The overseer chuckled grimly. "It's that fellow Landless who angered
her once before," he said to himself with a malicious grin. "Well, 't
is n't my business to know which of all the servants on this plantation
she most dislikes to come near her. She 'll have to put up with him
to-day. There is n't a better boatman on the place anyhow."
To Landless he said, "Bring the Bluebird up to the wharf, and see that
she is sweet and clean inside. Mistress Patricia starts for Rosemead in
half an hour, and you and Regulus are to take her. You 'll bring the
boat back to-night. Step lively now!"
Landless brought the Bluebird, a sixteen-foot open boat, up to the
wharf, made the inside, and especially the seat in the stern, spotlessly
clean, put up the sail, and sat down to wait. Presently Regulus
appeared above him, and swung himself down into the boat with a grin of
delight, for he much preferred sailing with "'lil missy" to cutting
tobacco. He had a great burly form and a broad, ebony face, and he was
the devoted slave of Patricia, and or Patricia's maid, Darkeih.
Moreover, he enjoyed the distinction of being the first negro born in
the Colony, his parents having been landed from the Dutch privateer
which in 1619 introduced the slave into Virginia. Viewed through a
vista of nigh three hundred years, he appears a portent, a tremendous
omen, a sign from the Eumenides. Upon that tranquil summer afternoon in
the Virginia of long ago he was simply a good-humored, docile,
happy-go-lucky, harmless animal.
"'Lil Missy 's comin'," he remarked, with bonhommie, to his fellow
boatman.
Darkeih, laden with cushions, appeared at the edge of the wharf.
Landless, standing in the bow below her, relieved her of her burdens,
and taking her by the hands, swung her down into the boat. She thanked
him with a smile that showed every tooth in her comely brown
countenance, and tripped aft, where, with the assistance of Regulus, she
proceeded to arrange a cushioned seat for her mistress.
Landless waited for the lady of the manor to come forward. In the act
of extending her hands to the boatman, she glanced at him, crimsoned,
and drew back. Landless, interpreting color and action aright, buckled
his armor of studied quiet more closely over a hurt and angry heart.
"I was ordered to attend you, madam," he said proudly. "But if you so
desire, I will find the overseer and tell him that you wish for some one
else in my place."
"There is not time," was the cold reply. "And as well you as any other.
Let us be going."
Landless held out his arms again. She measured with her eyes the
distance between her and the boat. "I do not need any help," she said.
"If you will stand aside, I can spring from here to the prow.
"And strike the water instead, madam," said Landless, grimly, "when I
would have to touch more than your hand in order to pull you out."
She colored angrily, but held out her hands. Landless lifted her down
and steadied her to her seat in the stern. She thanked him coldly, and
began at once to talk to Regulus with the playful familiarity of a
child. Regulus grinned delight; he had been "'lil Missy's" slave from
her childhood. Landless untied the boat from the piles and pushed her
off; Regulus, who was to steer, pulled the tiller towards him, and the
little Bluebird glided from the wharf, made a wide and graceful sweep,
and proceeded leisurely down the inlet towards the waters of the great
bay.
Landless seated himself in the bow, and turned his face away from the
group in the stern. Patricia leaned back amidst her cushions, and
opened a book; Darkeih, upon the other side of the rudder, held a
whispered flirtation with Regulus, squatting at her feet, the tiller in
his hand. There was but little wind, but what there was came from the
land, and the Bluebird moved steadily though listlessly down the inlet,
between the velvet marshes. The water broke against the sides of the
boat with a languid murmur. It was very hot, and the sky above was of a
steely, unclouded blue that hurt the eyes. Only in the southwest the
line of cloud hills was erecting itself into an Alpine range. The glare
of the sun upon the white pages of her book dazzled Patricia's eyes; the
heat and the lazy swaying motion made her drowsy; With a sigh of
oppression she closed her book, and taking her fan from Darkeih, laid it
across her face, and curled herself among her cushions.
"I will sleep awhile," she said to her hand-maiden, and serenely glided
into slumberland.
