no more. In a tone that was apologetic, but firm, the Governor had told me that he wished my company at Jamestown. I was pleased enough to stay, I assured him,—as indeed I was. At Weyanoke, the thunderbolt would fall without warning; at Jamestown, at least I could see, coming up the river, the sails of the Due Return or what other ship the Company might send.

The color of the leaves deepened, and there came a season of a beauty singular and sad, like a smile left upon the face of the dead summer. Over all things, near and far, the forest where it met the sky, the nearer woods, the great river, and the streams that empty into it, there hung a blue haze, soft and dream-like. The forest became a painted forest, with an ever thinning canopy and an ever thickening carpet of crimson and gold; everywhere there was a low rustling underfoot and a slow rain of color. It was neither cold nor hot, but very quiet, and the birds went by like shadows,—a listless and forgetful weather, in which we began to look, every hour of every day, for the sail which we knew we should not see for weeks to come.

Good Master Bucke tarried with Master Thorpe at Henricus, recruiting his strength, and Jeremy Sparrow preached in his pulpit, slept in his chamber, and worked in his garden. This garden ran down to the green bank of the river; and here, sitting idly by the stream, her chin in her hand and her dark eyes watching the strong, free sea birds as they came and went, I found my wife one evening, as I came from the fort, where had been some martial exercise. Thirty feet away Master Jeremy Sparrow worked among the dying flowers, and hummed:—

"There is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies grow."

He and I had agreed that when I must needs be absent he should be within call of her; for I believed my Lord Carnal very capable of intruding himself into her presence. That house and garden, her movements and mine, were spied upon by his foreign hirelings, I knew perfectly well.

As I sat down upon the bank at her feet, she turned to me with a sudden passion. "I am weary of it all!" she cried. "I am tired of being pent up in this house and garden, and of the watch you keep upon me. And if I go abroad, it is worse! I hate all those shameless faces that stare at me as if I were in the pillory. I am pilloried before you all, and I find the experience sufficiently bitter. And when I think that that man whom I hate, hate, hate, breathes the air that I breathe, it stifles me! If I could fly away like those birds, if I could only be gone from this place for even a day!"

"I would beg leave to take you home, to Weyanoke," I said after a pause, "but I cannot go and leave the field to him."

"And I cannot go," she answered. "I must watch for that ship and that King's command that my Lord Carnal thinks potent enough to make me his wife. King's commands are strong, but a woman's will is stronger. At the last I shall know what to do. But now why may I not take Angela and cross that strip of sand and go into the woods on the other side? They are so fair and strange,—all red and yellow,—and they look very still and peaceful. I could walk in them, or lie down under the trees and forget awhile, and they are not at all far away." She looked at me eagerly.

"You could not go alone," I told her. "There would be danger in that. But to-morrow, if you choose, I and Master Sparrow and Diccon will take you there. A day in the woods is pleasant enough, and will do none of us harm. Then you may wander as you please, fill your arms with colored leaves, and forget the world. We will watch that no harm comes nigh you, but otherwise you shall not be disturbed."

She broke into delighted laughter. Of all women the most steadfast of soul, her outward moods were as variable as a child's. "Agreed!" she cried. "You and the minister and Diccon Demon shall lay your muskets across your knees, and Angela shall witch you into stone with her old, mad, heathen charms. And then—and then—I will gather more gold than had King Midas; I will dance with the hamadryads; I will find out Oberon and make Titania jealous!"

"I do not doubt that you could do so," I said, as she sprang to her feet, childishly eager and radiantly beautiful.

I rose to go in with her, for it was supper time, but in a moment changed my mind, and resumed my seat on the bank of turf. "Do you go in," I said. "There's a snake near by, in those bushes below the bank. I'll kill the creature, and then I'll come to supper."

When she was gone, I walked to where, ten feet away, the bank dipped to a clump of reeds and willows planted in the mud on the brink of the river. Dropping on my knees I leaned over, and, grasping a man by the collar, lifted him from the slime where he belonged to the bank beside me.

It was my Lord Carnal's Italian doctor that I had so fished up. I had seen him before, and had found in his very small, mean figure clad all in black, and his narrow face with malignant eyes, and thin white lips drawn tightly over gleaming teeth, something infinitely repulsive, sickening to the sight as are certain reptiles to the touch.

"There are no simples or herbs of grace to be found amongst reeds and half-drowned willows," I said. "What did so learned a doctor look for in so unlikely a place?"

He shrugged his shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself up, set his attire to rights, and go away in the gathering dusk, winding in and out among the graves; and then I went in to supper, and told Mistress Percy that the snake was dead.



CHAPTER XII IN WHICH I RECEIVE A WARNING AND REPOSE A TRUST

SHORTLY before daybreak I was wakened by a voice beneath my window. "Captain Percy," it cried, "the Governor wishes you at his house!" and was gone.

I dressed and left the house, disturbing no one. Hurrying through the chill dawn, I reached the square not much behind the rapid footsteps of the watch who had wakened me. About the Governor's door were horses, saddled and bridled, with grooms at their heads, men and beasts gray and indistinct, wrapped in the fog. I went up the steps and into the hall, and knocked at the door of the Governor's great room. It opened, and I entered to find Sir George, with Master Pory, Rolfe, West, and others of the Council gathered about the great centre table and talking eagerly. The Governor was but half dressed; West and Rolfe were in jack boots and coats of mail. A man, breathless with hard riding, spattered with swamp mud and torn by briers, stood, cap in hand, staring from one to the other.

"In good time, Captain Percy!" cried the Governor. "Yesterday you called the profound peace with the Indians, of which some of us boasted, the lull before the storm. Faith, it looks to-day as though you were in the right, after all!"

"What 's the matter, sir?" I asked, advancing to the table.

"Matter enough!" he answered. "This man has come, post haste, from the plantations above Paspahegh. Three days ago, Morgan, the trader, was decoyed into the woods by that Paspahegh fool and bully, Nemattanow, whom they call Jack of the Feather, and there murdered. Yesterday, out of sheer bravado, the Indian turned up at Morgan's house, and Morgan's men shot him down. They buried the dog, and thought no more of it. Three hours ago, Chanco the Christian went to the commander and warned him that the Paspaheghs were in a ferment, and that the warriors were painting themselves black. The commander sent off at once to me, and I see naught better to do than to dispatch you with a dozen men to bring them to their senses. But there 's to be no harrying nor battle. A show of force is all that 's needed,—I'll stake my head upon it. Let them see that we are not to be taken unawares, but give them fair words. That they may be the sooner placated I send with you Master Rolfe,—they'll listen to him. See that the black paint is covered with red, give them some beads and a knife or two, then come home. If you like not the look of things, find out where Opechancanough is, and I'll send him an embassy. He loves us well, and will put down any disaffection."

"There's no doubt that he loves us," I said dryly. "He loves us as a cat loves the mouse that it plays with. If we are to start at once, sir, I'll go get my horse."

"Then meet us at the neck of land," said Rolfe.

I nodded, and left the room. As I descended the steps into the growing light outside, I found Master Pory at my side.

"I kept late hours last night," he remarked, with a portentous yawn. "Now that this business is settled, I'll go back to bed."

I walked on in silence.

"I am in your black books," he continued, with his sly, merry, sidelong glance. "You think that I was overcareful of the ground, that morning behind the church, and so unfortunately delayed matters until the Governor happened by and brought things to another guess conclusion."