"I think that you warned the Governor," I said bluntly.

He shook with laughter. "Warned him? Of course I warned him. Youth would never have seen that molehill and fairy ring and projecting root, but wisdom cometh with gray hairs, my son. D' ye not think I'll have the King's thanks?"

"Doubtless," I answered. "An the price contents you, I do not know why I should quarrel with it."

By this we were halfway down the street, and we now came upon the guest house. A window above us was unshuttered, and in the room within a light still burned. Suddenly it was extinguished. A man's face looked down upon us for a moment, then drew back; a skeleton hand was put out softly and slowly, and the shutter drawn to. Hand and face belonged to the man I had sent tumbling among the graves the evening before.

"The Italian doctor," said Master Pory.

There was something peculiar in his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing. "The Italian doctor," he repeated. "If I had a friend in Captain Percy's predicament, I should bid him beware of the Italian doctor."

"Your friend would be obliged for the warning," I replied.

We walked a little further. "And I think," he said, "that I should inform this purely hypothetical friend of mine that the Italian and his patron had their heads mighty close together, last night."

"Last night?"

"Ay, last night. I went to drink with my lord, and so broke up their tete-a-tete. My lord was boisterous in his cups and not oversecret. He dropped some hints"—He broke off to indulge in one of his endless silent laughs. "I don't know why I tell you this, Captain Percy. I am on the other side, you know,—quite on the other side. But now I bethink me, I am only telling you what I should tell you were I upon your side. There's no harm in that, I hope, no disloyalty to my Lord Carnal's interests which happen to be my interests?"

I made no answer. I gave him credit both for his ignorance of the very hornbook of honor and for his large share of the milk of human kindness.

"My lord grows restive," he said, when we had gone a little further. "The Francis and John, coming in yesterday, brought court news. Out of sight, out of mind. Buckingham is making hay while the sun shines. Useth angel water for his complexion, sleepeth in a medicated mask such as the Valois used, and is grown handsomer than ever; changeth the fashion of his clothes thrice a week, which mightily pleaseth his Majesty. Whoops on the Spanish match, too, and, wonderful past all whooping, from the prince's detestation hath become his bosom friend. Small wonder if my Lord Carnal thinks it's time he was back at Whitehall."

"Let him go, then," I said. "There's his ship that brought him here."

"Ay, there 's his ship," rejoined Master Pory. "A few weeks more, and the Due Return will be here with the Company's commands. D' ye think, Captain Percy, that there's the slightest doubt as to their tenor?"

"No."

"Then my lord has but to possess his soul with patience and wait for the Due Return. No doubt he'll do so."

"No doubt he'll do so," I echoed.

By this we had reached the Secretary's own door. "Fortune favor you with the Paspaheghs!" he said, with another mighty yawn. "As for me, I'll to bed. Do you ever dream, Captain Percy? I don't; mine is too good a conscience. But if I did, I should dream of an Italian doctor."

The door shut upon his red face and bright eyes. I walked rapidly on down the street to the minister's house. The light was very pale as yet, and house and garden lay beneath a veil of mist. No one was stirring. I went on through the gray wet paths to the stable, and roused Diccon.

"Saddle Black Lamoral quickly," I ordered. "There's trouble with the Paspaheghs, and I am off with Master Rolfe to settle it."

"Am I to go with you?" he asked.

I shook my head. "We have a dozen men. There's no need of more."

I left him busy with the horse, and went to the house. In the hall I found the negress strewing the floor with fresh rushes, and asked her if her mistress yet slept. In her soft half English, half Spanish, she answered in the affirmative. I went to my own room and armed myself; then ran upstairs to the comfortable chamber where abode Master Jeremy Sparrow, surrounded by luxuries which his soul contemned. He was not there. At the foot of the stair I was met by Goodwife Allen. "The minister was called an hour ago, sir," she announced. "There's a man dying of the fever at Archer's Hope, and they sent a boat for him. He won't be back until afternoon."

I hurried past her back to the stable. Black Lamoral was saddled, and Diccon held the stirrup for me to mount.

"Good luck with the vermin, sir!" he said. "I wish I were going, too."

His tone was sullen, yet wistful. I knew that he loved danger as I loved it, and a sudden remembrance of the dangers we had faced together brought us nearer to each other than we had been for many a day.

"I don't take you," I explained, "because I have need of you here. Master Sparrow has gone to watch beside a dying man, and will not be back for hours. As for myself, there's no telling how long I may be kept. Until I come you are to guard house and garden well. You know what I mean. Your mistress is to be molested by no one."

"Very well, sir."

"One thing more. There was some talk yesterday of my taking her across the neck to the forest. When she awakes, tell her from me that I am sorry for her to lose her pleasure, but that now she could not go even were I here to take her."

"There 's no danger from the Paspaheghs there," he muttered.

"The Paspaheghs happen not to be my only foes," I said curtly. "Do as I bid you without remark. Tell her that I have good reasons for desiring her to remain within doors until my return. On no account whatever is she to venture without the garden."

I gathered up the reins, and he stood back from the horse's head. When I had gone a few paces I drew rein, and, turning in my saddle, spoke to him across the dew-drenched grass. "This is a trust, Diccon," I said.

The red came into his tanned face. He raised his hand and made our old military salute. "I understand it so, my captain," he answered, and I rode away satisfied.



CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH THE SANTA TERESA DROPS DOWNSTREAM

AN hour's ride brought us to the block house standing within the forest, midway between the white plantations at Paspahegh and the village of the tribe. We found it well garrisoned, spies out, and the men inclined to make light of the black paint and the seething village.

Amongst them was Chanco the Christian. I called him to me, and we listened to his report with growing perturbation. "Thirty warriors!" I said, when he had finished. "And they are painted yellow as well as black, and have dashed their cheeks with puccoon: it's l'outrance, then! And the war dance is toward! If we are to pacify this hornets' nest, it's high time we set about it. Gentlemen of the block house, we are but twelve, and they may beat us back, in which case those that are left of us will fight it out with you here. Watch for us, therefore, and have a sally party ready. Forward, men!"

"One moment, Captain Percy," said Rolfe. "Chanco, where's the Emperor?"

"Five suns ago he was with the priests at Uttamussac," answered the Indian. "Yesterday, at the full sun power, he was in the lodge of the werowance of the Chickahominies. He feasts there still. The Chickahominies and the Powhatans have buried the hatchet."

"I regret to hear it," I remarked. "Whilst they took each other's scalps, mine own felt the safer."

"I advise going direct to Opechancanough," said Rolfe.

"Since he's only a league away, so do I," I answered.

We left the block house and the clearing around it, and plunged into the depths of the forest. In these virgin woods the trees are set well apart, though linked one to the other by the omnipresent grape, and there is little undergrowth, so that we were able to make good speed. Rolfe and I rode well in front of our men. By now the sun was shining through the lower branches of the trees, and the mist was fast vanishing. The forest—around us, above us, and under the hoofs of the horses where the fallen leaves lay thick—was as yellow as gold and as red as blood.

"Rolfe," I asked, breaking a long silence, "do you credit what the Indians say of Opechancanough?"

"That he was brother to Powhatan only by adoption?"

"That, fleeing for his life, he came to Virginia, years and years ago, from some mysterious land far to the south and west?"

"I do not know," he replied thoughtfully. "He is like, and yet not like, the people whom he rules. In his eye there is the authority of mind; his features are of a nobler cast "—

"And his heart is of a darker," I said. "It is a strange and subtle savage."

"Strange enough and subtle enough, I admit," he answered, "though I believe not with you that his friendliness toward us is but a mask."

"Believe it or not, it is so," I said. "That dark, cold, still face is a mask, and that simple-seeming amazement at horses and armor, guns and blue beads, is a mask. It is in my mind that some fair day the mask will be dropped. Here's the village."

Until our interview with Chanco the Christian, the village of the Paspaheghs, and not the village of the Chickahominies, had been our destination, and since leaving the block house we had made good speed; but now, within the usual girdle of mulberries, we were met by the werowance and his chief men with the customary savage ceremonies. We had long since come to the conclusion that the birds of the air and the fish of the streams were Mercuries to the Indians.

The werowance received us in due form, with presents of fish and venison, cakes of chinquapin meal and gourds of pohickory, an uncouth dance by twelve of his young men and a deal of hellish noise; then, at our command, led us into the village, and to the lodge which marked its centre. Around it were gathered Opechancanough's own warriors, men from Orapax and Uttamussac and Werowocomoco, chosen for their strength and cunning; while upon the grass beneath a blood-red gum tree sat his wives, painted and tattooed, with great strings of pearl and copper about their necks. Beyond them were the women and children of the Chickahominies, and around us all the red forest.

The mat that hung before the door of the lodge was lifted, and an Indian, emerging, came forward, with a gesture of welcome. It was Nantauquas, the Lady Rebekah's brother, and the one Indian—saving always his dead sister—that was ever to my liking; a savage, indeed, but a savage as brave and chivalrous, as courteous and truthful, as a Christian knight.