She was in a balcony with Sir Charles Carew, looking down upon a
fantastic procession that wound endlessly on, with flaunting banners,
and to the sound of kettle-drums and trumpets, when she was aroused by
Landless' voice. She opened her eyes and looked up from her nest of
cushions to see him standing above her.
"What is it?" she asked frigidly.
"I grieve to waken you, madam, but there is a heavy squall coming up."
She sat up and looked about her. The Bluebird had left the inlet and
was rising and falling with the long oily swell of the vast sheet of
water that stretched before them to a horizon of vivid blue. North and
east the water met the sky; a mile to the westward was the low wooded
shore which they were skirting.
"The sun is shining," said Patricia, bewildered. "The sky is blue."
"Look behind you."
She turned and uttered an exclamation. The Alpine range had vanished,
and a monstrous pall of gray-black cloud was being slowly drawn upward
and across the smiling heaven. Even as she looked, it blotted out the
sun.
"We had better make for the shore at once," said Landless. "We can
reach it before the storm breaks and can find shelter for you until it
is over."
Patricia exclaimed: "Why, we cannot be more than three miles from
Rosemead! Surely we can reach it before that cloud overtakes us!"
"I think not, madam."
"Regulus!" cried his mistress imperiously. "We can reach Rosemead
before that storm breaks, can we not?"
Among other amiable qualities, Regulus numbered a happy willingness to
please, even at the expense of truth.
"Sho-ly, 'lil Missy," he said with emphasis.
"And it will not be much of a squall, besides, will it, Regulus?"
"No, 'lil Missy, not much ob squall," answered the obliging Regulus.
"There is much wind in it," said Landless. "Look at those white clouds
scudding across the black; and these squalls strike with suddenness and
fury. I may put the boat about, madam?"
"Certainly not. Regulus, who must know the Chesapeake and its squalls
much better than you possibly can, says there is no danger. I have no
mind to be set ashore in these woods with night coming on and Indians or
wolves prowling around."
"I beg that you will be advised by me, madam."
She looked at him as she had done that day in the master's room. "Is it
that you are _afraid_ of a Virginia squall? If so, you will have to
conquer your tremor. Regulus, keep the boat as it is."
Landless went back to his seat in the bow, with tightened lips. The
wind freshened, coming in hot little puffs, and the Bluebird slid more
swiftly over the low hills. The water turned to a livid green and the
air slowly darkened. Across the black pall, looming higher and higher,
shot a jagged streak of fierce gold, followed by a low rumble of
thunder. A mass of gray-white, fantastically piled clouds whirled lip
from the eastern horizon to meet the vast blank sullen sheet overhead.
There came a more vivid flash and a louder roll of thunder.
Landless walked aft and took the tiller from Regulus' hand, motioning
him forward to the place he had himself occupied. The negro stared, but
went with his accustomed docility. Patricia sat upright in indignant
surprise.
"What are you doing?"
"I am about to head the boat for the shore," suiting the action to the
word.
Her eyes blazed. "Did you not hear me say that I wished to proceed to
Rosemead?"
"Yes, madam, I did."
"I order you, sir--"
"And I choose to disobey."
"I shall report you to Colonel Verney."
"As you please, madam."
From the prow, where he had been taking observations, Regulus cried in a
startled voice: "De win's comin'! De win 's comin' mighty quick!"
Landless thrust the tiller into Patricia's hands. "Keep it there, just
where it is, for your life!" he cried authoritatively, and bounded
forward to where Regulus was already struggling with the sail. They got
it in and lashed to the mast just in time, for, with the shriek of a
thousand demons, the squall whirled itself upon them. In an instant
they were enveloped in a blinding horror of furious wind and rain, glare
of lightning and incessant, ear-splitting thunder. A leaden darkness,
illuminated only by the lightning, settled around them, and the air grew
suddenly cold. Beneath the whip of the wind the Chesapeake woke from
slumber, stirred, and rose in fury. The Bluebird danced dizzily upon
white crests or swooped into black and yawning chasms. Steadying
himself by the thwarts, Landless went back to Patricia, sitting pale and
with clasped hands, but making no sound. Darkeih, with a moan of fear,
had thrown herself down at her mistress' feet, and was hiding her face
in her skirts. Landless took a scarf from among the pile of cushions,
and wrapped it around Patricia. "'T is a poor protection against wet
and cold," he said, "but it is better than nothing."
