I LAID him down upon the earth, and, cutting away his doublet and the
shirt beneath, saw the wound, and knew that there was a journey indeed
that he would shortly make. “The world is turning round,” he muttered,
“and the stars are falling thicker than the hailstones yesterday. Go on,
and I will stay behind,--I and the wolves.”
I took him in my arms and carried him back to the bank of the stream,
for I knew that he would want water until he died. My head was bare, but
he had worn his cap from the gaol at Jamestown that night. I filled it
with water and gave him to drink; then washed the wound and did what I
could to stanch the bleeding. He turned from side to side, and presently
his mind began to wander, and he talked of the tobacco in the fields
at Weyanoke. Soon he was raving of old things, old camp fires and
night-time marches and wild skirmishes, perils by land and by sea; then
of dice and wine and women. Once he cried out that Dale had bound him
upon the wheel, and that his arms and legs were broken, and the woods
rang to his screams. Why, in that wakeful forest, they were unheard, or
why, if heard, they went unheeded, God only knows.
The moon went down, and it was very cold. How black were the shadows
around us, what foes might steal from that darkness upon us, it was not
worth while to consider. I do not know what I thought of on that night,
or even that I thought at all. Between my journeys for the water that he
called for I sat beside the dying man with my hand upon his breast, for
he was quieter so. Now and then I spoke to him, but he answered not.
Hours before we had heard the howling of wolves, and knew that some
ravenous pack was abroad. With the setting of the moon the noise had
ceased, and I thought that the brutes had pulled down the deer they
hunted, or else had gone with their hunger and their dismal voices out
of earshot. Suddenly the howling recommenced, at first faint and far
away, then nearer and nearer yet. Earlier in the evening the stream had
been between us, but now the wolves had crossed and were coming down our
side of the water, and were coming fast.
All the ground was strewn with dead wood, and near by was a growth of
low and brittle bushes. I gathered the withered branches, and broke
fagots from the bushes; then into the press of dark and stealthy forms I
threw a great crooked stick, shouting as I did so, and threatening with
my arms. They turned and fled, but presently they were back again. Again
I frightened them away, and again they returned. I had flint and steel
and tinder box; when I had scared them from us a third time, and they
had gone only a little way, I lit a splinter of pine, and with it fired
my heap of wood; then dragged Diccon into the light and sat down beside
him, with no longer any fear of the wolves, but with absolute confidence
in the quick appearance of less cowardly foes. There was wood enough and
to spare; when the fire sank low and the hungry eyes gleamed nearer, I
fed it again, and the flame leaped up and mocked the eyes.
No human enemy came upon us. The fire blazed and roared, and the man who
lay in its rosy glare raved on, crying out now and then at the top of
his voice; but on that night of all nights, of all years, light and
voice drew no savage band to put out the one and silence the other
forever.
Hours passed, and as it drew toward midnight Diccon sank into a stupor.
I knew that the end was not far away. The wolves were gone at last, and
my fire was dying down. He needed my touch upon his breast no longer,
and I went to the stream and bathed my hands and forehead, and then
threw myself face downward upon the bank. In a little while the desolate
murmur of the water became intolerable, and I rose and went back to the
fire, and to the man whom, as God lives, I loved as a brother.
He was conscious. Pale and cold and nigh gone as he was, there came a
light to his eyes and a smile to his lips when I knelt beside him. “You
did not go?” he breathed.
“No,” I answered, “I did not go.”
For a few minutes he lay with closed eyes; when he again opened them
upon my face, there were in their depths a question and an appeal. I
bent over him, and asked him what he would have.
“You know,” he whispered. “If you can... I would not go without it.”
“Is it that?” I asked. “I forgave you long ago.”
“I meant to kill you. I was mad because you struck me before the lady,
and because I had betrayed my trust. An you had not caught my hand,
I should be your murderer.” He spoke with long intervals between the
words, and the death dew was on his forehead.
“Remember it not, Diccon,” I entreated. “I too was to blame. And I see
not that night for other nights,--for other nights and days, Diccon.”
He smiled, but there was still in his face a shadowy eagerness. “You
said you would never strike me again,” he went on, “and that I was man
of yours no more forever--and you gave me my freedom in the paper which
I tore.” He spoke in gasps, with his eyes upon mine. “I'll be gone in
a few minutes now. If I might go as your man still, and could tell the
Lord Jesus Christ that my master on earth forgave, and took back, it
would be a hand in the dark. I have spent my life in gathering darkness
for myself at the last.”
I bent lower over him, and took his hand in mine. “Diccon, my man,” I
said.
A brightness came into his face, and he faintly pressed my hand. I
slipped my arm beneath him and raised him a little higher to meet his
death. He was smiling now, and his mind was not quite clear. “Do you
mind, sir,” he asked, “how green and strong and sweet smelled the pines
that May day, when we found Virginia, so many years ago?”
“Ay, Diccon,” I answered. “Before we saw the land, the fragrance told us
we were near it.”