Rolfe sprang from his horse, and advancing to meet the young chief embraced him. Nantauquas had been much with his sister during those her happy days at Varina, before she went with Rolfe that ill-fated voyage to England, and Rolfe loved him for her sake and for his own. "I thought you at Orapax, Nantauquas!" he exclaimed.

"I was there, my brother," said the Indian, and his voice was sweet, deep, and grave, like that of his sister. "But Opechancanough would go to Uttamussac, to the temple and the dead kings. I lead his war parties now, and I came with him. Opechancanough is within the lodge. He asks that my brother and Captain Percy come to him there."

He lifted the mat for us, and followed us into the lodge. There was the usual winding entrance, with half a dozen mats to be lifted one after the other, but at last we came to the central chamber and to the man we sought.

He sat beside a small fire burning redly in the twilight of the room. The light shone now upon the feathers in his scalp lock, now upon the triple row of pearls around his neck, now upon knife and tomahawk in his silk grass belt, now on the otterskin mantle hanging from his shoulder and drawn across his knees. How old he was no man knew. Men said that he was older than Powhatan, and Powhatan was very old when he died. But he looked a man in the prime of life; his frame was vigorous, his skin unwrinkled, his eyes bright and full. When he rose to welcome us, and Nantauquas stood beside him, there seemed not a score of years between them.

The matter upon which we had come was not one that brooked delay. We waited with what patience we might until his long speech of welcome was finished, when, in as few words as possible, Rolfe laid before him our complaint against the Paspaheghs. The Indian listened; then said, in that voice that always made me think of some cold, still, bottomless pool lying black beneath overhanging rocks: "My brothers may go in peace. The Paspaheghs have washed off the black paint. If my brothers go to the village, they will find the peace pipe ready for their smoking."

Rolfe and I stared at each other. "I have sent messengers," continued the Emperor. "I have told the Paspaheghs of my love for the white man, and of the goodwill the white man bears the Indian. I have told them that Nemattanow was a murderer, and that his death was just. They are satisfied. Their village is as still as this beast at my feet." He pointed downward to a tame panther crouched against his moccasins. I thought it an ominous comparison.

Involuntarily we looked at Nantauquas. "It is true," he said. "I am but come from the village of the Paspaheghs. I took them the word of Opechancanough."

"Then, since the matter is settled, we may go home," I remarked, rising as I spoke. "We could, of course, have put down the Paspaheghs with one hand, giving them besides a lesson which they would not soon forget, but in the kindness of our hearts toward them and to save ourselves trouble we came to Opechancanough. For his aid in this trifling business the Governor gives him thanks."

A smile just lit the features of the Indian. It was gone in a moment. "Does not Opechancanough love the white men?" he said. "Some day he will do more than this for them."

We left the lodge and the dark Emperor within it, got to horse, and quitted the village, with its painted people, yellowing mulberries, and blood-red gum trees. Nantauquas went with us, keeping pace with Rolfe's horse, and giving us now and then, in his deep musical voice, this or that bit of woodland news. At the block house we found confirmation of the Emperor's statement. An embassy from the Paspaheghs had come with presents, and the peace pipe had been smoked. The spies, too, brought news that all war-like preparations had ceased in the village. It had sunk once more into a quietude befitting the sleepy, dreamy, hazy weather.

Rolfe and I held a short consultation. All appeared safe, but there was the possibility of a ruse. At the last it seemed best that he, who by virtue of his peculiar relations with the Indians was ever our negotiator, should remain with half our troop at the block house, while I reported to the Governor. So I left him, and Nantauquas with him, and rode back to Jamestown, reaching the town some hours sooner than I was expected.

It was after nooning when I passed through the gates of the palisade, and an hour later when I finished my report to the Governor. When he at last dismissed me, I rode quickly down the street toward the minister's house. As I passed the guest house, I glanced up at the window from which, at daybreak, the Italian had looked down upon me. No one looked out now; the window was closely shuttered, and at the door beneath my lord's French rascals were conspicuously absent. A few yards further on I met my lord face to face, as he emerged from a lane that led down to the river. At sight of me he started violently, and his hand went to his mouth. I slightly bent my head, and rode on past him. At the gate of the churchyard, a stone's throw from home, I met Master Jeremy Sparrow.

"Well met!" he exclaimed. "Are the Indians quiet?"

"For the nonce. How is your sick man?"

"Very well," he answered gravely. "I closed his eyes two hours ago."

"He's dead, then," I said. "Well, he 's out of his troubles, and hath that advantage over the living. Have you another call, that you travel from home so fast?"

"Why, to tell the truth," he replied, "I could not but feel uneasy when I learned just now of this commotion amongst the heathen. You must know best, but I should not have thought it a day for madam to walk in the woods; so I e'en thought I would cross the neck and bring her home."

"For madam to walk in the woods?" I said slowly. "So she walks there? With whom?"

"With Diccon and Angela," he answered. "They went before the sun was an hour high, so Goodwife Allen says. I thought that you—" "No," I told him. "On the contrary, I left command that she should not venture outside the garden. There are more than Indians abroad."

I was white with anger; but besides anger there was fear in my heart.

"I will go at once and bring her home," I said. As I spoke, I happened to glance toward the fort and the shipping in the river beyond. Something seemed wrong with the prospect. I looked again, and saw what hated and familiar object was missing.

"Where is the Santa Teresa?" I demanded, the fear at my heart tugging harder.

"She dropped downstream this morning. I passed her as I came up from Archer's Hope, awhile ago. She's anchored in midstream off the big spring. Why did she go?"

We looked each other in the eyes, and each read the thought that neither cared to put into words.

"You can take the brown mare," I said, speaking lightly because my heart was as heavy as lead, "and we'll ride to the forest. It is all right, I dare say. Doubtless we'll find her garlanding herself with the grape, or playing with the squirrels, or asleep on the red leaves, with her head in Angela's lap."

"Doubtless," he said. "Don't lose time. I'll saddle the mare and overtake you in two minutes."



CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH WE SEEK A LOST LADY

BESIDE the minister and myself, nothing human moved in the crimson woods. Blue haze was there, and the steady drift of colored leaves, and the sunshine freely falling through bared limbs, but no man or woman. The fallen leaves rustled as the deer passed, the squirrels chattered and the foxes barked, but we heard no sweet laughter or ringing song.

We found a bank of moss, and lying upon it a chaplet of red-brown oak leaves; further on, the mint beside a crystal streamlet had been trodden underfoot; then, flung down upon the brown earth beneath some pines, we came upon a long trailer of scarlet vine. Beyond was a fairy hollow, a cuplike depression, curtained from the world by the red vines that hung from the trees upon its brim, and carpeted with the gold of a great maple; and here Fear became a giant with whom it was vain to wrestle.

There had been a struggle in the hollow. The curtain of vines was torn, the boughs of a sumach bent and broken, the fallen leaves groun underfoot. In one place there was blood upon the leaves.

The forest seemed suddenly very quiet,—quite soundless save for the beating of our hearts. On every side opened red and yellow ways, sunny glades, labyrinthine paths, long aisles, all dim with the blue haze like the cloudy incense in stone cathedrals, but nothing moved in them save the creatures of the forest. Without the hollow there was no sign. The leaves looked undisturbed, or others, drifting down, had hidden any marks there might have been; no footprints, no broken branches, no token of those who had left the hollow. Down which of the painted ways had they gone, and where were they now?

Sparrow and I sat our horses, and stared now down this alley, now down that, into the blue that closed each vista.

"The Santa Teresa is just off the big spring," he said at last. "She must have dropped down there in order to take in water quietly."

"The man that came upon her is still in town,—or was an hour agone," I replied.

"Then she has n't sailed yet," he said.

In the distance something grew out of the blue mist. I had not lived thirteen years in the woodland to be dim of sight or dull of hearing.

"Some one is coming," I announced. "Back your horse into this clump of sumach."

The sumach grew thick, and was draped, moreover, with some broad-leafed vine. Within its covert we could see with small danger of being seen, unless the approaching figure should prove to be that of an Indian. It was not an Indian; it was my Lord Carnal. He came on slowly, glancing from side to side, and pausing now and then as if to listen. He was so little of a woodsman that he never looked underfoot.

Sparrow touched my arm and pointed down a glade at right angles with the path my lord was pursuing. Up this glade there was coming toward us another figure,—a small black figure that moved swiftly, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Black Lamoral stood like a stone; the brown mare, too, had learned what meant a certain touch upon her shoulder. Sparrow and I, with small shame for our eavesdropping, bent to our saddlebows and looked sideways through tiny gaps in the crimson foliage.

My lord descended one side of the hollow, his heavy foot bringing down the dead leaves and loose earth; the Italian glided down the opposite side, disturbing the economy of the forest as little as a snake would have done.