"Thank you," she said then, with an effort. "Do you think this squall
will last long?"
"I cannot tell, madam. It is rather a hurricane than a squall. But we
must do the best we can."
As he spoke there came a fresh access of wind with a glare of
intolerable light. The mast bent like a reed, snapped off clear to the
foot and fell inward, the loosened beam striking Regulus upon the head,
and bearing him down with it. The boat careened violently, and half
filled with water. Darkeih screamed, and Patricia sprang to her feet,
but sat down again at Landless' stern command, "Sit still! She will
right in a moment."
He lifted and flung overboard the mass of splintered wood and flapping
cloth, then fell to bailing with all his might, for the danger of
swamping was imminent. Presently Patricia touched him upon the arm. "I
will bail if you will see to Regulus," she said, in a low, strained
voice. "I think he is dead."
Landless resigned the pail into her hands and lifted the negro's head
and shoulders from the water in which he was lying, pillowing them upon
the stern seat. He was unconscious, and bleeding from a cut on the
forehead.
"He is not dead nor like to die," Landless said. "He will revive before
long."
The girl gave a long, quivering sigh of relief. Landless finished the
bailing and sat down at her feet.
Some time later she asked faintly: "Do you not think the worst is over
now?"
"I am afraid not," he answered gently. "There is a lull now, but I am
afraid the storm is but gathering its forces. But we will hope for the
best--"
Another flash and crash cut him short. It was followed by rain that
fell, not in drops, but in sheets. The wind, which had been blowing a
heavy gale, rose suddenly into a tornado. With it rose the sea. The
masses of water, hissing and smoking under the furious pelting of the
rain, flung themselves upon the hapless Bluebird, laboring heavily in
the trough of the waves, or staggering over their summits. A constant
glare lit the heaving, tossing world of waters, and the air became one
roar of wind, rain, and thunder.
Darkeih crouched moaning at her mistress' feet Regulus lay unconscious,
breathing heavily. Suddenly, with a quick intake of his breath, Landless
seized Patricia, pulled her down into the bottom of the boat, and held
her there.
"I see," she said in a low, awed voice. "It is Death!"
Through the glare a long green wall bore down upon them. The Bluebird
leaped to meet it. It lifted her up, up to meet the lightning, then
hurled her into black depths, and passed on, leaving her staggering in
the trough, water-logged and helpless.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE FACE IN THE DARK*
Patricia lifted her white face from her hands. "We rode that dreadful
wave?" she cried incredulously.
"By God's mercy, yes," said Landless gravely.
"Is there any hope for us?"
Landless hesitated. "Tell me the truth," she said imperiously.
"We are in desperate case, madam. The boat is half filled with water.
Another such sea will sink us."
"Why do you not bail the boat?"
"The bucket is gone; the tiller also."
She shivered, and Darkeih began to wail aloud. Landless laid a heavy
hand upon the latter's shoulder. "Silence!" he said sternly. "Here! I
shall lay Regulus' head in your lap, and you are to watch over him and
not to think of yourself. There 's a brave wench!"
Darkeih's lamentations subsided into a low sobbing, and Landless turned
to her mistress.
"Try to keep up your courage, madam," he said. "Our peril is great; but
while there is life there is hope."
"I am not afraid," she said. "I--" The pitching of the boat threw her
against Landless, and he put his arm about her. "You must let me hold
you, madam," he said quietly. She shrank away from his touch, saying
breathlessly, "No, oh no! See! I can hold quite well by the gunwale."
He acquiesced in silence, only lifting her into a more secure position.
"I thank you," she said humbly.