“I smell it now,” he went on, “and the bloom of the grape, and the
May-time flowers. And can you not hear, sir, the whistling and the
laughter and the sound of the falling trees, that merry time when Smith
made axemen of all our fine gentlemen?”
“Ay, Diccon,” I said. “And the sound of the water that was dashed down
the sleeve of any that were caught in an oath.”
He laughed like a little child. “It is well that I was n't a gentleman,
and had not those trees to fell, or I should have been as wet as any
merman.... And Pocahontas, the little maid... and how blue the sky was,
and how glad we were what time the Patience and Deliverance came in!”
His voice failed, and for a minute I thought he was gone; but he had
been a strong man, and life slipped not easily from him. When his eyes
opened again he knew me not, but thought he was in some tavern, and
struck with his hand upon the ground as upon a table, and called for the
drawer.
Around him were only the stillness and the shadows of the night, but
to his vision men sat and drank with him, diced and swore and told wild
tales of this or that. For a time he talked loudly and at random of the
vile quality of the drink, and his viler luck at the dice; then he began
to tell a story. As he told it, his senses seemed to steady, and he
spoke with coherence and like a shadow of himself.
“And you call that a great thing, William Host?” he demanded. “I can
tell a true tale worth two such lies, my masters. (Robin tapster, more
ale! And move less like a slug, or my tankard and your ear will cry,
'Well met!') It was between Ypres and Courtrai, friends, and it's nigh
fifteen years ago. There were fields in which nothing was sowed because
they were ploughed with the hoofs of war horses, and ditches in which
dead men were thrown, and dismal marshes, and roads that were no roads
at all, but only sloughs. And there was a great stone house, old and
ruinous, with tall poplars shivering in the rain and mist. Into this
house there threw themselves a band of Dutch and English, and hard
on their heels came two hundred Spaniards. All day they besieged that
house,--smoke and flame and thunder and shouting and the crash of
masonry,--and when eventide was come we, the Dutch and the English,
thought that Death was not an hour behind.”
He paused, and made a gesture of raising a tankard to his lips. His
eyes were bright, his voice was firm. The memory of that old day and its
mortal strife had wrought upon him like wine.
“There was one amongst us,” he said, “he was our captain, and it's of
him I am going to tell the story. Robin tapster, bring me no more ale,
but good mulled wine! It's cold and getting dark, and I have to drink to
a brave man besides”--
With the old bold laugh in his eyes, he raised himself, for the moment
as strong as I that held him. “Drink to that Englishman, all of ye!” he
cried, “and not in filthy ale, but in good, gentlemanly sack! I'll pay
the score. Here's to him, brave hearts! Here's to my master!”
With his hand at his mouth, and his story untold, he fell back. I held
him in my arms until the brief struggle was over, and then laid his body
down upon the earth.
It might have been one of the clock. For a little while I sat beside
him, with my head bowed in my hands. Then I straightened his limbs and
crossed his hands upon his breast, and kissed him upon the brow, and
left him lying dead in the forest.
It was hard going through the blackness of the night-time woods. Once
I was nigh sucked under in a great swamp, and once I stumbled into some
hole or pit in the earth, and for a time thought that I had broken my
leg. The night was very dark, and sometimes when I could not see the
stars, I lost my way, and went to the right or the left, or even back
upon my track. Though I heard the wolves, they did not come nigh me.
Just before daybreak, I crouched behind a log, and watched a party of
savages file past like shadows of the night.
At last the dawn came, and I could press on more rapidly. For two days
and two nights I had not slept; for a day and a night I had not tasted
food. As the sun climbed the heavens, a thousand black spots, like
summer gnats, danced between his face and my weary eyes. The forest laid
stumbling-blocks before me, and drove me back, and made me wind in and
out when I would have had my path straighter than an arrow. When
the ground allowed I ran; when I must break my way, panting, through
undergrowth so dense and stubborn that it seemed some enchanted thicket,
where each twig snapped but to be on the instant stiff in place again, I
broke it with what patience I might; when I must turn aside for this
or that obstacle I made the detour, though my heart cried out at the
necessity. Once I saw reason to believe that two or more Indians were
upon my trail, and lost time in outwitting them; and once I must go a
mile out of my way to avoid an Indian village.
As the day wore on, I began to go as in a dream. It had come to seem the
gigantic wood of some fantastic tale through which I was traveling.
The fallen trees ranged themselves into an abatis hard to surmount; the
thickets withstood one like iron; the streamlets were like rivers, the
marshes leagues wide, the treetops miles away. Little things, twisted
roots, trailing vines, dead and rotten wood, made me stumble. A wind
was blowing that had blown just so since time began, and the forest was
filled with the sound of the sea.
Afternoon came, and the shadows began to lengthen. They were lines of
black paint spilt in a thousand places, and stealing swiftly and surely
across the brightness of the land. Torn and bleeding and breathless, I
hastened on; for it was drawing toward night, and I should have been at
Jamestown hours before. My head pained me, and as I ran I saw men and
women stealing in and out among the trees before me: Pocahontas with her
wistful eyes and braided hair and finger on her lips; Nantauquas; Dale,
the knight-marshal, and Argall with his fierce, unscrupulous face;
my cousin George Percy, and my mother with her stately figure, her
embroidery in her hands. I knew that they were but phantoms of my brain,
but their presence confused and troubled me.