"I thought I should never meet you," growled my lord. "I thought I had lost you and her and myself. This d-d red forest and this blue haze are enough to"—He broke off with an oath.

"I came as fast as I could," said the other. His voice was strange, thin and dreamy, matching his filmy eyes and his eternal, very faint smile. "Your poor physician congratulates your lordship upon the success that still attends you. Yours is a fortunate star, my lord."

"Then you have her safe?" cried my lord.

"Three miles from here, on the river bank, is a ring of pines, in which the trees grow so thick that it is always twilight. Ten years ago a man was murdered there, and Sir Thomas Dale chained the murderer to the tree beneath which his victim was buried, and left him to perish of hunger and thirst. That is the tale they tell at Jamestown. The wood is said to be haunted by murdered and murderer, and no one enters it or comes nearer to it than he can avoid: which makes it an excellent resort for those whom the dead cannot scare. The lady is there, my lord, with your four knaves to guard her. They do not know that the gloom and quiet of the place are due to more than nature."

My lord began to laugh. Either he had been drinking, or the success of his villainy had served for wine. "You are a man in a thousand, Nicolo!" he said. "How far above or below the ship is this fortunate wood?"

"Just opposite, my lord."

"Can a boat land easily?"

"A creek runs through the wood to the river. There needs but the appointed signal from the bank, and a boat from the Santa Teresa can be rowed up the stream to the very tree beneath which the lady sits."

My lord's laughter rang out again. "You're a man in ten thousand, Nicolo! Nicolo, the bridegroom's in town."

"Back so soon?" said the Italian. "Then we must change your lordship's plan. With him on the ground, you can no longer wait until nightfall to row downstream to the lady and the Santa Teresa. He'll come to look for her."

"Ay he'll come to look for her, curse him!" echoed my lord.

"Do you think the dead will scare him?" continued the Italian.

"No, I don't!" answered my lord, with an oath. "I would he were among them! An I could have killed him before I went"—

"I had devised a way to do it long ago, had not your lordship's conscience been so tender. And yet, before now, our enemies—yours and mine, my lord—have met with sudden and mysterious death. Men stared, but they ended by calling it a dispensation of Providence." He broke off to laugh with silent, hateful laughter, as mirthful as the grin of a death's-head.

"I know, I know!" said my lord impatiently. "We are not overnice, Nicolo. But between me and those who then stood in my way there had passed no challenge. This is my mortal foe, through whose heart I would drive my sword. I would give my ruby to know whether he's in the town or in the forest."

"He's in the forest," I said.

Black Lamoral and the brown mare were beside them before either moved hand or foot, or did aught but stare and stare, as though men and horses had risen from the dead. All the color was gone from my lord's face,—it looked white, drawn, and pinched; as for his companion, his countenance did not change,—never changed, I believe,—but the trembling of the feather in his hat was not caused by the wind.

Jeremy Sparrow bent down from his saddle, seized the Italian under the armpits, and swung him clean from the ground up to the brown mare's neck. "Divinity and medicine," he said genially, "soul healer and body poisoner, we'll ride double for a time," and proceeded to bind the doctor's hands with his own scarf. The creature of venom before him writhed and struggled, but the minister's strength was as the strength of ten, and the minister's hand held him down. By this I was off Black Lamoral and facing my lord. The color had come back to his lip and cheek, and the flash to his eye. His hand went to his sword hilt.

"I shall not draw mine, my lord," I told him. "I keep troth."

He stared at me with a frown that suddenly changed into a laugh, forced and unnatural enough. "Then go thy ways, and let me go mine!" he cried. "Be complaisant, worthy captain of trainbands and Burgess from a dozen huts! The King and I will make it worth your while."

"I will not draw my sword upon you," I replied, "but I will try a fall with you," and I seized him by the wrist.

He was a good wrestler as he was a good swordsman, but, with bitter anger in my heart and a vision of the haunted wood before my eyes, I think I could have wrestled with Hercules and won. Presently I threw him, and, pinning him down with my knee upon his breast, cried to Sparrow to cut the bridle reins from Black Lamoral and throw them to me. Though he had the Italian upon his hands, he managed to obey. With my free hand and my teeth I drew a thong about my lord's arms and bound them to his sides; then took my knee from his chest and my hand from his throat, and rose to my feet. He rose too with one spring. He was very white, and there was foam on his lips.

"What next, captain?" he demanded thickly. "Your score is mounting up rather rapidly. What next?"

"This," I replied, and with the other thong fastened him, despite his struggles, to the young maple beneath which we had wrestled. When the task was done, I first drew his sword from its jeweled scabbard and laid it on the ground at his feet, and then cut the leather which restrained his arms, leaving him only tied to the tree. "I am not Sir Thomas Dale," I said, "and therefore I shall not gag you and leave you bound for an indefinite length of time, to contemplate a grave that you thought to dig. One haunted wood is enough for one county. Your lordship will observe that I have knotted your bonds in easy reach of your hands, the use of which I have just restored to you. The knot is a peculiar one; an Indian taught it to me. If you set to work at once, you will get it untied before nightfall. That you may not think it the Gordian knot and treat it as such, I have put your sword where you can get it only when you have worked for it. Your familiar, my lord, may prove of use to us; therefore we will take him with us to the haunted wood. I have the honor to wish your lordship a very good day."

I bowed low, swung myself into my saddle, and turned my back upon his glaring eyes and bared teeth. Sparrow, his prize flung across his saddlebow, turned with me. A minute more saw us out of the hollow, and entered upon the glade up which had come the Italian. When we had gone a short distance, I turned in my saddle and looked back. The tiny hollow had vanished; all the forest looked level, dreamy and still, barren of humanity, given over to its own shy children, nothing moving save the slow-falling leaves. But from beyond a great clump of sumach, set like a torch in the vaporous blue, came a steady stream of words, happily rendered indistinguishable by distance, and I knew that the King's minion was cursing the Italian, the Governor, the Santa Teresa, the Due Return, the minister, the forest, the haunted wood, his sword, the knot that I had tied, and myself.

I admit that the sound was music in mine ears.



CHAPTER XV IN WHICH WE FIND THE HAUNTED WOOD

ON the outskirts of the haunted wood we dismounted, fastening the horses to two pines. The Italian we gagged and bound across the brown mare's saddle. Then, as noiselessly as Indians, we entered the wood.

Once within it, it was as though the sun had suddenly sunk from the heavens. The pines, of magnificent height and girth, were so closely set that far overhead, where the branches began, was a heavy roof of foliage, impervious to the sunshine, brooding, dark and sullen as a thundercloud, over the cavernous world beneath. There was no undergrowth, no clinging vines, no bloom, no color; only the dark, innumerable tree trunks and the purplish-brown, scented, and slippery earth. The air was heavy, cold, and still, like cave air; the silence as blank and awful as the silence beneath the earth.

The minister and I stole through the dusk, and for a long time heard nothing but our own breathing and the beating of our hearts. But coming to a sluggish stream, as quiet as the wood through which it crept, and following its slow windings, we at last heard a voice, and in the distance made out dark forms sitting on the earth beside that sombre water. We went on with caution, gliding from tree to tree and making no noise. In the cheerless silence of that place any sound would have shattered the stillness like a pistol shot.

Presently we came to a halt, and, ourselves hidden by a giant trunk, looked out on stealers and stolen. They were gathered on the bank of the stream, waiting for the boat from the Santa Teresa. The lady whom we sought lay like a fallen flower on the dark ground beneath a pine. She did not move, and her eyes were shut. At her head crouched the negress, her white garments showing ghostlike through the gloom. Beneath the next tree sat Diccon, his hands tied behind him, and around him my Lord Carnal's four knaves. It was Diccon's voice that we had heard. He was still speaking, and now we could distinguish the words.

"So Sir Thomas chains him there," he said,—"right there to that tree under which you are sitting, Jacky Bonhomme." Jacques incontinently shifted his position. "He chains him there, with one chain around his neck, one around his waist, and one around his ankles. Then he sticks me a bodkin through his tongue." A groan of admiration from his audience. "Then they dig, before his very eyes, a grave,—shallow enough they make it, too,—and they put into it, uncoffined, with only a long white shroud upon him, the man he murdered. Then they cover the grave. You're sitting on it now, you other Jacky."

"Godam!" cried the rascal addressed, and removed with expedition to a less storied piece of ground.

"Then they go away," continued Diccon in graveyard tones. "They all go away together,—Sir Thomas and Captain Argall, Captain West, Lieutenant George Percy and his cousin, my master, and Sir Thomas's men; they go out of the wood as though it were accursed, though indeed it was not half so gloomy then as it is now. The sun shone into it then, sometimes, and the birds sang. You would n't think it from the looks of things now, would you? As the dead man rotted in his grave, and the living man died by inches above him, they say the wood grew darker, and darker, and darker. How dark it's getting now, and cold,—cold as the dead!"

His auditors drew closer together, and shivered. Sparrow and I were so near that we could see the hands of the ingenious story-teller, bound behind his back, working as he talked. Now they strained this way, and now that, at the piece of rope that bound them.