The storm continued to rage with unabated fury. Flash and detonation
succeeded flash and detonation; the rain poured in torrents: and the
wind whooped on the angry sea like a demon of destruction. The Bluebird
pitched and tossed at the mercy of the great waves that combed above
her. Time passed, and to the darkness of the storm was added the
darkness of the night. The occupants of the boat, drenched by the rain
and the seas she had shipped, shivered with cold. Regulus began to stir
and mutter. "He is coming to himself," Landless cried to Darkeih. "When
you see that he is conscious, make him lie still. He must not move
about."
"Do you know where we are?" asked Patricia.
"No, madam; but I fear that the wind is driving us out into the bay."
"Ah!"
She said it with a sob, for a sudden vision of home flashed across the
cold and darkness; and presently Landless could hear that she was
weeping.
The sound went to his heart. "I would God could help you, madam," he
said gently. "Take comfort! You are in the hands of One who holds the
sea in the hollow of His hand."
In a little while she was quiet. There passed another long interval of
silent endurance, broken by Patricia's saying piteously, "My hands are
so numbed with cold that I cannot hold to the side of the boat And my
arms are bruised with striking against it."
Without a word Landless put his arm around her, and held her steady
amidst the tossings of the boat. "You are shivering with cold!" he said.
"If I had but something to wrap you in!"
She drooped against him, and the lightning showed him her face, still
and white, with parted lips, and long lashes sweeping her marble cheek.
"Madam, madam!" he cried roughly. "You must not swoon! You must not!"
With a strong effort she rallied. "I will try to be brave," she said
plaintively. "I am not frightened,--not very much. But oh! I am cold
and tired!"
He drew her head down upon his knee. "Let it lie there," he said,
speaking as to a tired child. "I will hold you quite steady. Now shut
your eyes and try to sleep. The storm is no worse than it was; and
since the boat has lived this long in this sea, she may live through the
night. And with morning may come many chances of safety. Try to rest
in that hope."
Faint and exhausted from cold and terror, she submitted like a child,
and lay with closed eyes in a sort of stupor within his arms.
There was less lightning now, and the thunder sounded in long booming
peals, instead of short, sharp cannon cracks. The rain, too, had
ceased; but the wind blew furiously, and the sea ran in tremendous
waves. Regulus stirred, groaned, and struggled into a sitting posture.
"Lie down again!" ordered Darkeih. "We 's all on de way to Heaben, but
if nigger shake de boat, we 'll get dere befo' de Lawd ready for us.
Lie down!" Regulus, muttering to himself, looked stupidly about him,
then dropped his head back into her lap. In three minutes he was
snoring. Darkeih's whimpering died away, and her turbaned head sank
lower and lower, until it rested upon that of Regulus, and she, too,
slept.
Landless sat very still, holding his burden lightly and tenderly, and
staring into the darkness. Against the steep slope of the sea, a
picture framed itself, melted away, and was followed by others in long
procession. He saw a ruinous, ivy-grown hall, and an old, grave, formal
garden, where, between long box hedges broken by fantastic yews, there
walked a boy, book in hand. A man with a stately figure and a stern,
careworn face met the boy, and they leaned upon a broken dial, and the
father reasoned with the son of Right and Truth and Liberty, and
something touched upon the Tyrannicides of old. The yew trees drooped
their sombre boughs about the figures, and they were gone, and in their
place roared and swelled the Chesapeake.... The sound of the storm
became the sound of a battle-cry. He saw a clanging fight where sword
clashed upon armor, and artillery belched fire and thunder, and horse
and man went down in the melee, and were trampled under foot amidst
shrieks and oaths and stern prayers. The boy who had leaned upon the
dial fought coolly, desperately, drunk with the joy of battle, stung to
fierce effort by his father's eyes. The great banner, blazoned with the
Cross of Saint George, streamed in crimson and azure between the battle
and the lonely watcher in the storm-tossed boat, and the vision was
gone.... The spires of a great city, where men walked with long faces
and church bells made the only music, rose through the gloom, and he saw
a dingy chamber in a dingy stack of buildings, and within it, bending
over great tomes of law, a man, impoverished and orphaned, but young,