The shadows ran together, and the sunshine died out of the forest.
Stumbling on, I saw through the thinning trees a long gleam of red, and
thought it was blood, but presently knew that it was the river, crimson
from the sunset. A minute more and I stood upon the shore of the mighty
stream, between the two brightnesses of flood and heavens. There was
a silver crescent in the sky with one white star above it, and fair in
sight, down the James, with lights springing up through the twilight,
was the town,--the English town that we had built and named for our
King, and had held in the teeth of Spain, in the teeth of the wilderness
and its terrors. It was not a mile away; a little longer,--a little
longer and I could rest, with my tidings told.
The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. The hut to
which I had been enticed that night stood dark and ghastly, with its
door swinging in the wind. I ran past it and across the neck, and,
arriving at the palisade, beat upon the gate with my hands, and called
to the warder to open. When I had told him my name and tidings, he did
so, with shaking knees and starting eyes. Cautioning him to raise no
alarm in the town, I hurried by him into the street, and down it toward
the house that was set aside for the Governor of Virginia. I should find
there now, not Yeardley, but Sir Francis Wyatt.
The torches were lighted, and the folk were indoors, for the night was
cold. One or two figures that I met or passed would have accosted me,
not knowing who I was, but I brushed by them, and hastened on. Only when
I passed the guest house I looked up, and saw that mine host's chief
rooms were yet in use.
The Governor's door was open, and in the hall servingmen were moving
to and fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as it had been a
ghost, and one fellow let a silver dish that he carried fall clattering
to the floor. They shook and stood back, as I passed them without a
word, and went on to the Governor's great room. The door was ajar, and I
pushed it open and stood for a minute upon the threshold, unobserved by
the occupants of the room.
After the darkness outside the lights dazzled me; the room, too, seemed
crowded with men, though when I counted them there were not so many,
after all. Supper had been put upon the table, but they were not eating.
Before the fire, his head thoughtfully bent, and his fingers tapping
upon the arm of his chair, sat the Governor; over against him, and as
serious of aspect, was the Treasurer. West stood by the mantel, tugging
at his long mustaches and softly swearing. Clayborne was in the room,
Piersey the Cape Merchant, and one or two besides. And Rolfe was there,
walking up and down with hasty steps, and a flushed and haggard
face. His suit of buff was torn and stained, and his great-boots were
spattered with mud.
The Governor let his fingers rest upon the arm of his chair, and raised
his head.
“He is dead, Master Rolfe,” he said. “There can be no other
conclusion,--a brave man lost to you and to the colony. We mourn with
you, sir.”
“We too have searched, Jack,” put in West. “We have not been idle,
though well-nigh all men believe that the Indians, who we know had a
grudge against him, murdered him and his man that night, then threw
their bodies into the river, and themselves made off out of our reach.
But we hoped against hope that when your party returned he would be in
your midst.”
“As for this latest loss,” continued the Governor, “within an hour
of its discovery this morning search parties were out; yea, if I had
allowed it, the whole town would have betaken itself to the woods. The
searchers have not returned, and we are gravely anxious. Yet we are not
utterly cast down. This trail can hardly be missed, and the Indians are
friendly. There were a number in town overnight, and they went with the
searchers, volunteering to act as their guides. We cannot but think that
of this load, our hearts will soon be eased.”
“God grant it!” groaned Rolfe. “I will drink but a cup of wine, sir, and
then will be gone upon this new quest.”
There was a movement in the room. “You are worn and spent with your
fruitless travel, sir,” said the Governor kindly. “I give you my word
that all that can be done is doing. Wait at least for the morning, and
the good news it may bring.”
The other shook his head. “I will go now. I could not look my friend in
the face else--God in heaven!”
The Governor sprang to his feet; through the Treasurer's lips came a
long, sighing breath; West's dark face was ashen. I came forward to the
table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of the sea were
roaring in my ears, and the lights were going up and down.
“Are you man or spirit?” cried Rolfe through white lips. “Are you Ralph
Percy?”
“Yes, I am Percy,” I said. “I have not well understood what quest you
would go upon, Rolfe, but you cannot go to-night. And those parties that
your Honor talked of, that have gone with Indians to guide them to look
for some lost person,--I think that you will never see them again.”
With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so told my tidings,
quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as
to their verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. They
listened, as the warder had listened, with shaking limbs and gasping
breath; for this was the fall and wiping out of a people of which I
brought warning.
When all was told, and they stood there before me, white and shaken,
seeking in their minds the thing to say or do first, I thought to ask a
question myself; but before my tongue could frame it, the roaring of the
sea became so loud that I could hear naught else, and the lights all ran
together into a wheel of fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased, and
to the lights succeeded the blackness of outer darkness.