"That was ten years ago," he said, his voice becoming more and more impressive. "Since that day nothing comes into this wood,—nothing human, that is. Neither white man nor Indian comes, that's certain. Then why are n't there chains around that tree, and why are there no bones beneath it, on the ground there? Because, Jackies all, the man that did that murder walks! It is not always deadly still here; sometimes there 's a clanking of chains! And a bodkin through the tongue can't keep the dead from wailing! And the murdered man walks, too; in his shroud he follows the other—Is n't that something white in the distance yonder?"

My lord's four knaves looked down the arcade of trees, and saw the something white as plainly as if it had been verily there. Each moment the wood grew darker,—a thing in nature, since the sun outside was swiftly sinking to the horizon. But to those to whom that tale had been told it was a darkening unearthly and portentous, bringing with it a colder air and a deepened silence.

"Oh, Sir Thomas Dale, Sir Thomas Dale!"

The voice seemed to come from the distance, and bore in its dismal cadence the melancholy of the damned. For a moment my heart stood still, and the hair of my head commenced to rise; the next, I knew that Diccon had found an ally, not in the dead, but in the living. The minister, standing beside me, opened his mouth again, and again that dismal voice rang through the wood, and again it seemed, by I know not what art, to come from any spot rather than from that particular tree behind whose trunk stood Master Jeremy Sparrow.

"Oh, the bodkin through my tongue! Oh, the bodkin through my tongue!"

Two of the guard sat with hanging lip and lacklustre eyes, turned to stone; one, at full length upon the ground, bruised his face against the pine needles and called on the Virgin; the fourth, panic-stricken, leaped to his feet and dashed off into the darkness, to trouble us no more that day.

"Oh, the heavy chains!" cried the unseen spectre. "Oh, the dead man in his grave!"

The man on his face dug his nails into the earth and howled; his fellows were too frightened for sound or motion. Diccon, a hardy rogue, with little fear of God or man, gave no sign of perturbation beyond a desperate tugging at the rope about his wrists. He was ever quick to take suggestion, and he had probably begun to question the nature of the ghost who was doing him such yeoman service.

"D' ye think they've had enough?" said Sparrow in my ear. "My invention flaggeth."

I nodded, too choked with laughter for speech, and drew my sword. The next moment we were upon the men like wolves upon the fold.

They made no resistance. Amazed and shaken as they were, we might have dispatched them with all ease, to join the dead whose lamentations yet rang in their ears; but we contented ourselves with disarming them and bidding them begone for their lives in the direction of the Pamunkey. They went like frightened deer, their one goal in life escape from the wood.

"Did you meet the Italian?"

I turned to find my wife at my side. The King's ward had a kingly spirit; she was not one that the dead or the living could daunt. To her, as to me, danger was a trumpet call to nerve heart and strengthen soul. She had been in peril of that which she most feared, but the light in her eye was not quenched, and the hand with which she touched mine, though cold, was steady.

"Is he dead?" she asked. "At court they called him the Black Death. They said"—

"I did not kill him," I answered, "but I will if you desire it."

"And his master?" she demanded. "What have you done with his master?"

I told her. At the vision my words conjured up her strained nerves gave way, and she broke into laughter as cruel as it was sweet. Peal after peal rang through the haunted wood, and increased the eeriness of the place.

"The knot that I tied he will untie directly," I said. "If we would reach Jamestown first, we had best be going."

"Night is upon us, too," said the minister, "and this place hath the look of the very valley of the shadow of death. If the spirits walk, it is hard upon their time—and I prefer to walk elsewhere."

"Cease your laughter, madam," I said. "Should a boat be coming up this stream, you would betray us."

I went over to Diccon, and in a silence as grim as his own cut the rope which bound his hands, which done we all moved through the deepening gloom to where we had left the horses, Jeremy Sparrow going on ahead to have them in readiness. Presently he came hurrying back. "The Italian is gone!" he cried.

"Gone!" I exclaimed. "I told you to tie him fast to the saddle!"

"Why, so I did," he replied. "I drew the thongs so tight that they cut into his flesh. He could not have endured to pull against them."

"Then how did he get away?"

"Why," he answered, with a rueful countenance, "I did bind him, as I have said; but when I had done so, I bethought me of how the leather must cut, and of how pain is dreadful even to a snake, and of the injunction to do as you would be done by, and so e'en loosened his bonds. But, as I am a christened man, I thought that they would yet hold him fast!"

I began to swear, but ended in vexed laughter. "The milk's spilt. There 's no use in crying over it. After all, we must have loosed him before we entered the town."

"Will you not bring the matter before the Governor?" he asked.

I shook my head. "If Yeardley did me right, he would put in jeopardy his office and his person. This is my private quarrel, and I will draw no man into it against his will. Here are the horses, and we had best be gone, for by this time my lord and his physician may have their heads together again."

I mounted Black Lamoral, and lifted Mistress Percy to a seat behind me. The brown mare bore the minister and the negress, and Diccon, doggedly silent, trudged beside us.

We passed through the haunted wood and the painted forest beyond without adventure. We rode in silence: the lady behind me too weary for speech, the minister revolving in his mind the escape of the Italian, and I with my own thoughts to occupy me. It was dusk when we crossed the neck of land, and as we rode down the street torches were being lit in the houses. The upper room in the guest house was brightly illumined, and the window was open. Black Lamoral and the brown mare made a trampling with their hoofs, and I began to whistle a gay old tune I had learnt in the wars. A figure in scarlet and black came to the window, and stood there looking down upon us. The lady riding with me straightened herself and raised her weary head. "The next time we go to the forest, Ralph," she said in a clear, high voice, "thou 'lt show me a certain tree," and she broke into silvery laughter. She laughed until we had left behind the guest house and the figure in the upper window, and then the laughter changed to something like a sob. If there were pain and anger in her heart, pain and anger were in mine also. She had never called me by my name before. She had only used it now as a dagger with which to stab at that fierce heart above us.

At last we reached the minister's house, and dismounted before the door. Diccon led the horses away, and I handed my wife into the great room. The minister tarried but for a few words anent some precautions that I meant to take, and then betook himself to his own chamber. As he went out of the door Diccon entered the room.

"Oh, I am weary!" sighed Mistress Jocelyn Percy. "What was the mighty business, Captain Percy, that made you break tryst with a lady? You should go to court, sir, to be taught gallantry."

"Where should a wife go to be taught obedience?" I demanded. "You know where I went and why I could not keep tryst. Why did you not obey my orders?"

She opened wide her eyes. "Your orders? I never received any,—not that I should have obeyed them if I had. Know where you went? I know neither why nor where you went!"

I leaned my hand upon the table, and looked from her to Diccon.

"I was sent by the Governor to quell a disturbance amongst the nearest Indians. The woods today have been full of danger. Moreover, the plan that we made yesterday was overheard by the Italian. When I had to go this morning without seeing you, I left you word where I had gone and why, and also my commands that you should not stir outside the garden. Were you not told this, madam?"

"No!" she cried.

I looked at Diccon. "I told madam that you were called away on business," he said sullenly. "I told her that you were sorry you could not go with her to the woods."

"You told her nothing more?"

"No."

"May I ask why?"

He threw back his head. "I did not believe the Paspaheghs would trouble her," he answered, with hardihood, "and you had n't seen fit, sir, to tell me of the other danger. Madam wanted to go, and I thought it a pity that she should lose her pleasure for nothing."

I had been hunting the day before, and my whip yet lay upon the table. "I have known you for a hardy rogue," I said, with my hand upon it; "now I know you for a faithless one as well. If I gave you credit for all the vices of the soldier, I gave you credit also for his virtues. I was the more deceived. The disobedient servant I might pardon, but the soldier who is faithless to his trust"—

I raised the whip and brought it down again and again across his shoulders. He stood without a word, his face dark red and his hands clenched at his sides. For a minute or more there was no sound in the room save the sound of the blows; then my wife suddenly cried out: "It is enough! You have beaten him enough! Let him go, sir!"

I threw down the whip. "Begone, sirrah!" I ordered. "And keep out of my sight to-morrow!"

With his face still dark red and with a pulse beating fiercely in his cheek, he moved slowly toward the door, turned when he had reached it and saluted, then went out and closed it after him.

"Now he too will be your enemy," said Mistress Percy, "and all through me. I have brought you many enemies, have I not? Perhaps you count me amongst them? I should not wonder if you did. Do you not wish me gone from Virginia?"

"So I were with you, madam," I said bluntly, and went to call the minister down to supper.



CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH I AM RID OF AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT

THE next day, Governor and Councilors sat to receive presents from the Paspaheghs and to listen to long and affectionate messages from Opechancanough, who, like the player queen, did protest too much. The Council met at Yeardley's house, and I was called before it to make my report of the expedition of the day before. It was late afternoon when the Governor dismissed us, and I found myself leaving the house in company with Master Pory.