strong, and full of hope,--a man well spoken of and allowed to be on the
road to high preferment. The chamber wavered into darkness; but the
city spires flashed light, and the slow ringing changed to mad peals
from joy bells. Some one had been restored--to drop balm upon the
bleeding heart of a nation, to bring light to them that sit in
darkness,--so said the joy bells.... He saw a loathsome prison, and the
man who had sat in the dingy chamber lying therein under accusation of a
crime which he had not committed. He saw him pining there, week after
week, month after month, untried, forgotten, at the mercy of an enemy to
his house whose day had come with the Restored One.... The prison
vanished, and the waves that tossed around him were the waves of the
Atlantic. A ship ploughed her way through them. He saw into her
hold,--a horrible place of stench and filth and darkness,--a place where
hounds would not have kenneled. Men and women were there who cursed and
fought for the scanty, worm-eaten food that was thrown them. Some wore
gyves: they were heavy upon the wrists and ankles of the man of his
vision. He saw a face looking down upon this man, a handsome
supercilious face, with insolent amusement in the languid eyes and in
the curves of the lips. The hatches were battened down upon the cargo
of misery, and the ship with its brutal captain and its handful of
gold-laced, dicing, swearing passengers vanished.... He saw a sandy,
grass-grown street, and a row of mean houses, and a low, brick building
with barred windows. There was a crowd before this building, and a man
standing upon the platform of a pillory was selling human flesh and
blood. He saw the boy who had stood beneath the yews of the old Hull,
who had fought at Worcester beneath his father's eye; the man who had
lain in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship, put up and sold to
the highest bidder. He saw him carried away with other merchandise to
the home of his purchaser. He saw a Virginia plantation lying fair and
serene beneath a Virginia heaven; and a wide porch, and standing therein
an angelic vision, all grace and beauty, vivid youth and splendor.
The picture vanished into the night that raved about him, and with a
long shaken sigh he let his eyes fall from the watery steeps to the face
of the woman who lay within his arms. He had not looked at her before,
conceiving that she might be awake and feel his glance upon her. Now he
could tell from her breathing that she slept. He gazed upon the pure
pale face with the golden hair falling about it, in a passion of pity
and tenderness. She moaned now and then in her sleep, or turned
uneasily in his arms. Once she spoke a few words, and he bent eagerly to
catch them, thinking that she had awakened and was speaking to him.
They were:--
"Ah, your Excellency! where I reign there shall be only good Churchmen
and loyal Cavaliers--no Roundheads, no rebel or convict servants!" and
she laughed in her sleep.
Landless shrank as from a mortal blow, then broke into a bitter laugh,
and said to himself, "Thou art a fool, Godfrey Landless. It were but
too easy to forget to-night what thou art and what thou must seem to
her. Thou art answered according to thy folly." He sighed impatiently,
and withdrawing his gaze from the sleeping face, fell into a sombre
reverie.
He was roused to active consciousness by a sudden and death-like pause
in the gale. The lightning showed the pall of cloud hanging low, black,
and unbroken; but the wind had sunk into an ominous calm. He looked
anxiously around him, then softly disengaging himself from Patricia,
leaned across her, and shook Regulus awake. The negro started up,
stupid from sleep and from his wound.
"What is it, massa?" he queried. "Wake mighty early at Rosemead....
Lawd hab mercy! we 's still on de Chesapeake!"
"We will be in the Chesapeake in a moment," said Landless sternly, "if
you stagger about in that way. Sit down and pull your wits together.
You are like to need them all directly." He touched Darkeih and said,
as her eyes, wide with alarm, opened upon him, "Listen, my wench!
Whatever happens, you are to trust yourself to Regulus. He is a strong
swimmer and he will take care of you. You hear, Regulus!"
"What is it?" exclaimed Patricia, as he bent over her. "Why have you
waked Regulus? And oh! has not that dreadful wind died away?"
"It has stopped, madam, stopped suddenly and utterly," he said gravely.
"But it will come upon us from another quarter, and it will bring the
sea with it." He raised her, and held her with his arm. "Trust yourself
to me when it comes," he said gently. "If I can save you, I will."
