The Muggletonian sat up. "What dost thou mean, wretched woman! fit
descendant of the mother of all evil?"
Margery, offended by his tone, only pursed up her lips and looked wise.
"What did the master have done to Landless, Margery?" asked the youth.
Margery threw her worn figure into a singular posture. Standing
perfectly straight, she raised her arms from her sides and spread them
stiffly out, the hands turned inward in a peculiar fashion. Then, still
with extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she appeared to
lean against, or to be fastened to, some support. Next she threw her
head back and to one side, so that her face might be seen in three
quarter over her shoulder. Her mobile features wreathed themselves in
an expression of pain and rage. Her brows drew downward, her thin lips
curled themselves away from the gleaming teeth, and, at intervals of
half a minute or more, her eyelids quivered, she shuddered, and her
whole frame appeared to shrink together.
The pantomime was too expressive to be misunderstood by men each of whom
had probably his own reasons for recognizing some one or all of its
features. The convict broke into a yelling laugh, in which he was
joined, though in a subdued and sinister fashion, by Luiz Sebastian.
The rustics looked at each other with slow grins of comprehension, and
the blue-eyed youth uttered a long shrill whistle. The great letter
upon the cheek of the Muggletonian turned a deeper red, and his eyes
burned. The youth was curious.
"Tell us all about it, Margery," he said, coaxingly, "and when the
millons are ripe, I 'll steal you one every night."
Margery was nothing loth. She had attained the reputation of an
accomplished _raconteuse_, and she was proud of it. Her crazed
imagination peopled the forest with weird uncanny things, and fearful
tales she told of fays and bugaboos, of spectres and awful voices
speaking from out the dank stillness of twilight hollows. Often she
sent quaking to their pallets men who would have heard the war-whoop
with scarcely quickened pulses. And she could tell of every-day
domestic happenings as well as of the doings of the powers of darkness.
Her audience listened greedily to the instance of plantation economy
which she proceeded to relate.
"When was this, woman?" demanded the Muggletonian, when she had
finished.
Margery pointed to the declining sun and then upwards to a spot a little
past the zenith.
"Just after the nooning," said the Muggletonian, and began to curse.
Margery stood up, her staff in her hand, and said airily, "Margery must
be going. The sun is growing large and red, and when he has slipped
away behind the woods, the voices will begin to call to Margery from the
hollow where the brook falls into the black pool. She must be there to
answer them." She moved away with a rapid and gliding step, flitted
across the fallen tree, and was lost to sight in the shadow of the pines
beyond.
As the last flutter of her light robe vanished, a figure appeared,
walking rapidly along the opposite margin of the creek. The youth's
sight was keen. He sent a piercing glance across the intervening
distance and broke into an astonished laugh. "Lord in Heaven! it's the
man himself!" he cried in an awed tone. "Ecod! he must be made of iron!"
Landless crossed the bridge and came towards the staring group. His
face was white and set, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes,
which had the wide unseeing stare of a sleep-walker. He walked lightly
and quickly, with a free, lithe swing of his body. The men looked at
one another in rough wonder, knowing what was hidden by the coarse
shirt. He passed them without a word, apparently without knowing that
they were there, and went on towards the hut of the mender of nets.
Presently they saw him enter and shut the door.
The rustics and the convict, after one long stare of amazement at the
distant hut, began to comment freely and with much recondite blasphemy
upon the transaction recorded by Margery. Luiz Sebastian only smiled
amiably, like a lazy and well-disposed catamount, and the boy whistled
long and thoughtfully. But the countenance of Master Win-Grace Porringer
wore an expression of secret satisfaction.
*CHAPTER XI*
*LANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR*
As Landless entered the hut Godwyn looked up with a pleased smile from
the net he was mending. The two men had not seen each other since the
night upon which Landless had been brought to the hut by the
Muggletonian. Twice had Landless laid his plans for a second visit,
only to be circumvented each time by the watchfulness of the overseer.
The smile died from Godwyn's face as he observed his visitor more
closely.
"What is it?" he asked quickly.