"I am bound for my lord's," said that worthy as we neared the guest house. "My lord hath Xeres wine that is the very original nectar of the gods, and he drinks it from goblets worth a king's ransom. We have heard a deal to-day about burying hatchets: bury thine for the nonce, Ralph Percy, and come drink with us."

"Not I," I said. "I would sooner drink with—some one else."

He laughed. "Here's my lord himself shall persuade you."

My lord, dressed with his usual magnificence and darkly handsome as ever, was indeed standing within the guest-house door. Pory drew up beside him. I was passing on with a slight bow, when the Secretary caught me by the sleeve. At the Governor's house wine had been set forth to revive the jaded Council, and he was already half seas over. "Tarry with us, captain!" he cried. "Good wine's good wine, no matter who pours it! 'S bud! in my young days men called a truce and forgot they were foes when the bottle went round!"

"If Captain Percy will stay," quoth my lord, "I will give him welcome and good wine. As Master Pory says, men cannot be always fighting. A breathing spell to-day gives to-morrow's struggle new zest."

He spoke frankly, with open face and candid eyes. I was not fooled. If yesterday he would have slain me only in fair fight, it was not so to-day. Under the lace that fell over his wrist was a red cirque, the mark of the thong with which I had bound him. As if he had told me, I knew that he had thrown his scruples to the winds, and that he cared not what foul play he used to sweep me from his path. My spirit and my wit rose to meet the danger. Of a sudden I resolved to accept his invitation.

"So be it," I said, with a laugh and a shrug of my shoulders. "A cup of wine is no great matter. I'll take it at your hands, my lord, and drink to our better acquaintance."

We all three went up into my lord's room. The King had fitted out his minion bravely for the Virginia voyage, and the riches that had decked the state cabin aboard the Santa Teresa now served to transform the bare room in the guest house at Jamestown into a corner of Whitehall. The walls were hung with arras, there was a noble carpet beneath as well as upon the table, and against the wall stood richly carved trunks. On the table, beside a bowl of late flowers were a great silver flagon and a number of goblets, some of chased silver and some of colored glass, strangely shaped and fragile as an eggshell. The late sun now shining in at the open window made the glass to glow like precious stones.

My lord rang a little silver bell, and a door behind us was opened. "Wine, Giles!" cried my lord in a raised voice. "Wine for Master Pory, Captain Percy, and myself! And Giles, my two choice goblets."

Giles, whom I had never seen before, advanced to the table, took the flagon, and went toward the door, which he had shut behind him. I negligently turned in my seat, and so came in for a glimpse, as he slipped through the door, of a figure in black in the next room.

The wine was brought, and with it two goblets. My lord broke off in the midst of an account of the morning's bear-baiting which the tediousness of the Indians had caused us to miss. "Who knows if we three shall ever drink together again?" he said. "To honor this bout I use my most precious cups." Voice and manner were free and unconstrained. "This gold cup "—he held it up—"belonged to the Medici. Master Pory, who is a man of taste, will note the beauty of the graven maenads upon this side, and of the Bacchus and Ariadne upon this. It is the work of none other than Benvenuto Cellini. I pour for you, sir." He filled the gold cup with the ruby wine and set it before the Secretary, who eyed it with all the passion of a lover, and waited not for us, but raised it to his lips at once. My lord took up the other cup. "This glass," he continued, "as green as an emerald, freckled inside and out with gold, and shaped like a lily, was once amongst a convent's treasures. My father brought it from Italy, years ago. I use it as he used it, only on gala days. I fill to you, sir." He poured the wine into the green and gold and twisted bauble and set it before me, then filled a silver goblet for himself. "Drink, gentlemen," he said.

"Faith, I have drunken already," quoth the Secretary, and proceeded to fill for himself a second time. "Here's to you, gentlemen!" and he emptied half the measure.

"Captain Percy does not drink," remarked my lord.

I leaned my elbow upon the table, and, holding up the glass against the light, began to admire its beauty. "The tint is wonderful," I said, "as lucent a green as the top of the comber that is to break and overwhelm you. And these knobs of gold, within and without, and the strange shape the tortured glass has been made to take. I find it of a quite sinister beauty, my lord."

"It hath been much admired," said the nobleman addressed.

"I am strangely suited, my lord," I went on, still dreamily enjoying the beauty of the green gem within my clasp. "I am a soldier with an imagination. Sometimes, to give the rein to my fancy pleases me more than wine. Now, this strange chalice,—might it not breed dreams as strange?"

"When I had drunken, I think," replied my lord. "The wine would be a potent spur to my fancy."

"What saith honest Jack Falstaff?" broke in the maudlin Secretary. "Doth he not bear testimony that good sherris maketh the brain apprehensive and quick; filleth it with nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which being delivered by the tongue become excellent wit? Wherefore let us drink, gentlemen, and beget fancies." He filled for himself again, and buried his nose in the cup.

"'T is such a cup, methinks," I said, "as Medea may have filled for Theseus. The white hand of Circe may have closed around this stem when she stood to greet Ulysses, and knew not that he had the saving herb in his palm. Goneril may have sent this green and gilded shape to Regan. Fair Rosamond may have drunk from it while the Queen watched her. At some voluptuous feast, Caesar Borgia and his sister, sitting crowned with roses, side by side, may have pressed it upon a reluctant guest, who had, perhaps, a treasure of his own. I dare swear Rene, the Florentine, hath fingered many such a goblet before it went to whom Catherine de' Medici delighted to honor."

"She had the whitest hands," maundered the Secretary. "I kissed them once before she died, in Blois, when I was young. Rene was one of your slow poisoners. Smell a rose, draw on a pair of perfumed gloves, drink from a certain cup, and you rang your own knell, though your bier might not receive you for many and many a day,—not till the rose was dust, the gloves lost, the cup forgotten."

"There's a fashion I have seen followed abroad, that I like," I said. "Host and guest fill to each other, then change tankards. You are my host to-day, my lord, and I am your guest. I will drink to you, my lord, from your silver goblet."

With as frank a manner as his own of a while before, I pushed the green and gold glass over to him, and held out my hand for the silver goblet. That a man may smile and smile and be a villain is no new doctrine. My lord's laugh and gesture of courtesy were as free and ready as if the poisoned splendor he drew toward him had been as innocent as a pearl within the shell. I took the silver cup from before him. "I drink to the King," I said, and drained it to the bottom. "Your lordship does not drink. 'T is a toast no man refuses."

He raised the glass to his lips, but set it down before its rim had touched them. "I have a headache," he declared. "I will not drink to-day."

Master Pory pulled the flagon toward him, tilted it, and found it empty. His rueful face made me laugh. My lord laughed too,—somewhat loudly,—but ordered no more wine. "I would I were at the Mermaid again," lamented the now drunken Secretary. "There we did n't split a flagon in three parts.... The Tsar of Muscovy drinks me down a quartern of aqua vitae at a gulp,—I've seen him do it....I would I were the Bacchus on this cup, with the purple grapes adangle above me.... Wine and women—wine and women... good wine needs no bush... good sherris sack"... His voice died into unintelligible mutterings, and his gray unreverend head sank upon the table.

I rose, leaving him to his drunken slumbers, and, bowing to my lord, took my leave. My lord followed me down to the public room below. A party of upriver planters had been drinking, and a bit of chalk lay upon a settle behind the door upon which the landlord had marked their score. I passed it; then turned back and picked it up. "How long a line shall I draw, my lord?" I asked with a smile.

"How does the length of the door strike you?" he answered.

I drew the chalk from top to bottom of the wood. "A heavy Core makes a heavy reckoning, my lord," I said, and, leaving the mark upon the door, I bowed again and went out into the street.

The sun was sinking when I reached the minister's house, and going into the great room drew a stool to the table and sat down to think. Mistress Percy was in her own chamber; in the room overhead the minister paced up and down, humming a psalm. A fire was burning briskly upon the hearth, and the red light rose and fell,—now brightening all the room, now leaving it to the gathering dusk. Through the door, which I had left open, came the odor of the pines, the fallen leaves, and the damp earth. In the churchyard an owl hooted, and the murmur of the river was louder than usual.

I had sat staring at the table before me for perhaps half an hour, when I chanced to raise my eyes to the opposite wall. Now, on this wall, reflecting the firelight and the open door behind me, hung a small Venetian mirror, which I had bought from a number of such toys brought in by the Southampton, and had given to Mistress Percy. My eyes rested upon it, idly at first, then closely enough as I saw within it a man enter the room. I had heard no footfall; there was no noise now behind me. The fire was somewhat sunken, and the room was almost in darkness; I saw him in the glass dimly, as shadow rather than substance. But the light was not so faint that the mirror could not show me the raised hand and the dagger within its grasp. I sat without motion, watching the figure in the glass grow larger. When it was nearly upon me, and the hand with the dagger drawn back for the blow, I sprang up, wheeled, and caught it by the wrist.