There was no time for more. Above them broke a new and more terrible
storm. A ball of fire shot from the cloud into the sea; it was followed
by a crash that seemed to shake the earth. A cataract of rain
descended. From the northeast there swooped upon them a wind to which
the gale of an hour before seemed a zephyr. It drove the boat before it
as if she had been the bird from which she took her name. It piled wave
on wave until the sea ran in mountains. Athwart the storm came a dull
booming roar, and above the great hills of water appeared a long ridge
crested with white.
"It is coming," said Landless.
Patricia looked up at him with great, despairing, courageous eyes. "I
have caused your death," she said. "Forgive me."
There came a vivid flash, and a loud scream from Darkeih. "De lan'! de
bressed, bressed, lan'!"
Landless wheeled. Silhouetted against the lit sky he saw a fringe of
pines, and below it a low, shelving shore where the waves were breaking
in foam and thunder. The Bluebird, driven by the wind, was hurrying
towards it in mad bounds. The great wave overtook her, bore her onward
with it, and sunk her within fifty feet of the shore.
Ten minutes later Landless, breathless and exhausted, staggered from out
the hell of pounding waves and blinding, stinging spray on to the shore.
Unlocking Patricia's arms from about his neck he laid her gently down
upon the sand and turned to look for the other occupants of the hapless
Bluebird. They were close behind him. In a few minutes the two men,
battling against wind and rain, had borne the women out of reach of the
waves, and had placed them in the shelter of a low bank of sand. As
Landless set his burden down he said reverently, "I thank God, madam."
"And I thank God," she answered, in the same tone.
He tried to shield her from the wind with his body. "It is frightful,"
he said, "that you should be exposed to such a night. I pray God that
you take no harm."
"Would it not be more sheltered higher up the shore, under those trees?"
"Perhaps, but I fear to risk you there with the lightning so near.
Later, when the storm subsides, we will try it."
He seated himself so as to screen her as much as possible from wind and
rain, and a silence fell upon the party so suddenly snatched from death.
Regulus stretched himself upon the sand and pulled Darkeih down beside
him. Within a few minutes they were both asleep. The white man and
woman sat side by side without speaking, watching the storm.
By degrees it raved itself out. The rain fell in less and less volume,
the lightning became infrequent, the thunder pealed less loudly, and the
wind died from a hurricane into a breeze. In two hours' time from the
swamping of the boat the booming of the sea, and a ragged mass of cloud,
lit by an occasional flash and slowly falling away from a pale and
watery moon, were the only evidences of the tornado which had raged so
lately.
"The storm is over," said Patricia, breaking a long silence.
"Yes," said Landless. "You have nothing to fear now. Would you not
like to walk a little? You must be sadly chilled and weary with long
sitting."
"Yes, I would," she answered, with a sigh of relief. "Let us walk
towards those trees, and see if forest or water be beyond them."
He helped her to her feet, and they left the slaves sleeping upon the
ground, and moved slowly, for she was numbed with cold, towards the
fringe of pines.
Landless walked beside her without speaking. A while ago she had been
simply a woman in danger of death--something for him to protect and to
save. He had well nigh forgotten: he knew that she had quite forgotten.
She was safe now, and was become once more the lady of the manor to
whose soil he was fettered, he had remembered, and she was beginning to
remember, for presently she said timidly and sweetly, but with
condescension in her voice;--
"I am not ungrateful for all that you have done for me to-night, for
saving my life. And, trust me, you will not find your mas--my father,
ungrateful either. We will find some way to reward--"
"I neither merit nor desire reward, madam," said Landless, proudly and
sadly, "for doing but my duty as a man and as your servant."
"But--" she began kindly, when he interrupted her with sudden passion.
"Unless you wish to cut me to the heart, to bitterly humiliate me, you
will not speak of payment for any service I may have done you. I have
been a gentleman, madam. For this one night treat me as such."
"I beg your pardon," she said at once.
They reached the belt of trees and entered it. Outside, the broken
clouds had permitted an occasional gleam of watery moonshine; within the
shadow of the trees it was gross darkness. Above them the wet branches,
moved by the wind which still blew strongly, clashed together with a
harsh and mournful sound, showering them with heavy raindrops. Their
feet sank deeply in cushions of soaked moss and rotting leaves.