Landless came up to him and held out his hand. "I am with you, Robert
Godwyn, heart and soul," he said steadily.
The mender of nets grasped the hand. "I knew you would come," he said,
drawing a long breath. "I have needed you sorely, lad."
"I could not come before."
"I know: Porringer told me you were prevented. I--" He still held
Landless' hand in both his own, and as he spoke his slender fingers
encircled the young man's wrist.
"What is the matter with your pulse?" he demanded. "And your eyes! They
are glazing! Sit down!"
"It is nothing," said Landless, speaking with effort.
"I have been a physician, young man," retorted the other. "Sit down, or
you will fall."
He forced him down upon a settle from which he had himself risen, and
stood looking at him, his hand upon his shoulder. Presently his glance
fell to the shoulder, and he saw upon the white cloth where his hand
pressed it against the flesh, a faint red stain grow and spread.
The face of the mender of nets grew very dark. "So!" he said beneath his
breath.
He limped across the hut and drew from some secret receptacle above the
fireplace a flask, from which he poured a crimson liquid into an earthen
cup; then hobbled back to Landless, sitting with closed eyes and head
bowed upon the table.
"Drink, lad," he said with grave tenderness. "'T is a cordial of mine
own invention, and in the strength it gave me I fled from Cropredy
Bridge though woefully hacked and spent. Drink!"
He held the cup to the young man's lips. Landless drained it and felt
the blood gush back to his heart and the ringing in his ears to cease.
Presently he raised his head. "Thank you," he said. "I am a man
again."
"How is it that you are here?"
Landless smiled grimly. "I imagine it's because Woodson thinks me
effectually laid by the heels. When he goes the rounds at supper time he
will be surprised to find my pallet empty."
"You must be in quarters before then. You must not get into further
trouble."
"Very well," was the indifferent reply.
They were silent for a few moments, and then Landless spoke.
"I am come to tell you, Master Godwyn, that I will join in any plan,
however desperate, that may bring me release from an intolerable and
degrading slavery. You may use me as you please. I will work for you
with hands and head, ay, and with my heart also, for you have been kind
to me, and I am grateful."
The mender of nets touched him softly upon the hand. "Lad," he said, "I
once had a son who was my pride and my hope. In his young manhood he
fell at the storming of Tredah. But the other night when I talked with
you, I seemed to see him again, and my heart yearned over him."
Landless held out his hand. "I have no father," he said simply.
"Now," at length said Godwyn, "to business! I must not keep you now,
but come to me to-morrow night if you can manage it. You may speak to
Win-Grace Porringer, and he will help you. I will then tell you all my
arrangements, give you figures and names, possess you, in short, with
all that I, and I alone, know of this matter. And my heart is glad
within me, for though my broken body is tied to my bench here, I shall
now have a lieutenant indeed. I have conceived; you shall execute. The
son of Warham Landless, if he have a tithe of his father's powers, will
do much, very much. For more than a year I have longed for such an
one."
"Tell me but one thing," said Landless, "and I am content. You have so
planned this business that there shall be no wanton bloodshed? You
intend no harm, for instance, to the family yonder?" with a motion of
his head towards the great house.
"God forbid!" said the other quickly. "I tell you that not one woman or
innocent soul shall suffer. Nor do I wish harm to the master of this
plantation, who is, after the lights of a Malignant, a true and kindly
man, and a gentleman. This is what will happen. Upon an appointed day
the servants, Oliverian, indented and convict, upon all the plantations
seated upon the bay, the creeks, the three rivers, and over in Accomac,
will rise. They will overpower their overseers and those of their
fellows who may remain faithful to the masters, will call upon the
slaves to follow them, and will march (the force of each plantation
under a captain or captains appointed by me), to an appointed place in
this county. All going well, there should be mustered at that place
within the space of a day and a night a force of some two thousand
men--such an army as this colony hath never seen, an army composed in
large measure of honest folk, and officered by four hundred men who,
bold and experienced, and strong in righteous wrath, should in
themselves be sufficient to utterly deject the adversary. We will make
of that force, motley as it is, a second New Model, as well disciplined
and as irresistible as the first; and who should be its general but the
son of that Warham Landless whom Cromwell loved, and whose old regiment
is well represented here? Then will we fight in honest daylight with
those who come against us--and conquer. And we will not stain our
victory. Your nightmare vision of midnight butchery is naught. There
will be no such thing."