A moment's fierce struggle, and I had the dagger in my own hand and the man at my mercy. The fire upon the hearth seized on a pine knot and blazed up brightly, filling the room with light. "Diccon!" I cried, and dropped my arm.

I had never thought of this. The room was very quiet as, master and man, we stood and looked each other in the face. He fell back to the wall and leaned against it, breathing heavily; into the space between us the past came thronging.

I opened my hand and let the dagger drop to the floor. "I suppose that this was because of last night," I said. "I shall never strike you again."

I went to the table, and sitting down leaned my forehead upon my hand. It was Diccon who would have done this thing! The fire crackled on the hearth as had crackled the old camp fires in Flanders; the wind outside was the wind that had whistled through the rigging of the Treasurer, one terrible night when we lashed ourselves to the same mast and never thought to see the morning. Diccon!

Upon the table was the minister's inkhorn and pen. I drew my tablets from the breast of my doublet and began to write. "Diccon!" I called, without turning, when I had finished.

He came slowly forward to the table, and stood beside it with hanging head. I tore the leaf from the book and pushed it over to him. "Take it," I ordered.

"To the commander?" he asked. "I am to take it to the commander?"

I shook my head. "Read it."

He stared at it vacantly, turning it now this way, now that.

"Did you forget how to read when you forgot all else?" I said sternly.

He read, and the color rushed into his face.

"It is your freedom," I said. "You are no longer man of mine. Begone, sirrah!"

He crumpled the paper in his hand. "I was mad," he muttered.

"I could almost believe it," I replied. "Begone!"

After a moment he went. Sitting still in my place, I heard him heavily and slowly leave the room, descend the step at the door, and go out into the night.

A door opened, and Mistress Jocelyn Percy came into the great room, like a sunbeam strayed back to earth. Her skirt was of flowered satin, her bodice of rich taffeta; between the gossamer walls of her French ruff rose the whitest neck to meet the fairest face. Upon her dark hair sat, as lightly as a kiss, a little pearl-bordered cap. A color was in her cheeks and a laugh on her lips. The rosy light of the burning pine caressed her,—now dwelling on the rich dress, now on the gold chain around the slender waist, now on rounded arms, now on the white forehead below the pearls. Well, she was a fair lady for a man to lay down his life for.

"I held court this afternoon!" she cried. "Where were you, sir? Madam West was here, and my Lady Temperance Yeardley, and Master Wynne, and Master Thorpe from Henricus, and Master Rolfe with his Indian brother,—who, I protest, needs but silk doublet and hose and a month at Whitehall to make him a very fine gentleman."

"If courage, steadfastness, truth, and courtesy make a gentleman," I said, "he is one already. Such an one needs not silk doublet nor court training."

She looked at me with her bright eyes. "No," she repeated, "such an one needs not silk doublet nor court training." Going to the fire, she stood with one hand upon the mantelshelf, looking down into the ruddy hollows. Presently she stooped and gathered up something from the hearth. "You waste paper strangely, Captain Percy," she said. "Here is a whole handful of torn pieces."

She came over to the table, and with a laugh showered the white fragments down upon it, then fell to idly piecing them together. "What were you writing?" she asked. "'To all whom it may concern: I, Ralph Percy, Gentleman, of the Hundred of Weyanoke, do hereby set free from all service to me and mine'"—

I took from her the bits of paper, and fed the fire with them. "Paper is but paper," I said. "It is easily rent. Happily a man's will is more durable."



CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH MY LORD AND I PLAY AT BOWLS

THE Governor had brought with him from London the year before, a set of boxwood bowls, and had made, between his house and the fort, a noble green. The generality must still use for the game that portion of the street that was not tobacco-planted; but the quality flocked to the Governor's green, and here, one holiday afternoon, a fortnight or more from the day in which I had drunk to the King from my lord's silver goblet, was gathered a very great company. The Governor's match was toward,—ten men to a side, a hogshead of sweet-scented to the victorious ten, and a keg of canary to the man whose bowl should hit the jack.

The season had been one of unusual mildness, and the sunshine was still warm and bright, gilding the velvet of the green, and making the red and yellow leaves swept into the trench to glow like a ribbon of flame. The sky was blue, the water bluer still, the leaves bright-colored, the wind blowing; only the enshrouding forest, wrapped in haze, seemed as dim, unreal, and far away as a last year's dream.

The Governor's gilt armchair had been brought from the church, and put for him upon the bank of turf at the upper end of the green. By his side sat my Lady Temperance, while the gayly dressed dames and the men who were to play and to watch were accommodated with stools and settles or with seats on the green grass. All were dressed in holiday clothes, all tongues spoke, all eyes laughed; you might have thought there was not a heavy heart amongst them. Rolfe was there, gravely courteous, quiet and ready; and by his side, in otterskin mantle, beaded moccasins, and feathered headdress, the Indian chief, his brother-in-law,—the bravest, comeliest, and manliest savage with whom I have ever dealt. There, too, was Master Pory, red and jovial, with an eye to the sack the servants were bringing from the Governor's house; and the commander, with his wife; and Master Jeremy Sparrow, fresh from a most moving sermon on the vanities of this world. Captains, Councilors, and Burgesses aired their gold lace, and their wit or their lack of it; while a swarm of younger adventurers, youths of good blood and bad living, come from home for the weal of England and the woe of Virginia, went here and there through the crowd like gilded summer flies.

Rolfe and I were to play; he sat on the grass at the feet of Mistress Jocelyn Percy, making her now and then some courtly speech, and I stood beside her, my hand on the back of her chair.

The King's ward held court as though she were a king's daughter. In the brightness of her beauty she sat there, as gracious for the nonce as the sunshine, and as much of another world. All knew her story, and to the daring that is in men's hearts her own daring appealed,—and she was young and very beautiful. Some there had not been my friends, and now rejoiced in what seemed my inevitable ruin; some whom I had thought my friends were gone over to the stronger side; many who in secret wished me well still shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders over what they were pleased to call my madness; but for her, I was glad to know, there were only good words. The Governor had left his gilt armchair to welcome her to the green, and had caused a chair to be set for her near his own, and here men came and bowed before her as if she had been a princess indeed.

A stir amongst the crowd, a murmur, and a craning of necks heralded the approach of that other at whom the town gaped with admiration. He came with his retinue of attendants, his pomp of dress, his arrogance of port, his splendid beauty. Men looked from the beauty of the King's ward to the beauty of the King's minion, from her costly silk to his velvet and miniver, from the air of the court that became her well to the towering pride and insolence which to the thoughtless seemed his fortune's proper mantle, and deemed them a pair well suited, and the King's will indeed the will of Heaven.

I was never one to value a man by his outward seeming, but suddenly I saw myself as in a mirror,—a soldier, scarred and bronzed, acquainted with the camp, but not with the court, roughened by a rude life, poor in this world's goods, the first flush of youth gone forever. For a moment my heart was bitter within me. The pang passed, and my hand tightened its grasp upon the chair in which sat the woman I had wed. She was my wife, and I would keep my own.

My lord had paused to speak to the Governor, who had risen to greet him. Now he came toward us, and the crowd pressed and whispered. He bowed low to Mistress Percy, made as if to pass on, then came to a stop before her, his hat in his hand, his handsome head bent, a smile upon his bearded lips.

"When was it that we last sat to see men bowl, lady?" he said. "I remember a gay match when I bowled against my Lord of Buckingham, and fair ladies sat and smiled upon us. The fairest laughed, and tied her colors around my arm."

The lady whom he addressed sat quietly, with hands folded in her silken lap and an untroubled face. "I did not know you then, my lord," she answered him, quite softly and sweetly. "Had I done so, be sure I would have cut my hand off ere it gave color of mine to"—"To whom?" he demanded, as she paused.

"To a coward, my lord," she said clearly.

As if she had been a man, his hand went to his sword hilt. As for her, she leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a smile.

He spoke at last, slowly and with deliberate emphasis. "I won then," he said. "I shall win again, my lady,—my Lady Jocelyn Leigh."

I dropped my hand from her chair and stepped forward. "It is my wife to whom you speak, my Lord Carnal," I said sternly. "I wait to hear you name her rightly."

Rolfe rose from the grass and stood beside me, and Jeremy Sparrow, shouldering aside with scant ceremony Burgess and Councilor, came also. The Governor leaned forward out of his chair, and the crowd became suddenly very still.

"I am waiting, my lord," I repeated.

In an instant, from what he had been he became the frank and guileless nobleman. "A slip of the tongue, Captain Percy!" he cried, his white teeth showing and his hand raised in a gesture of deprecation. "A natural thing, seeing how often, how very often, I have so addressed this lady in the days when we had not the pleasure of your acquaintance." He turned to her and bowed, until the feather in his hat swept the ground. "I won then," he said. "I shall win again—Mistress Percy," and passed on to the seat that had been reserved for him.