"There is nothing to be done here," said Landless. "It is better beneath
the open sky."
There came a last, vivid flash of lightning that for a moment lit the
wood, showing long colonnades of glistening tree trunks, with here and
there a blasted and fallen monster. It showed something more, for
within ten feet of them, from out a tangle of dripping, rain-beaten
vines looked the face of the murderer of Robert Godwyn.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*LANDLESS AND PATRICIA*
For one moment the parties to this midnight encounter stared at each
other with starting eyeballs; the next, down came the curtain of
darkness between them.
With a cry of terror Patricia seized and clung to Landless's arm,
trembling violently, and with her breath coming in long, gasping sobs.
Exhausted by the previous terrors of the night, this last experience
completely unnerved her--she seemed upon the point of swooning.
Divining what would soonest calm her, Landless hurried her out of the
wood and down the shore to the bank, beneath which lay the sleeping
slaves. Here she sank upon the sand, her frame quivering like an aspen.
"That dreadful face!" she said in a low, shaken voice. "It is burned
upon my eyeballs. How came it there? Was it--dead?"
"No, no, madam," Landless said soothingly. "'Tis simple enough. The
murderer is in hiding within these woods, and we stumbled upon his
lair."
She gazed fearfully around her. "I see it everywhere. And may he not
follow us down here? Oh, horrible!"
"He is not likely to do that," said Landless, with a smile. "You may
rest assured that he is far from this by now."
She drew a long breath of relief. "Oh! I hope he is!" she cried
fervently. "It was dreadful! No storm could frighten me as did that
face!" and she shuddered again.
"Try not to think of it," he said. "It is gone now; try to forget it."
"I will try," she said doubtfully.
Landless did not answer, and the two sat in silence, watching out the
dreary night. But not for long, for presently Patricia said humbly:--
"Will you talk to me? I am frightened. It is so still, and I cannot
see you, nor the slaves, only that horrid, horrid face. I see it
everywhere."
Landless came nearer to her, and laid one hand upon the skirt of her wet
robe. "I am here, close to you, madam," he said; "there can nothing
harm you."
He began to speak quietly and naturally of this and that, of what they
should do when the day broke, of Regulus's wound, of the storm, of the
great sea and its perils. He told her something of these latter, for he
knew the sea; piteous tales of forlorn wrecks, brave tales of dangers
faced and overcome, of heroic endurance and heroic rescue. He told her
tales of a wild, rockbound Devonshire coast with its scattered fisher
villages; of a hidden cave, the resort of a band of desperadoes, half
smugglers, half pirates, wholly villains; of how this cave had been long
and vainly searched for by the authorities; of how, one night, a boy
climbed down a great precipice, scaring the sea-fowl from their nests,
and lighted upon this cavern with the smugglers in it, and in their
midst a defenseless prisoner whom they were about to murder. How he had
shouted and made wailing, outlandish noises, and had sent rocks hurtling
down the cliffs, until the wretches thought that all the goblins of land
and sea were upon them, and rushed from the cavern, leaving their work
undone. Whereupon, the boy reclimbed the cliff, and hastening to the
nearest village, roused the inhabitants, who hurried to their boats, and
descending upon the long-sought-for cave, surprised the smugglers, cut
them down to a man, and rescued the prisoner.
The man who told these things told them well. The wild tales ran like a
strain of sombre music through the night. His audience of one forgot
her terror and weariness, and listened with eager interest.
"Well--" she said, as he paused.
"That is all. The ruffians were all killed and the prisoner rescued."
"And the boy?"
"Oh, the boy! He went back to his books."
"Did you know him?"
"Yes, I knew him. See, madam, it has quite cleared. How the moon
whitens those leaping waves!"
"Yes, it is beautiful. I am glad the prisoner escaped. Was he a
fisherman?"
"No; an officer of the Excise--a gallant man, with a wife and many
children. Yes, I suppose he prized life."
"And I am glad that the smugglers were all killed."