Through the quiet of the evening came to them the clear, sweet, and
distant winding of a horn.
"'Tis the call to quarters," said Godwyn. "You must go, lad."
Landless rose. "I will come to-morrow night if I can. Till then,
farewell,--father." He ended with a smile on his dark, stern face that
turned it into a boy's again.
"May the Lord bless thee, my son," said the other in his gravely tender
voice. "May he cause His face to shine upon thee, and bring thee out of
all thy troubles."
As Landless turned to leave the hut the mender of nets had a sudden
thought. "Come hither," he said, "and let me show you my treasure
house. Should aught happen to me, it were well that you should know of
it."
He took up the precious flask from the table, and followed by Landless,
limped across the hut to the fireplace. The logs above it appeared as
solid, gnarled and stained by time as any of the others constituting the
walls of the hut, but upon the pressure of Godwyn's finger upon some
secret spring, a section of the wood fell outwards like the lid of a
box, disclosing a hollow within.
From this hollow came the dull gleam of gold, and by the side of the
little heap of coin lay several folded papers and a pair of handsomely
mounted pistols.
Godwyn touched the papers. "The names or the signs of the Oliverians
are here," he said, "together with those of the leaders of the indented
servants concerned with us. It is our solemn League and Covenant--and
our death warrant if discovered. The gold I had with me, hidden upon my
person, when I was brought to Virginia. The pistols were the gift of a
friend. Both may be useful some day."
"Hide them! Quick!" said Landless in a low voice, and wheeled to face a
man who stood in the doorway, blinking into the semi-darkness of the
room.
The lid of the hollow swung to with a click, the log assumed its wonted
appearance, and the mender of nets, too, turned upon the intruder.
It was the convict Roach who had pushed the door open and now stood with
his swollen body and bestial face darkening the glory of the sunset
without. There was no added expression of greed or of awakened
curiosity upon his sullenly ferocious countenance. He might have seen or
he might not. They could not tell.
"What do you want?" asked Landless sternly.
"Thought as you might not have heard the horn, comrade, and so might get
into more trouble. So I thought I 'd come over and warn you." All this
in a low, hoarse and dogged voice.
"Don't call me comrade. Yes: I heard the horn. You had best hasten or
you may get into trouble yourself."
The man received this intimation with a malevolent grin. "Talking big
eases the smart, don't it?" and he broke into his yelling laugh.
"Get out of this," said Landless, a dangerous light in his eyes.
The man stopped laughing and began to curse. But he went his way, and
Landless, too, after waiting to give him a start, left the hut and
turned his steps towards the quarters.
Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a big sweet gum, and
whittling away at a piece of stick weed, he found the boy who, the day
before, had accused him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London.
He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and cheerfully remarking
that their paths were the same, strode on side by side with him.
"I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness, "I asks your pardon
for what I said to you yesterday. I dessay you make a very good
Sec'tary, and Losh! the Lord Mayor himself might n't have dared to
strike that d--d fine Court spark. They say he has fought twenty
duels."
"You have my full forgiveness," said Landless, smiling.
"That's right!" cried the other, relieved. "I hates for a man to bear
malice."'
"I have seen you before yesterday. I forget how they call you."
"Dick Whittington."
"Dick Whittington!"
"Ay. Leastways the parish over yonder," a jerk of his thumb towards
England, "called me Dick, and I names myself Whittington. And why?
Because like that other Dick I runs away to make my fortune. Because
like him I 've little besides empty pockets and a hopeful heart. And
because I means to go back some fine day, jingling money, and wearing
gold lace, and become the mayor of Banbury. Or maybe I 'll stop in
Virginia, and become a trader and Burgess. I could send for Joyce
Witbread, and marry her here as well as in Banbury."