Captain Tabor laughed. "And yet she rode straight to the wharf with
you yesterday," said he. "Lord, what hidden springs move a woman!
I'll warrant, sir, had you known, you might have battened down the
hatches fast enough on her will, convict though you be, and, faith,
sir, but you look to me like one who is convict or master at his own
choosing and not by the will of any other." So saying, he gave me a
look so sharp that for a second I half surmised that he guessed my
secret, but knew better at once, and said that our business was to
deal not with what had been, but with what might be.
"Well," said he, "and what may that be, Master Wingfield, in your
opinion? You surely do not mean to hold the Golden Horn in midstream
with her cargo undischarged until the day of doom, lest yon old
beldame offer up her fair granddaughter on the altar of her loyalty,
with me and my hearties for kindling, to say naught of yourself and
a few of the best gentlemen of Virginia. I forfeit my head if I set
sail for England; naught is left for me that I see that shall save
my neck but to turn pirate and king it over the high seas. Having
swallowed a small morsel of my Puritan misgivings, what is to hinder
my bolting the whole, like an exceeding bitter pill, to my complete
purging of danger? What say you, Master Wingfield? Small reputation
have you to lose, and sure thy reckoning with powers that be leaves
thee large creditor. Will you sail with me? My first lieutenant
shall you be, and we will share the booty."
He laughed, and I stared at him that he should stoop to jest, yet
having a ready leap of comradeship toward him for it; then suddenly
his mood changed. Close to me he edged, and began talking with a
serious shrewdness which showed his mind brought fully to bear upon
the situation. "You say, sir," said he, "that Mistress Mary
Cavendish, in a spirit of youthful daring and levity, gave her
grandmother a list of the goods which my Lady Culpeper ordered from
England, and which even now is due?" I nodded.
"Know you by what ship?"
"The Earl of Fairfax," I replied, and recalled as I spoke a rumour
that my Lord Culpeper designed his daughter Cate for the eldest son
of the earl, and had so named his ship in honour of him.
"You say that the Earl of Fairfax is even now due?" said Captain
Tabor.
I replied that she was hourly expected by what I had learned; then
Captain Tabor, sitting loosely hunched with that utter abandon of
all the muscles which one sees in some when they are undergoing a
fierce strain of thought, remained silent for a space, his brows
knitted. Then suddenly my shoulder tingled with the clap which he
gave it, and the cabin rang and rang again with a laugh so loud and
gay that it seemed a very note of the May day. "You are merry," I
said, but I laughed myself, though somewhat doubtfully, when he
unfolded his scheme to me, which was indeed both bold and humorous.
He knew well the captain of the Earl of Fairfax, who had been
shipmate with him.
"Many a lark ashore have we had together," said Calvin Tabor, "and,
faith, but I know things about him now which compel him to my turn;
the devil's mess have we both been in, but I need not use such means
of persuasion, if I know honest Dick Watson." The scheme of which
Captain Tabor delivered himself, with bursts of laughter enough to
wake the ship, was, to speak briefly, that he should go with a boat,
rowing against the current, by keeping close to bank and taking
advantage of eddies, and meet the Earl of Fairfax before she reached
Jamestown, board her, and persuade her captain to send the cases of
my Lady Culpeper's goods under cover of night to the Golden Horn,
whence he would unload them next morning, and Mistress Mary could
show them to her grandmother, and then they were to be reshipped
with all possible speed and secrecy, the Earl of Fairfax meanwhile
laying at anchor at the mouth of the river, and then delivered to my
Lady Culpeper.
There was but one doubt as to the success of this curious scheme in
my mind, and that was that Mistress Mary might not easily lend
herself to such deception. However, Captain Tabor, with a skill of
devising concerning which I have often wondered whether it may be
more common in the descendants of those who settled in New England,
who were in such sore straits to get their own wills, than with us
of Virginia, provided a way through that difficulty.
"'Tis full easy," said he. "You say that the maid's sister will say
naught against it--and you?"
"I will say naught against her safety," said I. "What think you I
care for any little quibbles of the truth when that be in question?"
"Well," said Captain Tabor, "then must you and Mistress Catherine
Cavendish show the goods to the maid, and say naught as to the means
by which you came by them; tell her they are landed from the Golden
Horn, as indeed they will be; let her think aught she chooses, that
they are indeed her own, purchased for her by her sister or her
lovers, if she choose to think so, and bid her display them with no
ado to Madam Cavendish, if she value the safety of the others who
are concerned in this. Betwixt the mystery and the fright and the
sight of the trinkets, if she be aught on the pattern of any other
maid, show them she will, and hold her tongue till she be out of her
grandmother's presence."
"It can be but tried," said I.
Then the captain sprang out on deck, and ordered a boat lowered, and
presently had set me ashore, and was himself, with a half-dozen
sailors, fighting way down-stream.
I found my horse on the bank where I had left him, and by him,
waiting anxiously, Catherine Cavendish. She listened with deepening
eyes while I told her Captain Tabor's scheme, and when I had done
looked at me with her beautiful mouth set and her face as white as a
white flower on a bush beside her. "Mary shall show the goods," said
she. "Such a story will I tell her as will make her innocent of
aught save bewilderment, and as for you and me, we are both of us
ready to burn for a lie for the sake of her."