The game began. I was to lead one side, and young Clement the other. At the last moment he came over to me. "I am out of it, Captain Percy," he announced with a rueful face. "My lord there asks me to give him my place. When we were hunting yesterday, and the stag turned upon me, he came between and thrust his knife into the brute, which else might have put an end to my hunting forever and a day: so you see I can't refuse him. Plague take it all! and Dorothy Gookin sitting there watching!"

My lord and I stood forward, each with a bowl in his hand. We looked toward the Governor. "My lord first, as becometh his rank," he said. My lord stooped and threw, and his bowl went swiftly over the grass, turned, and rested not a hands'-breadth from the jack. I threw. "One is as near as the other!" cried Master Macocke for the judges. A murmur arose from the crowd, and my lord swore beneath his breath. He and I retreated to our several sides, and Rolfe and West took our places. While they and those that followed bowled, the crowd, attentive though it was, still talked and laughed, and laid wagers upon its favorites; but when my lord and I again stood forth, the noise was hushed, and men and women stared with all their eyes. He delivered, and his bowl touched the jack. He straightened himself, with a smile, and I heard Jeremy Sparrow behind me groan; but my bowl too kissed the jack. The crowd began to laugh with sheer delight, but my lord turned red and his brows drew together. We had but one turn more. While we waited, I marked his black eyes studying every inch of the ground between him and that small white ball, to strike which, at that moment, I verily believe he would have given the King's favor. All men pray, though they pray not to the same god. As he stood there, when his time had come, weighing the bowl in his hand, I knew that he prayed to his daemon, fate, star, whatever thing he raised an altar to and bent before. He threw, and I followed, while the throng held its breath. Master Macocke rose to his feet. "It's a tie, my masters!" he exclaimed.

The excited crowd surged forward, and a babel of voices arose. "Silence, all!" cried the Governor. "Let them play it out!"

My lord threw, and his bowl stopped perilously near the shining mark. As I stepped to my place a low and supplicating "O Lord!" came to my ears from the lips and the heart of the preacher, who had that morning thundered against the toys of this world. I drew back my arm and threw with all my force. A cry arose from the throng, and my lord ground his heel into the earth. The bowl, spurning the jack before it, rushed on, until both buried themselves in the red and yellow leaves that filled the trench.

I turned and bowed to my antagonist. "You bowl well, my lord," I said. "Had you had the forest training of eye and arm, our fortunes might have been reversed."

He looked me up and down. "You are kind, sir," he said thickly. "'To-day to thee, to-morrow to me.' I give you joy of your petty victory."

He turned squarely from me, and stood with his face downstream. I was speaking to Rolfe and to the few—not even all of that side for which I had won—who pressed around me, when he wheeled.

"Your Honor," he cried to the Governor, who had paused beside Mistress Percy, "is not the Due Return high-pooped? Doth she not carry a blue pennant, and hath she not a gilt siren for figurehead?"

"Ay," answered the Governor, lifting his head from the hand he had kissed with ponderous gallantry. "What then, my lord?"

"Then to-morrow has dawned, sir captain," said my lord to me. "Sure, Dame Venus and her blind son have begged for me favorable winds; for the Due Return has come again."

The game that had been played was forgotten for that day. The hogshead of sweet scented, lying to one side, wreathed with bright vines, was unclaimed of either party; the servants who brought forward the keg of canary dropped their burden, and stared with the rest. All looked down the river, and all saw the Due Return coming up the broad, ruffled stream, the wind from the sea filling her sails, the tide with her, the gilt mermaid on her prow just rising from the rushing foam. She came as swiftly as a bird to its nest. None had thought to see her for at least ten days.

Upon all there fell a sudden realization that it was the word of the King, feathered by the command of the Company, that was hurrying, arrow-like, toward us. All knew what the Company's orders would be,—must needs be,—and the Tudor sovereigns were not so long in the grave that men had forgot to fear the wrath of kings. The crowd drew back from me as from a man plague-spotted. Only Rolfe, Sparrow, and the Indian stood their ground.

The Governor turned from staring downstream. "The game is played, gentlemen," he announced abruptly. "The wind grows colder, too, and clouds are gathering. This fair company will pardon me if I dismiss them somewhat sooner than is our wont. The next sunny day we will play again. Give you God den, gentles."

The crowd stood not upon the order of its going, but streamed away to the river bank, whence it could best watch the oncoming ship. My lord, after a most triumphant bow, swept off with his train in the direction of the guest house. With him went Master Pory. The Governor drew nearer to me. "Captain Percy," he said, lowering his voice, "I am going now to mine own house. The letters which yonder ship brings will be in my hands in less than an hour. When I have read them, I shall perforce obey their instructions. Before I have them I will see you, if you so wish."

"I will be with your Honor in five minutes."

He nodded, and strode off across the green to his garden. I turned to Rolfe. "Will you take her home?" I said briefly. She was so white and sat so still in her chair that I feared to see her swoon. But when I spoke to her she answered clearly and steadily enough, even with a smile, and she would not lean upon Rolfe's arm. "I will walk alone," she said. "None that see me shall think that I am stricken down." I watched her move away, Rolfe beside her, and the Indian following with his noiseless step; then I went to the Governor's house. Master Jeremy Sparrow had disappeared some minutes before, I knew not whither.

I found Yeardley in his great room, standing before a fire and staring down into its hollows. "Captain Percy," he said, as I went up to him, "I am most heartily sorry for you and for the lady whom you so ignorantly married."

"I shall not plead ignorance," I told him.

"You married, not the Lady Jocelyn Leigh, but a waiting woman named Patience Worth. The Lady Jocelyn Leigh, a noble lady, and a ward of the King, could not marry without the King's consent. And you, Captain Percy, are but a mere private gentleman, a poor Virginia adventurer; and my Lord Carnal is—my Lord Carnal. The Court of High Commission will make short work of this fantastic marriage."

"Then they may do it without my aid," I said. "Come, Sir George, had you wed my Lady Temperance in such fashion, and found this hornets' nest about your ears, what would you have done?"

He gave his short, honest laugh. "It's beside the question, Ralph Percy, but I dare say you can guess what I would have done."

"I'll fight for my own to the last ditch," I continued. "I married her knowing her name, if not her quality. Had I known the latter, had I known she was the King's ward, all the same I should have married her, an she would have had me. She is my wife in the sight of God and honest men. Esteeming her honor, which is mine, at stake, Death may silence me, but men shall not bend me."

"Your best hope is in my Lord of Buckingham," he said. "They say it is out of sight, out of mind, with the King, and, thanks to this infatuation of my Lord Carnal's, Buckingham hath the field. That he strains every nerve to oust completely this his first rival since he himself distanced Somerset goes without saying. That to thwart my lord in this passion would be honey to him is equally of course. I do not need to tell you that, if the Company so orders, I shall have no choice but to send you and the lady home to England. When you are in London, make your suit to my Lord of Buckingham, and I earnestly hope that you may find in him an ally powerful enough to bring you and the lady, to whose grace, beauty, and courage we all do homage, out of this coil."

"We give you thanks, sir," I said.

"As you know," he went on, "I have written to the Company, humbly petitioning that I be graciously relieved from a most thankless task, to wit, the governorship of Virginia. My health faileth, and I am, moreover, under my Lord Warwick's displeasure. He waxeth ever stronger in the Company, and if I put not myself out, he will do it for me. If I be relieved at once, and one of the Council appointed in my place, I shall go home to look after certain of my interests there. Then shall I be but a private gentleman, and if I can serve you, Ralph Percy, I shall be blithe to do so; but now, you understand"—

"I understand, and thank you, Sir George," I said. "May I ask one question?"

"What is it?"

"Will you obey to the letter the instructions the Company sends?"

"To the letter," he answered. "I am its sworn officer."

"One thing more," I went on: "the parole I gave you, sir, that morning behind the church, is mine own again when you shall have read those letters and know the King's will. I am free from that bond, at least."

He looked at me with a frown. "Make not bad worse, Captain Percy," he said sternly.

I laughed. "It is my aim to make bad better, Sir George. I see through the window that the Due Return hath come to anchor; I will no longer trespass on your Honor's time." I bowed myself out, leaving him still with the frown upon his face, staring at the fire.

Without, the world was bathed in the glow of a magnificent sunset. Clouds, dark purple and dark crimson, reared themselves in the west to dizzy heights, and hung threateningly over the darkening land beneath. In the east loomed more pallid masses, and from the bastions of the east to the bastions of the west went hurrying, wind-driven cloudless, dark in the east, red in the west. There was a high wind, and the river, where it was not reddened by the sunset, was lividly green. "A storm, too!" I muttered.

As I passed the guest house, there came to me from within a burst of loud and vaunting laughter and a boisterous drinking catch sung by many voices; and I knew that my lord drank, and gave others to drink, to the orders which the Due Return should bring. The minister's house was in darkness. In the great room I struck a light and fired the fresh torches, and found I was not its sole occupant. On the hearth, the ashes of the dead fire touching her skirts, sat Mistress Jocelyn Percy, her arms resting upon a low stool, and her head pillowed upon them. Her face was not hidden: it was cold and pure and still, like carven marble. I stood and gazed at her a moment; then, as she did not offer to move, I brought wood to the fire and made the forlorn room bright again.

"Where is Rolfe?" I asked at last.

"He would have stayed," she answered, "but I made him go. I wished to be alone." She rose, and going to the window leaned her forehead against the bars, and looked out upon the wild sky and the hurrying river. "I would I were alone," she said in a low voice and with a catch of her breath. As she stood there in the twilight by the window, I knew that she was weeping, though her pride strove to keep that knowledge from me. My heart ached for her, and I knew not how to comfort her. At last she turned. A pasty and stoup of wine were upon the table.

"You are tired and shaken," I said, "and you may need all your strength. Come, eat and drink."

"For to-morrow we die," she added, and broke into tremulous laughter. Her lashes were still wet, but her pride and daring had returned. She drank the wine I poured for her, and we spoke of indifferent things,—of the game that afternoon, of the Indian Nantauquas, of the wild night that clouds and wind portended. Supper over, I called Angela to bear her company, and I myself went out into the night, and down the street toward the guest house.



CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH WE GO OUT INTO THE NIGHT

THE guest house was aflame with lights. As I neared it, there was borne to my ears a burst of drunken shouts accompanied by a volley of musketry. My lord was pursuing with a vengeance our senseless fashion of wasting in drinking bouts powder that would have been better spent against the Indians. The noise increased. The door was flung open, and there issued a tide of drawers and servants headed by mine host himself, and followed by a hail of such minor breakables as the house contained and by Olympian laughter.

I made my way past the indignant host and his staff, and standing upon the threshold looked at the riot within. The long room was thick with the smoke of tobacco and the smoke of powder, through which the many torches burned yellow. Upon the great table wine had been spilt, and dripped to swell a red pool upon the floor. Underneath the table, still grasping his empty tankard, lay the first of my lord's guests to fall, an up-river Burgess with white hair. The rest of the company were fast reeling to a like fate. Young Hamor had a fiddle, and, one foot upon a settle, the other upon the table, drew across it a fast and furious bow. Master Pory, arrived at the maudlin stage, alternately sang a slow and melancholy ditty and wiped the tears from his eyes with elaborate care. Master Edward Sharpless, now in a high voice, now in an undistinguishable murmur, argued some imaginary case. Peaceable Sherwood was drunk, and Giles Allen, and Pettiplace Clause. Captain John Martin, sitting with outstretched legs, called now for a fresh tankard, which he emptied at a gulp; now for his pistols, which, as fast as my lord's servants brought them to him new primed, he discharged at the ceiling. The loud wind rattled doors and windows, and made the flame of the torches stream sideways. The music grew madder and madder, the shots more frequent, the drunken voices thicker and louder.

The master of the feast carried his wine better than did his guests, or had drunk less, but his spirit too was quite without bounds. A color burned in his cheeks, a wicked light in his eyes; he laughed to himself. In the gray smoke cloud he saw me not, or saw me only as one of the many who thronged the doorway and stared at the revel within. He raised his silver cup with a slow and wavering hand. "Drink, you dogs!" he chanted. "Drink to the Santa Teresa! Drink to to-morrow night! Drink to a proud lady within my arms and an enemy in my power!"

The wine that had made him mad had maddened those others, also. In that hour they were dead to honor. With shameless laughter and as little spilling as might be, they raised their tankards as my lord raised his. A stone thrown by some one behind me struck the cup from my lord's hand, sending it clattering to the floor and dashing him with the red wine. Master Pory roared with drunken laughter. "Cup and lip missed that time!" he cried.

The man who had thrown the stone was Jeremy Sparrow. For one instant I saw his great figure, and the wrathful face beneath his shock of grizzled hair; the next he had made his way through the crowd of gaping menials and was gone.

My lord stared foolishly at the stains upon his hands, at the fallen goblet and the stone beside it. "Cogged dice," he said thickly, "or I had not lost that throw! I'll drink that toast by myself to-morrow night, when the ship does n't rock like this d—d floor, and the sea has no stones to throw. More wine, Giles! To my Lord High Admiral, gentlemen! To his Grace of Buckingham! May he shortly howl in hell, and looking back to Whitehall see me upon the King's bosom! The King 's a good king, gentlemen! He gave me this ruby. D' ye know what I had of him last year? I"—

I turned and left the door and the house. I could not thrust a fight upon a drunken man.

Ten yards away, suddenly and without any warning of his approach, I found beside me the Indian Nantauquas. "I have been to the woods to hunt," he said, in the slow musical English Rolfe had taught him. "I knew where a panther lodged, and to-day I laid a snare, and took him in it. I brought him to my brother's house, and caged him there. When I have tamed him, I shall give him to the beautiful lady."

He expected no answer, and I gave him none. There are times when an Indian is the best company in the world.

Just before we reached the market place we had to pass the mouth of a narrow lane leading down to the river. The night was very dark, though the stars still shone through rifts in the ever moving clouds. The Indian and I walked rapidly on,—my footfalls sounding clear and sharp on the frosty ground, he as noiseless as a shadow. We had reached the further side of the lane, when he put forth an arm and plucked from the blackness a small black figure.

In the middle of the square was kept burning a great brazier filled with pitched wood. It was the duty of the watch to keep it flaming from darkness to dawn. We found it freshly heaped with pine, and its red glare lit a goodly circle. The Indian, pinioning the wrists of his captive with his own hand of steel, dragged him with us into this circle of light.

"Looking for simples once more, learned doctor?" I demanded.

He mowed and jabbered, twisting this way and that in the grasp of the Indian.

"Loose him," I said to the latter, "but let him not come too near you. Why, worthy doctor, in so wild and threatening a night, when fire is burning and wine flowing at the guest house, do you choose to crouch here in the cold and darkness?"

He looked at me with his filmy eyes, and that faint smile that had more of menace in it than a panther's snarl. "I laid in wait for you, it is true, noble sir," he said in his thin, dreamy voice, "but it was for your good. I would give you warning, sir."

He stood with his mean figure bent cringingly forward, and with his hat in his hand. "A warning, sir," he went ramblingly on. "Maybe a certain one has made me his enemy. Maybe I cut myself loose from his service. Maybe I would do him an ill turn. I can tell you a secret, sir." He lowered his voice and looked around, as if in fear of eavesdroppers.

"In your ear, sir," he said.

I recoiled. "Stand back," I cried, "or you will cull no more simples this side of hell!"

"Hell!" he answered. "There's no such place. I will not tell my secret aloud."

"Nicolo the Italian! Nicolo the Poisoner! Nicolo the Black Death! I am coming for the soul you sold me. There is a hell!"

The thundering voice came from underneath our feet. With a sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps came back to us until the guest house had swallowed him and his guilty terrors.

"Can the preacher play the devil too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up to us from the other side of the fire. "I could have sworn that that voice came from the bowels of the earth. 'T is the strangest gift!"

"A mere trick," he said, with his great laugh, "but it has served me well on more occasions than one. It is not known in Virginia, sir, but before ever the word of the Lord came to me to save poor silly souls I was a player. Once I played the King's ghost in Will Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' and then, I warrant you, I spoke from the cellarage indeed. I so frighted players and playgoers that they swore it was witchcraft, and Burbage's knees did knock together in dead earnest. But to the matter in hand. When I had thrown yonder stone, I walked quietly down to the Governor's house and looked through the window. The Governor hath the Company's letters, and he and the Council—all save the reprobate Pory—sit there staring at them and drumming with their fingers on the table."

"Is Rolfe of the Council?" I asked.

"Ay; he was speaking,—for you, I suppose, though I heard not the words. They all listened, but they all shook their heads."

"We shall know in the morning," I said. "The night grows wilder, and honest folks should be abed. Nantauquas, good-night. When will you have tamed your panther?"

"It is now the moon of cohonks," answered the Indian. "When the moon of blossoms is here, the panther shall roll at the beautiful lady's feet."

"The moon of blossoms!" I said. "The moon of blossoms is a long way off. I have panthers myself to tame before it comes. This wild night gives one wild thoughts, Master Sparrow. The loud wind, and the sound of the water, and the hurrying clouds—who knows if we shall ever see the moon of blossoms?" I broke off with a laugh for my own weakness. "It's not often that a soldier thinks of death," I said. "Come to bed, reverend sir. Nantauquas, again, good-night, and may you tame your panther!"

In the great room of the minister's house I paced up and down; now pausing at the window, to look out upon the fast darkening houses of the town, the ever thickening clouds, and the bending trees; now speaking to my wife, who sat in the chair I had drawn for her before the fire, her hands idle in her lap, her head thrown back against the wood, her face white and still, with wide dark eyes. We waited for we knew not what, but the light still burned in the Governor's house, and we could not sleep and leave it there.